Submarine Warriors: The Enemy Beneath

by Rob Tiffany

  “Then it’s time to show me what this thing can do. Pilot, make best speed to our target.”

  Everyone felt themselves pushed back in their seats as the sleek Omaha Beach quickly accelerated to 100 knots and raced towards its destination.

  Radioman First Class Grant created an HFIP link with the Alaska to send her telemetry data about vital systems and the surrounding environment. “Wireless is online,” Grant announced to the rest of the team. “Everyone can now remotely control their stations from their personal devices and communicate with the Alaska via Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), instant messaging and email.”

  “Knowing my daughter Caroline and all your kids the way I do, I’ve got to believe they would love this futuristic sub,” the Captain remarked to the rest of the crew.

  “I second that!” Petty Officer Love had an excited look on his face.

  “It’s nothing short of taking command of the Millennium Falcon or the Starship Enterprise,” added Petty Officer Timbers.

  “I’ve never travelled at 100 knots per hour underwater before.” The Weapons Officer pointed at the digital speedometer. “I’m sure our kids would think they’d made the jump to light speed.”

  A short thirty minutes later, the Omaha Beach closed in on the source of the heat signature. The sub’s compass moving erratically was the first clue that something wasn’t quite right. To make matters worse, the DSRV began to be pulled downward by an invisible force.

  “Captain, I’m losing depth control,” exclaimed the Pilot. “At 100 knots per hour, this should be next to impossible. I’ve got the diving flaps on full rise - with no effect. ”

  “Everyone run a full diagnostic test on all ship’s systems,” the Captain ordered.

  “All systems nominal,” reported the team members one by one as their results were displayed.

  “All stop,” barked Captain Connery to the Pilot.

  “All stop, aye,” the pilot replied.

  As the Omaha Beach’s forward movement slowed, its downward momentum increased dramatically.

  “Radio, send a distress signal to the Alaska and the Commander of the Pacific Submarine Fleet!” the Captain exclaimed.

  THE OMAHA BEACH HAS ARRIVED AT THE COORDINATES OF THE HEAT ANOMALY

  AND IS BEING PULLED TOWARD THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN.

  DEPTH CONTROL IS LOST.

  The message quickly went out to the Alaska and was routed to COMSUBPAC in Pearl Harbor via Extremely Low Frequency radio.

  “Omaha Beach, this is the Alaska. What’s your current status?” the XO asked over the underwater connection.

  “XO, we are accelerating toward the sea floor and it seems like there’s nothing we can do to stop it. You should be receiving our complete ship’s status via the telemetry feed.”

  “It doesn’t make sense, sir. We’re seeing the data, and your sub is in perfect condition,” replied the XO. “Everything we’re receiving shows that the Omaha Beach is operating within normal parameters.”

  Suddenly, the various display panels around the DSRV began to flicker and show distortion.

  “Omaha Beach, your telemetry readings are starting to break up.” The XO’s choppy voice echoed through the DSRV. “I’m no longer receiving your complete stream of data. I’m also noticing some inconsistencies between your ship’s compass and the inertial navigation system.”

  Unexpectedly, the sunken cruise ship appeared on the large display on the front of the Omaha Beach control room. Captain Connery spread his hands apart causing the image of the cruise ship to zoom-in and fill the entire screen. She appeared to be perfectly intact with no structural damage.

  “Alaska, we’ve found the cruise ship on the bottom of the ocean.”

  “Copy that, Omaha Beach,” replied the XO.

  “I’m going to go out on a limb and speculate that there could be large pockets of air trapped inside the vessel.” The Captain stared at the ship on the display. “If there’s air, there could be survivors.”

  Suddenly, the crew of the DSRV felt periodic thuds, as the lifeless, floating passengers of the cruise ship struck the hull of their sub. They looked on in horror as they saw hundreds of bodies floating toward them as they grew closer to the sunken luxury liner. Most were disfigured and half-eaten by sharks. All of them were wearing clothes that told the story of what they were doing just before realizing they were on the Titanic. A Hawaiian shirt on a shuffleboard player, swim trunks on a swimmer, an evening dress on a woman dancing, a silk shirt and gold chain on a high-roller, and a bikini on a sunbather.

  “Oh my God, it looks like we’re flying into an asteroid field of bodies!” exclaimed Petty Officer Love. “What could’ve caused all this?”

  “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen or imagined,” the Captain replied. “Whoever’s behind this, they might be trying for a repeat performance with us. It feels like we’re being pulled toward the bottom by a tractor beam out of Star Wars, and I don’t want us to end up like those poor souls floating outside.”

  “Captain, I’m picking up an increase in seawater temperature,” said Sonarman Timbers. “Luckily, it’s nowhere near the level of heat that was detected by the satellite or we’d be getting pretty toasty by now.”

  Suddenly, a giant, glowing pyramid revealed itself in the distance beyond the cruise ship. The water all around it shimmered in a distorted way because of the heat it was generating.

  “What in God’s name is that thing?” the Weapons Officer uttered.

  “It looks like a glass pyramid sticking out of the seabed,” replied the Captain. “There’s some kind of radar or satellite dish next to it, as well. Sonar, send out a ping to determine our range to the unidentified target.”

  “Verifying range to target, Captain,” said Petty Officer Timbers.

  A loud, clanging sound enveloped the submarine as the Sonarman sent out the ping.

  “Captain, we’re roughly 5,000 yards away from the target. I can’t get an exact reading because heat emanating from the pyramid has created a protective thermal layer.”

  “Very well,” replied the Captain.

  “One more thing, sir,” the Sonarman added. “Our range to target is decreasing rapidly. It appears the tractor beam is reeling us in.”

  “Alaska, this is the Omaha Beach, do you read?” Captain Connery spoke into his headset.

  “Omaha Be____ , th__ is the Al___,” replied the XO. “Your sig__l is bre_king up. Telemetry read__gs are all ov_r the map. We see the im_ges of the glowing crystal. We have no intellig__ce data on this. Treat as host_le!”

  “Whatever foreign power is behind this, we can’t let the technology in the Omaha Beach fall into their hands,” the Captain declared aloud. He began to feel sweat trickle down his neck.

  “Weaps, plot a solution and fire a torpedo at that thing on the double.”

  “Captain, the fire control computer is unresponsive,” responded the Weapons Officer.

  “Not like this,” the Captain uttered under his breath. “If we can’t shoot this thing and we can’t get away…”

  You could hear a pin drop as the crew of the Omaha Beach looked at each other in stunned silence and disbelief. Everyone onboard knew what the Captain meant.

  “Petty Officer Grant, send the following message to the Alaska and COMSUBPAC.”

  USS OMAHA BEACH CAPTURE BY

  ENEMY POWER IS IMMINENT. BEGINNING

  SELF-DESTRUCT PROCEDURE.

  “XO, this is the Captain,” Captain Connery announced into his headset. “All electronic systems onboard the Omaha Beach are behaving erratically. We’re only a thousand yards away from the ocean floor near a crystalline pyramid structure and some kind of radar dish. We cannot let the top secret systems onboard the Omaha Beach fall into enemy hands. We will therefore scuttle the ship before all our systems fail.”

  Captain Connery paused for a moment.

  “It’s been the greatest honor of my career to serve as your Captain. Please tell my wife and daughter that they’re the b
est things that ever happened to me. Have the Alaska depart the area at best speed so you don’t share our fate. XO, you’re the Captain now.”

  “Mes__ge recei__d,” replied the XO. “Th__ ca_’t be hap___ing!”

  “Weaps, quickly initiate our self-destruct procedure before it’s too late,” the Captain ordered.

  “Aye-aye sir,” responded the Weapons officer.

  Back onboard the USS Alaska, the XO sprang into action. “Helm, make your course zero-nine-zero. All ahead flank cavitate! I don’t care how much noise we make.”

  “Making my course zero-nine-zero, all ahead flank cavitate helm, aye.”

  Back in Maneuvering, the nuclear engineer spun the wheel as fast as he could to bring the Alaska to flank (top) speed without regard for the extra noise created by air bubbles from accelerating too fast.

  The USS Alaska quickly departed the scene to avoid the inevitable shock waves that would come from a self-destructing sub.

  Back on the Omaha Beach, Captain Connery spoke softly to his team. “I’m sorry, but you’ve got thirty seconds to compose a digital family gram and get it to the Radioman for transmission.”

  Everyone onboard the Omaha Beach turned to their computer screens and quickly typed farewell messages to their wives and children back home.

  Quiet sniffling and even some whimpering could be heard in the control room.

  “Did you father ever have to face death like this?” the Weaps asked the Captain.

  “Admiral Connery was just a kid when he served on World War II submarines.” The Captain looked him in the eyes. “But he faced death every day.”

  The Captain and the Weapons Officer removed special keys from around their necks and inserted them into the main control panel. They both turned their keys to the right and the Captain poised his finger over a large red button.

  Petty Officer Grant quickly transmitted the digital family grams to the crew’s loved ones. An electronic message seemed to be an expedient, yet horribly impersonal way to convey the death of a service member. Those unwelcome knocks on the door, so feared by the spouses of America’s fallen heroes throughout many wars, will arrive long after the bad news is already known this time.

  “None of you deserves this ending,” uttered the Captain. “I’m so sorry…”

  Captain Connery had trained his entire career to push a button that would rain down nuclear missiles on America’s enemies. Now he was pushing a different kind of button that would extinguish his own life and the lives of his crew. “What am I doing?” he thought to himself. His hands shook violently as he depressed the glowing red button with his index finger.

  An eternity seemed to pass on the Omaha Beach as crew members sat with their eyes closed and their hands over their ears. Slowly, one by one, each member of the away team opened their eyes to see if they’d made it to Heaven.

  The sub had gone dark and there was no explosion.

  “What happened?” asked the Weapons Officer.

  “It appears that we’ve lost power,” the Captain replied. “Without power, the electromechanical features of the self-destruct system can’t set off the charges.”

  “Yes!” yelled out Petty Officer Timbers as he high-fived Petty Officer Love.

  Sighs of relief and laughing began to spread around the room.

  With a little more conviction than before, Captain Connery pushed the self-destruct button several more times, to no avail.

  “Let’s not get carried away with that button pushing, Skipper,” said the Pilot. “You might accidentally get that thing to work.”

  “Being alive feels pretty good.” A relieved Petty Officer Grant spoke out in the darkness. “I’m sure whatever happens next couldn’t possibly be as bad as being blown to bits.”

  Just as the Omaha Beach was about to land on the ocean floor, the strange radar dish reversed its magnetic beam and pushed the DSRV toward the pyramid. The sub eventually settled down next to the glowing structure with its occupants shrouded in darkness, due to the electrical disruption from the magnetic beam.

  An accordion-like tube extended from near the tip of the crystal pyramid. It reached out to the Omaha Beach, arched over the top, and sealed itself to the upper escape hatch. The sailors onboard watched in disbelief as the hatch slowly opened and an infrared light washed into the main compartment. Several humanoid creatures dropped through the open hatch and landed on the main deck with a thud.

  They looked like astronauts in black, spacesuit-like outfits and helmets. Peering out at the sailors from behind the curved, glass face-shields were ultraviolet, glowing eyes.

  This turn of events quickly put the crew of the Omaha Beach on the defensive and everyone took slow steps backwards away from the intruders.

  “This was definitely not in the Navy recruiting brochure when I signed up.” A nervous Petty Officer Love tried to make light of this new situation.

  “I think we just made first contact with an Alien civilization,” added the Weaps.

  “If you want to live, you’ll come with us and you won’t try anything stupid,” one of the strange humanoids announced to the group.

  “I guess they don’t come in peace,” uttered Petty Officer Grant.

  Without warning, the Pilot pushed through the group towards the Aliens. “I don’t take orders from freaks like you!” shouted the Pilot. He hit one of the creatures over the head with a fire extinguisher, knocking it to the ground.

  Without skipping a beat, one of the other humanoid creatures reached out and clutched the Pilot’s face with its hand. Intense heat shot out from its fingers and seared his skin.

  The Pilot screamed in anguish as his face began to burn.

  “You’re killing him!” the Captain shouted. “Stop, and we’ll do what you ask.”

  “It’s a little late for that, Overworlder.” The creature released his grip and the Pilot’s lifeless body collapsed to the deck. “Consider yourself warned. Now get moving!”

  “Oh my God, he’s dead.” The Weaps picked up the smoldering remains of the Pilot. “We can’t just leave him here.”

  “Oh, you will,” remarked one of the creatures with an outstretched hand.

  The Weaps suddenly felt an invisible burning sensation, causing him to drop the Pilot on the deck. “Okay, okay, I’ll do what you want,” the sunburned Weaps muttered to the creatures.

  The terrified crew climbed out of the upper hatch, and the creatures forced the sailors through a translucent tube into an opening in the pyramid. After walking down a short corridor, the sailors were pushed into an airtight compartment and sealed inside. Everywhere they looked, they saw the red glow of infrared lights being used for illumination. With the crewmembers locked in their new underwater prison, the humanoids removed their suits and helmets to reveal their bald heads, hairless bodies and translucent skin.

  “You’re being quarantined in this containment cell to ensure we don’t become infected by your Overworlder diseases,” barked one of the humanoid creatures.

  “Who are you and what right do you have to capture our sub and hold us prisoner?” Captain Connery shouted.

  “We have every right, Overworlder scum!” A new creature with an ancient Egyptian headdress emerged from the shadows. “Did you think you were the only intelligent life on this planet? Did you really think you had this whole place to yourselves? We’ve lived under the continents and the ocean floor for centuries. We were once like you until our ancestors were pulled underground several millennia ago when the waves of the Red Sea crashed in all around them. They believed they had descended into Hell. But our surviving forefathers learned how to thrive deep beneath the Earth’s surface. Our advanced race adapted to this subterranean world in a way that none of the Earth’s other primitive cultures ever could. Over the centuries, our bodies and eyes evolved to better suit our underground surroundings. Constant exposure to radioactive elements has mutated our genes so that we have the power to project heat from our hands. Today, we are one billion strong and we control
the world beneath your feet!”

  “Why show yourselves now, and why did you sink the cruise ship and kill all those innocent people?” Captain Connery retorted.

  “That’s simple,” replied the Underworlder. “Your technology is becoming advanced enough to threaten our civilization. You may not realize it, but we’ve been closely monitoring you for the last hundred years. We’ve tapped your undersea phone lines and fiber optic cables. We’ve watched you create great societies and technologies, only to destroy them with greater and greater ferocity. I only wish your barbaric cultures would have wiped each other out by now. Like some kind of runaway virus, you keep multiplying and consuming all the Earth’s resources. Your world and ours are linked by a few miles of rock and ocean and we want those resources for ourselves. To that end, we’ve decided that your civilization has forfeited its right to exist on this planet. Consider the dead Overworlders on the cruise ship your first casualties in this new war. But for now, I have something different in mind for you.”

  “Commander, begin the wrapping process on the prisoners!”

  Chapter 2 > The Cover Up

  Arlington, Virginia

  It was a crisp, early autumn morning at the Arlington National Cemetery. A procession of black limousines and Suburbans made their way through the main entrance and parked. Members of the Secret Service jumped out of their SUVs and ran ahead to the cemetery grounds to secure the area. Following them up the hill was a long line of family members, friends, a Navy Chaplain, the Secretary of the Navy, and the President of the United States. They were all there to say goodbye to the crew of the USS Omaha Beach.

  The group finally congregated around six headstones engraved with gold and silver dolphins, the universal symbols for submarine officers and enlisted men everywhere. The headstones included the names Captain Robert Connery, Lt. Samuel Wyatt, Petty Officer Aaron Timbers, Petty Officer Richard Grant, Petty Officer Tom Love, and Warrant Officer Paul Thompson. Most ominously, engraved beneath each of the names was the word Lost. The gravesites contained no bodies of the dead to mourn on this depressing day.