“Yes, Captain.” Dishlakov turned to leave.
“Vasily?”
The first officer stopped and turned, still holding his broken arm. “Sir?”
“If we get communications up, our priority is to contact Moscow, not our dear operational commander Salkukoff. Understood?”
“I never had any intention of contacting that arrogant son of a bitch … sir,” Dishlakov said and then saluted with his good right hand.
Kreshenko smiled at his friend and then turned his attention back to his damaged ship.
“Engine room reports engines are now operational.”
The captain turned to his chief engineer and nodded. “Okay, as soon as we have propulsion, get the air defense systems up and running.”
“Sir, we have no missile capability, and we won’t have. We don’t carry the necessary electronic stores aboard the ship. Moscow, in her infinite wisdom, never figured we would actually ever sustain damage from what we may assume was an EMP burst.”
“Imagine that—Moscow miscalculated. Wonders never cease, do they? But alas, the twenty-millimeter weaponry will have to do for offense and defense, now won’t it?”
“Yes, sir.” The man saluted and then quickly moved away.
Kreshenko felt the powerful engines spring to life beneath his feet. He took a deep breath as the mighty ship started to breathe once more. Her powerful generators started supplying far more than emergency power, and the ship sprang to electrified life.
“Helm, all ahead slow one-third.”
“Aye, all ahead slow one-third.”
“Steer south-southwest, fifteen degrees. Stay on course. Let’s get what weaponry we do have warmed up and ready. Let’s go find the Americans.”
Peter the Great started forward, her four massive bronze propellers churning the violet-colored waters at her stern.
She was going straight at the unsuspecting Americans.
10
Jack and Carl met Ezra Johnson at the gangway that had been placed between the Simbirsk and the Shiloh. It was Carl who broke the ice with the captain the navy way.
“The last time we met, Captain, I was a shavetail ensign and you were a JG, if my memory serves.”
The black captain smiled politely, but Everett knew the man didn’t remember some lowly SEAL from years back. Carl gestured the captain to join the team and their Russian counterparts near the fantail of the Simbirsk.
There had already been a flare-up between Captain Johnson and Colonel Salkukoff. Johnson refused to transfer his dead sailors over to the Simbirsk for burial. The exchange had become heated over the undamaged walkie-talkies when Johnson even insisted that the NATO contingent lost in the phase shift be transferred over to Shiloh for burial. It was Jack who had stepped in and told both parties to conduct separate services for each group. When the two men finally met face-to-face, the hatred was palpable. Johnson could not go lightly with someone who had fired on his ship and killed his men.
Johnson took his place at the table that had been set up at the fantail. Coffee and tea were served by the mess staff that Johnson had reassigned to Collins while they were aboard the Simbirsk.
Standing at the head of this table was an unlikely candidate to be chairing the meeting. Charlie Ellenshaw had come a long way since the Brazil mission, his very first field excursion. Crazy Charlie, a moniker that was being used less and less these days, adjusted his wire-frame glasses on his nose and then looked at Jason Ryan, who had just placed the portable Europa laptop on the table in front of Charlie. Jack caught the warning look from Jason to Charlie about the security surrounding Europa that Ellenshaw was using. The Russians could never learn about the supercomputer’s abilities. Charlie nodded as much to Jack’s satisfaction. The cryptozoologist looked down at Master Chief Jenks, and the cigar-chomping navy man nodded and gestured that he had the floor.
Jack watched the faces around the table. Salkukoff and Gervais were the only two Russians sitting in the meeting. Collins also noted that Henri Farbeaux was nowhere to be found. The Frenchman had been preternaturally silent during the last few hours. Jack had not questioned him about his orders from MI6 about what was expected of him. The less he knew about how and where Farbeaux would kill the Russian, the better.
“In the past few hours, we have made considerable progress in defining the technology of the phase shift equipment. I’ll leave that to Master Chief Jenks and Professor Gervais, who understand the science far better than I. My task was to discover just where it is that we find ourselves.” With a cautious look at Ryan, Charlie opened the laptop up and then turned it so most could see the screen.
“How fortunate you brought a laptop computer along that just happened to be shielded against an electromagnetic pulse.”
The portable Europa laptop was a closed-looped system that only used the standard hard drive for computing. Although the small device was not directly linked to the enormous system in Nevada, its computing power and memory rivaled most corporation databases; therefore, this laptop did not have to breach the differing planes in order for Europa to help them. Jack started to say something in explanation to Salkukoff, but surprisingly, it was Ellenshaw who held his hand up to stop Jack’s words.
“This is a military-grade system. So yes, it is shielded.”
Salkukoff didn’t say anything else. He just nodded in Collins’s direction as if to say, Touché.
“As I was saying, by directing our camera to the sky, our system was able to determine without a doubt that we are indeed on Earth. Not only that, the phase shift has done nothing other than alter the plane of existence. The time and distance is a constant. Nothing has changed.”
“Time and distance?” Salkukoff asked.
“Yes. What Professor Ellenshaw is saying is that we have not lost one minute of one day in the shift. It is the same date, the same time. Just our surroundings have changed.”
Salkukoff looked at the Russian professor and nodded.
On the computer’s screen was a picture of Earth with the representation Charlie and Europa Jr. had figured out for what their current Earth looked like. All heads leaned forward.
“As you can see, based on temperature and because of the shattering of the moon, the world is possibly covered in water with only the highest peaks on our maps showing. For instance, the island we see to the east is part of the Challenger Rise series of mountains in the North Atlantic. These mountains in our world are close to a mile below the surface of the sea. This tells us that somewhere in this world there are differing high water marks, perhaps brought on by massive earth movements and displacement. We just don’t have any of the answers yet.”
The screen was dotted with sparse islands of land speckled throughout.
“Where are the landmasses of our world?” Johnson asked. “I’ve climbed Mount Rainier, so where is it? Where are the Adirondacks? Where are the Blue Ridge Mountains?”
“From Professor Gervais’s and my own calculations, with the assistance of Master Chief Jenks, we have come to the conclusion that whatever happened to the moon destroyed most of the landmasses we know from our own Earth. Entire mountain ranges were swallowed whole. The Earth shifted on its axis, and we have what we see here today. We don’t have definitive answers here, gentlemen. It’s best-guess only, no real science to back us up. If we just had one or two weather satellites, we could get more concrete answers, but in the alternate world we find ourselves in, those satellites were never launched. We are truly on our own.”
“What about the ocean? Why violet?” Everett asked.
“We have analyzed the seawater. The color is produced through a series of different factors.” Charlie brought out a graph prepared by the portable Europa. He unfurled a long roll of paper. “As you can see, we have a varying number of different contaminants, from volcanic, sea life, and other organic minerals. Why violet? Your guess is as good as ours.
“That’s all we have on our environment for now,” Charlie said as he sat down and looked at Jenks,
who made no move to stand up. He puffed on his cigar and then fixed Salkukoff with a withering glare. That look was followed by Henri pulling out a chair and sitting next to Ryan. Everett looked at Jack, and for some reason that look made the colonel wonder just what the Frenchman had come up with during his absence.
“The phase shift generator and application nodules have been disabled.”
“Application nodules?” Jason asked.
Jenks puffed on his cigar and then fixed Ryan with his intense stare. “Those lightbulb-looking thingamajigs, young captain. It seems our Russian allies were a little more advanced in 1944 than we were ever led to believe,” he said while fixing that stare onto Salkukoff. “It seems they had access to weapons-grade uranium long before we thought it possible.”
“I cannot answer for that; it was a little before my time,” Salkukoff said with a smirk.
Collins watched Henri as the Russian spoke. He was convinced that at least the Frenchman knew the Russian colonel was lying.
“Well, I took some scrapings from the conductor,” Jenks continued with a warning look toward Jack, “and what I saw was a bit surprising. The core material came from our own Hanford nuclear facility, the same batch as supplied to the University of Chicago and signed for by Professor Fermi himself. I would say someone of ill intentions grabbed some for comrade Salkukoff’s distant relatives.”
“How did you come to that conclusion, Master Chief?” Salkukoff asked.
“As I’m sure you know, comrade, every breeder reactor leaves fingerprints. That’s how we verified your atomic program in the ’50s was a legitimate concern. Your original stockpiles came in from the Ukraine. During our phase shift experiments, they didn’t have the correct power settings on board the USS Eldridge to get them anywhere but the shortest way to kill close to two hundred sailors. The Russians came along with a vast improvement, as they were able to get by the power restraints with the addition of stolen American enhanced uranium.”
“Yes, yes, the evil Russians once again thwart the forces of good in a time of war,” Salkukoff said as he tossed a pencil on the table. “I find your tone accusing and unacceptable. This should not concern us here, Master Chief Jenks. Can we get the cursed thing back on, and can we get home?”
“We have yet to determine that.”
Jenks waved to Charlie that he was done. He angrily threw his cigar over the railing.
“I want to know what this gentleman’s intentions are toward my NATO assignment,” Captain Johnson said. He had gotten a full measure of Salkukoff, and the captain found the Russian to be most disagreeable. The captain stood up and faced the Russian. “You fired upon my ship, sir.”
Salkukoff shot Jack a look as if Collins had betrayed him. Jack decided he wasn’t playing his game.
“I think the captain deserves an answer.”
Salkukoff kept his eyes on Collins. Then he too stood and faced Johnson.
“You and your NATO allies were in the process of stealing Russian state property. We stopped you from doing so—and will do so again at the conclusion of our mutual predicament.”
“That is an unacceptable—” Johnson began, but the emergency siren from Shiloh started blaring.
A runner came up and handed Johnson a message flimsy. His look from message to Russian was clear. He wadded the paper up and threw it at Salkukoff. Collins watched all of this as he stood.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Peter the Great has been spotted on the horizon; she’s coming on full speed.”
Collins looked at Salkukoff. “I think you’d better establish communications, Colonel, before your people start something none of us will survive.”
“You’ll excuse me if I don’t wait for this bastard to do the right thing. I have a ship and crew to protect.” Johnson left the table and ran for the gangway.
As the others gathered at the railing to watch the crew frantically throwing off lines, it was Salkukoff who came up to Jack and held out a handheld radio.
“Tell your Captain Johnson that Peter the Great has their orders; there will be no confrontation.”
Jack eyed the radio and then fixed Salkukoff with that blue-eyed glare that made the Russian very uncomfortable.
“You’ll excuse me if I side with Captain Johnson. Your trust points have slipped in the past hour. I think he’s going to err on the side of caution.”
Salkukoff smiled and then lowered his radio.
“Peter the Great is flashing a signal,” Everett said as he looked toward the horizon and the small pinpoint that was the giant cruiser as it steamed their way.
“She’s asking for a cessation of hostilities,” Carl said as he lowered his binoculars.
“Yes, Captain Kreshenko will follow orders. You can tell your nervous Captain Johnson we mean no harm.”
Jack remained looking at Salkukoff and then lifted his radio. “Captain, stand down.”
He saw the form of Johnson stop and then look back to the Simbirsk. Collins saw the captain staring up at him. Then the alarms stopped. Jack saw men lining the railing with small arms, and the .50-caliber and twenty-millimeter weapons started tracking Peter the Great as she came on.
“If that bucket has a working missile system, it doesn’t matter what we end up believing,” Everett said as he came up and stood by Jack.
“Forget it, Toad; they’re as useless on board that ship as they are on board Shiloh. If they were working, our little Russian ass over there would be a little more forceful in his welcoming of his boys.”
“I hope you’re right, Jenks,” Jack said. “If not, I just ordered those men to stand down and die.”
“He’s not wrong. Salkukoff would never give away an advantage like that. He’ll wait to attack us when we get ready to attempt leaving. He will hope to leave us here.”
They all turned and looked at Farbeaux as he approached.
“He’ll do nothing as long as we have most of the brainpower working to get us home.”
“What makes you—” Ryan started to say.
“I’ll leave that to you, Colonel.”
Ryan looked at Jack and wondered what it was he knew that his security department didn’t. Then he looked at the cold way Henri was looking at the back of Salkukoff. Collins broke away from the Americans.
“Colonel, flash message Peter the Great. Lay up alongside Shiloh and have this Captain Kreshenko join us aboard Simbirsk.”
“Wise decision, Colonel.”
Jack didn’t say anything as Salkukoff passed along the message. He walked away where he was joined by Farbeaux and Everett.
“Jack, it’s damn obvious this Salkukoff is out to get their little science project back.”
Collins looked from Carl to Henri.
“That is exactly what our friend here is going to stop, preferably in the nick of time.”
Henri said nothing as he watched the specter of Peter the Great grow ever bigger as she approached.
“What is it, Colonel?” Carl asked when Farbeaux said nothing.
“I believe it will be a matter of who kills who first.” Henri smiled that unsettling smile he had. “Number one, he knows exactly why I am here. Number two, he has the same death order as we do. Only his is far more encompassing in scope. Whoever is pulling this man’s strings has given him orders to kill us all.”
Henri Farbeaux let that sink into the Americans’ psyche as he walked away and joined Charlie Ellenshaw. Jack, Carl, and Jason Ryan watched the Frenchman leave.
“What do you think, Jack?” Carl asked.
Collins laughed aloud as he watched Captain Johnson unhappily order his crewmen to tie Shiloh back up to Simbirsk.
“What do I think? I think we’d better listen to that man’s opinion when he says Salkukoff is out to secure this ship.” He turned and faced his two friends. “And when it comes to lying and killing, Henri has the upper hand on us all. I think I’ll go with the colonel’s hunch.”
Everett exchanged looks with Ryan.
“Oh
, that makes me all jittery inside.”
“We’re in trouble, aren’t we?”
“No, of course not,” Carl answered as Jack walked away. “We have our intrepid hero Farbeaux calling the shots. What could possibly go wrong?”
Jason looked down at the violet waters of this strange sea. He said nothing about the pessimistic view shared by the captain. He looked again at the water and the far-off island.
“Okay, Mendenhall, this is one time I would be happy to trade places with you.”
In the far-off distance, Peter the Great started blasting her collision horn, announcing her imminent arrival.
Suddenly, the strange violet sea of this new world was getting ever more crowded.
LOS ANGELES–CLASS ATTACK SUBMARINE USS HOUSTON
Captain Thorne accepted the clean shirt from his XO. He started to put it on and then saw that Gary Devers was waiting.
“Oh, sorry. The two bodies have been removed, and we managed to get the outer doors closed to the forward torpedo compartment. The torpedo room is useless to us. The aft torpedo room has been pumped free of water and will be operational within the next four hours.”
“I’ll trade the torpedo room for ballast control in a heartbeat.”
Thorne finished buttoning his shirt and then faced his XO. “Still no luck?”
“We’re trying to cross match the circuit boards from fire suppression to ballast control. No luck thus far. We do have good news on communications. We were able to get the radio up, and the ELF is breathing again. Nothing but static.”
“After we get the remaining forward spaces clear of water, try the boards from the pumps. Strip them if you have to. We’ll have just one shot at getting off this shelf, and I want all options covered as best as we can get.” Thorne left the aft torpedo room before the corpsman and his men cleared the two bodies, which was something Thorne wanted not to see at the moment.
“Skipper?”
Thorne stopped and waited for Devers.
“The crew thinks we were nuked. Or at the very least our surface fleet was nuked. I think they need a word.”
Beyond the Sea--An Event Group Thriller Page 17