The Pouakai

by Sperry, David;

  Another minute of silence passed, as the Captain silently fumed, his face set in a deep scowl. Finally, he said, “Professor, are we going to sink that boat, or not?”

  Colin looked at me with indecision on his face. I nodded and he turned back to Baker. “Yes, Captain. I guess we should.”

  “Weapons control, get a firing solution on the target.”

  “Already done, sir.”

  “Good. Weapons officer, load and arm one fish. Proximity fuse.”

  “Yes sir.”

  I looked at Colin, who still peered through the periscope, shaking his head.

  “Colin,” I whispered. “Are you okay?”

  “Sure, Boonie. This is just moving too fast for me. I wish we had more time to observe them, to study them.”

  “I don’t think we have the luxury of time.”

  “I know that but I don’t like it.”

  Red lights came on throughout the control room, and a quiet, persistent chime sounded in the sub.

  “The fish is ready in the tube,” the weapons officer said. “Firing solution loaded.”

  “Fire.”

  The torpedo launch didn’t make any noise in the control room, but several lights on the weapons board turned green. Both Colin and the Captain looked into the periscope, while I watched the monitor.

  “Time to impact thirty seconds,” the weapons officer said. “Twenty, ten, five.”

  I concentrated on the monitor. Nothing had changed since we’d spotted the boat. They were still rowing, as before, when a huge spout of water obliterated the boat. The scale of the explosion was enormous. Water flew skyward in a massive white mountain, at least a hundred feet high. An instant later a loud hammer sounded through the hull of the Ohio.

  The mountain of water dropped back to the surface of the ocean, leaving a circle of white bubbles on the surface.

  Both Colin and the Captain stood up.

  “Good work Lieutenant,” the Captain said to the weapons officer. “A nice clean hit. Helm, turn left…”

  Slam.

  A huge explosion rocked the sub, and I got knocked to the deck as metal clanged above us. Colin and the Captain held on to the periscope.

  “Collision alert! Collision alert!” the loudspeakers echoed.

  Cold water sprayed down on me from the ceiling. I tasted the ocean.

  “Damage team, to the control room,” came another voice.

  “Report!” the Captain shouted.

  “Sir, I got an off-scale electromagnetic pulse as we were hit,” the signal detection officer said. “It pegged everything. Now my instruments are dead.”

  “Communications are out sir,” said the comm officer. “Same time as the impact. Nothing is working.”

  Four men in oxygen packs charged into the control room and up the ladder toward the sail, where the water spilled in. I hauled myself out of the way, as the men scrambled up the ladder. Colin followed me off of the periscope platform, and we stood at the back of the room. It was controlled chaos for a couple of minutes until the damage team sealed off the water from above. Maybe all those drills had helped after all. My heart still pounded, terrified at the thought of being aboard a sinking sub.

  “You okay?” I asked Colin.

  He nodded. “I was afraid of that.”

  The Captain turned toward us. “Afraid of what?”

  “Provoking a response from these creatures,” Colin said.

  “They’re just animals. What could they have done to us? Something hit us; we just don’t know what it was yet.”

  “Captain, did you see any ships nearby in the periscope? I didn’t. You heard the signals officer. There was a huge electromagnetic blast, aimed right at us. Something on that island saw us blow their boat to smithereens, and tried to do the same to us.”

  “Professor, we haven’t seen any signs of technology we can trace to these creatures, or from that island, either. The only thing sticking out of the water was the periscope mast and a couple of antennas. That’s a mighty small target to see and hit in such a short time.”

  “Maybe they’d been watching us all along, but didn’t want to attract attention to themselves.”

  That shut the Captain up. The damage team left the control room a few minutes later, and then a dive crew exited through the SEALs’ escape trunk to do an exterior survey while we were still submerged. They came back with photos that even made the Captain raise an eyebrow. The tops of the periscope and antennas looked like they had been melted off. Fortunately we’d been deep enough that whatever hit us couldn’t penetrate through the water to the hull of the sub. Otherwise, we’d be dead.

  The Captain called a meeting right after he saw those photos. Our team was there as well.

  “Anyone care to guess what caused this?” he said, holding up the photo.

  “It had to be that EM beam that we detected,” Alan Gee said.

  “How could it have done that much damage?” one of the powerplant engineers said. “That would require far more energy than we’ve been able to deliver yet.”

  “Do you have another explanation?”

  “The Russians and the Chinese have been following our development of directed energy weapons. Maybe they’ve made progress that we haven’t matched yet.”

  “Where did it come from then?” Alan asked. “Were there any other subs in the area? Any aircraft?”

  “Not that we heard,” replied the sonar officer.

  “Gentlemen,” the Captain said, “the periscope mast was burned off right at the water level. That means, because of the curvature of the Earth, whatever hit us was either very close or somewhere above us. As far as we know, all satellites that could see us have been destroyed, and we hadn’t detected any aircraft in the area at the time of the blast. That leaves us with the most probable location being Tikopia.”

  We were all silent for a few seconds.

  “What should we do?” I asked.

  The Captain looked around the room. Nobody else spoke. “Here’s our situation,” he said. “We’ve lost meaningful communications with our command headquarters, especially since we are not going to surface. I’m not going to place the Ohio in the way of whatever melted the periscope and antennas. We believe that the professor’s monsters are coming from Tikopia, and spreading outward. They’ve gone to Anuta, and maybe other islands too. Right now, they’re limited to this corner of the Pacific. If they spread further, because of their ability to move on land, they could pose a grave threat to all of mankind. We have a duty to eliminate those things, and prevent them from multiplying and spreading.”

  “How do we do that?” Colin asked. “We don’t even know what the source is.”

  “We have several options at our disposal, Professor. Including the nuclear tipped Tomahawks in their launch tubes right back there,” Baker said, pointing aft.

  “How do we know where to aim? How do we know that it would even be effective? Maybe they thrive on nuclear energy. Maybe they’re buried a mile deep under the island, and all we’d be doing is giving them a little tickle.”

  “I think the Professor is right,” Lieutenant Hanson said from the back of the room, leaning on his crutches. “It’s good to have the nuclear option available, but we need to do some recon. Without satellites in place, we need boots on the ground.”

  All eyes turned to the Captain, who stared at the photo of his melted periscope. Eventually, he looked up at the crowd.

  “Lieutenant,” he said, “would you be able to get your team onto the island?”

  “Using the ASDS sir, yes, we could.”

  “Do it. I’ll want a full recon of the island, but no conflict with the Kakamaku unless absolutely necessary for your own safety. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Remember, we haven’t seen any signs of technology until now, but that EM beam that hit us shows that there may be something you can’t handle by yourselves. Unless there is no other option, you are to observe only. Do not confront them directly. Dismissed.�
��

  “Captain,” I said, as the people in the room started to get up. “Is our team going too?”

  “I’d say that’s not very damn likely. The SEALs are using a mini-sub to transfer to the island, but the sub stays underwater, close to shore, while the team swims up to the beach.”

  “Colin and I both have advanced level certifications. We’ve been diving for years.” I looked at the Captain, who glanced at Lieutenant Hanson.

  “We have to go,” Colin said. “You need us there if you find anything related to the Pouakai or the Kakamaku.”

  “This isn’t just a recreational dive in calm conditions,” the Lieutenant said. “You’ll need to keep up with us, and swim a couple of hundred yards over a reef to the shore. We don’t have recreational scuba gear either. We use rebreathers.”

  “Lieutenant,” I said. “After all we’ve been through on this trip, do you really expect us to sit this one out?”

  Hanson cracked a smile. “No, but if I didn’t say that, the Captain would have my ass in a sling. Right, sir?”

  “Damn straight,” Baker replied.

  “Come on,” Hanson said. “Let’s get you guys checked out on the rebreathers.”

  8

  This trip off the Ohio felt different. Yes, I’d been scared going to Anuta, and the landings on Palmyra and Nanumea had also been filled with unknowns, but this felt like we’d be swimming directly into hell. It was odd, feeling scared, but I couldn’t picture myself doing anything else.

  We said goodbye to Lieutenant Hanson before climbing into the tiny mini-sub. His broken leg meant putting on a dive suit was out of the question. The same held for Steve and his shattered ankle, although he looked relieved he wasn’t going. Neither Alan nor Mina had learned to scuba dive, so they were left behind as well. Just four SEALs, along with Colin and I, detached from the Ohio early the next morning, enroute to the unknown.

  The tiny mini-sub was only six feet in diameter. We were all in our dive gear, minus the rebreather packs, so it was hard to get comfortable. Petty Officer Lee took over Lieutenant Hanson’s duties as leader. He laid out a map of Tikopia where we could all see it. The roughly oval island had a lake in the center, looking like a doughnut hole. High ridges circled three sides of the lake, but on the south side only a narrow strip of trees and beach separated it from the ocean. It looked like a natural amphitheater. The island was bigger than Anuta too—two miles east to west, one mile north and south. If there were a lot of Pouakai or Kakamaku, it would be easy for them to defend. We were going to land on the east shore, and climb the ridge to get a view of the interior.

  “We’re going as one team today,” he said. “We don’t split apart. Consider this hostile territory, and stay low. You two,” pointing at me and Colin, “stay behind us, and keep up. Keep quiet too, unless there’s an immediate danger. Got it?”

  We both nodded.

  The battery powered sub crawled slowly toward Tikopia. It took nearly an hour to get to our exit point. We were silent for most of the ride, until a few minutes before we had to exit, when we had to start putting on the rebreathers.

  “I wonder what the rest of the world is saying about us, and the missing Pouakai.” Colin spoke quietly.

  I stared at him. “Seriously? That’s what you’re thinking about? How can you possibly think about the rest of the world, when all this is going on here?” My viewpoint had shrunk to the point where the Ohio, her crew, and the mission were my world. There wasn’t anything else.

  “Of course I’m thinking about it. You have to see the big picture. If not, you’ll lose sight of what you’re trying to accomplish.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t do that. If I did, I’d lose focus on the task here.”

  Petty Officer Lee leaned in toward us. “Maybe it’s best that the two of you are here together.”

  Colin and I both cracked a smile. I leaned my head against the cold, curved hull of the sub. “I’ve said it before, but Anna’s going to kill me if anything happens to you.”

  “No need to worry. I’ll be fine. We’re just going in to take a look. Right?”

  “That’s the plan,” Lee said.

  “See, Boonie, just a quick peek, then back to the Ohio. No problem.”

  “If there is a problem, they’re too primitive to have the weapons to match these,” Lee said, patting the stack of heavy automatic rifles we were bringing along.

  I couldn’t help thinking about whatever had melted the periscope, the antennas, and maybe had blasted hundreds of satellites out of the sky, which brought me back to the same question that had been haunting me for days: If the Pouakai and Kakamaku were so primitive, who, or what, had caused those other incidents?

  “Time to gear up,” Lee said.

  It didn’t take long to put on the rebreathers, and slip on the masks and fins. Lee closed the hatch between our dive chamber and the sub’s cockpit. Once we had all signaled ready, he turned a valve and water flooded the chamber.

  “We are two hundred yards from shore,” came the tinny voice of the sub’s pilot, through the earpiece built into the drysuit hood. “Sub depth seventy-five feet. The bottom is twenty feet below the hatch. Swim course two-seven-zero to the beach. Pressure is equalized. You are clear to open the hatch.”

  Lee opened the hatch on the floor, and after one of the SEALs had dropped through, he motioned for Colin and me to swim out. Disoriented at first, I rolled in the water, before I saw the sandy bottom below and the sub hovering overhead. I had to consciously remember to slow my breathing. It was a bizarre feeling to dive using a rebreather, with no bubbles wafting up to the surface. Colin floated next to me in the blue water as the rest of the SEALs slipped out the hatch. The compass on my wrist said that 270 degrees, due west, was the same direction the nose of the sub pointed. Petty Officer Lee waved a hand at Colin and me. Follow us.

  The extraordinarily clear water looked like a travel brochure. The bottom was a gentle sand slope, curving upwards toward the beach. Waves rolled overhead, white clouds in a ceiling of blue, racing ahead of us toward the shore. I couldn’t help but worry about what would be waiting for us. What little comfort I felt came from having the SEALs with us.

  When the water reached ten feet deep, Lee motioned for most of us to stay put on the bottom. He and one other SEAL went up to look around. The waves caused the water to surge as we waited, shifting us back and forth across the sandy bottom. Fortunately there wasn’t much of a reef, only a line of rocks twenty-feet deep that we had easily swum over.

  From the surface, Lee motioned for us to move forward, and in a few strokes, the water was shallow enough for us to stand. Just as I had seen on the evening the SEALs rescued us from Nanumea, we emerged from the ocean as a series of black shapes, dripping seawater, clutching our weapons. As Petty Officer Lee had briefed us, I snapped the quick release latches on my fins, grabbed them, and dashed up the beach behind the SEALs, running into the jungle.

  Lee found a depression in the sand behind the first row of trees, filled with a couple of feet of water. We placed our fins, masks, and tanks there. Then we unzipped and stepped out of the drysuits, and hiked into the jungle, looking for…what? I had no idea. Colin and I were dressed in fatigue pants and T-shirts the SEALs had supplied. My heart beat fast, not only from fear, but the speed that the SEALs hiked up the ridge. They moved quietly and quickly, pausing occasionally for Colin and me to catch up, puffing, before they moved on again. We didn’t speak, afraid that any noise that might alert the Kakamaku we were here.

  We had a half-mile climb through dense forest and underbrush to get to the top of the ridge, a vertical rise of nearly six hundred feet. Tough going for my aging legs, especially after several weeks of shipboard inactivity.

  Except for our heavy breathing and the occasional snap of a branch, we made it to the ridge fairly quietly. Strong tradewinds blew through the treetops, covering the sound of our passage. As we neared the top, Lee had us put our gear down and take a break. Above us was a ridge of volc
anic rocks, exposed to the elements. From there we should get a good view of the island, including the large crater with the lake in the center. Using hand signals, Lee had us take out our binoculars, and then spread out along the ridge. Colin and I went with Lee, while the other three went twenty feet further up the ridge to the right. We scrambled up the last ascent of the rocky ridge, while Lee motioned for us to keep our heads down. With a wave of his hand, he told the other group to proceed, before nodding at us. We stuck our heads over the ridge to see what lay below.

  9

  The center of Tikopia looked just like the photos—green and peaceful. A couple of white birds fluttered over the lake, and the trees on the hillsides waved in the wind. It all looked normal, until I focused my binoculars on what I thought was a small grass hut on the shore of the lake. It was blackened, with the ashes of an old fire on the ground around it. There were more buildings too, all scorched to ruins. Each of the buildings lay in ruins, but the vegetation around them was beginning to grow over the wreckage. I tapped Petty Officer Lee on the shoulder and pointed to the buildings. He looked, and nodded. His binoculars had a video recording system, and he scanned the entire shoreline, stopping at each of the destroyed huts and buildings.

  Lee waved us back to the area below the ridge. “Did you see the destroyed huts?” he asked the other group of SEALs.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Any ideas how it happened?”

  “It looks like each of them was hit by some sort of fire,” Colin said. “The burn marks all appeared about the same size, and all roughly circular.”

  “Where did the fire come from?” one of the other SEALs asked.

  Lee shrugged. “Let’s work our way down the ridge toward the south shore. Keep your eyes open, and stay quiet.”

  We walked single file, following just below the ridgeline as it sloped slowly downward, on the side away from the lake. Nobody said so, but it just felt safer being on the outside of the island. If there were Kakamaku here, the big crater with the lake inside seemed to be a likely place for them. Walking sideways across the slope made it hard hiking. We kept the top of the ridge just to our right, and the hillside sloped steeply away to our left, down to the ocean. It was difficult enough to walk across the steep slope, but pushing through all the trees and shrubs made it worse.