Deadly Apparition
Page 7
Chapter 5
He had a migraine. Not just a migraine. It felt like the top of his head was going to blow off. He was certain someone had implanted an expanding bladder of some kind in his brain. When it reached a certain point, it was going to burst. He wanted to open his eyes, but he was afraid it would just invite more pain. With effort he forced his eyes open, but saw only blackness. Maybe his eyes didn’t work. No. Wait. He could see a small red glow in the corner of his vision. There was a strange smell, a mixture of ozone and scorched microchips, and he could hear something. What was that? Moaning? And a cough? Why was he laying in the darkness on his back?
Then he remembered! Castillo sat bolt upright. They were about to be blown to kingdom come. But they hadn’t been. Had they? Relief washed over him. He heard the moaning again and he went toward it. It was Susan Lambert laying on her back, her face gently dusted by the red emergency lights.
“Susan,” he said taking hold of her face. He saw Crystal too laying beside her, but she wasn’t stirring. Susan’s eyelids fluttered open.
“Wha…happened,” she rasped.
“I don’t know.”
“My head hurts,” she groaned. “I think…wait…” Her eyes popped. “We made it?”
“Well…I…”
“Oh, God! Don, we made it!” She reached up and embraced his neck with both arms, hugging him tightly. “We made it, we made it, we made it!” Then she held him at arms length and said, “Didn’t we?”
“I don’t know. We have red emergency lanterns on which means we’re under emergency power.”
Castillo stood up and began to walk around the control room. Some men were regaining consciousness and groaning. From the back of the room he heard someone throwing up. The odor of vomit hit him and he thought he might join them. He touched each man as he passed them. They all seemed to be okay, just unconscious. He began statusing the systems: communications, sonar, navigation, weapons, engineering, command and control. All the panels were black.
“What h-happened?”
Castillo turned and saw the groggy young face of Lieutenant Eric Tanaka, Kansas’s engineering officer.
“I don’t know, Eric, but I need a reactor status immediately.”
“Yes, sir.” Tanaka staggered off.
“And switch us over to full battery power.”
“Will do, sir.”
“Kansas has batteries?” asked Susan.
“And a diesel too,” replied Castillo. “In the event our reactor shuts down.” He helped a crewman to his feet. “Is everyone okay?” He was met with stunned stares from crewmen bathed in the red emergency lights.
“My head is throbbing!” said a crewman.
“Mine too,” sobbed Crystal McConnell.
“Crystal!” exclaimed Lambert. “How do you feel, dear?” She went to McConnell and looked into her eyes with concern.
“Like shit!” she said weakly.
“It’s an aftereffect from this…thing…I don’t even know what to call it,” said Castillo.
“I’m going to check on Norm and the rest of the test crew,” said Lambert. She stood up and exited through the rear of the control room, feeling her way in the dark.
Castillo heard a chirp. He walked to his chair and picked up the receiver. “Castillo.”
“Skipper, the reactor has safed itself.”
“Can you restart it?”
“I’m getting my engineering crew on it right now, sir. Fred’s running diagnostics. I’ll know soon. Batteries look good. I’m switching over everything to full battery.”
“Good! Keep me informed.” Castillo hung up and went to the command and control panels in the front of the room and began powering up the displays. “Power up the systems, everybody. We have full battery power.” All displays around the room began to flicker to life. Soon the room was awash in the bluegreen phosphorescence of the big screens.
Castillo noticed according to ship’s status screens they were at 334 feet and slowly descending. Station-keeping was obviously off. “Pilot, bring us to periscope depth. Let’s take a look around. Comm, raise Balthazar.”
“Roger, sir. Coming to periscope depth,” replied the pilot.
“Yessir. Hailing Balthazar.” replied the comm operator.
Castillo closed his eyes tightly, trying to make the pain go away. He had to concentrate. He picked up his receiver and turned the selector. “Hello, Doc. I think we could all use some Advil up here.”
“Be right there, sir,” replied the chief corpsman.
Mason Taylor staggered in. “God, what happened? I feel hung over and I don’t even remember the party.”
“How’s everybody in weapons?”
“There are only two of them, but they’re okay. That lightning strike took out some of our weapon systems though.”
“What did we lose?
“All horizontal tubes and five vertical.”
“Shit! Well, I don’t think we’ll need them today.”
“That’s good.”
Castillo caught the look from Taylor. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Go ahead. Say it.”
“I’m not one of those I-told-you-so types.”
Castillo said nothing.
“Why? Would you feel better if I did?”
“Well, you did tell me so, and I ignored you. But, I’m pulling the plug on this operation now. Better late than never as they say. Let’s go home!”
“Now you’re talkin’, skipper!” There were murmurs of agreement all around the control room.
“We’re getting no answer from Balthazar, sir,” said the communications man.
“We’re at scope depth, sir,” said the pilot, turning on the photonics cameras.
Castillo stared at the camera screens and frowned. “Is there something wrong with our cameras? It looks black.”
“Cameras appear to be operating normally, sir.”
“What time is it?” asked Taylor.
“According to ship’s clock,” said Castillo, looking at the time display in his command screen, “9:36 in the A.M.”
“That’s what I have too,” said a crewman.
“The test started at exactly 8:57. So we were out for 39 minutes.” Castillo considered this. “Considering the ship’s drift and sink rate, that sounds about right. Pilot, switch to night vision.”
The screen blinked off then came back on with a green cast. They could clearly see the green ghostly outlines of the coastal hills ringing the cove. Castillo sat down in his command chair and took control of the big screen. He cycled through all the mast cameras, looked in all directions and scanned the surrounding hills and waves.
“Where’s Balthazar?” asked Taylor.
“Good question,” said Castillo. “And why is it night?” He drummed his fingers on his chair arm for a few seconds, then shook his head and said, “I need some answers. Comm, send up the thirty four masts. I want to make some calls.”
“Yessir! Deploying comm masts, sir.”
“Navigation, plot us a course back to Clyde. Let’s get out of here.”
“Aye, sir. Plotting course back to Clyde,” replied Lieutenant Guerrero.
Castillo wanted to get back to Glasgow and put this whole fiasco behind him. Of course there would be many debriefings and meetings during which the high brass would engage in finger pointing and second guessing what should have been done and where they fell short. He didn’t care. All he cared about was getting back and reuniting with Liz and the girls for a carefree few days in Scotland. He couldn’t wait to hug and kiss his girls. He could picture Robin’s sunny little face and Kelly’s brace-filled smile. He only hoped Liz was up to the trip.
As Kansas progressed toward the Clyde naval base, Castillo and Comm officer, Lieutenant Bud Unger, were becoming increasingly concerned. They weren’t able to get a response from the Clyde naval base, nor could they get a response from the Apparition Control Center. They decided to try SUBGROUP 2, COMSUBRON 6, TESTOPS. Nothing!
“Are you sure our equipment is working?” asked Castillo.
“The diagnostics all say yes. But…I just don’t know.”
Castillo considered this, then turned abruptly to the sonar operator at his left elbow. “Anything on sonar?”
“No, sir. Nothing,” replied the young petty officer.
“Is it working?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve got biologicals. Whalesong and crustaceans.”
“Put it on speaker.”
The overhead speakers came alive with croaking and chirps and something that sounded like a mournful cello searching for the proper key. “Okay,” said Castillo. He made a slashing gesture across his throat and the speakers cut off. “Where the hell is everybody?”
“What about your special phone?” asked Lambert.
“We’d have to surface to use phone,” replied Castillo.
“Can’t we surface?” asked McConnell.
“I don’t like to,” sighed Castillo.
“Because of stealth,” said Lambert. “Right?”
“That’s the main reason, but it goes beyond that.” Castillo took a deep breath before launching into his explanation. “A submarine when it surfaces, startles people. And a submarine on the surface looks evil.”
“Evil! Really?” asked Lambert.
“Yes. Ancient seaman feared the weather, the sea, the rocks, but more than anything they feared what they couldn’t see. Things that lurked beneath them, in the deep. They made up stories about sea monsters and the supernatural to explain disappearances and strange sightings. They were a superstitious lot. We’ve come a long way since then, but still when someone sees a submarine surface a few hundred yards away, some ancestral memory springs unbidden into the mind. Fear grips a man when a denizen of the deep floats threateningly close and sinister.”
“Still?”
“Oh yes.”
“Hey,” said Mason Taylor. “Do you remember that time we surfaced off Cape Henry too early?”
Castillo chuckled. “I remember. A transceiver had overheated and we wanted to clear the ship of smoke, so we surfaced early.”
“Right next to a cruise ship! The cruise skipper went into a panic. He called the Coast Guard, the Navy, the Portsmouth harbor master…”
“He even called the Merchant Marine demanding action,” said Castillo, scratching his chin. “And the week before when an aircraft carrier passed them, the very same skipper ordered his crew to render honors.” He shifted in his chair. “We have to face facts. A submarine just looks evil. It represents the dark nightmarish monsters that lurk in our subconscious. We’re not always aware of them, but they’re always just beneath the surface able to abruptly spring forth and scare the hell out of us.”
“Now that you mention it,” said Lambert. “I’ve always thought submarines were kinda creepy looking.” Castillo elevated his left eyebrow. “That was before I started working on them,” she hastily added, smiling and wrinkling her nose.
“Okay,” laughed Castillo. “Let’s start working another problem. What time is it? There should be a way of telling time by simply reading the stars, but I’m not an astronomer and I don’t know anyone who is. Do you?”
“Yes, I do,” said Lambert. “Our chief engineer, Norm.”
“I met him, didn’t I?” asked Castillo.
“Yes, should I ask him to come up?”
“Please.” When Norm waddled into the control room, he was noticeably limping. “Are you alright?”
“I had a bum right knee when I started working on Kansas, sir, and all the jostling hasn’t helped it any. In fact, I can barely walk.” He grimaced.
“Did you get some pain killers from doc?”
“Yes, but they don’t help much, sir. I’m afraid I need surgery.”
Castillo shifted in his chair and cleared his throat indicating a change of subject. “I understand you’re an astronomer.”
“I dabble in it, sir. Amateur only, but I have an excellent telescope. A professional quality 9 inch reflector, gimbal-mounted, clock-driven, fully programmable and…”
“Good,” interrupted Castillo. “Do you think you could guess what hour it is if we could get you a good view of the sky?”
“Uh…maybe…I could try.”
He didn’t sound very positive, thought Castillo, but he decided to try him anyway. He angled all HD cameras on the photonics mast up toward the night sky. “Take a guess, Mr. Bloomberg.”
“Polaris is…” He staggered closer to the big screen and scrutinized it. “There…no…there…no…wait…” He looked from the big screen to the smaller screens on the left and right. “Something looks wrong.” He frowned and turned to Castillo. “I need an unobstructed view of the whole sky. Is there anyway we could go up, sir?” He pointed to the ceiling.
“Oh, why not,” sighed Castillo. “Pilot, take us up.”
“Aye, sir. Blowing tanks.” The deck began tilting upward and shortly the pilot announced, “Surfaced, sir.”
“Do you think you can climb a ladder, Mr. Bloomberg?”
“I’ll try, sir.”
It was a huge effort for Bloomberg to haul his obese torso through the necessary hatches to get through the lockout chamber and to the ladder which leads to Kansas’s aft deck. Castillo went up first, emerging onto the open deck behind the boat’s sail and feeling the cool night air wash over his face. Bloomberg climbed the ladder in an torturous manner letting his left leg do all the work, heaving him up, step by agonizing step. He grunted, perspired profusely and stuck out the tip of his tongue with the effort. Kansas was never designed for a man Bloomberg’s size. Castillo tried to help him as best he could, but he could only give him a hand on the last two steps of the ladder. Bloomberg sucked in his gut to squeeze through the last hatch, but still lost a button off his shirt as he scraped through the opening. Lambert, McConnell and Taylor followed.
Bloomberg took a deep breath, blinked and began swinging around with his eyes on the night sky. “Well…what the…something’s not quite right.”
“What’s wrong, Norm?” asked Lambert.
“The stars are wrong!” There was alarm in his voice.
“What, Norm? Talk to us!” insisted Lambert.
“The constellations have…shifted.”
“Shifted?” said Castillo.
“Look right there,” said Bloomberg, pointing. “Ursa Major. The tail of that constellation is what we know familiarly as the Big Dipper. Do you see it?”
Castillo concentrated on where Bloomberg was pointing. “Yes.”
“The two stars at the end, Dubhe and Merac, are the pointer stars to Polaris, popularly called the North Star. There.” He pointed again. “All you have to do to find Polaris is take seven times the distance between the two guidepost stars, Dubhe and Merac. Every amateur astronomer knows this. Do you see anything wrong?”
Castillo studied it for a few seconds before saying. “Did you say seven times the distance?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But Polaris is closer than that.”
“Yes, it is. It looks to be about six times the distance if that. The constellations all appear to be closer to each other, which is…impossible! Our universe is always expanding. Constellations move further apart with each year.”
“How fast are we talking?” asked Taylor, stepping closer to Bloomberg.
“It’s not fast enough to notice, usually. It’s only about 1.4 degrees per century.”
“What kind of shift are we looking at here?” asked Taylor.
“I don’t have anyway to measure it, but I would guess at least six degrees. It’s enough that you can see it with the naked eye.”
“But that’s…that’s…” Castillo couldn’t finish his thought. A small trickle of dread worked its way down his spine and he shivered slightly.
“A four hundred year shift,” said Taylor, finishing Castillo’s thought.
“A four hundred year shift backwards?” questioned Lambert.
No one spoke for a few seconds, trying to grasp the possibility of it.
“As for the hour,” said Bloomberg. “It’s about 7:30 in the morning. Look, it’s already getting lighter in the east.”
They all swung toward the east and saw the pink glow backlighting the rocky landscape.
“Let’s go back down,” said Taylor.
“Wait,” said Castillo. He pulled out his satelite phone and powered it up. After a few seconds he said, “No satellites. Odd.”
Bloomberg pulled out a phone and turned it on. “Nothing,” he said, his face lit by the small screen.
“How did you sneak a cell phone past security?” asked Castillo.
“I didn’t mean to,” said Bloomberg apologetically. “I forgot it was in my bag.”
Castillo extended his hand and Bloomberg gave the phone to him. “You’ll get it back when you leave the ship.”
“Okay,” nodded Bloomberg, looking chastised.
After they went below and secured the hatch, Kansas submerged and got back on course for the Clyde Royal Naval Base.
Castillo took Taylor aside in the passageway and said, “What do you think, Mase?”
“I don’t know, Don. Bloomberg gave us a lot to think about.” They stepped aside to allow a crewman to pass by. “Do you think he’s full of shit?”
“I don’t know. Is there any way you can check on that Polaris thing?”
Taylor frowned, smoothed the imaginary hair on his bald head with his left hand then said, “The boat has a pretty extensive ebook library. I can probably find something on it there.”
“Thanks, Mase. It’s not that I don’t believe Mr. Bloomberg. It’s just that I would like a second opinion, if you know what I mean.”
“I know exactly what you mean,” nodded Taylor and hurried off.
Castillo sat in his command chair silently. Why was there such a wide spread communications outage? It had to be an equipment problem. But he’d never seen a failure that affected every receiver on the ship. It’s very odd! He looked around the control room at all the profiles painted by the bluegreen glow of the displays. The Kansas crewmen looked thoughtful. Lambert and McConnell looked troubled. They all suspected something was wrong. The mood seemed to be heavy, so Castillo decided to lighten it.