She asked the closet port or station.
“Aye Commander. Akku Island. Alpha 1 Bay Station Zero. Stand by one. Two hundred twenty kilometers.”
They all did the math in their heads.
“It’s too close in time. We’ll never make it. I’m open to suggestions.”
There was silence. Finally, Hodges said what he had not wanted to say.
“Standhope.”
For a moment, no one said anything. Then the expected retorts followed.
“Are you crazy? It’s a rock, an outcropping. It’s off limits, out of shipping lanes. It’s not on any charts or in data base profiles. We could run right into it in this storm. No one’s been there for decades.”
“I’ve been there. Commander’s been there. I suspect Mr. Johnstone has been there. Haven’t you Allen? Not all that long ago, I should think. We can find it. It’s about seventy-five kilometers North-Northwest. It will take us out of sea lanes, sure; but we can protect our mission. Our return will be shorter besides. We can put in under three hours at flank speed. Shorter in, shorter out: We won’t lose as much time overall.”
All eyes went from Delores to Hodges to Allen. Hodges looked at Allen. Allen gazed back at his scope. Hodges knew he knew. They turned again to look at Delores.
“Navigator, set course. Hodges will assist, Wells. All ahead, ahead full.”
“Course set, aye. All ahead full, aye.”
Except for occasional professional radio chatter the crew bent to their tasks in silence. After a while, something blipped or may have blipped on a screen.
“Commander,” Allen said.
“What is it?”
“I thought I saw something. It’s gone now. Wells?”
“What?”
“Did you …”
“No. Nothing. Nothing at all. Lightening will do that sometimes.”
“Right. Lightening sometimes.”
“Hodges,” Delores said.
“There is a pod of grays sounding. Probably heading south to skirt under the storm. I thought once though, maybe—.”
Commander,” Wells said.
“Go.”
“Command on the satellite. Say they’re having trouble reading our signal. They want to warn us of an approaching wall cloud.”
Delores sighed. “See if you can let them know our position and heading. Tell them to keep trying with SGP. We’ll try to boost our signal. I don’t want to tell them about SH until we’re almost there, but I don’t want to be out here all alone either.”
“Aye, skipper.”
“Damn, that sucker’s picking up. I don’t know if we can even reach Standhope,” Wells said.
Silence. Hodges felt something he usually didn’t feel in tight situations. Slight perspiration on his upper lip.
“Destination targeted. Sixty-three kilometers. ETA 2 hours 55 minutes.”
“Continue flank speed.”
“Flank speed, aye Captain.”
Hodges gazed out the port side of the pilot house. He wondered if he might detect the lone large lost whale or whatever it was. His military background gave him that old shiver in the back of his neck. It occurred to him that perhaps it would not be a bad idea at this time to secure weapons.
The ship heaved in the waves and crests. Hodges estimated they were already seven feet high. Some eighteen or more. The old destroyer showed her seaworthiness. But it was a ways to go yet in trying to outrun a bad storm that had gathered upon them unexpected and clearly gathered much momentum.
During World War II, a navy submarine received its orders for a top secret mission. It was to enter beneath Tokyo Bay and take measure of the ships that anchored there—battleships, cruisers, destroyers, frigates, armament crew numbers. Over three days it was to determine the entrances and exits into and out of the harbor. There was a military concept that from Midway an aircraft carrier would steam within 100 miles, and the time of most ships in anchorage being known, a sort of demolition payback for Pearl would demolish a significant part of the Japanese fleet.
As it happened the sub’s mission was quite successful. Numerous records and night surveillance photographs were taken, at substantial risk, before the sub retreated safely from its espionage mission. Prior to the second phase of the mission being carried out, however, the tide turning Battle of Midway ensued, Japanese carriers were sunk in valor nonpareil by American naval and naval air forces. Following this turning point battle of the war, the photographs of the sub’s mission were forgotten, and deposited in a dusty corner file cabinet, with their secret classification intact. Attention turned to the Coral Sea and Guadalcanal.
Meanwhile, on its return, the Standhope, the fleet’s submarine on the secret mission, returned on the major sea-war lanes, engaging enemy ships when she espied them. She sunk 10,000 tons on that voyage, a quite respectable job for any warship, until a sharp-eyed Japanese crow’s nest lookout on board a destroyer with full compliment of torpedoes and depth charges caught sight of her periscope cutting the surface of the water in relatively calm seas. Nearly destroyed herself by the vicious attack, and only through the cunning of her captain and crew, persuading the destroyer’s captain she had sunk her while gasping their last gasp of air and passing dangerously close to no ballast pressure until the enemy ship departed, they surfaced by night and limped-returned to Midway Island.
The voyage outbound had been nearly as eventful, though not quite as dangerous. Avoiding major shipping lanes, passing about 800 km south of the Aleutians, they were fortunate to be riding by surface by day to conserve fuel. But for a sharp eye in the coning tower, they might have crashed into it, as the Titanic hit the iceberg.
It was an old volcano, inactive, that had been a full island once, eons ago, in all probability. It looked like some outcropping that belonged about 500 yards or a half mile off a shore line. But there it was, in the middle of nowhere, a basalt rock nearly red from the sea, wind, and sun erosion. From a distance, it appeared like Chimney Rock in western Nebraska, that strange columnar island of a demarcation that conveyed to nineteenth century pilgrims on wagon trains or on horse or foot that this was the point of no return. Upon closer examination, for the Standhope took a few hours to explore the curiosity that day, it was revealed to be not as tall as its cognate landlocked geological formation, and set within on the northwest side, two water caves, large enough to accommodate Standhope class (later Dallas class and larger) submarines.
A few years after the war, while cleaning and re-organizing classified files, an imaginative vice-admiral came across the old Standhope report. The navigator had carefully reported the position -- x° longitude, x° latitude. These quickly were classified Top Secret. The outcropping was soon investigated.
During the term of the Cold War, 1950’s, 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s, the Soviets could never intuit how American subs were able to respond so quickly to events and crises in the Pacific and Arctic Oceans. Undersea LF and satellite positioning communications had not been perfected. They suspected a secret base. They never found it. Recently declassified KGB files reflect the brilliance of the logical assumption and the growing frustration at lack of discovery.
Later, although the outcropping could be detected by satellite cameras, it would not appear as a structure worthy of investigation. Seabee engineers prepared an undersea entrance into the base port. Only two subs were permitted at any time. Traffic was kept to a minimum.
It remains today one of America’s best kept military secrets, revealed here, but not its geographical locus, for the first time.
The odd formation was named for the submarine that had discovered it. Most thought it only a rumor. This was the port in the storm the Starr desperately raced toward at flank speed.
Hodges looked back out the pilot house of the bridge. He needed no radar scope. He knew at once the situation. He knew the problem. He knew there was only one a
nswer. He also knew he might be compromising one of the nation’s best held secrets.
It occurred to him that the scientific leaders of the expedition were nowhere to be seen.
They stood, facing each other. They had not gone this far before. They gazed into each other’s eyes, in their strange love-hate relationship fully generating the sparks of energy they felt. Ironic at that, for it was for a beneficent reason on the part of one of the partners that brought on this impasse.
It started well enough. The two consulted. Their magnificent minds worked together on final preparations. They poured over their work with industry in their pressurized cabin whilst their 747 flew at over 35,000 feet. Occasionally they glanced out the window. They both knew it was near seventy degrees below zero outside. They said something together. They realized they both realized they were cutting across a space of extraordinary cold to a space of extraordinary heat.
They journeyed across the continent, with the Ex-Gee specially mounted on a 747 like the space shuttle. They had access to military secret air lanes so that as few as possible would catch a glimpse of them from land or air. Jennifer had always liked flying. This trip was wondrous, clear practically across the country. The green and brown cross-patch pattern of the Midwest yielded to the large expanses of farms and ranches. The Rockies seemed to reach toward the cabin of the plane, as if aching to scrape the bottom of the fuselage. She thought she saw condors floating on updrafts from the cliffs and gorges. Occasionally she caught sight of an eagle far below, once, she was almost sure, for she always had exceeding range vision, with little ones perched atop her pinions. This day, it seemed all flew across the great North American continent on eagles’ wings.
In a sound of the Washington coast they landed at a strip unknown to the flying public. It took a full day to transport the vessel to the old destroyer. The scientists understood it had been specially modified, in many ways to their specifications.
At last, on Susan’s heading, they were off. The women knew they were steaming between known lanes. But it was the fact they had originally swerved off course which had allowed them to locate the anomaly.
They settled in to their quarters. They explored the ship. They were familiar with the sea. On any vessel, within a short time, they felt quite at home. Then, again, they dove into work, more than once missing full meals in the galley.
Gradually, however, Jennifer began to get the sense of unease she had recognized in herself off the main base. She couldn’t quite place it. She simply sensed the tension, the danger, that something was amiss, not quite right, nay, not right at all. When Susan dropped her coffee cup, she knew what it was.
“Well, that’s it, isn’t it?”
“What are you muttering? Hand me that towel, will you? I’ve got to wipe this up.”
“Here. Look at you. It’s getting worse.”
“What are you talking about, Jennifer?”
“Oh, you know.”
“No, I don’t,” Susan said. She attempted to wipe the spill. She concentrated. She did well for a moment, visualizing the round strokes. Then, just beyond her control …
“Look at you. It’s worse.”
“You said that.”
“Your hand, Susan.”
Susan pulled her hand into her side. Jennifer continued. “It’s shaking so hard, it’s all you can do to wipe back and forth.”
“I can control it. It’s nothing. It will be all right.” “You’re going to be operating that ship, for God’s sake. How will you …”
“I said it’s nothing.”
This was the moment they stared at each other, ice looks. This was the moment the ship began to tilt harder in the water. They didn’t notice at first. They resumed their disputation, a bit calmer and quieter now. Jennifer noticed Susan’s hair was not staying well in the tight bun. Loose strands jumbled, frizzed, wandered all around. Jennifer presented her diagnosis.
“It’s Parkinson’s, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know. One of the autoim—I don’t know.”
“You haven’t been tested.”
“No.”
“Physicians are the worst patients.”
“Don’t placate me. I know all those bon mots, clichés, common sayings.”
“I’m sure you do. Placate. I’m not placating. Fine.”
“What? Well. Go on. We’ve come this far.”
We are all dependent on you,” Jennifer said.
“I have it under control. I’ve been on Neurontin and Tenormin. It’s gotten worse lately. Nerves. That’s all it is. Nerves. Nothing more. I’ll increase the dosages. Add Prozac or another cholinesterase inhibitor; They are all safe drugs. It will be all right, Jennifer.”
“It’s the real reason you want to go down there, isn’t it? To find a cure.”
“For me. And the world.”
Jennifer thought she had it figured out. Now she realized she only had half of it and made the connection.
“Oh my God, Sus—”
At that moment the ship leveled and plunged about. The women did all they could to find a way to stay on their feet. “What the hell?”
Jennifer looked out the porthole. “Oh my God. Susan, it’s a squall line. And it’s coming right for us.”
“Damn.”
“We aren’t going to make it, Captain,” Hodges said. He stopped. Men and women glanced up at him from their scopes and stations.
Years ago, when a lad, on more than one occasion, Hodges’s father took him to hunt deer. Now, a hardened combat soldier on his government’s business and arm of political will, yet, man or boy, he could never fire the shot at the peaceful, graceful defenseless creature. But he always remembered the eyes of the hind or hart, the doe or stag, the terror and the fear and the knowing. He was at sea, a seaman in a tense situation, and he was but a lad, plowing through the underbrush, trying in vain to satisfy his father. For that look of fear was the look the women and men in the pilot house looked upon him now. He had their attention. He continued. He knew they wouldn’t like it.
“She’s a good vessel for all that, for riding out the storm. But she can’t plow through wind and wave crest at flank speed. You’ll not only tear her engines out. You’ll destroy the Ex-Gee.”
They looked out to port. They looked behind them. In awe they realized the truth of the great sheet of gray-black smooth entity: She lived. A predator, she hurled toward her prey, lightening spark-lashes its crooked fangs and dragon-fire ready to crush and burn bone. Splats and pings upon their Plexiglas windows, sheets of rain, at once individual drops and a complete curtain fall hurled almost at sixty degrees angles upon the glass; whitecaps stretched over the bow and bulwarks to spray the top deck.
“We’ve no alternative,” Delores said, for the first time in a voice that didn’t instill confidence in her charges.
“We have one.”
They turned. Against the wind, howling in a skirr, screeching like a banshee now, they had not heard the door to the bridge open from the starboard side. Two women stood there, one thin-boned, slightly hunched over, the other taller, standing on the balls of her large feet, as if taking a strong stance.
“Dr. Arthknott.” Welcome to the brid—”
“We have to take the Ex-Gee below surface.”
“Excuse me, Doctor, but with all due respect, you being the scientist and all, but are you mad? Have you lost all sense of reason while below in this storm? It took a loading crane to get her chained in. There’s no device capable. Certainly not in all this.”
“Especially in all this. If we don’t, she’ll be destroyed, or damaged beyond any non-port repair. All those months for nothing. We have only this one window of opportunity. None other. Forever.”
“There is a way,” Jennifer said. Her voice was much less impassioned than Susan’s, quieter, so quiet they almost didn’t hear her. But it was just
as intense. It brought silence in the room. God, I hate that screechy witch’s voice when she gets upset, Jennifer thought.
The silence continued for what seemed a long time. Beyond anyone’s belief the wind picked up. Rain lashed the windows. A forty foot crest picked up the vessel, hurled her into a valley so deep it appeared the ship was in a canyon, then another huge crest lifted her again. Scientists and military personnel nearly fell over each other in a successful enough attempt to maintain their sea legs.
Delores gazed out the windows. Spider web crackling lightening within the grayness of the cloud sent yellow flame reflecting in her eyes. She turned toward Jennifer. “You’ve got my attention, Ms. Littleton,” Delores said.
“We tied down the chain locks with pyrotechnic explosive bolts. The devices are generated from within the controls on board. All restraints will explode off her. If the Starr’s bow is rising and her stern is down at that moment, or not much later—”
“She’ll slide down the rails where she sits, like she’s being launched from a dock,” Hodges said.
“It’s risky as hell,” Delores said.
“It’s our only chance,” Susan said.
“Wells.”
“Aye, Commander. ETA 1 hour 10 minutes.”
“Damn. Slower approach. Reduce speed one-third. All right. Get the crew ready.”
“There’s one other thing.”
“The umbilical?” Delores said. She had guessed what was coming. Susan continued.
“We can’t. Not in this. We’ll be out of communications for a while.”
Damn. Yes, all right. Hodges.”
“Aye, Commander.”
“You go with them. I’ll continue on. In this weather, I’ll be in the cave before any satellite can see anything. I’ll go in the ad cave. It’ll be a tight fit but it’ll work. You bring in the Ex-Gee to the deuce cave. We’ll link up, wait this out.”
“Aye, Commander.”
“Let’s do it!”
Deeptide Vents . . . of Fire Page 11