Polaris

by Todd Tucker

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The alcohol had the desired effect of clearing his head. Pete excused himself from the doctor’s stateroom after the second shot, pretended to head for his own stateroom, and then turned and walked into control, where Frank was standing watch.

  He looked up at Hamlin, surprised. “Here to relieve me?” he asked.

  “If you ask nice,” said Pete.

  “OK: fuck you,” he said.

  Pete walked around control and stood in front of Frank. He extended his hand. “It’s been a rough day,” he said. “I’m sorry if I stepped on your toes. I got whacked on the head down there pretty good—let me use that as my excuse.”

  Frank looked at him warily but then took his hand. “Fine,” he said. “I appreciate that.” His grip was like a vise.

  “And I am ready to relieve you,” said Pete. “Go grab some sleep, or get something to eat. Better yet, go to Haggerty’s stateroom: he’s handing out shots from his secret stash of scotch.”

  “Now you’re really starting to get on my winning side,” said Frank. He pointed at the monitor in front of them. “We’re on course two-six-zero, heading for Eris Island at ahead flank.”

  “Our shadow?”

  “Right behind us, as always. She crept a little closer at about 0600, we caught a whisper of some kind of active transmission. But it was directly behind us and the recording sucks.”

  “Interesting,” said Pete. It was his conversation from shaft alley.

  “But now: status quo. Looks like she’s following us all the way to Eris Island. I wish Moody would let us shoot a torpedo right down her throat.”

  “I’m sure she has her reasons.”

  “Whatever,” said Frank. “I’m ready to be relieved.”

  “I relieve you.”

  “I stand relieved.”

  “This is Lieutenant Pete Hamlin,” he said into a microphone over his head, recording the procedure for the ship’s digital deck log. “I have the deck and the conn.”

  Frank stomped out of control without another word.

  Control was quiet. Several alarms were still cut out, their lights a steady red on the main status board, the residual effects of the fire and the destruction in radio. Occasionally he felt a vibration and heard a slight whir, the sound of a hydraulic pump cycling to maintain pressure, or a fan cooling one of the ship’s many computers, some of which chirped quietly as their screens updated. But other than that, the big ship was silent. Pete waited a few minutes, to make sure he remained alone, and then he sat down in front of the main computer.

  He scanned the deck near his feet, looking for the key slot McCallister had told him about. The deck was covered in smooth plastic tiles. He began pulling at the corners of them until one of them came up. Beneath it, as innocuous as the captain’s key itself, he found the keyhole. He inserted the key and turned it. As he sat up, the console in front of him was resetting, the normal sonar display disappearing. He put the key back around his neck and the tile back in place as the new display generated.

  CAPTAIN’S MASTER TACTICAL ACCESS

  Below that was an extensive menu of options. There were maintenance records, personnel files of everyone who’d ever been onboard, and access to the deck logs. It appeared to be the entire digital history of the command. Additionally he could access secret Navy and Alliance documents, detailed descriptions of the actual capabilities of the ship’s systems—capabilities far beyond the conservative constraints they operated by, like test depth and maximum speed. Pete clicked on the heading PATROL ORDERS and suddenly accessed a library of the ship’s entire tactical history, starting when Finn took command years before. He scanned all the way down to the present, to see the orders he’d brought with him. The parts they’d accomplished, like the degaussing run, were available. Subsequent sections were not.

  Curiously, a single more recent order was highlighted as ACTIVE on the bottom of the list. Pete clicked on it. The order was in the form of a message written from Hana to the Alliance. She reported that she had captured two traitors, taken command, and that she was proceeding to Eris Island as ordered. Once there, she continued, she intended to seize the cure, by force if necessary, to keep it out of enemy hands.

  If it looked at any point like the cure would be lost to the enemy, she wrote, she would destroy it. And the Polaris, too, if required.

  The Alliance hadn’t responded.

  Pete switched back to the main menu and searched for more message traffic. It looked like they hadn’t received any messages from the Alliance in weeks—and all their outgoing messages had gone unanswered. Hana’s message hadn’t even been transmitted—the radio room having been destroyed during the mutiny. Apparently Moody had created it just for the record, to demonstrate that what she had done was legal and justified.

  A total lack of communication. What did it mean? He sat back and contemplated it. Were they the Alliance’s last hope? Or was the war over and they were just a fighting remnant, like one of those Japanese soldiers in the jungle fighting long after the emperor had told them to go home?

  Pete began scrolling through the rest of the computer menus, looking for clues. There were highly classified reports of Alliance losses at sea, and on land. The drones had turned the ocean into a vast no-man’s-land, bringing commerce and trade to a complete halt. Pete tried to decipher who was winning the war, but it was impossible to tell in terms of victories and defeats. In dry, military language he could only tell that massive suffering had been unleashed on both sides.

  He clicked on a digital map labeled TOP SECRET, and at first he thought it was a different rendering of the flu projections he’d seen in his own orders: there were bright splotches of color highlighted on both coasts of the United States. But when he looked closer, he could see it actually represented drone attacks. The drone attacks on land that were supposed to be impossible.

  “I knew it!” a voice yelled.

  Pete jumped out of the way just in time, as Frank swung a roundhouse punch at his head. “You hacked the main computer!”

  Even though the blow just grazed him, it knocked Pete to the ground. He rolled as Frank stood over him. Pete noticed for the first time that there was dark, dried blood around the cuffs of Frank’s pants. It was the blood of his friend Ramirez. “I told Moody we couldn’t trust you!”

  Pete kicked him in the balls.

  Frank buckled over in pain. Pete rolled out from under him and got to his feet. He swung hard and connected with Frank’s jaw. Frank fell against the starboard periscope with a grunt. Pete’s hand felt like he’d hit a brick wall.

  Pete readied himself to punch Frank again, this time with his left hand. He saw too late that Frank was reaching in his pocket. He saw a quick blue flash, and then felt blinding, electric pain as the Taser made contact with his chest.

  Every muscle in his body contracted, incapacitating him. He fell over, unable even to brace his fall. His entire body was cramping, making it impossible even to yell in pain. When the agony stopped, Frank was standing over him again, the Taser pointed right at his head.

  “It’s supposed to be a ‘nonlethal’ weapon,” he said. “But I’ve heard this thing can kill you if you get it right in the head enough times.”

  Pete tried to respond, but his mouth wouldn’t move.

  “We don’t really know anything about you, do we?” There was a deranged smile on Frank’s face. “I think we should tie you to a chair, zap you with this thing in the nuts a few times until you tell us who you are, where you really come from.”

  “I wish I knew,” Pete rasped.

  “Smart-ass,” said Frank, training the Taser on him. “Hana was blind to it, she liked you for some reason, trusted you. Maybe she was just sick of looking at all of us after all these years, happy to have a new man onboard. But now I’ve got you. And I’m going to get some answers.” He pointed to the screen. “How did you access this?”

  “Fuck off.”

  Frank smiled and pulled the trigger of the T
aser.

  Pete’s entire body went rigid again with pain. He blacked out momentarily, waking with the taste of blood in his mouth. Frank was looking down at him with a broad smile, the Taser still trained on him.

  “I missed your balls,” he said. “Hit you in the belly. But I think I know how to aim this thing now.”

  “OK, OK,” said Pete, raising his hands. He was having a hard time forming words. “I’ll tell you everything.”

  Frank snorted. “What a pussy. I thought you would at least take one more shot.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “This, dumbass!” he said, rapidly tapping the computer screen with a thick finger. “How did you access all this? It looks like everything in the entire main computer. And more! I’ve never seen any of this.”

  “McCallister showed me how,” said Pete. “He gave me a key.”

  “A key? Like a code word?”

  “No. An actual key. A backdoor into the computer system only he knew about. He gave me the key and told me how to access it. He designed it himself.”

  “Bullshit,” Frank said, raising the Taser.

  “See for yourself,” said Pete, gesturing toward the deck. “There’s a keyhole there, under that tile, it gives you access. Right where your left foot would be when you’re sitting at the console.”

  Frank looked skeptical. “You show me. Open it.”

  Pete dragged himself over, and reached for the tile with one hand. He lifted it up so the keyhole was visible. The effort exhausted him.

  “Shit,” said Frank. “You weren’t lying. Give me that key.”

  “I can’t do that,” said Pete.

  “Now,” said Frank. “I’m not fucking around.” He slowly raised the Taser.

  “OK,” said Pete, surrender in his voice. “Whatever you say. Just don’t shoot me again.”

  Reaching into his pocket as Frank smirked, Pete put his hand on the gun that had killed Ramirez. Aiming as best he could through his pocket, he pointed it, and shot Frank through the stomach.

  A look of utter shock on his face, Frank fell on top of him.

  Pete pushed Frank’s body aside and stood up. Frank still clung to life, but wouldn’t live for long, as his blood poured onto the deck. He clutched the bullet wound with both hands. The shot had been deafeningly loud; Pete knew he wouldn’t be alone much longer. When Hana discovered that he’d killed Frank, there would be no doubt in her mind anymore that Pete was either a traitor to the Alliance or a dangerous psychopath.

  Pete quickly closed out the main menu on the console and returned it to the normal sonar display. To his shock, he saw immediately that the tactical situation had changed—the shadow submarine had maneuvered closer to them. Much closer. He heard hard footsteps in the passageway outside control, footsteps that he now recognized as Moody’s, running to investigate the gunshot in control.

  Suddenly a bright red light came on above the console, and a recorded alarm sounded: “Torpedo in the water!” Red lights flared and sirens screamed.

  Even more ominously, Hamlin could hear the sonar of the weapon itself through the hull, pinging rapidly as it homed in on them.

  He grabbed a microphone and shouted, “Battle stations! Torpedo in the water!”

  He was thrown to the ground as the ship was rocked by an explosion.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The ship took a huge upward angle, and Pete slid aft, against the conn. Frank’s dead body did as well, leaving a red smear of blood along the deck, all the way to the dive chair.

  Somehow Moody had fought her way to control. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Torpedo!” said Pete. “They’re trying to stop us before we get to Eris!”

  She stepped over Frank’s body, barely giving him a look. “What happened to him?”

  “He was getting in the dive chair as the torpedo hit. He fell—”

  “How far are we from the shoals?” she interrupted. “From the island?” Pete needn’t have worried about providing a detailed explanation about Frank. For the moment, Moody was laser-focused on saving the ship and fighting the enemy.

  Pete pictured the chart in his memory. “We’re right on top of the shoals … maybe two miles away … nine miles from the island. Four miles until we’re inside the safety radius…”

  “Safety radius?” She looked at Pete quizzically.

  “Just trust me,” he said. “That’s where we’ll be safe from the drones.”

  “Four miles at twenty knots…”

  “Twelve minutes.”

  “Good enough,” she said. She lunged for two red levers over the dive chair and pulled them forward: the emergency blow system.

  An enormous whoosh of air filled the control room as the actuating valves opened. All around them, huge banks of compressed air shot into the main ballast tanks of the Polaris, pushing out thousands of tons of seawater, making them instantly buoyant. The submarine shot to the surface.

  “Ahead flank!” she yelled, and the automated system acknowledged the order with a ring of its bell.

  The computer counted down their depth as they raced upward. Ninety feet … eighty … seventy …

  Finally they broke through the surface, the ship actually rising fifteen feet into the air. It crashed back into the ocean with a splash, and soon reached equilibrium.

  “We’re still at an angle,” said Pete.

  “Because of the torpedo hit,” said Moody. “We’ve taken on a lot of water aft, weighing it down … maybe we’re still taking it on. Automatic flood control should limit the damage. On the surface, like this, can we make it over those shoals?”

  Pete raised the scope after briefly glancing at their speed. Even at ahead flank they were moving at only seventeen knots, perhaps limited by the flooding and the angle of the ship. Moody scrambled forward and operated the trim system to limit the damage, frantically cutting out alarms to limit the noise in control.

  The scope came up and Pete put his eye to it, quickly trained it toward the island. Directly in front of him, he could see the discoloration in the water that marked the shoals that surrounded Eris. Farther ahead, he could see the low brown shimmer that was the island. Above it flew a swarm of drones.

  “We’re right on top of the shoals…” said Pete. Just then, they heard the hull scraping bottom. The whole ship shook as they slid over the top.

  Just as soon, it was over. Pete kept his eyes on the scope. A drone, a scout, was directly over them, soaring into the sky, signaling their presence.

  “It doesn’t sound like that worsened the flooding,” Moody said when the scraping stopped. “Flood control has completely sealed off the engine room.”

  Pete took his eye off the scope to check speed; it was dropping. When he looked back outside, three drones were low to the water, flying directly toward them.

  “Drones!” he said. They disappeared from view as they flew directly overhead.

  The first bomb hit the missile deck directly behind them and exploded. The noise inside the ship was deafening. That part of the deck, however, was superstructure, and acted as armor for them, absorbing the explosion without further damaging the pressure hull. Through the scope, Pete saw a hole ripped in the steel, a jagged gash, but the pressure hull below was still watertight.

  “How many drones?!” shouted Moody.

  “Three so far,” said Pete, just as the second bomb hit.

  It landed right next to the sail. The scope jerked so hard from the force that Pete felt like he’d been punched in the face. The scope started to drift downward, but Pete fought to hold it up so he could keep looking.

  “External hydraulics is damaged,” said Moody, cutting out an alarm. “Pressure dropping fast.” Pete watched as the third drone swerved to avoid its comrade. As a result, it dropped its bomb slightly off target, and it landed harmlessly in the ocean off their port side.

  He barely had time to feel any relief before he looked up and saw at least a dozen drones heading directly toward them from the i
sland.

  “More on the way,” he said.

  “How many?”

  “Too many.”

  They both looked at speed.

  “How far do we need to go?” she said. “How far to this safety radius?”

  “Maybe a mile left,” he said. Speed had dropped to fifteen knots. Pete did the math: four minutes until they reached safety.

  The Polaris kept churning through the water. Pete knew they couldn’t survive a coordinated attack by that many drones, especially in their already damaged condition. One more hit might rip open the hull, ignite a fire in the missile compartment, and spread radioactive debris from the warheads. They were pointed directly at each other, the Polaris and the incoming swarm of drones. The island was clearly in sight now; he could see the control tower on the north side. More drones were taking off, sweeping up into the sky, ready to finish them off. The ESM alarms throughout the control room screeched.

  Moody fought her way to the command console. “We’re five and a half miles from the island!”

  Pete kept his eye on the scope. “We have to make that five-mile line.” The drones were screaming toward them.

  “Four hundred yards,” she said. “Three hundred … two hundred … one hundred.”

  “Brace yourself!” said Pete as the drones reached directly overhead. The lead drone dropped its bomb, which landed on the aftmost exposed part of the deck, tearing a new hole in it.

  But then the rest of the drones pulled up, and circled them. They had made it, slipped across the five-mile line.

  “Yes!” shouted Pete.

  “All back full!” said Moody. It took Pete a second to realize what she was doing. While they were now safe from the drones, they were speeding at fifteen knots toward the jagged coral shore of the island. The big ship reluctantly slowed, then stopped.

  The big engines changed directions, and the ship started to slow. Pete watched as the island loomed in front of them, the magnification of the scope making it seem like collision was inevitable. But the ship slowly ground to a halt, the speed dropping to zero.