Accelerant- Sixth Extinction

by James Morris Robinson

  J.R. commented, “So by accident, they discovered a powerful weapon?”

  “So it seems, Captain Russell, so it seems.”

  Another submarine captain commented, “But can they amp up their sonar with enough focus to kill at great distances?”

  Captain Anderson responded, “Naval intelligence has intel that confirms that they have the capacity to create acoustic energy that causes tissue rupture in brains and ears, hemorrhaging in lungs, and uncontrolled localized pressure on the nervous system. This weaponized sonar can cause significant oxygen deprivation by blood vessel blockage, which can kill brain cells, and produce a stroke.”

  Admiral Cooper gave the submariners a command. “Captains, as you are aware, your sonar detection equipment was modified while you were in port. We must quickly detect and destroy this sonar capability when we encounter it to preserve marine and human life. Sonar could deter our sea-hunt for these demons, but it will not hamper our resolve to eliminate the nuclear threat to our homeland. Stay alert, and now let’s get out to sea. Godspeed.”

  Each submarine captain gave the order to their 'chief of the boat.'

  “Dive! Dive!”

  Both submarines were running in stealth mode toward the Panama Canal. The XO pressed the button on his digital ear-microphone and piped through the sub’s intercom. “We are in condition one. This is the XO! This is not a drill.”

  Admiral Cooper and Captain Anderson turned their attention back to the rest of the carrier strike group captains and their briefing. Captain Anderson revealed the strategy.

  “In a short while, the XOs on both submarines will give their sonar specialists orders to enable the advanced Europa Sonar Detector. Deployed from a satellite in space, this technology can make the seas transparent and locate submarines at shallow depths and the special streamlined coated hulls of stealth warships. The same technology we used to discover oceans on Jupiter’s moon, Europa. This system has proven its accuracy at depths known only in the Mariana Trench, which is the deepest part of the world’s oceans. Only the United States can deploy this technology for now.”

  The subs were moving at thirty-two knots per hour in a southwesterly direction towards the Panama Canal Zone. The strategy was to run stealth and get behind the container ship and the supertanker as they came through the Panama Canal. The USS New Hampshire was headed for Fort Sherman which was a former United States Army base in Panama, located on Toro Point at the Atlantic end of the Panama Canal.

  The USS North Carolina was headed for its Pacific-side partner Fort Amador. By the way, both installations were turned over to Panama in 1999. Fort Sherman was the primary Atlantic-side infantry post, while Fort Amador protected the Pacific side. The submarines sat about seventy-five miles out in the deep ocean with precise sonar coverage. They waited for the appearance of the container ship and supertanker.

  Captain Anderson now asked an interesting question. “Now, if you were an eagle, you would take a deep breath, spread your magnificent wings, and fly directly north from the Panama Canal Zone. You would catch your breath over Cuba and land in Georgia. Birds can do this but can ships?”

  One of the captains who commanded one of the guided missile destroyers answered, “No, birds can fly in a straight line. Ships cannot. Sometimes land and islands get in the way.”

  “Correct, captain. As we know, this is impossible for ships, so they have a choice. The container ship and tanker could take passage through the Caribbean Ocean past Gitmo in Cuba on their left and Haiti and the Dominican Republic on their right. Our intelligence tells us they are trying to avoid our listening stations at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay.”

  Captain Anderson pointed to a destination about 115 kilometers, 72 miles, or 62 nautical miles east of Puerto Rico. “The second choice is here.”

  The intelligence confirmed this from the information we found on the Genesis intelligence officer’s computers. We are confident that all four ships will converge there and travel together with a tight emergency turn radius of approximately two and a half ship lengths between each other. These ships will be traveling hot all the way to their targets in Savannah and South Carolina. At some point, as they travel, they will get signals from Apophis Tablets. Their nuclear devices will be activated and then they're on the clock.”

  Admiral Cooper scratched his head, “Something is not right. This is near the Bunce Fault.”

  Captain Anderson asked, “Admiral, I am not sure I am on point here. Please explain sir.”

  “Well, it’s probably just a feeling. We are headed to an area in the Atlantic Ocean that is similar to the San Andreas Fault in California.”

  J.R. looked closer, “This is near the Puerto Rican Trench…the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean. I am with you, Admiral. It does not make sense.”

  Captain Anderson suggested, “Admiral, I want to have the Quartermaster and his navigation crew put a critical eye on these coordinates and they can find the devil in the details.”

  The Admiral nodded in Approval.

  Captain Nelson Perry of the USNS Arctic fast combat support supply ship asked, “In a very short period of time, we will hail four ships loaded with hell’s cargo. Our orders are to get these Hellburners as far out in the North Atlantic Ocean as we can. Are we on a one-way mission?”

  There was dead silence when the admiral answered with absolute total conviction, “There is that possibility.”

  The admiral turned and ordered Captain Anderson. “Get my armada out to the deep ocean. Deploy now.”

  Captain Anderson responded, “Commanders, get your ships ready to deploy, on my command.”

  The captains all returned to their ships by helicopter as the carrier strike group steamed out to the deep Atlantic Ocean. Captain Anderson was monitoring all levels on the USS George W. Bush. Further below, there were other various operational centers, including the flight deck control and launch operations room where the aircraft handling officer and crew keep track of all the aircraft on the flight deck and in the hangar. Additional control centers include the carrier air traffic control center and the combat direction center, the ship’s battle command center. The CDC’s primary responsibility was to process incoming information on enemy threats in order to keep the commanding officers fully informed. The combat direction centers of the USS George W. Bush and USS William J. Clinton were equipped like none others in the fleet. It was classified that both carriers were enabled with National Reconnaissance Office spy satellite technology and NSA Hubble satellite technology. They could image, hear, and detect objects and land masses as small as an eight-ounce water glass. They could read the words off Kindle e-reader thousands of miles away. These combat direction centers on the USS George W. Bush and USS William J. Clinton looked like Mission Control Center at NASA.

  Captain Anderson noticed the command bridge console was lit. It was Admiral Cooper. He ordered Anderson to the flag bridge. When he arrived, J.R., the chief petty officer, and the aviation community captain were seated. Captain Anderson noticed that the other carrier strike group captains had joined via video conference.

  The admiral swiped the touchscreen. “Commanders, the British have weighed in.”

  On their display screen, the commanders watched in real-time as two drones made a perfect take-off, rotation, and climb-out from the deck of the USS William J. Clinton and screamed down the south coast on reconnaissance for the two supertankers. The drones were far more advanced than American Predators and Reapers. They were Taranis class, compliments of the United Kingdom.

  The Drones were named Taranis after the Celtic god of thunder. They had advanced stealth and they were nuclear. Taranis drones were designed to evade both thermal and radar sensors that looked for aircraft. The drone operators on the USS William J. Clinton, which now sat off the coast of Aruba, slowed the drones down near Rio Grande do Norte which was about 1,294 miles outside the Port of Vitoria Espirito Santo in Brazil. They sat to take a few pictures with their powerful cameras and listened for cell-phone co
nversations for a short period. The drone operators then commanded the Taranis drones to head at Mach 1.8 to the reconnaissance target, which was the Brazilian state of Pernambuco, while employing all stealth capacities.

  J.R. asked, “What’s with Pernambuco? My wife and I vacationed there. They have 190 miles of the most beautiful beaches in Brazil with turquoise waters sitting on the Atlantic. If you want to know what diversity feels like, go to its capital city Recife. It is one of the state’s most sophisticated and nationally diverse places.”

  Admiral Cooper motioned to Captain Anderson. “Let me answer that. Captain Russell, not only does Pernambuco have beautiful beaches, but it also has an advanced radar detection network that can pick up drone radar and sensor signatures. The stealth technology of Taranis is hardened against this system and would allow it to sneak past surface radar and avoid being picked up by surveillance satellites.”

  Suddenly the display panels lit up and the data collected by the Taranis drones was immediately shared with all commanders in both battle groups, providing real-time high definition views of port operations, vessels ported and leaving. The drones were given a command from Drone Flight Operations to return to base at maximum speed, Mach 2. All captains in the carrier strike group saw the Taranis drones' real-time intelligence via secured ship-to-ship CCTV.

  The admiral commented, “As we see, the two supertankers have cleared the coast near Port of Vitoria Espirito Santo and are streaming full speed toward the north Atlantic. The Taranis drones also revealed that the supertankers are ultra-large crude carriers. They are a class above supertankers, comparable in length to the height of some of the world’s tallest buildings. They have the capacity to become the world’s largest nuclear bomb.”

  Admiral Barksdale of the USS William J. Clinton now appeared on the flag-bridge secured CCTV. “I just sent encrypted communications to naval intelligence informing them that the captains of our attack submarines, the New Hampshire and the North Carolina, have both confirmed that the sonar operators picked up a container ship and supertanker fitting the Genesis profile. The enemy vessels have cleared the Big Ditch and are headed towards the open ocean.”

  Captain Anderson grinned. “So the game is on. We have located our four Hellburners. Commanders, we will reconvene in one hour and 15 minutes.”

  Chapter Twenty-One — Redemption

  At the appointed time, the admiral, Captain Anderson, J.R., and the chief petty officer reconvened. As they took their seats, the touchscreens displayed the other strike force captains as well as a familiar face.

  “I am Captain Sara Parrish from Navy intelligence. Congratulations on locating the four Hellburners rather quickly. We have been at work too. We may have figured out the vulnerability in Genesis’ plan. It has to do with how the operatives communicate with the vessels from ship to shore.”

  Sara swiped the touchscreen and several infographics appeared. “Let’s look at what happens when a person on a cruise ship sends an email. The cruise passenger sends an email message through the cruise ship’s own satellite dish, which communicates with the satellites circumnavigating the globe. The email message hits one of the satellites. When the message is received by satellite, it’s instantly transmitted to commercial servers on land. The servers could be anywhere. It depends on the location of the ship. The ship’s server processes the email and routes it through other servers worldwide. Aunt Evelyn who is cooking dinner at home in the mountains in Montana gets to see a video clip of her nephew and his family smiling and waving.”

  “So what about cell phones?” asked the chief petty officer.

  “Good question. Cellphones do not work at sea because there are no towers.”

  J.R. was curious. “So how can a passenger or ship stay in touch with the mainland or shore once it’s miles away from the land?”

  Sara touched the second infographic. “Satellite phones are the only choice for dependable consistent communication. We know that Genesis engineers have three satellite options. This next infographic gives us an idea of the choices.” Another screen came up, “The first choice is that they could ride the earth’s global GPS network. The current global GPS configuration consists of a network of 24 satellites in high orbits of about 12,427 miles above the Earth at an orbital speed of about 8,700 miles an hour. Most civilians think that GPS satellites are geosynchronous but they are not. This causes unreliability as they may be out of range to receive a good signal. This is why the GPS net has so many satellites. Signal interference potential and easy detectability would have been an issue for Genesis. The second choice is geostationary, geosynchronous, or synchronous orbiting satellites in which the satellite is always positioned over the same spot on Earth near the equator with an altitude of about 22,223 miles. NASA recommends synchronous orbit for communication satellites such as television and radio. The third choice is for Genesis to try to get its signal to ride satellites positioned in low polar orbit.”

  The chief petty officer raised his hand. “Okay, please explain low polar orbit. I am not a scientist.”

  “A low altitude polar orbit is widely used by satellites monitoring the Earth each day. The U.S. Air Force polar-orbiting environmental satellites, which include our defense meteorological satellites, use polar orbits. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration use polar-orbiting satellites for longer-term weather forecasting. The European Space agency satellites carry a range of technologies, such as radar and multi-spectral imaging instruments for land, ocean, and atmospheric monitoring in polar-orbit. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency uses polar orbits as they chart the planet and provide timely, relevant, and accurate geospatial intelligence in support of national security.”

  Captain Anderson asked, “How low is low?”

  “Well, civilian satellites park 22,300 miles above Earth to focus on one region of the planet and capture the imagery of clouds seen on television weather reports, while the military’s satellites fly far closer to the ground and see virtually the entire globe twice daily, but no lower than 600 miles above ground as the satellites would encounter air friction. Each orbit takes about 100 minutes. By the way, the space shuttles avoid polar orbits, because flying through the aurora exposes astronauts to radiation and creates other interesting problems.”

  As usual, J.R. got impatient with all the talk and asked, “So how does this help us?”

  “Genesis’ communication engineers are extremely keen on the advantages of polar orbits. Data and imagery resolution within these orbits are extremely high. For this reason, low orbit satellites do mapping and photography. They also understand the disadvantages of polar orbits. They cannot provide continuous coverage of one location and you need bridges to communicate when out of range. Genesis communication engineers know that they can make a call from any ship anywhere as long the phones are riding powerful signals called 'digital bridges.' The analogy would be standing on the highest bridge on earth with antennae that reach out into space.”

  Admiral Cooper swiped the touchscreen. He addressed his concerns with the data collected by the Taranis drones’ sensors. Several displays showed high definition real-time views of the bow of each ship.

  “The Taranis drones’ recon mission was to look for the location of the ship’s radar and radio communications antennae as targets for an unmanned armed drone. Our recon mission imaged any devices that had the capacity to generate or enable high-speed digital signal processing with chameleon capability. Such a device would send a communication signal that would approach a satellite, knock on the door, and mimic other signals arriving so it could slip in. It would then wait until the taxi returned and it would ride the signal back to earth, find the ship, and deliver the message that it is time to awaken the red mercury-laced nuclear devices. The Taranis drones imaged the ships and tankers for any advanced radar or communications equipment that could enable a signal transmission to hijack a satellite. In effect, using a digital mule to send and receive hidden messages. Reconnaissance revealed the
Genesis operatives’ information was correct. Army and Navy intelligence indicated the Apophis Tablets will work anywhere in the world but you need to be in alignment to send the satellite the signal. The Apophis Tablet tells you the cycle times and when you will be in sync with the satellite based on your location. It appears that Genesis is riding low-orbit polar orbit satellites that are hidden in plain sight.”

  Admiral Cooper swiped the display screen showing the images of the supertankers. He touched the screen to zoom closer and closer. He moved the sectional images around, stopping at the bow of one of the ships.

  “Take a closer look and you see spheres the size of 10-foot beach balls. They are multiple shades of gray. The Taranis drones' imaging was confirmed by satellite imaging, that this is titanium casing. The question I ask my self is: what are these things hiding or protecting?”

  Suddenly, Admiral Cooper’s communication link lit up. On his screen, he saw the captain from the Invincible. They hailed the admirals. “The USNS Invincible and the USNS Howard O. Lorenzen reporting, sir. Permission to join the fight, sir.”

  Admiral Cooper laughed and greeted them. “You are so welcome, commanders. I know that you are keyed in on the briefing so I will let you answer that last question.”

  The captain of the USNS Invincible answered, “We think they are extremely high-quality radar and senor detectors housed in a titanium casing. Notice that there are two on each side of the bow, four per vessel. The Apophis Tablets work directly by satellite radio via these titanium beach balls. If we could jam or destroy these without igniting the red mercury, we could create the opportunity to neutralize the Hellburners.”

  The Invincible and the Lorenzen were missile-range instrumentation ships. The US Navy’s little-known radar ships were straight out of a sci-fi movie. Converted cargo ships with massive radar arrays mounted on their decks. These ships and their radars were used to track everything from ballistic missile launches to satellites in space.