by Shouji Gatou
“Aye, sir! Make your course 3-3-0, depth 800, maximum dive angle!” The XO sprang back to the control room and gave detailed instructions to the dive station. The helmsman and planesman tensed up but did as they were told, both swiftly and carefully.
Immediately the boat tilted, moving on a desperate course to avoid collision with the unknown vessel. The turbulence caused by the sudden change in direction banged loudly along the hull, and the bulkheads groaned from the stress.
“Dammit, even the surfers in Honolulu can hear us!” Captain Sailor exploded. “Sonar! Any sign of attack?!”
“No, sir! We’re too close to tell!” The sudden, violent movement had unleashed pandemonium in the Pasadena. “Th-The other vessel is moving, too! It’s closing! Range 400! No, 300?! 250, 200...” the ST screamed, gripping his headset. The approaching Sierra-15—the mysterious large submarine—was heading straight for them on an impact course.
“Shit! Shit, shit, shit! Why won’t it avoid us?” Sailor screamed. “They have to know we’re here!”
“Captain, we can’t dodge it!”
A cold chill went up Sailor’s spine. An underwater collision was the one nightmare every submariner shared. It wasn’t like a car crash at an intersection; the crushing pressure that encased them at all times would exploit the slightest crack in their hull. If the hull ruptured, and water came rushing in? There would be no way to stop it. Every scrap of the metal, all the oil, the nuclear fuel—and all 133 souls on board—would be pulverized by the force and left scattered along the ocean floor!
“Range... 100... 50! It’s gonna hit!”
“All stations, brace for impact!” Sailor shouted into the microphone.
Every man on the ship grabbed whatever was handy. Sturdy railings, console panels, backs of chairs—some even grabbed pens or frying pans. One odd crewman, for whatever reason, grabbed his own balls through his pants.
One second later—
A powerful, destruction-sowing crash—
The hideous shriek of twisting metal—
—did not come.
The Pasadena continued its ear-grinding turn, but no more. They’d passed the expected point of collision, yet their world remained whole. The XO was the first to come to his senses; he ordered dive control to steady their course and depth.
Immediately, the ship went quiet. Looking sick to their stomachs, the crew timidly looked around them. The attack they’d expected had simply not come, and the 133 crew aboard all shared a common feeling—that unsteady calm that followed the end of a bout of hiccups.
“Sonar, con. Where’s the Sierra-15?” Sailor asked in a whisper.
“Sonar,” the crewman reported. “It... well, it disappeared.”
“What did you say?”
“It disappeared. Even our shortwave array... it doesn’t pick up a trace,” the ST insisted, with a tremendous lack of confidence.
A target as big as a Soviet Typhoon-class... just gone, in an instant? Half-disbelieving, Sailor ordered an all stop. The ship continued to turn on its soundless inertia as they investigated the area carefully. But even then...
“Nothing,” the ST said helplessly. “There’s nothing here.”
“Not possible! Check the BQQ-5. I want a thorough test!” Sailor ordered, expecting an instrument malfunction.
“Captain. I won’t argue with your request... but I don’t think it’s a glitch,” Takenaka said hesitantly.
“Huh? What makes you say that?” Sailor demanded. “Can you back it up?”
“Well, no, but... I think what we just witnessed was... the Toy Box.”
“The what?”
“There are rumors of a ghost submarine, unfathomably huge,” Takenaka told him. “It appears without a sound and disappears the same way, traveling at incredible speeds. Several of our allies have seen it, but none have successfully managed to track it.”
The US Navy’s “Improved Los Angeles-class” of submarines, which included the Pasadena, were some of the world’s most advanced. It was no exaggeration to say there was nothing they couldn’t detect. For so many high-tech vessels to fail at tracking it...
“That’s stupid,” Sailor scoffed. “So you think what we just saw was this ‘Toy Box’ thing?”
“Well, it just seems very likely,” Takenaka said defensively.
Sailor fell into a sullen silence and tapped his temple with his index finger. “I don’t like it. A ship of unknown nationality that not even we can track, just wandering around the ocean, answering to God-knows-who... What if it’s got nukes on it?”
“Well...” Takenaka hesitated for a moment. “If it wanted, it could wipe any city or base off the map in a second.”
“That’s right,” Sailor retorted. “Before anyone even knew it was there.” It could trigger a hot war between the US and the USSR. Just who had made the thing? No, the more immediate question was: could they afford to simply leave it at large?
Sailor stood up, as if coming to a decision. “Let’s report it to Command. Take us to periscope depth. In the meantime, there’s something I need to do.”
“Where are you going?”
“The head!” he declared, passed command to Takenaka, and strode purposefully out of the control room.
Still, Commander Sailor thought to himself as he walked down the narrow hallway. If that thing we met really was this “Toy Box”... I’d love to get my hands on the captain. Messing with me like this... I bet he’s a real twisted psycho asshole.
“Just you wait, Toy Box captain... Next chance I get, I’ll make you wipe my ass,” he growled. “You’ll see. And you’ll do it with your tongue!”
Same Timeframe, Amphibious Assault Submarine Tuatha de Danaan
“What’s the matter, Captain?” asked the XO of the Tuatha de Danaan, Lieutenant Colonel Mardukas, as Tessa let out a sudden shiver.
“Oh, I just felt a sudden chill... I wonder if the air conditioning is malfunctioning.”
“Do you think?” he questioned. “I feel fine.”
“Maybe it’s just my imagination... I’m sorry. Don’t worry; I promise I’m not catching cold.” She pasted on a smile then looked back at the nautical chart projected on the nearby screen.
The occupant of the captain’s chair, Tessa—Colonel Teletha Testarossa—was a girl of just 16 years. She had large gray eyes, skin like fine china, and ash blonde hair, which was tied into a neat braid.
The control room of her amphibious assault submarine, the Tuatha de Danaan, was far larger than that of the Pasadena. It was more like the “mission control” you see in shuttle launch images, if smaller and with a lower ceiling. The lighting was dim enough that the blue and green display screens provided much of the room’s illumination.
Before her were three large screens and fifteen seats; each member of the crew there had one job which they specialized in. The helmsman and the planesman, the navigator and the fire control officer, the engineer and special engineer, the officer of the deck, and so on. There were also seats for crew who oversaw ground operations when they were surfaced, but these were only filled when necessary.
The next rooms over were the sonar shack—the ears of the sub—and the communications and electronic warfare room. They’d just gotten a report from the sonar shack: “Con, sonar. Con, sonar. Our friend the Pasadena is heading for the surface. It’s... yeah, rising, it’s over the thermal layer. It doesn’t seem to realize we were hanging on its tail. Hah.” The sonar technician, Sergeant Dejirani, spoke the words with a strange rhythm.
Mardukas furrowed his brow but said nothing. He held back the urge to rebuke him, and nudged his glasses back up on his nose. That’s right... this isn’t the same military that I came out of, he reminded himself. Steady on, steady on...
Tessa, for her part, showed no signs of displeasure with the ST’s attitude and made a flick with her stylus. The display of detailed information about the Pasadena was minimized and banished to a corner of the large front screen. “Yes, well done,” she said absently
. “I feel we played a rather mean prank on our friend, the Pasadena. I hope they aren’t too upset with us...”
“That’s a rather tall order. If it were me, I’d take it as a bad blow to my pride,” Mardukas responded. Lieutenant Colonel Richard Mardukas was a skinny man in his mid-40s with thinning hair that he kept hidden beneath a baseball-style cap he’d kept from his British Navy days. Stitched onto the indigo cap were the words “S-87 HMS TURBULENT.”
The Turbulent was the last submarine he’d commanded, but he couldn’t have been a less likely fit for that name; his pale skin and dowdy, silver-rimmed glasses put him as far from the archetypical Navy man as you could get. He’d look more at home packed into a commuter train at rush hour than standing on a submarine’s bridge.
“Pride... Do you really think so?” Tessa asked.
“Yes.”
“But there’s nothing to be done about it,” she lamented. “We don’t have anyone else to practice on...”
“Also true,” Mardukas admitted. The military organization to which this vessel belonged, Mithril, had four battle groups across the world. Hers, the Tuatha de Danaan, oversaw operations in the West Pacific, but they only had the one submarine under their command.
Given no one else to practice with day in and day out, the de Danaan had to test approaches, attacks, tracking, and evasion on the submarines of various militaries’ navies. Generally, they stuck to clandestine approaches that left their subjects’ captains none the wiser, but now and then—as in this case—it was necessary to get a little rough. Of course, she knew this couldn’t be any fun for their unwitting and unwilling practice partners.
“But it wasn’t for naught,” Mardukas pointed out. “We now know to adjust our expectations of silence during normal propulsion.”
“True. I thought they wouldn’t hear us for another ten seconds...” Tessa whispered, looking up at the ceiling. Her boat hadn’t seen many days at sea. It had been through live combat, but there were still countless things about it to be tested and fine-tuned. They had no choice but to impose on others if they wanted to get the de Danaan working its very best.
Incidentally, “Tuatha de Danaan” was both the name of the vessel and the name of their battle group. Since they were an extremely small-scale operation, it was appropriate to treat them as equivalent. That made Tessa both captain and commander-in-chief; this concentration of power was convenient in operations where precision and speed were required.
At any rate, the test had concluded successfully, and the Pasadena had departed. Their brief three-day voyage was over, and it was time to return to their base on Merida Island.
“Well... perhaps we should head home as well,” she sighed. “EMFC to passive; resume normal propulsion. All ahead standard.”
It was an awfully gentle voice for someone commanding the world’s largest high-tech submarine, but that was unavoidable. Mardukas repeated the officer’s order. “Aye, Captain. EMFC, passive.”
“EMFC station. Passive mode, aye. Engaging turbulence control. Fifteen seconds. Ten. Five. All devices, phase adjustment complete.”
“Normal propulsion, contact,” Mardukas continued.
“Maneuvering. Normal propulsion, aye. Engine one, ready. Engine two, ready. Normal propulsion, contact.”
“All ahead standard,” he finished.
“All ahead standard, aye.”
As the head of each station reported, the de Danaan’s twin variable pitch screws began to spin. These propellers, made of dozens of layers of shape-memory alloy, changed shape like living things and were the most quiet and efficient propulsion there was. The over-30,000-ton vessel smoothly began to move forward. The floor vibrated just a little, but made almost no sound.
“Captain. Current speed, 30 knots.”
“Right. This should do it. Sonar, keep an ear on bearing 0-5-0. There are Japanese fishing boats in that area.”
“Right. Why?” the ST asked.
“You sometimes see accidents with snagged fishing nets... It wouldn’t harm us, but we’d capsize them.” It was true. It was the kind of accident even a veteran captain could cause, though officially, such incidents were not acknowledged by any countries’ militaries.
“Ah... I see. Roger,” the ST responded easily enough.
Mardukas felt deeply touched as he listened to the exchange and noted how smoothly things were running. When the de Danaan had first set out, most of the crew had behaved with hostility to Teletha Testarossa. It was understandable; what kind of military organization would accept a girl who couldn’t even legally drink as their captain?
Moreover, the crew had been chosen from all over the world to staff the de Danaan and were leading professionals in their fields (if also eccentric enough to have been kicked out of proper armed forces). Their pride in their work was not inconsiderable.
Mardukas remembered the first time he’d brought her out in front of the crew: “I am your executive officer,” he’d said. “This girl here is the captain.” It was as if he’d told them, “The Pope has expatriated to China.” But then, after various twists and turns, the crew’s opinions about her did a complete 180.
The Sunan Incident four months ago had been particularly decisive; her leadership then had been nothing short of breathtaking. While depth charges rained down from the North Korean patrol boats, she’d gotten that massive sub moving like a jet fighter to break through their blockade. As its designer, Teletha Testarossa had an intimate knowledge of the vessel as well as a unique ability to unleash its full potential. Even Mardukas, a submariner with 25 years of experience, was impressed by her skill and daring.
Now that she had proven herself, a unique atmosphere had come over the de Danaan. Normal submarines, crewed by nothing but men, naturally formed into a patriarchal society: The captain was the father and the absolute authority. The de Danaan was more like a matriarchy with Tessa as chief; the men found fulfillment in serving and protecting her, and the fact that their “princess” possessed seemingly divine wisdom and beauty just made it better. It was a vessel truly worthy of the name Tuatha de Danaan, “tribe of the Goddess Danu,” the name of the pantheon in Celtic mythology.
“The EMFC is working well. At this rate, we should return to base by noon,” Mardukas said after checking the data on his personal display.
“Yes, I’m glad. Then we can hold the birthday party... Also, I expect a guest on the island tomorrow.” Tessa looked very pleased by the idea.
“What do you mean?” Mardukas asked.
“Chidori Kaname-san,” Tessa clarified. “I told Sergeant Sagara to bring her to Merida Island when it was convenient; I’ve hardly talked to her since the Behemoth incident.”
“I see.” Mardukas didn’t miss the note of glee in her tone when mentioning Sergeant Sagara. Since the battle with the giant arm slave two months ago, Captain Testarossa had been frequently mentioning the young sergeant’s name, though she likely didn’t realize it herself.
Mardukas didn’t know much about Sagara Sousuke, but he’d heard that he was a sober and skilled NCO. He knew that he was an elite member of their ground forces’ special response team and that he was currently assigned to a mission in Tokyo. He was also the only one who could pilot the de Danaan’s unique AS, the Arbalest.
It occurred to Mardukas that he should probably talk to this Sagara personally and get a read on him soon; depending on what he saw, he might need to get him away from her, perhaps via reassignment. It wasn’t that he was trying to play her father, but it was his job as XO to keep an eye out for unsavory activities. He’d already confiscated a small mountain of pictures of Captain Testarossa from various members of the crew and ground forces. He was hesitant to burn them, so he’d left them with Captain Goldberry, the on-board doctor.
They’d been traveling at normal propulsion for about an hour when the de Danaan’s mother AI let out a small alarm calling for the captain’s attention.《Captain. Tasking message on channel E2. Now receiving,》the AI’s feminine voice said.
“Understood,” Tessa answered. “When you’re finished, send it to me.”
“Aye, ma’am.” ELF communications were the only way to communicate with a sub on a dive, and these “telegrams” took time to receive. Therefore, it was five minutes before the message could finally be displayed on the captain’s screen.
Tessa read it and let out a small sigh. “Mardukas-san,” she said.
“Yes, Captain?”
“We can’t return to the base just yet. The party is likely canceled as well... We need to turn south instead,” she said, and then handed the telegram she’d just received to Mardukas. The message, already decrypted, contained a brief order issued by the head of Mithril’s operations division:
Priority order 98H088-0031
260115Z
From: United Operations Division Headquarters; Operations Department Head Admiral Jerome Borda
To: TDD-1 Tuatha de Danaan
A: Situation B26C in progress at Sector L6-CW
B: Tuatha de Danaan to cancel current mission, board ground force, arrive at 09-30N 134-00E and stand by.
C: Rendezvous with ground forces permitted at sea north of 17-00N.
D: Ground force scale and type should be determined by necessities of situation B26C.
E: ROE are as in peacetime until instructed otherwise.
Message ends.
“Really... The admiral is such a slavedriver...”
“The sector in question is... the Perio Archipelago, I believe,” Mardukas said without needing to open a nautical chart.
Perio was a nation of beautiful coral reef islands far to the south of their current location. It had gained independence just a few years ago, and while it styled itself a republic, in practice it was a protectorate of the United States. It was a minor nation with a population just under 20,000, which received most of its economy from tourism.
Mardukas couldn’t recall what kind of situation B26C referred to off the top of his head; Mithril had at least 100 hypothetical “military crisis” scenarios, and while he knew most of the common ones, he couldn’t possibly memorize them all.
