by David Buck
Captain Narindestat perused the more limited data that Gindane’s research crew had learned about the military capacity of the planet. The entry for nuclear weapons got his attention quickly as did a small explanation of the means of delivery. The captain readily decided that if the humans ever got out into space that they would be more than capable of looking after themselves. So the decision now was to stay and bargain or to flee and hide again. The captain decided that the key objective, after the survival of his ship, was to ensure that they did not make the situation worse than it already was at the moment. The second choice was problematic as the Trader ship was still securely stuck to the ocean floor. Never one to waste a moment he got his command moving.
‘Engineering, secure the fuel refining equipment and check all shields, you will have two hours. Also send two engineers down to meet me at the portside landing bay deck, as I have an idea I want to try out with the stuck landing skids. Communications, I want the general crew readying the ship for flight. They are to assist the engineers with pumping out any remaining water. Also I want the guard in the main cargo hold doubled ensuring all guards are suited and armed. Lieutenant Garendestat, you are to take the ship north east underwater as fast as you can go after I give you the word.’
Captain Narindestat was with three armed guards and all were in space suits when they reached the landing bay deck. He quickly instructed the two waiting engineers, also suited and armed.
‘Now the main landing strut refuel line is below us so give me a hand with this access panel as I have an idea.’
He calmly explained his idea to the engineers, who nodded as they soon understood what the captain was intending. After the access panel was opened the two engineers fetched some larger tools from a nearby tool store. One of the engineers then dragged over a large reinforced hose over from another store. The captain recognized one of the large hoses used to clean the ship of the Voorde infestation.
‘That will do nicely; do we have a pressure rating on the hose?’
The engineer stated a high rating and the captain spoke in agreement. ‘It should do.’
The existing fuel supply line coming up the landing gear strut was disconnected after first manually closing off the fuel line feed going further into the ship. The Traders then connected the heavy water line. The captain tested the makeshift line for surviving the pressure for several seconds and the ship lurched slightly. Lieutenant Garendestat was immediately on the radio link.
‘Is there a problem sir? We detected slight movement on the landing skid strut.’
Captain Narindestat grinned at the nearby engineers and guards, and verified the water line was now off before he replied.
‘Lieutenant Garendestat, it is a going well here, that movement was the hose line being tested for several seconds. We are going to the starboard landing bay deck to make the same changes.’
The captain calmly explained what they were attempting, and gave his son some additional commands to wait for before he was to take the ship to safety. After the second heavy water line was attached, Captain Narindestat left an engineer and a guard at each one of the access panels to later control the water flow and returned to the bridge with the remaining guard. As he entered the bridge, Lieutenant Garendestat glanced over from the navigation console.
‘Sir, I looked into some calculations for the landing strut changes, the water pressure is the key at this depth. But then I assume the other orders are part of the process.’
The captain looked back over at his son in quiet evaluation.
‘Well I turned the water pressure argument on its head, and we will find out real soon on how well that works.’
The reports came in from other sections of the ship within minutes, they were all ready to go. The crew ran through their emergency launch check list, and Garendestat reported that the ship was ready for manual takeoff. Captain Narindestat satisfied himself with another long look at the readings on his command chair console then gave the first order.
‘Full power to the shields and extend them down three meters.’
The ship seemed to shiver slightly as the power in the star ships shields increased exponentially. The captain gave the orders for the two engineers to turn on the water supply to the two landing struts before speaking to Garendestat again.
‘Fully open the water valves. Lieutenant, I will watch the strain gauge on the landing struts, you just ease her down slowly on my mark.’
As the ship slowly settled further into the sediment, the captain manually raised the landing struts. Fortunately he could stop and start the lowering and the raising of the landing struts as he monitored the strain gauges. When the landing struts were two meters from the hull the strain gauges started to climb markedly, and the captain lowered the strain by easing down the struts fractionally.
‘Lieutenant, extend down the shields another three meters and drive the ship down into the sediment as far as she will go under thrusters.’
For several minutes the ship hummed under full thruster power, as tons of high pressure water sluiced down the inside of the landing gear struts and out the attached landing skids. The lieutenant and bridge crew looked over with anxiety at the captain as he monitored the strain gauges, and the captain spoke again as the strain gauges finally started to drop to zero.
‘The water in the hose has limited pressure and the water depth here equals a much higher water pressure. By increasing out the shields they drop down the water pressure under the landing struts so the hose water flows out the landing skids at the bottom of the struts.’
Lieutenant Garendestat grinned in sudden understanding, and the rest of the bridge crew also understood quickly enough. With the landing skids now raised, Captain Narindestat turned to the lieutenant.
‘Now pull the shields back to the hull slowly and set the thrusters to climb, also slowly.’
Scant seconds after Garendestat completed the orders; there was a surge under the ship. The ocean depths reasserted control of the seafloor under the Trader ship, with the sediments suddenly under their natural pressure again. The Illuria drifted up from the artificial upwelling, and the lieutenant brought the ship three hundred meters further off the seafloor before setting a course north at increasing speed.
***
Admiral Johnston considered his recent polite discussion with the Australian navy commander further as he received additional reports. Jane Walker had candidly voiced valid concerns that he himself had about this situation. Jane then had sincerely wished his fleet the best of luck, as the two Australian frigates would stay over the horizon in their own territorial waters to observe what occurred during the intercept. He would not expect anything less from the commander, indeed he highly rated all the Australian fleet officers he had worked with so far.
The problem he had with her views was that he had possibly conflicting command objectives and orders to obey as best he could. The prime objective of negating the risk of another pandemic was paramount. The admiral specifically viewed the latest sonar reports from the P8 sonar buoys with real interest. The sea floor at the target location had revealed a massive upwelling and thermal changes as the larger alien object was finally detected. The alien ship was definitely far larger than the carrier he estimated. Disconcertingly the alien ship was accelerating to over fifty knots, now heading north and the bulk of his fleet was too distant to directly stop them.
‘Our fleet has been detected and they are attempting to escape.’ The admiral decided as he gave a series of orders.
The closest ship to the alien ships was an attack submarine that the admiral had patrolling to the north of the target location. He issued orders to the submarine via low frequency radio, and the submarine began to close and take up a position well ahead and slightly to one side of the alien ships. He also ordered all ships to close on the location at emergency speed.
A petty officer called out from his station.
‘Sir the ships are increasing speed to above eighty knots underwat
er!’
Admiral Johnston turned to the low frequency radio operator.
‘Emergency signal to the Sioux City, get them to turn due west at full speed. Order them into a full shallow water evasion.’
Hopefully the attack submarine could maintain separation and evade a collision. Less than two minutes passed as the tracks for the alien ships merged with the position of the Virginia class attack submarine. Then the submarine track on the display vanished. The sonar operator on the bridge reported.
‘We have lost contact with the transponder on the USS Sioux City sir.’
The radio operator then called out with information.
‘Admiral, I have a partial message, ‘large contact is at 500 meters depth and closing at 75 knots. I am attempting to… ‘, the message then ends Sir.’
The Admiral sat back in shock, the USS Sioux City had a compliment of over one hundred and thirty crew. The warfare officer on the bridge spoke softly.
‘No sign of weapons fire occurring Admiral. I place the loss of the sub as a high speed submerged collision with one of the unknown ships.’
The admiral considered the information then issued further orders.
‘Air warfare officer, I want the carrier ASW and all destroyers to launch their Seahawks armed with mark 55 torpedoes at the target location. Also the Long Beach and the Seattle have those long range guns and we will find out if a shot across their bows gets there attention.’
Within two minutes, both strange looking Zumwalt class cruisers began firing their big vertically mounted guns every thirty seconds at a location ninety kilometers away just north of the last know position of the USS Sioux City. After another five minutes several Seahawk helicopters took off from the carrier and the destroyers, and formed up in pairs before heading east for the target location.
***
Captain Narindestat now viewed the damage report from sneak ship four and checked again on the distance of the approaching US fleet. The sneak ship had run down a smaller US underwater craft, no other Trader ships had detected the strange craft, and the solidly built space ship with shields had come off best in the collision. However the ship was badly damaged along the mid section near main power conduits. Sneak ship four had then lost power after flooding for several minutes. The captain did not have time to dock the damaged sneak ship with the main ship, the crew would be taken off the sneak ship and they would hopefully recover the ship later. He had no doubt that his own shielded sneak ships alone could destroy the US fleet, but that was not his intention.
The captain was considering his options further, as sneak ship seven was now docking with sneak ship four and taking off the crew. Suddenly a series of large explosions erupted just to the north of their position.
‘A series of warning shots….’
Considered the captain as he then contacted the Maveen lead probe in the main cargo hold.
‘We have just had a sneak ship disabled by the humans, if we lose one or two more I will have great difficulty getting back to space.’
The probe ignored the captain’s views as it replied.
‘We are not getting involved Captain Narindestat, the whole point of us being passengers is to avoid detection for our mission.’
Captain Narindestat resisted the urge to threaten the probe, instead he continued.
‘You can detect both the weapons fire and the strange approaching craft. Our best information identifies them as specialist hunters of underwater craft, in which case even you will not escape them. I do not want them destroyed I only want them disabled so we can escape.’
The probe now considered the captain’s request for more several seconds, as if it was conferring with other probes again.
‘Very well this is what you need to do as we exit your cargo hold.’
The captain listened intently as the lead probe stepped through the method they would use to comply with his request. Captain Narindestat then placed further orders.
‘Sneak ships two and six, divert to the north-west and take to the atmosphere. Sneak ships one and three, divert south and also take to the atmosphere. I want all four ships to draw the attention of those US forces and be totally defensive only; as I do not want you to attack the humans at any cost.’
The captain ensured that the bridge recorder was still operating as he spoke again.
‘Maveen lead probe, you and your team may exit the hold, but remember not to destroy the human ships.’
The Illuria had slowed and come with two hundred meters of the surface. However the huge bow wave the ship was creating was being telecast by the one of the now flying sneak ships. The Trader captain extended out and depleted a single cargo hold shield so that it only just kept out the seawater, and he then partly opened the cargo bay doors.
The six Maveen probes exited the cargo hold by flying through the depleted shield, and promptly flew up into the atmosphere for a short distance before diving underwater and streaking west. Captain Narindestat flinched as he calculated the speed of their launch, from either side of his ship’s position; the four patrolling sneak ships began a series of feints and draws at the US fleet.
***
Chapter 12
Admiral Johnston could see the four alien ships attempting to flank his surface ships as they flew in well above the speed of sound. The ships were easily the size of a US frigate, and he watched amazed as they flew in for several kilometers and dove out again over several seconds, and never came closer than five kilometers.
‘Captain Stennis, are the electronics people getting recordings of these ships?’
The carrier captain confirmed that data was being recorded as the four ships banked around again. The admiral continued to watch the amazing performance of these strange flying ships banked near the horizon and made another high speed run towards his ships. They did not overfly the US fleet, and Admiral Johnston evaluated their efforts as a series of distractive moves by the aliens.
Admiral Johnston gave an order just for two frigates closest to the alien ships, and the two ships were soon firing warning shots from their main forward guns at the alien ships. The weapons officers on both frigates then provided reports that weapon locks appeared to have a high loss rate with the alien ships. He considered the views he had received from several other taskforce commanders in this scenario, as the US Navy had not been in this situation before.
The consensus of opinion was that if he pushed the aliens hard enough and quickly enough they might surrender. The main objective of preventing another pandemic would be realized if the aliens could be captured and isolated. Also the added advantage was that the surrender would give the US military both full control of the aliens and their impressive technology. The peer recommendation was also to initially avoid nuclear weapons, as the aliens might respond and attack a big city with one of their own nuclear devices that they surely had available.
The admiral noted the reports of main ship continuing to move towards the barrage of fire laid down in front of it by the two US cruisers. The main ship was deeper than the smaller ships, but the mark 55 torpedoes could be manually targeted on objects under several hundred meters of water. The admiral decided that he had given enough of a warning and gave the fateful orders.
‘Air officer, I want the F35’s to attack these four ships to either side of the fleet. All ships to remain on course at full speed for the target location. Also the Seahawks are to launch all torpedoes well inside maximum range, as they may have strong counter measures.’
For several minutes the F35 fighters attempted to bring down the four sneak ships, with both guns and the few missiles that targeted correctly failing to make an impact on the shields of the rapidly evading sneak ships. The sneak ships themselves only targeted attacking missiles, and suddenly the sonar officer shouted out.
‘Sir six smaller ships have just appeared in the waters ahead of the fleet, they are doing one hundred knots.’
The admiral asked for confirmation as the waters ahead of the US fleet
erupted and six black cylinders, totally unlike the other space ships, shot hundreds of meters into the air.
A metallic voice boomed in the speakers on the bridges of the US ships.
‘You have attacked two star faring races that merely wish to repair and refuel their ships then leave your planet. You must hold your fire now.’
The now very alarmed admiral responded.
‘All ships use point defense fire now on those six black ships. Seahawks you will launch your missiles now. Long Beach and Seattle are to engage the larger ships to the north.’
A firestorm of phalanx and ICW fire leapt out from the US ships at the six Maveen probes, which began to glow as their shields expanded and absorbed all the weaponry without any damage. As the US fleet launched missiles at the probes, small pure blue beams of light destroyed the missiles as they left the US ships. The two US cruisers attacked sneak ships two and six with everything they had, again with little effect, as the ordinary weapons fire bounced off the space ships. They also easily dodged the armor piercing rounds or shot down the smart munitions from the large caliber vertical gun that the cruisers used as ship killer weapons.
Further east, the dozen Seahawk helicopters each launched their torpedoes, which sped towards the distant under water space ships. The torpedoes were all destroyed as they got close to the sneak ships. Incandescent flashes of light in the water were visible to the Seahawk crew members as their torpedoes either then went dead or exploded well before they reached the space ships. The sneak ships still did not return fire on the US 5th fleet itself, and merely continued to make high speed passes.
The USS Seattle finally got lucky as a 150mm armor piercing round from the vertical gun mount struck sneak ship two squarely amidships. The Trader sneak ship appeared to shiver mid-air as the shields failed and seconds later the sneak ship tumbled into the ocean. The elation and relief on the bridge of the US aircraft carrier was short lived as the six black space ships flew up higher into the air.
