“And where do you think they’ve been hiding all these years?” asked Sergeant Billings, the teams biological specialist. “And how long have people been on this planet?”
“First exploration team landed forty-seven years ago,” answered the Governor. “The first colonists landed five years after that, so forty-two years of continuous human habitation.”
“And no strange disappearances in that entire time?” asked Master Sergeant Kama, who had the most actual investigative experience on the team.
“This is a wild world,” said Frieze, shaking his head. “And a world with a lot of unexplored regions to this day. Of course there have been unsolved disappearances. People go out in small craft and never return. Or into one of the land wilderness areas with the same result. But nothing like large vessels or entire villages taken by something we’ve never seen before.”
“And the majority of these incidents have occurred in or near to deep water?” asked Jensen, searching through the colony database through her implant.
“That is correct,” replied the Governor. “About eighty percent of the attacks and disappearances have occurred over the Deep. There really aren’t that many pleasure craft or fishing boats over that much water. The fish are mostly in the shallow seas, and most of the sailing ships prefer cruising among the islands, where they can shelter in bad weather. And that weather occurs most often over the Deep as well, where they can build up over the open water.”
“So most of the coastal attacks occurred on, what is it called, Mu?”
“That’s correct, Major,” said Colonel M’tabasa, reaching for his wine glass. “We have one documented attack on one of the smaller islands on the edge of the shelf, as well as some disappearances at sea, also near the edge of the Deep.”
“And we are, what, about three hundred kilometers from the Deep?”
“That’s about right. So far there have been no attacks this far from the Deep. And we think whatever this thing, or things, are, doesn’t like to move through shallow water.”
“How far down have you explored this Deep?” asked Kama.
“We’ve sent submersibles as far down as thirty kilometers,” answered M’tabasa, pulling up a holo of the planet that showed the hemisphere that was almost all deep water, with the exception of Mu. “And of course not through the entire area. There’s just too much of it, and we only have a couple of deep diving vehicles.”
“And how deep is this Deep?” asked Kama.
“Twenty-five kilometers at its shallowest point. That’s about twenty percent of the Deep, the area closest to the shallows and Mu. At its furthest, a hundred kilometers, maybe a little more.”
“And what is the maximum depth your submersibles can reach”
“Thirty-two kilometers, but due to safety concerns we have instated a thirty kilometer limit.”
“What’s the limit of the submersible you brought with you, Major?” asked Frieze.
“We can go as deep as fifty kilometers, Governor. If we push it, maybe fifty-four. So there’s no way we’re going to get down into the deepest parts of your ocean.”
“I still don’t understand why they sent you, Major,” said Colonel Suarez, giving Jensen a cold stare. “We have a very good planetary police force. We didn’t need more police. What we need are military forces specializing in underwater combat. Instead, they send us you, and the few people you brought with you, and one goddamn submarine that can’t even go where it needs to go.”
“That will be enough, Colonel Suarez,” growled the Governor. He looked over at Jensen, his face red with embarrassment. “I’m happy you’re here, Major. From what I understand, you are ocean world specialists. And I will leave it to you to find out what this thing is, and learn how we can stop it.” He looked back at his Commander of Police, his face a mask of anger. “And you will do everything that the Major asks of you.”
“The Major..”
“Is from the Imperial Constabulary, and therefor is in charge here,” yelled Frieze, slamming the palm of his hand on the table. “And you will follow her orders, unless you want to take an early retirement from your position.”
Suarez looked at the Governor with a shocked expression, her mouth moving but no words coming out. Jensen could almost feel sorry for her, but she remembered all the many times she had had to deal with shitheads who thought they were so important. She knew her training and equipment were better than anything any planetary police force, especially on the frontier, had. And the same went for her people.
“We’ll head out in the morning, Governor, and scout the area near this latest incident,” she told Frieze. “That will give my dolphins the chance to acclimate a little more to your ocean.” It probably wouldn’t take them longer than overnight, since the salinity and chemical composition of these waters was similar to New Tahiti, where they had been stationed.
“Then let us enjoy our meal, Major,” said Frieze, waving for the steward to bring in the next course. “And maybe you can tell us a little bit about what’s going on in the Empire.”
When they walked from the Government house and headed for the quarters that had been given them down by the harbor, the planet had rotated to the point where the Perseus Arm took up most of the night sky. Jensen stopped for a moment and looked up at the sight, considering that this might be a good world on which to retire. Far from the war, with plenty of room to expand. The only negative was an unknown creature that attacked and apparently ate people.
One little problem, she thought, walking toward the building where their quarters were established. And one we’re here to take care of.
* * *
THE DEEP, ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE KILOMETERS SOUTHWEST OF HUBOLT.
“We’re at twenty-three thousand meters, ma’am,” reported Master Sergeant Kama, operating the sensor suite of the submarine. “We’re picking up sonar returns from four thousand meters. Returns are consistent with mud and rock.”
“Give me a take from the remote,” ordered Jensen, sitting in the command chair of the small bridge of the submarine. Argonaut had come along with them from New Tahiti, where it had been their primary oceanic patrol craft. New Tahiti had some very deep trenches, at least as far as most ocean planets went, some reaching as deep as ten thousand meters. The ninety-six meter submarine was built of the strongest materials known to the Empire, and could dive to a depth of over fifty thousand meters.
The image from the remote diving vehicle showed the bottom illuminated by the bright light of its forward dome. It was as predicted, mud with some rock rising from it in places. And totally devoid of life. Even the deepest trenches of New Tahiti had some animals at their deepest points, but this bottom was more than two and a half times that depth.
“How are the engines responding” she asked Warrant Officer Sarnai Zaya, who had the helm.
“At twenty-eight percent thrust, ma’am,” responded the WO. “Current speed is eighty-five knots.”
Jensen nodded. The sub was armed, heavily, but she was depending on its speed to get them out of any trouble they couldn’t fight. Right now eighty-five knots was about all they could do, since some of her people were out in the water.
“Status report?” she said into the com, sending the sonic signal out to the men and dolphins who were accompanying the sub.
“Everything nominal at the moment,” reported Corporal Detweiler, in charge of one of the teams. A moment later Sergeant Tomas reported in for the other team, that made up of the dolphins.
Humanoids and cetaceans were all equipped with specialized diving armor, capable of taking them down in comfort to thirty thousand meters, while propelling them at a maximum of a hundred and twenty knots. Cruising speed was just below ninety knots, and Jensen didn’t want to strain the capacity of the suits when she didn’t have to. The humanoid suits looked like particularly streamlined heavy battle armor, while the suits the dolphins wore looked nothing like any other suit. They made the dolphins look like robot versions of themselves, and th
ey were capable of a much greater turn of speed than the humanoid suits.
“OK,” said Jensen, looking at the holo that showed everything for twenty kilometers in every direction. “Let’s see what we can stir up.”
Compared to space that twenty kilometer radius sphere seemed tiny, but this was a different environment. Argonaut’s sensors could pick up objects for thousands of kilometers that were radiating sound, engines, sonar, noises that traveled great distances through the water. Objects that weren’t radiating were a different story. Still, with the suited constables and a number of remote vehicles, they could see just about everything in that sphere.
Jensen looked at the holo, noting the schools up deep water fish about three kilometers beneath the surface, the ten icons of her suited constables, and little else. Now it was time to see if they could attract something else.
“We’re going to pulse sonar in ten seconds,” said Kama over the com, warning the suits to turn down their pickups. “Pulsing, now.”
Using the power of her fusion reactor, the submarine pulsed her sonar with a powerful signal that would travel hundreds of kilometers with enough power to rattle any creature in the path. The school of fish high above acted stunned for some moments, then tore away at their fastest speed. Several seconds later the sub’s sonar pulsed again. It kept it up for several minutes at five second intervals, letting any predators in the area know that something was here. The smaller creatures would use that signal to avoid what to them would seem to be a large animal, too big for them to handle. But they were hoping that something that didn’t have a rival in this ocean would decide they were something that needed checking out.
And now we wait, thought Jensen after the last pulse went out. A half an hour later they got their first sniff at whatever lived down in the Deep.
“We’re picking up motion in the water,” reported Kama, looking over at his commander. “Estimated range six thousand five hundred meters, depth, four thousand meters. And ma’am,” continued the Master Sergeant, a frown on his face, “it’s big. Really big.”
“Switch to active sonar,” ordered Jensen.
Kama nodded and turned back to his board. “It’s hard to track, ma’am. I‘m boosting the signal.”
Jensen looked to the holo, seeing the return outline of the unknown coming up at them. The eight beings out there in armored suits were scattering, trying to get out of the way of the thing that was moving at almost a hundred and fifty knots. The thing was almost eight kilometers across, and it looked like a couple of the suits were not going to make it.
“Prepare to fire sonics,” Jensen ordered.
Kama nodded and turned back to his board. Argonaut had lasers, useable on the surface or for com. In the water lasers were more or less useless, heating the liquid ahead of them and gaining little traction over distance. But sonics were perfect for the liquid environment, and now the same mechanism that produced the ship’s sonar emitted a focused beam of sonic energy that transmitted through the water like it was a perfectly transparent medium. On striking the target it would vibrate that matter to the point where it would disrupt its structure, eating it, ripping apart cells and structures down to the molecular level.
“It’s not slowing, ma’am,” called out Kama.
“Is the beam having any effect?”
“We’re picking up a heat source on the surface of the unknown. It appears to be working, ma’am. But there’s no way to tell what the effect is on the entire creature.”
“It’s got me,” yelled out Constable Lewinsky, his icon blinking on the holo. That holo showed that the creature had extruded something, a pseudopod, and had captured the Constable who had been unable to outrun it.
“Can you break free?” yelled Jensen, anxious that a huge creature of unknown capabilities had captured one of her people. His suit was as tough as the Empire could make it, with its own sonic weapons. Unknown capabilities was the rub, she didn’t know what this thing could do, but she remembered seeing the pitted foundations of the village on vid, and realized that this thing had the ability to dissolve some tough substances.
“I don’t know, ma’am,” said the stressed voice of the Constable. “I’m activating electrical shock systems, but it doesn’t seem to be doing anything.”
The com was silent for a moment as Jensen considered hitting it with torpedoes, rejecting the idea while she had one of her people trapped within it, at risk from the weapon.
“Oh God,” called out the Constable. “The surface of my suit is showing damage.”
“Hang tight, Lewinsky. We’ll get you out.”
The submarine shook as the massive creature hit it, pushing it away while it sent its fluid mass around the sides. Kama hit a switch on his board, setting the skin of the vessel to carry a charge directly from the fusion reactor. The creature shook, then recoiled away, obviously hurt by the greater charge from the submarine.
“Hit it with every energy weapon we have,” called out Jensen.
Kama nodded and worked his board, sending sonics, electrical charges, even the laser over the short distance into the biomass of the creature. It shook and started to move away, trying to escape this small object that was causing it so much pain.
“Sergeant Tomas, get Lewinsky out of there,” she ordered over the com.
The dolphin NCO acknowledged, and he and his team moved toward the massive creature, toward the retracting pseudopod that contained the suited Constable. As soon as they were in position they started sending out their natural sonar call, amplified a thousand times by the suits. The waves of sound hit the biomass of the pseudopod, searing into the living matter at a point where the extrusion entered the body. They blasted away, tearing at the mass, vaporizing, cutting through.
The creature extruded additional pseudopods to attack the dolphins. The sea creatures, trained to take full advantage of the augmentation of their suits, dodged away while hitting the new pseudopods with sonic beams, then swept back in to strike at their original target.
“It’s going deeper ma’am,” called out Kama.
“Keep on it, Zaya,” ordered the Major. “I don’t want it hauling Lewinski down into the Deep.”
The Warrant Officer nodded and piloted the submarine after the creature that was dropping down at a high rate of speed. It wouldn’t be more than a minute before the depth exceeded the capacity of the suit to withstand the pressure. The Argonaut continued to follow, continued to hit the creature with sonics, trying to kill it before it got away. That had not been her initial plan, which had been to injure it enough to force it back to its lair so she would know where it had come from. Now the entire mission was to save her Constable.
The dolphins swept in again, striking at the weakening attachment point. With a loud pop the pseudopod came loose, turning it into its own much smaller creature. Argonaut continued hitting the main creature with its sonics, driving it away from its lost member.
“Lewinsky. Shock it, now. Tomas, hit it with electricity.”
The Constable sent out all the juice his suit could generate, while the dolphins rammed the noses of their armor in the biomass and sent their own shocking electricity into the matter surrounding the human. It didn’t take long to drive it off of Lewinsky, and two of the dolphins linked their suits to his and started to move him away from the danger zone, while the other two continued to attack the small piece of biomass with sonics.
“Keep a lock on that thing,” ordered Jensen, looking over at Kama.
“You want me to hit it with torpedoes?”
“Not on your life. I want to see if it goes back to its home.” She looked at the holo that showed the creature dropping down at two hundred kilometers an hour. It would reach the bottom in a little over ten minutes. “Lewinsky,” she said next into the com. “Are you OK?”
“The suit’s a little messed up, ma’am. But I’m OK.”
“Good. Everybody repair back aboard the Argonaut. It might get a little rough out there. Tomas. You and your people
get me a sample of that thing before heading back.”
This would be the first opportunity to get am intact sample of the thing, and the suits were all equipped with sample tanks that were said to be proof against any biological hazard. They were even resistant to nanotech, to a point. The dolphins quickly filled the small tanks, then destroyed what was left in the water with their sonics. They rocketed back to the sub, actually passing some of the humanoid suits on the way.
There were four airlocks on the sub, two for regular suits, two for the dolphin versions. The people would come through the airlock and be lifted into the garbing room where they could get out of their suits. The dolphins would also be able to remove their suits and get into the small tank that would keep them comfortable, at least physically. In a battle situation like this they would stay in the suits, in case they needed to deploy immediately.
“We’re reaching our maximum depth,” reported Kama as the depth gauge approached thirty thousand meters, while the creature continued down to the bottom.
“The return is faint, but we’re still getting enough signal to track,” said Kama as the creature started to move along the bottom.
The creature was moving along at a hundred kilometers an hour, on a heading that was taking it out into the deeper areas. It was dropping at a hundred meters a minute, consistent with the slope of the ocean bottom some kilometers below.
“Arrogant bastard, isn’t it?” asked Kama, staring at the plot which showed a three dimensional image of the creature swimming through the sea. It wasn’t a perfect image, but the sensors were doing a pretty good job of filling in the blanks based on radar returns. “I mean, didn’t we just kick its ass.”
“I wonder if it even knows the concept of losing,” said Jensen, also studying the plot, trying to determine where the creature was going. “It’s obviously the dominant predator on this planet. Or it was,” she finished with a predatory smile of her own.
Exodus: Tales of The Empire: Book 2: Beasts of the Frontier. Page 20
