Quantum Storms - Aaron Seven

by Dennis Chamberland

  “They have these all the time,” Twink whispered to Seven. “They know it’s a whale. They never call these alerts for a whale. They called this to make a fool out of you in front of the team. They’re positioning. Trust me.”

  Seven nodded. “Have you verified its acoustic signature? Is it a whale, again, Counselor? Did you call this meeting in the middle of the night to show us we can pick up an incoming whale?”

  Spencer sighed with obvious frustration. “Dr. Seven, if you were aware of our procedures, as you should be, then you would know why we called this alert.”

  “He’s bluffing,” Twink responded to Seven in a whisper. “Everyone in this room has seen this scenario a dozen times and they have never once called an emergency.”

  Seven nodded. “Who is in charge of the acoustic signatures here?”

  “I am, sir,” a voice said from a remote console.

  “And what is your name?”

  “Stephen Conners, sir.”

  “Mr. Conners, can you give me an honest, reliable, no BS analysis of what’s going on here?”

  “Yes sir. We have an incoming bogie at 305 true - give or take - speed 11 knots - give or take - CBDR.. It was picked up first by one of our orbiting Long Range Reconnaissance ROV’s.”

  “Define CBDR, please.”

  “Constant bearing, decreasing range, which means it will collide with us if it doesn’t change course.”

  “Time to impact?”

  “Approximately 18 minutes, sir.”

  Have you ever seen anything like this before, Conners?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And what is your experienced analysis of this target?”

  “It appears to be a whale, sir. It has the clear acoustic signature of a blue whale and its motions are the same.”

  “Did you report this to Mr. Spencer before the emergency was called?”

  “Yes, sir, I did.”

  “Have you ever called an emergency of this kind for a whale before, Mr. Conners?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Why did you call this one an emergency?”

  “I didn’t sir.”

  PACIFICA ’S LROV

  LONG RANGE RECONNAISSANCE VEHICLE

  “Who did?”

  Silence.

  “Ah! Now we’re getting somewhere,” Seven responded as the Command Center became deathly quiet. Everyone could apparently feel him move in for what it looked like was to be an impressive kill. “Who called the emergency?”

  Silence.

  “Who was the watch officer in charge of the Command Center at the time the emergency was called?” Seven persisted.

  Silence.

  “Okay, who keeps the Command Center operations logs?” Seven demanded.

  “Stop this witch hunt!” Spencer responded in rage. “I called this emergency and you accepted the con. You revealed your own incompetence to everyone by accepting the responsibility for which you weren’t even prepared and may never be.”

  “Frank, you and the senior staff are all retiring to the nearest conference room immediately,” Serea said in a rising, angry voice.

  “Wait!” Seven responded. “I have the con. Frank, do I have the con or don’t I?” Seven asked.

  “Yes! Yes, you have the con!” he responded

  “And am I not the Director of this facility?”

  “Yes, yes” Spencer hissed.

  “And that makes me your boss, correct?”

  “Yes, for God’s sake. Just make your point.”

  “Bogy has picked up speed,” Conners reported. “Still CBDR. ETA 13 minutes.”

  “Frank you and Mr. Armstrong please come over here. And hurry up, Frank, we’re working an emergency.”

  Spencer and Armstrong walked hesitantly to where Seven, Serea, Conlin, Edgar and Twink were standing.

  “Good. Now, Frank, you’re only making things hard on yourself and you’re teaching everyone the roots of rebellion, especially this young man, Mr. Armstrong, that you’ve taken under your arm.”

  “Bogy has increased its speed now. CBDR. ETA 8 minutes.”

  “Frank, have you ever heard of hack?”

  “You wouldn’t dare!” the enraged ex-Commodore said.

  “See that glass room over there?” Seven said, pointing to a nearby conference cubicle made entirely of glass. “You and Mr. Armstrong are now officially in hack. Both of you need to go over there, go inside and wait until I tell you to leave.”

  “Dr. Seven, we have a situation here,” Conners reported. “I’m now changing my evaluation to a submarine contact. I believe our contact to be a submarine. …inside the red line… CBDR, ETA four minutes. Contact closing tight.”

  “Red line?” Seven whispered to Twink.

  “It’s the inside boundary where we’ve predetermined that if we have an intruder, we’ll defend ourselves,” he responded. “It’s 5,500 meters outside our physical boundaries.”

  “Mr. Conners, report acoustic signature!” Armstrong barked.

  “Mr. Armstrong, you and the Counselor are in hack. Leave the Command Center at once, as you have been lawfully ordered to do,” Seven responded sharply.

  “Good God man, have you any idea of what you’re saying? This is the first time we’ve had a hostile submarine in close!” Spencer shouted. “We have no idea of what its intentions are. You could get us all killed!”

  “Will someone please contact the Master-At-Arms and have these men removed from my Command Center?” Seven barked.

  “Acoustic signature is masked,” Conners responded.

  Two large uniformed men approached Seven’s position on the floor. “Are you the Master’s–At-Arms?” Seven asked.

  They nodded.

  “Escort these men to that space,” Seven ordered, nodding to the cubicle.

  “You’ll pay for this if we all don’t die,” Spencer said bitterly, as the on-looking Armstrong just nodded, and the Master-At-Arms began to escort them out.

  “Mr. Hollingsworth, have you been a part of these emergency proceedings before?” Seven asked his PA.

  “Yes, sir,” Twink responded, “Many times.”

  “Great. Mr. Hollingsworth, do you have the con?” Seven asked loudly.

  Twink just stared back, then replied equally strong, “Yes, sir, I have the con.”

  “Very well, then, carry on,” Seven said with a wink.

  “This is outrageous!” Spencer shouted as the Master-At-Arms closed the door behind him.

  Sean Conlin, who had observed the entire proceeding from close beside Seven, finally spoke. “This is absolutely outrageous, and that’s a fact!” he said smiling broadly in amazement. “I wouldn’t believe this if I weren’t actually seeing it with my own eyes!”

  “Mr. Twink… ah, I mean, Mr. Hollingsworth, what are your orders?” Seven asked of his PA.

  Twink sat in the center of the great room in the centrally placed command chair reserved for the Watch Commander of Pacifica’s astonishing Command Center , his eyes scanning the displays. The display boards that hovered before him were transparent, but projected on their surfaces were various full color, laser projected charts from sonar to surface radar. Each panel was controlled from the arm rest of the command chair, and Twink’s fingers expertly danced over the controls, placing new screens before his eyes as he evaluated the scene.

  “Shall I sound General Quarters, sir?” said a voice from one of the consoles.

  “Negative,” Twink responded, his eyes flashing about between the empty space before him and the colored panels, his mind racing, evaluating and searching. “Mr. Connners, when will we have a readable acoustic signature?” he asked.

  “She’s masking. Not until she’s closer,” he responded.

  “Define General Quarters.” Seven commanded sharply.

  “That’s where each individual in Pacifica mans their emergency stations, kinda like lifeboats.”

  “And if you make an error in judgment and don’t call General Quarters, what happens then?”


  “A lot of people die,” Twink responded solemnly, his eyes still in motion as his brain worked at maximum speed.

  “Including us?” Seven asked neutrally.

  “No,” Twink responded. “We die either way. Sonar, give me a constant update on speed and position beginning now,” he ordered.

  “Aye, sir. Contact slowing. Still CBDR. . Contact with structure 5.5.”

  “Update acoustic signature continuously,” Twink added.

  “Aye, sir. Still masked.”

  “Scramble Commander Harper and his crew to the Leviathan and have him get underway immediately,” Twink commanded. “Patch the command center net to their bridge live.

  “The Leviathan is the fast attack submarine assigned to protect us,” Twink added to Seven quietly. “They’re attached to the sub pen below the main structure.”

  “How long until they can get underway?” Seven asked.

  “Twenty five minutes in a true emergency. Forty five minutes if they follow their checklists.”

  “Contact still slowing, sir. Still CBDR. ETA to redline a minute and a half, to contact 6.0. True acoustic signature leaking through mask now. The computers should have a solution momentarily.”

  “It appears they’ll be slowing to a stop on or near the structure, sir,” Conners said.

  “I order that you relinquish this bridge to the properly trained command structure, immediately!” Spencer shouted in a red-faced rage as he burst through the door of the glass conference room. “You’re about to get us all killed and this entire community destroyed!”

  “Masters-At-Arms, do your job!” Seven responded sharply to the two burley men standing beside Spencer. They appeared to be totally disoriented at this astonishing breach to anything they had ever understood as good order and discipline.

  “Don’t touch me, or I’ll have you in irons!” Spencer raged back at them.

  “I’m now picking up the signature through the mask, sir. The computer will have the autograph in a sew seconds,” Conners said. “ETA to all stop thirty seconds. Prop in full reverse, loud cavitation.”

  “Get him out of here,” Seven said to the Masters-At-Arms who seized Spencer by both arms. “Gag and bag him if he interrupts these proceedings again.”

  “For God’s sake, sound general quarters, now! If you have any decency, sound general quarters!” Spencer raged.

  “Mr. Hollingsworth? It’s your call,” Seven responded, looking to his PA.

  Twink looked mentally preoccupied, but otherwise in strong control, obviously having formulated a plan. “No,” he replied confidently. “Not yet.”

  “Contact at all stop. Prop wash cavitation backing off. We have the signature and the complementary intelligence set, sir.”

  “Read it,” Seven commanded.

  “Contact is a Russian Oscar II class submarine. Length overall: 462 feet, displacement 18,000 tons, acoustic signature defines contact as hull number K530, the SSGN Belgorodo, sir. She has a complement of 59 men, 48 officers. Her skipper is Konstantin Shedrin, a Ukrainian career naval officer who graduated….”

  “Enough,” Seven interrupted. “Does the Leviathan have this?”

  “Yes, sir. Do you want her weapons list?”

  “Not at the moment,” Seven responded. “Has she cycled her torpedo tube doors? Has she transmitted any hostile acoustic signatures at all?”

  “Negative, sir.”

  At that moment, a single sonar signal penetrated the walls of the Command Center, transmitted from the Belgorodo. The individual ping intensity was extreme, deafening and its energy penetrated to their very core. It was unexpected and frightening in its strength.

  “They’ve just painted the Pacifica structure in detail. Their sonar map is now just as detailed as any photograph,” Twink noted. “That was enough energy to detail our structure down to a half inch or less.”

  “Can we return a similar ping from Pacifica?”

  “Oh! Yes, sir,” Twink replied with a smile. “Our energy is much higher and much more directional. We can take their picture, too, in color 3D if we so desire!”

  “Make it so, but limit our energy to match theirs,” Seven ordered.

  “Mr. Conners, direct our sonar to the target and return the ping. Match frequency and energies, please and watch your spread,” Twink ordered.

  “Aye, sir.”

  A moment later, the Pacific sound wave was directed toward the Russian submarine. From their seats in the Control Room, the sound was far less penetrating, as it was being directed away from them.

  “Can we contact them by voice?” Seven whispered to Twink.

  “Yes, sir. Through the ERUS-2 system or through the ERUS-6 which is an international acoustic underwater telephone standard. Both are underwater sound systems and we’re well within range.”

  “Can you use both devices simultaneously?” Seven asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Immediately, the acoustic picture of the Belgorodo appeared on the screen facing them as the computer rotated it 360 degrees before their eyes. As Twink had indicated, the image was so sharp, distinct and clear that Seven could even make out a fine layer of barnacles on the underside of her hull that she had obviously picked up dockside.

  “Bring both systems up. I need to chat with our Cossack friend in his big, nasty underwater boat.” Seven looked away from the display and stole a glance at the windowed cubicle where he saw Spencer’s head down on the table as he appeared to be stressed well beyond his reasonable capacity to coherently cope.

  “How do you hail the boat, Twink?” Seven inquired.

  “We have a computerized translation device that recognizes English and translates it directly into Russian and in reverse.” Twink motioned to a nearby console. “You speak, he speaks. They hear it in Russian via the computer translator.”

  “A mechanical voice?” Seven asked.

  “Yes, but a good one. Hard to tell the difference.”

  “Can it make mistakes?” Seven asked.

  “Occasionally, but it’s usually interpreted by everyone as clumsy translation-speak.”

  Seven thought for a half second then looked over to Edgar Allen who was wearing her typical dour expression. “Edgar, is Russian one of your 17 languages?” he asked.

  “Fluent,” she retorted matter-of-factly without even a trace of a smile.

  “Sit at that console over there,” he said pointing, “and repeat after me.”

  “Yes, sir,” she responded, moving quickly to the console.

  “Belgorodo, Belgorodo, this is the international colony Pacifica. Do you read? Over.”

  Edgar repeated the statement in perfect, fluent, and flawless Russian.

  Several long minutes followed. Then a response came in Russian which Edgar quickly and precisely translated: “Pacifica, Pacifica, this is the submarine Belgorodo. We read you, over.”

  “Captian Shedrin, this is Aaron Seven speaking through a translator. We at Pacifica bid you a cordial welcome to our little area of the ocean. May we be of some service to you and your crew this morning?”

  A moment later, the response came through the translation of Edgar.

  “We congratulate you on your superior intelligence in quickly identifying this vessel and its command structure, Dr. Seven. As well, if it is possible, I would also lend my congratulations on your stunning discovery. We are quite aware of your community’s existence and have been for some time, obviously, despite the secrecy you have put in place surrounding its construction.” Then Edgar noted, “He’s laughing.”

  Seven smiled in return.

  “Captain Shedrin, I’d wish to invite you and your crew to join us for some dinner tonight, but our submarine is occupying the only pen at Pacifica and I have no way to dock you. I’m truly sorry. I will sincerely miss our fellowship at dinner.”

  There was a protracted silence.

  “We are sorry as well, Dr. Seven. If nothing else, it would have been an honor to dine with the man who discovered the end of the
world as we know it. Nonetheless, we shall be on our way. Thank you for your hospitality, Dr. Seven. Perhaps we shall meet again.”

  “Please stay in touch, Captain Shedrin. I’ll transmit the frequency for a long range acoustic communications channel that will allow us to stay in contact.”

  “That will not be necessary, Dr. Seven. We already know the frequency and monitor it continuously,” Shedrin replied. Seven could almost sense his arrogant superiority bleed through Edgar’s translation.

  “Contact prop engaged. Contact engines in full reverse,” Connners said sharply. “She’s backing away now.”

  “Your evaluation, Twink?”

  “Now see here!” Spencer shouted from the door of his glass room. “His evaluation cannot possibly have any coherent meaning in this crisis!”

  “The crisis is over, Frank,” Seven responded. “Twink still has the con, remember?” Then he eyed the Master-At-Arms with a withering stare as they gripped Spencer by the arm and pulled him back inside.

  “My evaluation is that he came with intent to frighten and intimidate but left holding a business card with your name on it,” Twink replied with a sly grin.

  “You did well tonight, Twink. There’s a promotion in this for you.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. As of right now I’m signing off on your status as a full command watch stander in the Control Center.”

  “That’s awesome!”

  “Yep. Your work was nothing short of brilliant. Now you’ve got to teach me everything you know starting tomorrow morning.”

  “You mean this morning,” Serea stated and she drew him away.

  Seven glanced at his watch, shook his head and looked at Serea. “Now, just where were we?”

  “Aaron, what are you going to do with those guys?” she asked, her eyes shifting to the glass prison holding a steaming Spencer and sidekick Armstrong.

  Seven sighed. “Do I risk a resumption of our nocturnal interlude if I ask how you think your personnel mixing and matching is working out in real world conditions?”

  The look she returned answered his question in full.

  27

  Striker Legend had made it a point not to announce the launch of his black monstrosity into Hong Kong Harbor. Yet somehow the word got out anyway. Although it was a few minutes before two in the morning, the crowd around the boatyard was held back only by a virtual army of Chinese police and Striker’s own personal force. He could see that the situation around the yard was about to become unhinged. Like the hoards that must have descended upon Noah’s ark, now at least a quarter million desperate souls crushed the perimeter and the warning shots by the police were about to evolve into a full bloodbath.