Wattenbarger then rolled off Warren ’s back and onto the sand, propping himself up onto his hands. “Okay, okay, Warren you win. But so do we. We’re gonna compromise on this.”
Warren could see Wattenbarger’s mind racing, which immediately relaxed him. When Wattenbarger’s mind raced, something good usually happened.
“What?” he asked abruptly. “What?”
“What?” Charles echoed.
“Okay, here’s the deal. You don’t split your rations. Charles and I share ours with Mel and the kid. We split the rations just as we originally planned in the same amounts on the same schedule, so that we all run out at the same time. It’s just as we planned, no different. You get your whole ration and we won’t care, right Charles?”
Charles’ face masked a deep uncertainty, his eyes flashed about as he thought of the ramifications, but he nodded anyway. “Uh… yeah, ok, right!”
“No way; not acceptable. I don’t accept your compromise!” Warren responded.
“Why not?” Wattenbarger asked with a mounting anger, now springing to his feet and facing Warren . “It doesn’t affect you! You get all your shares and it doesn’t affect you in any way at all!”
“I know what you’re up to,” Warren responded with clear suspicion. “One: you think I’ll change my mind after I get to know the woman and the kid. That I’ll soften over time and change my mind. And two: you want the woman for yourself.”
Wattenbarger instantly exploded into involuntary laughter. “What? What? You really think all that? You’re one sick sonofa…”
“Wait, he may just be right…” Charles mused, scratching his unshaven chin.
“What? How can you actually go along with this…” Wattenbarger asked, his smile now faded.
“About the woman… he may be right,” Charles said again. “I hear stories all the time about people in this kind of situation fighting over a woman.”
Wattenbarger looked as if he could feel the situation deteriorate all about him. In a near panic, he responded, “Alright then, fine. Mel and I will go out and find ourselves a new shelter tonight.”
“Go ahead,” Warren responded. “But all my rations stay right here.”
“That’s just nuts. It’s just crazy talk,” Charles said in the general direction of the pair of men. “Both of you should just stop and listen to yourselves for a minute. See – the woman has already started trouble between us.”
Wattenbarger’s eyes swept the huge chamber. “Where’s Mel?” he asked in a startled voice. “She’s gone!”
“Oh crap, she’s gone!” Charles echoed.
“I’m not goin’ back into that outer cave and lookin’ for her,” Warren responded sternly as Wattenbarger and Charles immediately darted for the opening.
“Suit yourself,” Charles replied as he slid between the rock wall and into the outer cave.
Warren stood and observed the empty cave, then said, “Dammit!” and darted off to follow.
Again, the darkness of the outer vestibule arrested his capacity to see. He could hear the voices of Charles and Wattenbarger shouting, “Mel! Mel!” and see the frantic path of Wattenbarger’s penlight flashing off the cavern walls. Then, without warning, the entire front cover to the opening of their cave collapsed outward and exposed the full afternoon sunlight as a brilliant shaft of light and invisible radiation poured into the cave. As the wall of branches fell outside, Warren could see the woman clutching her child race out into the sunlight.
There was a momentary silence. Warren ’s eyes were quickly adjusting to the brilliance of the light as he looked to Wattenbarger and Charles, both flat against the far wall within the shield of the cave’s greatest safety. They looked at one another with raw horror etched on their faces.
“She’s gone! She’s gone! Let her go, for God’s sake!” Warren pleaded, but he could clearly see in Wattenbarger’s expression that he was going to follow her out into the deadly sunlight. “No, Dale! Don’t do it! Please, think, think, about what you’re doing!” Warren pleaded.
But his pleas fell on deaf ears. As if leaping off a towering cliff, Wattenbarger’s face assumed the rigidity of its purpose. He looked away from Warren , braced himself against the deadly light, pushed off with his fingers and raced as fast as he could run toward the radiance of the opening.
In shock, Warren looked to Charles, who just shook his head, closed his eyes, and then sprinted off to follow. Warren stood alone in the cave for just two seconds more.
“You can be a colossal ass sometimes, you know that?” he asked himself aloud. Then he slowly shook his head, dropped his tense shoulders, sighed deeply and relaxed. With calm resolve he squinted his eyes, raised his right hand against the brilliance of the sun, and walked slowly outside into the full assault of the quantum storm.
41
With the help of Baker’s little acoustic robots scanning from outside the Phoenix, the search for Dr. Adams’ secreted communications devices turned up three likely candidates – three identical black boxes stuck with magnets to the inside of the Phoenix’s hull in out-of-the-way places, in separate, lower compartments of the towering platform.
“What the hell are those?” Baker asked as they were handed to him by his profusely perspiring older brother.
“It’s Adams’ mischief, I suspect,” Legend responded. “I need some kinda analysis, stat,” he said in an animated voice. Then he paused and added excitedly, “No. Forget that, there’s no time for that…
“Sam, Travis, we’re gonna have to short change our atmospherics and submerge as soon as you can get a green board!” Legend roared into his personal radio. “Get to the bridge and let’s get this pig wet. And don’t stop to piss; I’ve got to have green water over my deck in less than 10 minutes. Hurry up!”
“Is this General Quarters, Boss?” came Travis’ voice over the little handheld radio.
“Yes, yes, it’s General Quarters, so move it!”
“See Boss, I told you we needed to fix the General Quarters alarm a week ago, and you said…”
“Travis, save it for a better time – and move!”
“You got it, Boss,” he answered as he turned and ran out at top speed.
“What’s up, Bro?” Baker asked, not yet given into the excitement.
“I told you the vermin wasn’t bluffing. Those little toys are either acoustic homers or I’m Adolph Coors. He’s been callin’ home for some undetermined period and we’ve got to go deep right now and get safe.
“You need to get some more bots deployed like right now; there’s not a minute to loose! If there’s a Chicom sub within 100 miles, he’s probably got our address and phone number by now for sure!”
“Roger that!” Baker responded with new energy, eyeing the devices with renewed interest. “I wonder how these little beasties work.”
“Later, for heaven’s sake, later!” Legend shot over his shoulder as he headed outside the compartment. “Sweep the platform for more noise from the outside. We can’t afford to miss even one of these little bastards.”
“Roger. I’m on it!” he responded and followed Legend outside the compartment and into the bowels of the Phoenix , both running at top speed in opposite directions.
gh
“Sir, we have lost the acoustic beacons,” the Chinese sonarman said smartly from his console jammed in between two banks of hydraulic valve racks.
Captain Luan heard the words and just blinked slowly, his intellect focused outside the submarine and calculating his strategy in the three dimensional space he would never see except by his mind, in sonar traces and his carefully honed and trained instincts.
“Sir, we have lost the acoustic beacons,” the crewman repeated again.
“Yes, yes, I heard you,” Captain Luan responded, his eyes still focused outside. “Navigator, do you have a fix on the last known position of the beacons?”
“Yes, sir, a surface contact at 42 nautical miles, 065 true.”
“Sonarman, any other acoustic signatures
? Any prop noise, other machinery?”
“No prop noise, sir, but a lot of unidentified sounds I can’t quite make out. The target was drifting on the surface with the prevailing current. There isn’t much data for any significant analysis except for a tight correlation with what we had recorded for ARA52, but, obviously that cannot be correct.”
Luan’s still unfocused eyes widened perceptibly. “That is impossible,” he whispered to himself. “… or is it? Reduce your speed to one third… no, wait, one half. All engines to one half. Come to 040. Make your depth 25 meters and rig the boat for turbulence. Sonarman, at what distance from the DR target can you paint a resolvable target?”
“Under these conditions, sir, it’s hard to say, but I’d get a fairly bright return inside 3 kilometers.”
“No! I said resolvable target, not a high resolution photograph!”
“In this storm, five kilometers, no more,” the crewmember responded meekly.
“Very well,” Luan replied, his eyes narrowing, still unfocused, still painting the mental image of his prey in his mind. “Navigator, bring the boat to within five kilometers at this heading, DR the target to that rendezvous based on charted set and drift, then we shall begin our search.”
Luan quietly reasoned that if it were the ARA52 floating with the current under no power, they would easily find it, destroy it and be done in time for lunch and a nap at a comfortable depth beneath the raging storms above. As far as Dr. Adams was concerned, he would just have to take his chances with the rest of the American flotsam and Luan certainly did not want him on his boat. But it really didn’t matter. Luan determined that he was about to blow whatever it was out of the water, no matter what it was. As far as he was concerned, this was simply a crew training exercise and nothing more.
gh
“Baker, are your ROVs deployed?” Legend asked in a feverish voice. “Sam, Lance, Travis, why haven’t we begun to submerge yet? What’s the hold up?”
They were all assembled in the Phoenix ’s control room, a small but efficient space just barely large enough to hold six seated positions, each with their own console and bank of switches and single keyboard for individual operations. Mounted on the front wall was a wide, six foot color monitor onto which Legend could chose to display any number of images he wished.
“ROVs deployed. A sonic ROV, SROV-16, is surveying the ship. No noise makers I can find,” Baker responded.
“Got a green board; ready to pull the plug, Boss,” Sam responded.
“Go for it! What are you waitin’ around for?” Legend shouted.
“Need a depth command, sir,” Travis retorted.
“I need 100 feet over the deck; I told you that before.”
“No you didn’t…”
“Just do it!” Legend shouted, slamming his fist down on the console top.
“Flooding all tanks!” Sam exclaimed.
“Manage your displacement volume; we can’t afford to sound like the world’s biggest toilet on the way down!”
“Aye, got it boss,” Sam responded.
Legend could feel the platform literally brace itself against the continual swells as it began to flood its lowest tanks and submerge. In minutes, he could feel the influence of the waves noticeably subside as the Phoenix settled deeper and deeper under the North Pacific Ocean’s brutal, storm-tossed surface.
“Slow the descent, Sam,” Legend coached. “I don’t want to overshoot.”
“Got it.”
“Report when you’re at depth.”
Seven minutes later, Sam announced, “We’re at depth, Bossman. Holding at 100 feet over the deck.”
Legend’s eyes shot to the status board. All the green lights were holding. He was afraid for just an instant that in all the activity, they may have forgotten something.
“Baker, where are your bots?”
“Already on station, Striker.”
“Good. Are you detecting any noise from any direction?”
“Negative, just our own acoustics.”
“Fine, we need to get rid of that! Let’s go ahead and project an environment,” Legend responded.
“What’s your pleasure?” Baker said proudly as he sat upright, laced his fingers together and popped his knuckles before poising his hands over his keyboard.
Legend thought about the possibilities. The little SROVs could literally paint any sonar image they wished in a 360 arc around the platform, rendering them invisible to another listening device. They could also intercept an incoming sonar wave and interfere with its energy and redirect a new image in many optional shapes and densities, effectively masking their identity.
“For the passive sound, I want to mask with a school of squid. Then give me a barrier thermocline for the active response,” Legend responded, referring to a layering of the ocean environment caused by sharp temperature differences. These reflected sonar waves in radically different patterns, but ones clearly recognized by sonar operators.
“Good choice,” Baker replied, his fingers dancing on the keys before him.
Ten minutes later, Baker looked concerned. “Striker, I believe your concerns were fully justified. I have an acoustic contact triangulated at making a direct approach.”
Legend’s face froze. “Distance? Can you make out a distance?”
“Wait, I’ve got to get bot 11 into a better position,” Baker responded, using a term for his underwater robots he had coined that was easier to say than ROV.
Two minutes later, he said, “Got it, still incoming at 31 miles. It’s coming straight for us!”
“And your acoustic shields are still working?” Legend asked.
“Yes, of course.”
“Then how can they be targeting us?”
“They’re probably targeting the dead reckoning position from the last location of the homing device.”
Legend thought hard, then said, “Baker, call in your most expendable bot and hurry, we won’t have much time for this!”
“I don’t have any expendable bots!”
“It’s either one ROV or all of us, and we don’t have time to argue the choice!”
“I’m bringing it in right now,” Baker responded quickly but with an obvious sense of annoyance. “I’m going to use one of the SROVs, the one nearest the lock - number eight…”
“Travis, take this black box down to the lower docking bay and…”
“No, I’ll do it; leave Travis here to help you,” said Stevie Wonder walking into the control center, looking several shades better than death. It was apparent that the descent and subsequent easier ride had eased his sickness significantly.
“Fine,” Legend responded. “When the ROV docks, carefully cycle the lock so you don’t flood us and attach this little box to the ROVs top pane,” he said, handing one of Dr. Adams’ acoustic homing devices to Wonder.
“How am I gonna do that? With duct tape?” Wonder asked, picking the odd shaped black box up and holding it out as if was a Plague infested rat.
“It’s a magnet. It’ll stick itself. Your ROV is steel plate, right?” Legend asked Baker.
“Only the lateral fins…”
“Stevie, hurry this up; we don’t have any margins here!”
But Wonder needed no more encouragement and sprang out of the room like a man on a serious mission.
Legend’s brow and lip were beaded with sweat. “Sam, shut down every system we have, all of ‘em except control power. No more talk above a whisper – total silence. One cough, one sneeze, and we’re dead!”
Legend thought hard about their situation. They had no maneuvering power whatsoever; they were floating in the current. The only two advantages they had were Baker’s acoustic bots and the suspicion that if the Chinese were looking for them specifically, they would not know the Phoenix was capable of submerging.
“Baker, how much time till they reach us?” Legend whispered through clinched teeth.
“It looks like about fifty minutes, give or take,” he responded. “And they’
re homing right in on us. At this rate, the nose of that sub is gonna be in this very space in less than an hour.”
“Do you think they can actually see us?” Legend asked.
“Naw, I don’t think so. If they knew we were really here, I believe they’d be approaching at a faster clip. I think they have their strong suspicion, but I also have full faith that the bots are painting the picture I designed them to paint.”
Legend sighed and sat back in his seat, his eyes glancing to the large screen before them. The ventilation fans had stopped their comforting hum. The room was quiet; the air was growing stuffy already and the tiny dots on the screen showed trouble was not far away and closing fast. Legend was totally unconvinced that they would live to see another hour.
42
From the very first moment Lew Warren set foot outside Miller’s Cave, he recognized that his chances for survival had just precipitously dropped along with the only other four human beings he knew to be alive on earth. He also realized that if any of them were to survive, he would have to work fast – very fast.
The sheer sight of day at the peak of the storm arrested his vision, even as his feet hurried along the worn pathway outside the cave. The idea of being exposed and unprotected under the deadly sun during the most intense moments of the quantum storm was an event that he in no way thought he would encounter in his life. He never expected to view the sunlight directly again. And yet, here he was, trekking quickly along a mountain path in the sun’s direct line of fire which had killed countless billions of his fellow humans.
“Dale! Charles! Stop, for God’s sake, stop!” he shouted after them as they ran at full speed around a boulder along the path leading to Concharty Mountain ’s eastern crest.
Warren saw the world as he had never seen it before – in the brilliant light of day – utterly lifeless. It was an unexpected sight. He had long imagined that the view would be one of deep winter, but it was not. It was a morbid scene of total, complete, brilliantly illuminated death unlike any winter in the planet’s history. Never during any single era of geologic time – not in countless eons and epochs of planetary passages - had the earth ever witnessed such complete and total destruction as this.
Quantum Storms - Aaron Seven Page 33
