Deadly Apparition

by G. Ernest Smith

  “I think they did,” said Castillo. “We’ll know shortly. Engine room, make turns for three knots. Sonar, deploy the TB-29. Let’s listen.”

  “Aye, sir. Making turns for three knots.”

  “Aye, sir. Deploying TB-29.”

  The TB-29 was a state-of-the-art thin towed sonar array which was extremely sensitive. It would quickly tell them if there was anyone within a hundred miles.

  After the chaotic ruckus had stopped, the Kansas slowly emerged from her hiding place and began listening for other ships with her towed array, but all she could pick up were the ships heading away, trailing the Ambush and Connecticut.

  “Good!” said Castillo. “Let’s get some ventilation going in here. It’s stuffy.” Immediately a quiet whir started and cool fresh air began to flood in from overhead vents. “Navigator, plot us a course for the Apparition test area.”

  “Aye, sir. Plotting a course to test area,” replied Lieutenant Maria Guerrero.

  “I’m hungry,” said Castillo and then with a whimsical tone in his voice, “Where would you ladies like to go for lunch.”

  They exchanged puzzled glances.

  Castillo picked up his receiver, turned a dial and said into it, “Jonesy, why don’t you announce lunch for our guests.”

  After a delay a voice came from the overhead speakers:

  “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, for lunch today the Jayhawk bistro will be featuring New York style pepperoni pizza made with a special homemade marinara and a sourdough crust. This will be served with a tangy Greek salad made with feta cheese, fresh tomatoes and green peppers, onions, black olives and your choice of dressing. Or you may prefer our homemade minestrone and lasagna topped with cheese tortelinni, meat sauce and mozzarella cheese. Also available will be our fabulous garlic knots topped with olive oil, fresh garlic and Parmesan cheese. Lunch will begin at 1100 hours. Thank you.”

  Susan Lambert’s eyebrows shot up. “Sounds great!”

  “Yes!” agreed McConnell.

  “We have pretty good food here,” said Castillo.

  “But,” said Taylor, “I think Jonesy is showing off a little for the civilians.”

  “Could be,” admitted Castillo.

  • • •

  Admiral Baynes clapped his hands as he saw the small ships on the big screen moving off to the north. “They fell for it!”

  The admirals laughed and smiled all around, nodding to each other. Baynes picked up a handset mounted on his chair and spoke into it. “Call Apparition 2 and tell them Kansas is clear and on her way. She’ll rendezvous with them sometime today in the test area.”

  Apparition 2 was actually the British research vessel Balthazar on loan to the British Royal Navy from the National Oceanographic Society based out of Edinburgh. She had been anchored in a remote Scottish cove for two weeks preparing for the Apparition test. She was a 600 foot white trawler with the NOS crest on her sides, a blue codfish with a crossed trident and quill pen behind it. She looked like any other research vessel with a large stack, several large booms and two satellite dishes. Beneath her hull however, were some very highly specialized sensors and cameras.

  The Balthazar crew had established a cover story of doing survey work on plankton in the area. They had even gone so far as to hire local villagers to get plankton samples for them.

  The young sonar operator aboard the Balthazar was bored as he stood his watch. He was reading an article on his iPad and only paying attention to the displays peripherally. That’s why he jumped when a voice came from the console speaker. The voice said, “Apparition 2, this is Kansas checking in.”

  He turned his selector to the Gertie and said, “Jesus, you guys are spooky quiet! I didn’t hear a damn thing!”

  “We’re not called the noisy service, you know.”

  Kansas had silently approached the Balthazar and stopped and gone to station-keeping at a depth of 100 feet and a distance of 600 feet.

  “I know.” He contacted the captain of the Balthazar, and he and Castillo talked briefly about when they would start tests tomorrow.

  That evening the Kansas crew dined on beef wellington, steamed broccoli, glazed carrots, corn chowder, Caesar salad and the chef’s signature garlic cheese bread. For dessert there was apple cobbler.

  The following morning after a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs and for those watching their weight, bagels and low fat cream cheese, the Kansas crew got ready for the first Apparition test.

  The air seemed to be charged with the angst of anticipation. Castillo sat in his command chair in the control room. He ordered all ship’s alarms be tested first to make sure all ship’s hazardous warning systems were working properly. Fire, chemical, nuclear, collision. All were working perfectly. The weapons stations to his left had all been taken over by the Apparition test crew, the workstations there having been reprogrammed to perform test monitor functions. Susan Lambert was sitting at the first weapons station with a notebook in her lap, speaking into her headset. She was on the line with the Apparition control center in Glasgow and the Apparition 2 ship and her technicians on board. Next to her was Crystal McConnell also with a notebook and a headset. She seemed to be listening to Lambert with a laser-like focus. There were two more testers next to her. In the back of the control room were the two British officers, observing. To Castillo’s right was the sonar operators and Mason Taylor, who looked preoccupied. This is pretty much out of my hands now, thought Castillo. He had taken Kansas down to 150 feet, activated station-keeping and then kicked back. The Navy is just along for the ride at this point. He tried to hear what Susan was saying.

  “So…” said Lambert, “do you have the amendment to steps 5 point 2 and 6 point 3? Good. And we have a replacement for step 7…substeps 4 through 8. Okay…okay…but we can’t do that today. Tomorrow, yes. We ran into an initialization problem.”

  It was boring! Castillo looked at the large screen in front of the room. It had an image of Kansas on it. It was feed from a live underwater camera on the Balthazar. Castillo reached down to his small control screen built into his chair arm. He switched the feed to another camera. Kansas was ringed with cameras. Some were mounted on the Balthazar and some were on buoys. They showed Kansas from every angle, even from above and below. Castillo finally switched to Kansas’s own cameras on her photonics mast. He could see the hull of the Balthazar and on other cameras the bottoms of the sensor buoys as they bobbed in the water.

  Finally Lambert said, “Okay, let’s do this! Everybody report in.”

  Castillo could see messages streaming across the screens before Lambert and McConnell. Blue green phosphorescence flickered across their features. McConnell typed quickly and in spurts on her keyboard.

  Lambert said, “Ready for stage 1. Initiate!”

  More messages scrolled on Lambert’s screen. It looked like alphabet soup to Castillo.

  SZ167-1 charging…SZ167-2 charging…TT78388-code 2398…SZ167-1 37%…SZ167-2 32%…TT37-9-code 2322…SZ167-1 55%…SZ167-2 51%…TT877751…SZ167-1 83%…SZ167-2 79%…TT5599-code 7878…SZ167-1 100%…SZ167-2 100%

  “Stage 1 complete,” said Lambert. “Ready for stage 2. Initiate!”

  More alphabet soup messages, observed Castillo.

  KMM129 phase 1 regression in progress…SS7171…34SS-2 detector initializing…SS7172…HUF2 amplifier initializing…ST4838-C…3…2..1…KMM129 regression complete…

  “Stage 2 complete,” intoned Lambert. “Okay, we’re almost there, folks. Power up the emitter arrays.”

  EMIT22-3 beginning induction…GH1004…GH1005…GH1011…Error 1447 - Modal anomaly…terminating…

  “Shit,” sighed Lambert. Castillo could tell by the consternation on her face this was not good. “What happened, Norm?” She pulled at the skin under her chin. “Can you reset?” McConnell picked up a pen and began writing. Then her fingers flew over her keyboard throwing words onto the screen, pen dangling from her mouth. Lambert listened intently, then she sat back and said, “Okay, everybody. We have an
emitter problem. Just stand by and let Norm take a look at it. We may not be terminated yet.”

  Lambert turned and looked at Castillo, shrugged. Castillo returned the shrug. Nothing to do but wait. “You’re used to this, aren’t you?” said Castillo.

  “There’s always something,” said Lambert. “I’ve never had a test go flawlessly. And I expected trouble on Apparition but that’s because of the complexity of this thing. We have subsystems and processors and networks and circuits and there’s so much connectivity and so much critical dependency, if there’s so much as a hiccup anywhere, it’s going to affect us. This is brand new cutting edge technology here. Once all the kinks are worked out of it, it’ll be a stable reliable system, but right now…”

  Castillo shifted and found Taylor staring at Lambert with a curious expression. Something was on his mind, and knowing him like he did, Castillo was sure he would get an earful sooner or later. He turned to face Lambert again, but she was talking on her headset.

  “Okay…okay…want to try it again? Alright everybody. We’re going to try it again. Start where we left off. Power up emitters, now.”

  Castillo saw McConnell cross her fingers on both hands. Messages once again scrolled across Lambert’s screen:

  EMIT22-3 beginning induction…GH1004…GH1005…GH1011…initializing accumulator…startup successful…EMIT22-2 beginning induction…GH1055…GH1024…GH1012…initializing accumulator…startup successful…EMIT22-1 beginning induction …GH1031…GH1044…GH1013 …initializing accumulator…startup successful

  “Woo hoo!” said Lambert. “I think we’re ready!” She wiped both hands on her slacks and exhaled loudly and glanced at Castillo, smiling. “Okay, Don. You’ve got the switch.”

  Castillo nodded, picked up his receiver, and when he talked, his voice was heard throughout the ship.

  “Attention, all hands! Apparition will be activated in 3…2…1…mark!”

  At the word mark, Lambert hit a key on her keyboard and at first nothing happened, then a sensation of pins and needles washed over everybody. Some squirmed at the discomfort. Then abruptly the deck fell away like a large airliner encountering wind shear. McConnell screamed and several men swore as coffee cups, notebooks and pens hit the deck. From the sound of the thuds, Castillo knew that several bodies had hit the deck too: people caught by surprise by the sudden deck plunge. It took a few seconds for Castillo to recover and get his breath back. Everywhere he turned he saw panicked faces.

  Mason Taylor was one of those who had fallen. “Christ! What happened?” he said regaining his feet.

  “I don’t know,” said Lambert.

  “I imagine,” said Castillo, “that was the result of several feet of sea water under the boat going through molecular hypercompression. It probably creates a void under us for just a few milliseconds.” He picked up his receiver and addressed the crew again from the overheads:

  “My apologies, folks. That caught us off guard. Please, report to the infirmary if you have any injuries and assess all areas for any damage and report it to damage control.”

  The forward view from the photonics cameras suddenly caught Castillo’s eye. A pale shimmering blue iridescent veil was in front of the ship. It was incredible! He cycled the view through every camera and it was the same. A pale iridescent sphere was surrounding the boat. It had to be about 400 feet in diameter. He wanted badly to see what how it looked from Balthazar, but there was no communication while the sphere was up. Nothing penetrated it. Castillo felt very queasy and the pins and needles over his skin had turned to flame and seemed to be getting worse.

  “My skin feels like it’s on fire,” said Taylor scowling.

  “Mine too,” said Lambert. “Alright, we’ve proven that it works. Lets turn it off now.”

  “Wait,” said Castillo. He picked up his receiver again and made another announcement:

  “Okay, folks. We’re going to deactivate the Apparition system now and we’re likely to get a reverse effect from the one we got the first time. My suggestion is to brace your backs against a bulkhead or lay flat on the deck to avoid injury.”

  He looked at Lambert, and when she gave him the thumbs up, he said into his receiver:

  “Apparition deactivation in 3…2…1…mark.”

  At the word mark Lambert hit a key on her keyboard and after a short delay the deck suddenly heaved upward about 3 feet. McConnell screamed again and there was more cursing and muttering. Castillo felt as if his spine had been compressed from the jolt but he was otherwise okay. He shifted to look at Taylor, but he was gone! Then he saw him laying on his back on the deck beside him, smiling.

  “I was ready this time,” he chuckled.

  “You were!”

  They reestablished communications with the Apparition control center and Balthazar. Castillo was able to see a replay of what Balthazar saw with her underwater cameras. It was dreamlike image of a pale blue shimmering sphere. One second they were looking at a portside profile of Kansas and the next the Apparition sphere. The sphere activation created quite a bit of turbulence in the water. Surface cameras showed agitated waves racing across the cove, lapping onto the far shore and rocking Balthazar gently. When the sphere was deactivated, more turbulence.

  They still had more testing to do. The test team activated Apparition again, this time with a different staging protocol, just to test different emitters to see which ones were more efficient. The crew was ready for the plunging and heaving of the deck this time. The third test was an effort to see how long the sphere could be sustained using Kansas’s power. They were able to keep the sphere activated for six minutes, sixteen seconds before the heat exchanger began overheating. It was a very uncomfortable test because the flaming skin phenomenon turned to first degree burn and many experienced feelings of nausea.

  After the third Apparition test it was 1134 hours, so they broke for lunch, but with all the upheaval of the morning, not many ate. There was a run on peptic aids from the infirmary.

  When it was time to begin testing again, Castillo took his command chair and said, “I feel like I’ve been on a roller coaster all morning.”

  “So do I,” said Taylor, collapsing into a watch chair. “How many more of these do we have to do today?”

  “Three more,” replied Lambert. “What page are we on, Crystal?”

  “Uh…23, I think,” replied McConnell, flipping pages in the notebook on her lap.

  Castillo thought she looked pale. On the next test they were testing a gradual charging of reactor plates after the accelerators were started in an effort to control the force of the compression. It failed utterly! The Apparition sphere never activated and white smoke issued from the stage 1 accelerator, sending a foul acrid stench throughout the boat. It took two hours to cleanse the air, assure that there was no fire and to recertify that the accelerator was healthy.

  When they were ready to test again, Castillo took his place in the control room again. He caught the dark glare from Taylor.

  “Okay,” said Lambert. “In this test we are going to try and adjust the diameter of the sphere after it’s activated. We’re on page 34 of the test plan.”

  Everyone braced for the activation, knowing what to expect now. McConnell no longer screamed when the deck dropped away. It was more of a yip.

  “Gain adjustment beginning now,” said Lambert.

  Castillo watched the view from the photonics mast cameras. There didn’t seem to be any change. He wondered what it should look like. Would they be able to see any difference? Would they…something was happening, but it was happening to him. His insides were rumbling…or something. He could feel waves of nausea washing over him. It got stronger with each wave. He suddenly stood up and a cramp hit him deep in his intestines and doubled him over…like a giant hand had gripped his insides. He turned to Taylor and his face was registering distress as well. He was holding his stomach and grimmacing. Suddenly, Castillo was sure he was going to evacuate his bowels. He quickly sat down before it could happen.r />
  “Shit!” screamed one of the sonar operators.

  “Cut it off!” screamed Castillo to Lambert.

  Lambert nodded, hit a key on her keyboard, the deck heaved upwards and the discomfort gradually subsided. Castillo had fought against emptying his bowels and he could tell from the aroma in the room, someone had lost that fight. He picked up his receiver and addressed the crew:

  Attention crew, anyone who needs to leave your station to…freshen up may do so.

  The control room almost emptied, and men began to stack up outside the head like airliners on approach to Atlanta.

  Castillo turned to Lambert and said, “Susan, could I see you in my stateroom immediately!”

  Chapter 4

  “Explain again in simple words what happened?” said Castillo, struggling to understand what had happened during the last test. He had a slight headache and his body was aching as if he’d been bull riding all day. Crowded into his stateroom was Mason Taylor, Susan Lambert, Crystal McConnell and Norm Bloomberg. Norm was the obese man Castillo had noticed earlier blocking the passageway. Castillo was sizing him up. The man was Apparition’s head engineer and obviously important to the project. In fact he seemed to be the only one with any explanation of what had happened. He was of average height, but he had to weigh close to 400 pounds, thought Castillo. His blue denim shirt was half untucked, his huge belly lapped over his belt and his jeans stretched tight over his tree trunk legs. He had thick lenses in his black-rimmed glasses, long thinning black hair that covered the back of his neck like a hat flap and wore a black goatee on his chin. Well, on his first chin anyway. He stood before Castillo uneasily swaying rhythmically like a caged hippo.

  “In NASA’s early research,” said Bloomberg, “they determined that there was a resonant ultrasonic frequency for every muscle in the human body. Each muscle can be contracted with an ultrasonic transponder tuned to its resonant frequency. Unfortunately, we accidentally hit the frequency today for the male bowel.”