Silent City

by G R Matthews

  It was also the moment that the sound from the first explosion propagated through the hull. Someone was shooting at us, them, the sub. Someone was shooting at the sub I was on. Elena turned away from the panel and started signalling to the people behind her.

  The red light steadied and the outer door began to open. I used the suit thrusters to move towards it and, as soon as the gap was wide enough, slipped out, into the dark ocean.

  I let the weight of the suit carry me down, away from the sub that was still powering forward. Another explosion and the concussion wave caught me, sent me spiralling. It was in that rolling over and over that I noticed the ocean wasn’t as dark as I had presumed.

  All around were the lights of small subs, large subs, the flashes of light that indicated the firing of rail guns and mini-torpedoes. There was a war going on, or a battle at least, and I was stuck in the middle of it. The one consolation, my warning had been heard. Base 1 was defending itself. They wouldn’t be concerned about me. Didn’t even know I was out here. Hell, they didn’t even know that the Silent City had been destroyed, all those folks were dead, or who was attacking them.

  I was on my own.

  As always.

  Chapter 34

  My solitude was not undisturbed.

  The waves of sound were not just noise. Not in water, not in the ocean. They had real force and the closer you were to an explosion, the more likely it was your eardrums would burst, blood vessels would rupture or, and I’d heard of it happening more than once, your heart would stop. Funny ideas of mortality the designers had, they did at least consider that if you were to die whilst donning a Fish-Suit your ears would be the best protected bits. Perhaps they thought your body would be identified by your earprints.

  Whatever it was they actually did, the suit protected your ears from sound waves. There was some sort of adaptive system that let most noises through, but dampened those that would harm your hearing. Ingenious stuff. And it meant that when the first large sub imploded, I felt it rather than heard it.

  I saw it too. A sudden darkness, darker than the deepest trench, and then a cascade, a fountain, an eruption of air. Gigantic bubbles racing through the ocean being chased by smaller ones. The largest didn’t make it far before imploding and forming millions of smaller bubbles. The other subs, the larger ones were rocked by the implosion, the smaller vessels were sent reeling through the ocean. I weighed much less than they did and was made to tumble, somersault and spin. The little thrusters gave up the battle pretty quickly and I tucked my arms in, clamped my legs together and tried to survive the ride.

  Oxyquid cushioned my head. The exoskeleton hardened and the visor splashed up warning after warning. I couldn’t read a single bloody one of them. The fact that they were red and flashing was enough.

  Over and over, round and round, up, down, spin, tumble, cartwheel, cavort, dance, jig. Pick your description. I closed my eyes and hoped.

  When I’d slowed enough, the whine of the thrusters intruded on my thoughts of impending death. The Nav window was the first one back on line, sensors picking up the sound and electrical emissions from the vessels in combat, triangulating it with the magnetic field and its own active sonar.

  My spin slowed, though my head kept going round at a thousand knots an hour. Dizzy, stomach fluttering and twisting, Oxyquid tasting of bile. I’ve never suffered from motion sickness, but right now I’d have killed for a scopolamine pill, or ten.

  Active sonar? What the fuck. My suit had decided that, in the midst of a battle between five, now four, large subs and the outer defences of Base 1, it would be a good idea to make as much noise at it could. Send out a signal, again and again, that told everyone where I was. It was unlikely that any of the subs were searching for me in particular. The munitions whizzing round the battlescape, those that had lost their target, would find that signal and home in, sure of an easy kill. I flicked the controls in the gloves and shut down the active component.

  It was too late. The Nav window showed a contact closing in. At this point, my instructor had told me, it was tempting to turn round and start blasting away, to take some aggressive action, to destroy your attacker. Well, he had said, good luck to you because all you’ll have is your sidearm and that won’t travel more than five feet in the water, and only if you throw it. I didn’t even have that.

  But, it was my suit, set up for me, and I knew how it worked. Two flicks, three screens and a deep breath. The suit went quiet. The heads up display went dark. The exo-ribs stopped helping and the joints relaxed. To all intents and purposes, the suit was dead. This is what the suit was designed to do, to be invisible and keep its user alive.

  Swimming in a Fish-Suit is not easy. In that regard, they are misnamed. It was the best I could do without the motors and I needed to be away from the last spot the contact had seen me at. The easiest direction was up. Natural buoyancy assisted and you could, therefore, rely just on your legs. Hold your arms by your side to maintain a streamlined shape and kick. I kicked like mad.

  I heard the contact, by the noise and speed of passage, a small sub, pass underneath. The temptation to turn on the motors was great but resistible. I carried on kicking.

  The battle went on around me. Lights still flashed in the darkness and concussion waves still battered the suit as I rose. I was going the wrong way. The best place for me was the sea bed, where I could hide amongst the rock formations, where I could skip from cover to cover. Where I could be ignored and make my escape.

  It is reassuring to be in control again and the motors restarted without a qualm. I sighed. As much as I could sigh with lungs full of Oxyquid. Reversing my motion, the motors took me down towards the sea floor. The display flashed up, then died, and came back. All good, so far, but I was now relying on second hand information. Whatever noise, signals and signs the suit could pick up, process and deliver to my eyes. If there was something else out there being stealthy, I wouldn’t see it. I’d also be a second or two behind reality. It took that long for the on-board computer to sort the confusion into information I could use.

  # # #

  The motors pushed me down through the water column. Not fast or loud, but that suited me. The lack of noise was my best defence. The computer continued to try and make sense of the battle raging around me. It was struggling.

  Big computers, those on large subs or in cities, found tracking the complex sounds of battles difficult. Many times, and certainly during the wars, attack groups had planned their runs beforehand and stuck to the plan, the courses, the speeds and firing solutions, above everything else. Those commanders who decided to deviate from the plans all too often caused chaos.

  The thing is, battles do not follow the plans laid down by commanders. Things change quickly, the situation is fluid. I didn’t have much of a plan, I was free to adapt.

  It came from nowhere and there was no chance to get out of the way. A thin fighter, engine pods on the side, torpedoes to either side of the canopy. A single pilot who looked as shocked as I did when the sub caught me square in the stomach and I folded over it. The visor of my Fish-Suit bounced off the pilot’s cockpit. He didn’t look very old, just scared.

  He pulled back on the controls, more in reflex than anything else and up we went. His sub was faster than my suit so I slapped my left hand down onto the hull and engaged the magnets. There was a solid clank that ran up my arm, through my neck and into my skull, as the glove secured the contact. Now that I had him, what was I going to do with him? The temptation to wave was strong.

  The pilot, shock wearing off, flipped the stick, sending the little sub into a roll. Compared the last time I was sent spinning, just a little while ago, this was nothing. The glove was not going to let go and I pushed some power to the elbow joint just to make sure it was stiff enough not to break my arm. And then back the other way, and I was so glad I’d shoved a little extra into the shoulder joint too.

  When it was clear I wasn’t going anywhere, he levelled off. It had to be clear to
him that I was no threat and that there were bigger fish in the sea to worry about. I had no idea what side he was on. Mind you, he didn’t know who I was.

  He kept it level for a moment as he checked his screens. It was almost possible to see the thought patterns go round in his head. He had a man stuck to his sub, increasing his noise presence in the ocean, and he had a battle to survive. He could pilot with just the sensors and screens, that’s what most did. Past a hundred meters down there was no light anyway, except that which the subs brought with them.

  His mistake was thinking I was no threat. It took me a moment to realise I could be. I gestured to him, getting his attention, and indicating that I was going to shift around, move into a position that brought some streamlining back to his sub. The pilot shook his head, in frustration I guessed, rather than telling me not. He didn’t have any choices.

  By reducing the power in the glove magnet I could stay attached and slide around the small sub. All the while, he did his best to ignore me. He was focused on his screens, managing his power levels, noise, his sonar, engines and everything else. Being in control of a combat sub during a battle was difficult and confusing. My Fish-Suit was difficult to use, but compared to a combat sub it was an abacus. I shifted the beads along the wires in two dimensions, he moved the beads between wires in four or five.

  As I moved, I sought out the bit of the sub I wanted. It would be near the canopy, just below it in fact. The glow from his canopy, low and subtle, was enough to illuminate my target. A small latch, a handle really, surrounded by warning signs. One quick tug on the handle and the canopy would pop open. Sadly, for the pilot inside, death would painful, but quick.

  Before I could carry out my plan, the torpedo next to me started spinning up. The small propeller at the rear of the long, thin bomb whirred. I felt, rather than heard, the two clicks as the clasps let go of the weapon which sped off into the dark. I couldn’t pick the resulting explosion, if there was one, from the rest of the noise. My suit sensors tracked the torpedo into the confusion, but even it could not tell me whether it hit its target. Or even what its target was.

  I gave the handle a pull. It rose out of its housing and then stopped. The canopy stayed closed. I tried again and again. It still did not open. Inside the cockpit, the pilot turned to face me, a look of fear and panic clear on his face. His hands flew over the keyboard, tapping at the keys with a speed that should have been impossible, searching through menus. Now that I could make out the language on his screens, I didn’t feel so bad about killing him. I couldn’t read a word of it.

  The handle wouldn’t budge on the next try or the one after. A single raised finger from the pilot indicated he had managed to lock me out. Opening the hatch whilst the sub was in the water and in motion was not advisable. Health and safety should have come to rescue once again. The general protocols insisted that a canopy could be opened by someone outside, in case of an accident and the need to recover the pilot.

  What he had done, was to override the hatch control and lock me out. That was fine. I had my own key. A few taps on the fingertip controls in the gloves and, on the top of my free hand, the mini-cutter sparked to life. The batteries would drain quickly, but long before they ran out I intended to be sat in his seat and piloting his sub back to Base 1.

  My visor darkened, protecting my eyes from the blistering blue white glare of the cutting flame. I pushed the hot blade into the hatch and started to move it left, then down, back to the right and up again. All the while, the pilot, oblivious of the threat and secure in the knowledge that I was a mere remora to his shark, kept the sub moving through the battle space. Twisting, turning, rolling, yawing, and every other move that his instructors had taught him. What he was dodging or trying to get behind, I had no idea. I didn’t see, couldn’t see, a thing.

  There was a pop and hiss of escaping air as the metal surrounding the hatch came away and the air within escaped. With access to the mechanism and wires inside it was the work of a moment to open the canopy.

  Chapter 35

  Another death to add to my tally. This one was as pretty as the last, as Keller’s. I did feel a little guilt this time. The pilot hadn’t done much to me, but his corporation had. It had killed everyone in the Silent City and had tried to kill me.

  There was a moment of fear on his face. Just a flash before it was replaced by pain and terror. I knew what happened to the human body at the bottom of the ocean, under pressure. I’d seen my crew die in just such a way and been unable to do anything about it. The memory made me realise I hadn’t had a drink in a while. I needed one now.

  Dark, cold, salt water would have rushed up his nose and forced its way into his mouth. A single, tiny gap would be all it would take for the water to find its way in. The air being crushed out of lungs by the pressure of the ocean would create that opening. All that liquid would fill his lungs. I could empathise with him, it’s what I did whenever I put this suit on.

  He was drowning, but it got worse. The sea water, under all the pressure from the water above, would invade any orifice. It would have forced its way into his ears and, as a result, burst his eardrums. With the way open, the water would have pushed further into skull.

  The water would have forced its way up his nostrils and then down his throat, overcoming the muscles designed to prevent drowning, the ones that reflex controls. The headache must have been incredible, but he couldn’t scream. You need air to scream. All he had was water.

  Mercifully, it didn’t take long for him to lose consciousness and, once he stopped twitching, I released him from his chair, pulling him from the sub. His body fell behind the moving sub as I settled into his seat.

  The controls and screens still worked. You didn’t build a vessel designed to work under, and surrounded, by water that would break down when a little bit got into the cockpit. The writing, labels and anything I actually wanted to read were in the language I couldn’t understand. That was fine. All I wanted to know was the location of the large sub that Elena was on and how many torpedoes I had left.

  The Nav screen, cross linked with the sonar, suggested a large contact some distance away and, apparently, moving away from the battle space. A quick visual check showed one torpedo left on the sub.

  A push on the rudder pedal and my new sub started to turn towards the marker on the screen. In my hand, the joystick shook a little, no doubt resulting from the absence of a canopy. I pulled back a little and sped up the turn, raising the nose and pointing it towards my target. The throttle, I pushed forward to its maximum speed. This was dangerous. Added speed meant more motor noise, more noise from the propeller, more noise from the rattling and shaking of the damaged sub.

  I kept my eyes glued to the Nav and sonar screen. The fire control, the trigger, below the first finger of my right hand would only take a little squeeze to arm and send the torpedo on its way. My thumb, on the top of the joystick, had access to the counter-measures, really just simple canisters that were shot away from the sub and made a lot of noise. The aim was to confuse any sonar locks of enemy vessels or, worse, their torpedoes.

  Red flashes on the screen indicated that other contacts were closing on my sub. I was probably the noisiest thing in the ocean bar a passing whale in heat. In the ocean you are either silent or very loud, there is no middle ground, and though my training cried out for stealth, I went with cacophony.

  One, two, three, canisters flew off from the sub. Immediately, they began to spin, to emanate low frequency and high frequency noise, gas under immense pressure was released in a continuous stream of bubbles, mimicking the cavitation of the propeller. I kept my course true and ignored the incoming contacts.

  Gauging the sonar readings, I was coming up behind my target. Its propellers would mask my approach, but the noise from my attackers might alert them to something. Every ten or so seconds, I fired off another canister. Hiding myself in the confusion of noise.

  A concussive wave hit my sub. The Oxyquid did its job and cushioned the blow
, but the near miss sent my sub into a spin. I fought with the controls, righting the sub and setting it back on course.

  Within a minute, maybe less, my torpedo would be in range. I sucked in a deep lungful of life preserving liquid and focused my gaze on the screen, firing off another canister. Just in case.

  The contact grew larger on the screen. As did a collection of news ones, closing in from either side. I pushed the throttle as hard as I could, dragging every knot possible from the little sub’s engines. The whine behind me increased and red lights began to flash on the console.

  I kept going, employing tiny adjustments to ensure I stayed on an intercept course. All around the little gold triangle that represented my sub on the screen, the red dots that indicated all the other contacts were starting to crowd the screen. At least that portion of it that surrounded me. My target, the largest contact, was almost in firing range.

  One torpedo, especially a little one like the one on this sub, wouldn’t be enough to destroy Elena’s sub. I knew that. It might be enough to slow it down though, to disable it a little and give me the chance to do something else. During the war, people feared Fish-Suit troops. Maybe it was time they did again.

  Her sub was finally in range. Revenge tasted, well it tasted of Oxyquid at the moment, but once I was back home it would taste of beer and whiskey. I needed a drink now. A first squeeze of the trigger and the torpedo next to me began to spin up, locking on to large submarine. The screen flashed as the contacts around me multiplied. They’d clearly determined I was threat and had fired their own torpedoes, hoping to head off my attack.

  I thumbed off two more canisters from my dwindling supply and continued to hold down the trigger. Hopefully the countermeasures would distract a few, if it not most, of the torpedoes heading my way. There was jolt from the left side of my sub as the torpedo launched.