A Crooked Brow (5346 words)
Author: Anorrack
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INCIDENT 07/1993/ISHMAEL/475
A stiff wind rips down the Bering Sea into the North Pacific, bearing biting cold air from the Arctic. The wind stirs the chop, large waves rolling across the ocean, black as obsidian glass. The only color on the horizon between gray sky and black sea is the white foam, frothing at the crest of each wave.
Plowing through the chop, the Coast Guard Cutter Munro's keel slices through the water, the orange stripe down the side blazes in the monochrome vista. Patrolling along the maritime boundary, its dark gun barrels glower ominously on their mounts, as if just biding their time.
A few deckhands scurry across the deck and forecastle, wearing bright orange rain gear to ward off the chill; most hunker down in the ship waiting for the heavens to open, and whatever it brings with it.
Captain Zachary Jackson, acting commander of the Munro, is in the bridge, ever so slightly leaning with the roll and pitch of the ship as it stately chugs through the gale.
“Radio contact?”
The petty officer doesn’t look up from his station. “Chinese trawler Zheng Zhilong, registered to the Jade Rabbit Innovations Company.”
“Is it clean?”
“Officially, the company doesn’t even exist. At least not on our records, anyways. And the ship matches the description of the vessel smuggling illicit goods into Dutch Harbor.” As the largest fishing port of the United States, Dutch Harbor — part of the port city of Unalaska — receives international traffic all day, every day, rain or shine, the whole year. Illicit cargo shipped there is not uncommon. Carried by plane or ship to Anchorage, contraband is either distributed within Alaska itself or forwarded to the Lower 48.
Jackson nods silently, as if the ensign has come to the same conclusion he has.
“Tell the crew and the Zhilong to prepare for boarding. I’ll call it in.”
T+0m: Coast Guard cutter makes contact with civilian vessel, requesting permission to board as part of a standard drug sweep, simultaneously reporting incident to USCG Base Kodiak.
No response. The radio operator hails them again, but the Zhilong remains silent. The broadcast system and the horn accomplish much the same. The dingy vessel merely increases in speed, staying constant in its heading towards Dutch. The Munro matches in pace, drawing abreast to the vessel with a hundred yards between them.
Jackson frowns, his posture still fixed and immovable. He gives it a minute. Two. The Zhilong maintains its course despite the hailing attempts. He looks over to an ensign. “Give them a warning shot over the bow.”
The message is repeated and confirmed down the chain, until it is received by another ensign at the controls. “Firing over the bow. Shot loaded and target locked, sir.”
He inclines his head. “You may fire at your disposal.”
To those on deck, a metallic whine can be heard as the remote-controlled 76 mm naval gun swings into position, actuators accommodating for the rough chop and the relative velocities of the two ships. The gun's long barrel shifts slightly in the air — like a dog scenting vermin — before firing. The muffled shot is felt in the bones of all those on board, the recoil mostly absorbed by the tonnage of the ship, but still just enough to vibrate the sailors' bone marrow a little. The shot rockets out of the muzzle of the rifle at almost a thousand meters a second, too fast for the eye to see, but for those on the deck of the Chinese vessel, a shockingly loud wake-up call.
Two beats. “The Zhilong is slowing, sir.”
“Good.” Jackson reaches for a pair of binoculars, and fixes his gaze upon the Zhilong. There appears to be a commotion on the deck, as crew in a patchwork of colored rain-gear scurry across its splintered, wood surface. One tall and broad figure, however, stands stock-still on the deck staring at the Munro, before entering the cabin. “Let’s hope that shook them to their senses.”
The gap between the vessels begins to close as Zhilong idles and the Munro meanders after it, in no hurry to catch up. But something shifts. The radio operators exclaim and clasp their hands to their headphones, ripping them off in near-unison.
“Report.”
The nearest petty officer turns to face Jackson. “The Zhilong is emitting a repeating signal on our frequency, but it doesn’t seem to be meant for us.” To prove his point, he unplugs the headphone jack, letting his station emit a warbling, screeching tone, punctuated by chirps and clicks. The sound plays for a few seconds, then loops on itself.
“Can you decode it?”
The petty officer shrugs, swiveling back towards his station. “It might be in Chinese Morse, but I can record it and retransmit to Kodiak for decrypting.”
Jackson nods. “Switch to secondary frequencies for the time being. I don’t want that noise clogging our comms.”
They obey, and he can hear the clicking of dials as they all switch to back-up channels. Jackson ruminates on the noise and its scratching, though bassy tone. Some parts of it almost remind him of whale song.
T+7m: Chinese vessel emits frequency related to Project: HELL’S HEART. Handler is notified and scrambled.
The Zhilong starts to accelerate again, the black water churning to a froth from the propellers’ motion.
“Sir.”
Jackson waves his hand irritably towards the nagging ensign. “I’m aware. Just give it a moment.”
His back is straight and his arms are clasped behind it, but his fingers are fiddly, pulling and twisting one another, the only sign of his tumultuous thoughts. It’s not as if the aged, decrepit fishing boat could outpace a naval vessel. Was the seiner’s captain baiting them? Or just stupid?
“Jacobs, scramble rapid-response into an Interceptor. I want that ship boarded and halted immediately.”
“Yes, sir.”
Another voice. “Sir.”
“Not now, Mr. Stewart.”
“But sir! Skunk just appeared on our sonar half a mile out. Surface contact, south by southeast, bearing in at twenty knots.”
Captain Jackson blinks. “And you just noticed it now?”
“It wasn’t on the sonar until now.”
“Do we have a visual?”
The petty officer’s brow is furrowed, confused. “Negative, sir. Underwater by the looks of it, image isn’t resolved yet, so don’t know its profile exactly—but it doesn’t match the behavior of a whale, and there’s no pod in range of the sonar.”
Jackson’s mind races with a flood of thoughts. The Russians are conducting military exercises in the Bering Sea, are the Chinese trying to get in on the action? Did the seiner just ping a Chinese sub? Jackson takes a deep breath, and steels himself, cracking his back.
His voice comes out clear and commanding, cutting through the undercurrent of chatter in the con. “Give me updates when you receive them. McGill, hail the Zhilong again, warn them that they will be boarded if they do not comply. Kammes, lock on to the ship’s boom with the chain-guns. Fire on my command. Smole, get me a visual on the unknown signature.”
Stewart calls out again over the rising chatter in the bridge. “It’s a quarter mile out and coming in hot, Captain. It’s not a sub-“ He falters for a moment. “I don’t know what it is.”
McGill. “No response, sir.”
Smole. “Still no visual.”
Kammes. “Target locked, Captain.”
Jackson worries his lip for a moment. Then, “Fire one, Kammes.”
The single-barrel Bushmaster roars. Mechanical clunk. Roars again. Steady, powerful barks that blow the boom of the trawler into metal and fiberglass splinters. Once a second, the chain-gun fires, and it strafes the booms and scaffolding that rose above the superstructure of the Zhilong. The ship tilts on its keel as the scaffolding bends and warps under the onslaught, collapsing onto the deck and spilling into the water below. The Zhilong keeps on chugging.
The clouds finally open up and loose heavy rain, dousing both ships in curtains of water, stirring the waves into a frenzy. In sync with the clouds loosing their payload, a small craft kicks away from the Munro, spouting a rooster-tail behind it as it races towards the Zhilong, bouncing across the chop. The Interceptor is heavily loaded, carrying a dozen Guardsmen armed to the gills.
“Hail them again, McGill. If they don’t cut their engine in the next minute, the United States Coast Guard will board them, and we don’t play with kid gloves.”
Stewart. “Sir, one hundred yards and no sign of stopping.”
“Do you have a visual?”
“No, I — wait a minute… what the f-“
The Munro is slammed by an impact to port, the side facing away from the Zhilong, rocking back on her keel as the superstructure shudders. A white splash of foamy sea-water cascades onto the deck in a rolling drumbeat.
Jackson rises to his full height, having stumbled to one knee upon impact. He grabs a hand rail, his knuckles turning white. In a forcibly even tone, “Officer Casey, damage report.”
Their hands fly over the keyboards as warnings blink on their monitor. “Situation normal! Hull was dented severely, and it looks like there may be a few leaks. Nothing that would scuttle us, but noticeable.”
He nods, gritting his teeth. “Make sure the engineers are notified. Jacobs, call back rapid-response.”
“Yes, sir.” A moment later, the craft jigs to the right, aborting its interception of the Zhilong, and heads straight back towards the Munro.
“Stewart, what happened to that signature?”
The petty officer’s voice stutters. “It’s circling around to starboard, and backed off to around fifty feet, and… diving?” The inflection in his voice made it sound like a question, disbelieving and concerned.
The captain strides over to the starboard windows of the bridge, gazing out into the wave-wracked waters. There is nothing in sight but the black sea and the gray sky, roiling and clashing as the summer storm strengthens in intensity.
“Sir, it's ascending rapidly to star-“
Then, out of the boiling ocean, it breaches, scant feet away from the Munro.
Not an orca, not a shark, not like any creature Jackson has ever seen in person before. Its long, square snout bristles with sharp, craggy teeth, and its maw is the ivory color of a gutted fish, ribbed and studded with keratinous growths to prevent escape from its grasping jaws. It’s so large that the trajectory of the animal carries it up to and above the bridge, such that Jackson is level with its eyes, its deep-set, dark eyes, the hue of amber and colored by a cold, vicious intelligence. Its trunk, a large gray rectangle of blubber and muscle, covered in innumerable scars and barnacles, its textured skin makes it out to be more like a moving boulder than a creature of flesh and bone. Its fins are long and broad, giant paddles to guide the creature’s ponderous mass through the cold underbelly of the depths of the sea.
But there is something else, too. The smooth skin of the creature was patchy, scar tissue puckering up around large plates of gleaming metal seemingly bolted onto its flesh. Long, secondary fan-like fins of steel also emerged from the water, flash-boiling raindrops that fall onto their surfaces and glowing white-hot, like iron in a smithy. Wiry antennae, several feet in length, dangle and drag under the leviathan’s massive bulk, embedded into the flesh of its underside. Tubes emerging from the creature’s stomach belch hot steam and water vapor, shrouding its body in a white cloud of fog.
Taken as a whole, this titanic form digs into the deepest recesses of the captain’s mind, his reptilian-brain screaming to run to high ground. The leviathan reaches apogee, and with a slow, inevitable motion, like the calving of an ancient glacier, it descends back into the loving grasp of the water. The Interceptor doesn’t have time to move away — or if they did, they are too stunned to react. Regardless, the magnificent weight of the sperm whale crashes on top of the dinghy, the sheer bulk of its mass sending a spray in all directions, dousing the ship in a fine mist.
Everyone in the bridge seems to freeze for a moment, sets of unblinking eyes staring out of the starboard window, affixed to where the Interceptor and creature used to be, now just a spot of bubbling white water as the mist clears, not even motes of wreckage to point out where the remains of the craft or its crew can be. Jackson’s hand is a vise, clenching the handrail so hard he thinks that either the metal or his bones will break.
A lone voice cries out and breaks the silence. Stewart. “It’s circling around again, port side this time, it dove to seventy-five feet.”
Smole. “Crew aren’t reporting any survivors, Captain. No bodies at all.”
Something solidifies inside of Jackson. Something cold and hard, scrabbling at his insides and up his throat begging to be let out through words, or action, or the cold barrel of a gun. Whether because of its primal form, or because of the wanton killing of twelve of his crew, it wants to get rid of the creature, by any means possible. His lips contort into a sneer, and he turns away from the window, facing the officers in a dead silence, the only sounds came from the rain smacking against the windows and the purring of the ship’s engine. The officers closest to him almost seem to lean away as he looks down upon them.
The thing mounting inside of his throat snaps, and words pour out. “McGill. Cut off all communication with the Zhilong and radio Kodiak. Tell them we have had an engagement with a USO with several fatalities. Stewart, I want updates of the creature’s position by the second. Kammes, I want a firing solution on it yesterday. Jacobs, all hands to general quarters.”
T+11m: Contact with civilian vessel is terminated, and the Munro engages the USO. The first impact damages the port-side P&W gas turbine engine, which is promptly taken offline for field repairs, reducing the Munro’s propulsion capabilities.
“Radar targeting isn’t getting a fix on the contact, sir. It wasn’t meant to engage with underwater hostiles.”
“Then aim it manually, God damn it!” The anti-submarine warfare systems on all Hamilton-class cutters had been removed the year before, in response to the fall of the Soviet Union. They were money pits, expensive to maintain, but Jackson still keenly feels their loss.
Through the chop and the torrential rain, the three port-ward .50 caliber machine guns let loose on the leviathan’s bulk as it steams toward the ship, its tiny, ragged dorsal fin held like a battle standard as it withstands the hail of lead and gunsmoke. It doesn’t change course from the onslaught, but flesh is visibly torn from its back in streaks and bloody tears, sparks flying as the armor-piercing shells ricochet off of its metal backplates from the oblique angle of attack. Many of the shots miss, as the boat is rolling in the waves now, the clouds unleashing rain by the bucketful in the largest storm of the season, and the sea stirs into a boil. A large wave breaches the stern, and impacts the deck and windows in a shower of cold, black water, dousing the deckhands manning the guns.
The Zhilong chugs further into the distance, almost hidden now by the height of the waves and the huddle of the clouds. But no one pays attention to them in the moment.
“Bring us up to flank speed, Proctor.”
Even as the Munro powers forward in an attempt to avoid the impact, the whale changes its angle of attack to match, colliding with the hull near-head-on. The superstructure shudders once again, and a swarm of warning lights buzz and flash on the consoles.
“Bulkheads on port-side are buckling, and Engine 3 is performing sub-optimally.”
“Sump pumps are operating at maximum power.”
“Transmission from Kodiak, sir.”
Jackson barely restrains himself as he snatches the radio from the ensign’s hand. “This is Captain Zachary Jackson of the Munro, Kodiak.”
A voice sounds on the crackling line. Not one of the operators that he normally converses with at Kodiak. It was hoarse and guttural, like a that of chain-smoking jazz musician from one of Anchorage’s many dive bars. “Captain, fall into retreat to base. Do not engage with the hostile.”
Jackson blinks, his thought process derailed. He has to take a moment to respond. “With all due respect, we are at top speed due to these conditions, but the hostile continues to engage with us. We are firing in self-defense.”
“Do not fire at the USO, Captain. Your standing orders have been changed. You are to terminate your patrol route and to return to base for debriefing.”
Jackson had to bite back a retort. “Our actions here are limited, and the patrol has already been terminated by the engagement. Where are these orders coming from, anyhow? On whose authority?”
The voice comes across clearer than should be possible through the static and storm. “You are not in command here, Captain. This situation is out of your jurisdiction, and that question above your pay-grade. If you refuse to do as you’re told, your actions may be considered treasonous.”
Jackson pauses for a moment, his mind skipping on its tracks as the man’s words and smug tone strike home. But he replies in kind, his voice dripping with rage and bile. “I am merely taking actions necessary to protect my ship and crew, sir, and if that is considered treason, then so be it.”
The voice pauses to take a breath, heavy and hoarse. “These next few moments are very important for you, Captain. Please choose your words wisely.”
A moment. Jackson quickly chooses. “Munro, over and out.” Jackson slams the receiver back onto the console and strides away across the pitched deck, fists white-knuckling in anger.
Jackson had been at sea for almost twenty years, serving valiantly off the coast of Vietnam and interdicting cartel drug shipments in the Gulf of Mexico. But after a few missteps and lost promotions, he was stationed in Kodiak. Alaska was always a dead end. The last pit stop before retirement — for him, and the Munro. He always did his best to follow orders to the letter, to do what he thought was right. He can hear the chatter on the intercom as engineers frantically relay the situation in the ship’s bowels, reporting leaks and burst pipes and dead men. He can see the warnings on the consoles flashing yellows and reds, indicating the situation is turning dire.
A small part of him spoke of his career, of his years of service wasted if he didn’t follow orders and return to base. But the larger part of him spoke up for his crew, his subordinates, his ship. They can’t outpace the creature, and they certainly can’t let the creature move closer to shore, maybe following the salmon to Bristol Bay, and the fishermen therein… He turns to see the eyes of the ensigns, brows knotted with concern and fear. He quietly sighs to himself. Damned if you do…
He locks eyes with one of them. Stewart, who looks like he has something to say. “Ensign Stewart?”
Stewart licks his lips, eyes darting around. “We lost contact with the Zhilong, Captain.”
He looks like he wants to add something. “…And?”
Stewart swallows, sweat beading on his neck and temples. “Several more signatures have been spotted a klick out, aiming to intercept us. Identical to the hostile,” he hastens to add.
T+13m: Munro makes contact with five additional hostiles, which swiftly engage with the ship. Munro refuses to withdraw, contradicting standing orders. Repetitive impacts from the USOs necessitate the sealing of several bulkheads in the aft section of the hull. A deckhand drowns before one of the bulkheads is sealed.
“Make the switch to explosive rounds.”
“Yes, sir.”
The ship is running with all hands, hundreds of men and women working in time to the craft’s throbbing machine heart, repairing and loading and firing with grim determination. With mechanical clunks and whines, the clutches of the six Bushmasters swap from armor-piercing to high-explosive, the eight-inch HEI-T rounds yellow-tipped as if dipped in mustard, color-coded for the Coasties’ convenience.
“Divided fire.”
The triple port-side barrels unleash hellfire on the two wakes — now designated Panthers Two and Five — cruising towards the ship at twenty knots. The twin shoulder-mounted shock-absorbers on the turrets disperse the recoil from the 25 mm shots, firing as quickly as the motor could load the rounds. Finally, the free-aiming gun jockeys score hits center-mass through the high chop and rain, and explosive rounds do the rest of the work, cratering the backs of the whales with the power of mighty hammer-blows. One of the whales — smaller, no noticeable metal plating — slows to a dead halt, as something important within its titanic frame is irrevocably destroyed by the shots. The foam from its death-throes is lost in the waves.
The remaining whale dives in response to the barrage, dipping a few feet below the water, to mitigate the penetrative power of the rounds, just to pop up in time to slam head-first into the hull of the Munro. More plates buckle and rivets shear from the titanic force placed upon them.
Again, the loss of the ASW systems pangs keenly in Jackson’s heart as the guns on both sides of the hull rattle and roar, unleashing their fury on the six leviathans. The situation would have have resolved itself within a few minutes with liberal use of torpedoes, but without them the Munro has to make do.
He can see ensigns and petty officers across the bridge muttering to each other when they think he isn’t looking, trying to figure out what caused this darkly absurd situation. Privately, he wonders much the same. Maybe the whales are merely insane? But that wouldn’t explain the metal augmentations that each of the creatures carry. Maybe they were Chinese experiments? But that wouldn’t explain the cryptic radio transmission. Captain Jackson clasps his hands behind his back, setting his jaw. Wondering about those questions wouldn’t help him in the now, better to set them aside to let the brains worry at after the fact.
“Sir.” A voice punches through the cavalcade of status reports and warnings from the ensigns in the bridge.
“Give me good news, McGill.”
“A deckhand just reported in. He found the surplus Harpoons in the magazine. They must have been missed in the recall.”
Harpoon anti-ship missiles. Doled out as part of “Yost’s Guard,” taken away as fast as they were given after the hawkish commandant retired three years prior. Flashy as brass, menacing as hell, and expensive to boot. Loaded in a naval tube against submarines, fired from a canister for everything else.
Finally, a hint of light on a dark, blustery day. “How many were there?”
“He only reported three, sir.”
Jackson curses under his breath. Silver linings, silver linings.
“Prioritize the largest targets, Panther One and Three. Best case, the others are scared off or stunned by the detonation.”
“Yes sir.”
“Fire Harpoon One, Kammes.”
Through a series of pulleys and hoists, the Harpoon is loaded from the ship’s magazine to the surface deck, resting its canister. It sits almost innocently in its canister as it is angled into position, its tubular, multi-finned body nests snugly in its cradle.
“Bulldog affirm.”
The press of a button. “Bulldog away.”
T+16m: Munro becomes the second Hamilton-class Cutter to fire a Harpoon missile. The first to fire one in anger.
Panther Three is coming abreast to the Munro three hundred yards out, swimming parallel to the ship — by far the largest of the six biomechanical whales at almost eighty feet long — its wake barely visible over the peaks of the chop. When the Harpoon launches, the deck of the ship is momentarily clouded with a rooster tail of yellow-white smoke from the rocket propellant, though the lashing rain and howling winds make quick work dispelling it. If there had been unprotected personnel on deck braving the storm and sea, they would have been quickly deafened by the might of the missile’s roar, and blinded by the flare of its ignition. Five hundred miles-per-hour and change, the missile shrieks across the stormy-gray sky, skimming just above the wracked waves. On-board computers lock onto Panther Three’s fluke just as before it submerges beneath the water, and dives after it, the missile plunging into the surf. The Harpoon’s boosters give one final kick, and the missile makes brief contact with flesh before detonation, annihilating the whale and sending a shock-wave through the water that can be sensed for miles.
Stewart keenly watches the sonar for live movement, seeing none. “Splash one Panther.”
The bridge almost seems to take a collective sigh of relief, the five remaining signatures freezing as the underwater blast from the explosion momentarily stuns them.
Jackson wastes no time. “Fire the Harpoon when ready, Kammes.”
“Bulldog affirm.”
Panther Five surfaces for air, its blowhole and twin exhaust ports belching steam into the blackened sky, marking itself a target.
A push of a button. “Bulldog away.”
The second Harpoon tears out with a fury, its screeching war cry fights against the elements themselves to be heard, targeting locking onto the whale, radar painting its massive bulk with pings. This explosion sounds off much the same, though Stewart frowns at his screen. “Panther Five is still mobile.”
Jackson curses, his teeth grinding against one another. One Harpoon left. “Cease firing Harpoons and main guns-“ his mind swivels on a dime. “Belay last words, continue from the main guns, divided fire on nearest Panthers.”
“Sir, the infrared cams.”
Jackson immediately moves to hover over Crawford’s console. Footage from the moment before impact is paused on the screen. Panther Five’s back is just barely visible over the waves, dimly lit from the residual heat emanated from its massive frame, insulated by the freezing arctic waters. Above it, suspended in the air as if by strings, the white-hot booster and glowing exhaust of the missile, its nose-cone pointed downwards and poised to strike, a modern sword of Damocles. However, there is present a thin, red line, emerging from a port on the back of the whale, and aimed squarely at the body of the missile. Crawford punches a button and advances a frame, and the missile disappears in a white sphere of shrapnel and heat. “The missile never even made contact, sir.”
Jackson puts on a strained smile and pats him on the shoulder. “Good work, Crawford.”
He stiffly walks away from the console, nearly frothing at the mouth. Laser defense? Really? He bites his tongue, an old habit when frustration became too much for him to bear.
“Panther One diving to starboard, diving fast.”
“Ready the main guns, and standby for concentrated fire.” Jackson grits his teeth, a rictus grin as the rain lashes the windows to the beat of the blinking warning lights, their number seeming to double every time he checks.
Stewart. “It’s coming up again, it’s going to breach — no the angle is too high, it's right under-“
The Munro’s prow plows through the waves, which grow higher and higher with every passing minute. It ascends to the peak of a massive wave, its hull groaning from structural damage as it prepares to make the descent into the trough. At apogee, though, the entire ship lurches forward, as the aft of the ship is struck. Everything jumps and shifts an inch, the flock of warnings doubling again, the con bathed in red.
“Both the props have been struck, we are dead in the water.”
“It came at us from below?”
“It’s diving again!”
The Munro has a slight list now, barely noticeable in the storm as the ship pitches from the waves and plunges into the trough. Rudder control is functional, but barely, and the helmsman has to play all they have to keep the ship on an even keel. The Panthers are circling now, sensing blood in the water.
“Climbing. To port, this time.”
“Bulldog affirm.”
Jackson strides over to Kammes, grabbing the ensign’s shoulder with death-grip. The ensign looks exhausted, the mere minutes of battle weighing on her as she tries to keep up with every microsecond of change of circumstance and operating conditions. The rage boiling in Jackson's stomach flash-freezes into a cold, seething resentment towards these whales and the damage they have caused, the deaths of his crew and the damage towards his ship.
He spits through his teeth. “Fire the Harpoon at that blasted whale.”
Kammes doesn’t even confirm the order as she mashes the button with her thumb.
The final Harpoon rockets out of the canister with a vengeance, but doesn’t even reach final velocity as it impacts the bulk of Panther One at point blank range, breaching scant yards away from the Munro. The force of the detonation whites out the CCTV cams on deck; the front window of the bridge blows in from the shock-wave, letting biting air and rain rip into the con, the crew momentarily deafened. Jackson's cheek and ear bleed scarlet from the furrow carved by a piece of military-grade glass. As the guts of the whale are exposed to the air — for just a brief moment — the con's Geiger counters scream to life, their clicking cascading into a constant barrage of groans. As the gibbed remains of the whale follow the rain into the ocean, the Geiger counters similarly descend into inactivity.
Stewart, his voice hoarse. “Panthers are backing off, now. They looked spooked.”
Jackson forces himself to let go of Kammes’ shoulder, and brushes glass off of his epaulets. The arctic wind rushing into the bridge chills him to the bone. He inhales through his nose, steadying his heart-rate. The pings of the sonar lower their tempo as the whales slowly back away from the Munro. “McGill, radio Kodiak, Cold Bay, and Dutch. Tell them we are foundering and request immediate rescue. Put as many men in Interceptors as possible and have them make for dry land, take transponders if necessary.”
The con is a flurry of activity, as crew put on jackets to ward the arctic chill and as they prepare to evacuate. As Jackson helps an ensign wounded by the shattered glass limp out of the con, he notices Stewart staring at his console. Stewart looks up at Jackson. ”Three’s not moving, sir. Two hundred feet out.”
Visual reports confirm the retreat of most of the remaining pod, bar one. It drifts in the current and the calming chop, not moving under its own power.
“Is it dead?”
A shout from the deck. “Something’s happening!”
The calming Bering Sea — usually dark as slate — begins to froth up again, shifting from pitch black to Mediterranean cyan, as the cachalot’s bulk writhes and emits a blinding blue light from gaping wounds and orifices.
The engines finally die, and the flashing alarms all fall silent, allowing for the slight ticking of the con’s Geiger counter to be heard. Cherenkov Radiation, a part of Jackon’s brain thinks. It is like looking into the cooling pool of a nuclear reactor. One about to reach super-criticality.
“God save us all.”
The beam of ionizing radiation finally eats its way through the whale’s mass and shoots into the gray sky, a solid blue pillar of doom. It flickers off just before the whale disappears in a white burst of light —
— and all is consumed by hell's heart, a blooming nuclear flower that escapes sound, noiselessly cavitating the water and melting flesh and steel alike until the particulate becomes a burning wreath around the expanding head of the mushroom cloud, ascending towards the stratosphere. Seismographs along the Aleutian chain dutifully note the small disturbance on the North American Plate.
The clouds part and the chop turns as smooth as sapphire glass under the afternoon sun. All is calm and quiet, until the ash begins to fall and the choppers begin to arrive, cutting orange streaks across the pinking sky.
They won't find any survivors.