by Kate Kelly
The bridge was in semi-darkness. Rob sat in the Captain’s chair, watching the raindrops trickling down the windows and listening to the dull throb of the engines, which he felt through the deck and the seat rather than heard. He could smell the acrid stench of the echosounder readout scorching its trace onto the chart paper, and the stale smoke on the breath of the crewman who was standing nearby, peering out of the window into the gloom of the half-night, his binoculars hanging from a strap around his neck.
Rob stifled a yawn; the dog watch, when everyone else on the ship was sleeping. He hated this shift but as second Mate he took what he was given, and it made him more determined to get his Master’s ticket soon. The engines clanked and the rain lashed the windows as the ship rolled gently in the swell.
The crewman stiffened and lifted his binoculars. Rob slid down off the seat to stand beside him.
“See something?” he asked.
“Not sure. Thought I saw a light.”
Rob picked up a second pair of binoculars that were hanging from the rail below the window and peered out into the gloom. There was nothing to see. Nothing but an empty ocean, which blurred with a cloud grey sky into a pale haze of drizzle and mist. Nobody, not even the birds and whales came here unless they had to.
He put the binoculars down and moved over to study the radar display. The orange line swept slowly round and round as if counting away the seconds of his watch. It was almost hypnotic as it picked up the peaks of the nearby waves in vivid orange, which faded to brown as it passed on its way. There was nothing else out there. But then, why should there be anything else here?
“There it is,” said the crewman. “It’s moved round to starboard, and come closer.”
“There’s nothing on the radar.” Rob yawned stretching his arms.
“Well there’s definitely something there, and it’s coming our way.”
Rob picked up the binoculars once more and peered out over the wind lashed sea. It was barely dawn and the rain on the windows blurred his view, but this time he saw it, a single light in the gloom, appearing and disappearing as it rose and fell with the swell. At times it was hidden by thin drifts of sea mist and the rain that came in short squally bursts, yet always it was drawing nearer. There was still nothing on the radar.
“Any ideas?” he asked and the crewman shrugged his shoulders.
“It’s not a ship,” he said, and a moment later added: “It’s going to pass across our stern.”
“Idiot!” Rob grimaced, watching the light bobbing up and down. “Can’t they tell from our lights that we’re towing?”
The crewman shrugged again and Rob drew in a deep breath between clenched teeth. Maybe it was nothing to worry about. Perhaps it was just a buoy that had broken free from its moorings and was drifting with the wind. But if it was it had come a long way. This part of the Arctic Ocean, although now ice free, was usually deserted, the shipping routes keeping to the Northwest Passage, hugging the coast. They hadn’t seen another vessel for nearly a week, and weren’t likely to either. Why did things like this always have to happen on his watch?
“We have to stay on this survey track for the next half hour,” he said, speaking aloud to himself as much as to the man beside him. “So we’ll keep on this course and maybe it’ll just drift past, whatever it is. I’ll make a note in the log.”
He lowered the binoculars and was about to put them down when he felt his skin prickle and a shiver of electricity passed up his spine. Suddenly the air seemed to be full of tiny sparks of light as if a multitude of minute fireworks were going off all at once. And the last thing he heard was his own voice screaming.
* * *
“Sir, we’re picking up another transmission.”
Sergei moved over to stand behind the man who had just spoken, a thin man with deep sunken eyes who’s head seemed swamped by his headphones.
“That foreign frigate?”
“Well there’s no-one else here.”
Sergei nodded. They had been following that frigate for five days now, across the emptiness of the ocean, an ocean that had once been solid ice with nothing but seals and polar bears moving on the surface. The ice and the bears had gone, but this was still a place where few men came.
“It’s being jammed again,” said the young man and Sergei scowled.
“Can you tell where it’s coming from?”
“Not exactly, but it’s nearer this time. Hold on – they’ve just fired a missile!”
“Damn it,” Sergei snarled, clenching his hands into fists by his side. “Whatever are they firing at?”
Nobody answered. Sergei scowled at the lights flashing on the radio equipment that lined the wall, and the deck rolled slowly beneath his feet, a movement that now he barely noticed. What was that frigate following? What could possibly have drawn it across the Arctic Ocean in the middle of winter, when there was nothing but darkness and endless rain, and the eerie banks of fog that formed where the once frozen waters met the warmer currents encroaching from the south? This was an ocean in crisis; a symptom of a changing world.
The young operator removed his headphones and leaned back in his seat, glancing up at Sergei with his hollow eyes.
“Nothing. It’s all gone quiet.”
“What about the other frequencies?”
“Nothing. The transmissions just stopped.”
“What about the sonar? We must still be able to pick her up on the sonar?”
A second operator who had been sitting quietly in the corner of the room now looked round and shook his head.
“No. All her engines have stopped too. She must be dead in the water. Either that or she’s vanished.”
“Well that’s a bit odd,” said Sergei running his fingers through his bristly hair. The frigate couldn’t know they were following her. To all intents and purposes they looked like any other Russian deep sea trawler, although maybe with a few more aerials than usual. There was nothing to indicate their true role – a Russian spy ship.
And they had taken all the usual precautions; staying just beyond their quarry’s radar range, no transmissions that might be construed as anything other than a fishing vessel, and a merchantman’s flag. No there was no way that frigate could suspect anything. So why had she suddenly gone quiet?
“There was that Canadian Seismic survey ship that disappeared up here last year,” said the sonar operator, his thick accent betraying his Black Sea roots.
“I’ve heard that,” said the radio operator. “They’re likening this place to the Bermuda Triangle.”
“Oh really,” snapped Sergei. He turned and left the room.
On the bridge the First Mate was drinking strong coffee and staring out into the night. Sergei joined him.
“Everything all right?” he asked, and Sergei nodded.
“Seems we’ve lost our frigate though.”
“Oh?” the Mate put down his mug. “Well she’s out of range of our radar. Would you like me to move closer?”
“Might as well.”
The ship now underway, they stood in silence staring out at the sea. The rain had abated and a full moon appeared and disappeared between the shifting clouds, lighting the whitecaps and the spray thrown up by the bow of their ship as she pitched into the swell. The ocean between was oily and black and beyond in the darkness was nothing; an empty ocean at the end of the world. Sergei glanced once more at the radar, but the screen was blank, just the nearer wave crests, no sign of a ship.
As he looked back out over the sea he thought he saw something moving towards them through the darkness. He squinted his eyes and peered into the gloom. There seemed to be a light approaching, but it was a light beneath the surface of the water, like a small patch of moonlight that was still there when the moon was hidden by cloud and darkness enveloped them once more.
And suddenly it seemed that the air surrounding him was crackling with static, and lights popped and vanished, dazzling him. The last thing he heard was his own voice…
* * *
The Captain stepped back from the radar display and stared out over the empty ocean, it’s surface rippling in the moonlight like the crude oil beneath its seabed that was the cause of all the conflict. The civilian was standing by his shoulder, eyes wide, magnified by his spectacles.
“Any sign of it?”
The Captain drew a sharp breath between his teeth. Scientists! Too many questions and no answers. He frowned.
“Only that Russian spy ship that’s been following us for the last three days. We could spark off a diplomatic incident if we stray any closer to their waters. Did you know he’s jamming our transmissions?” His jaw tensed as he spoke. “It would really help if I knew what we were looking for,” He gave the civilian a stern glare. This man was one of those boffins who didn’t know his place and acted as if he was in charge. But he was the Captain of this frigate. He deserved an explanation.
The scientist didn’t answer; he merely removed his glasses and started to wipe them on his shirt.
“My cabin, now,” said the Captain turning on his heel as the ship pitched into the swell. “We need to talk.”
The scientist followed him from the bridge into his cabin without a word and sat watching as he poured them both a brandy.
“So Joe,” said the Captain handing him his glass. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” He unbuttoned his collar and sat down opposite, watching as Joe’s long fingers stroked the outside of his glass before finally raising it to his lips.
“I suppose,” Joe said. “We’ve come this far. I’ve kept you in the dark long enough.”
The Captain didn’t reply. He sipped his brandy and waited. Joe continued: “We’re looking for an Auto-Miner,” he said, glancing up.
“An Auto-Miner? Is that all?”
Joe sighed and studied the brandy in his glass. There was something furtive about the look in his eyes, as if he was very uncomfortable talking about this. But an Auto-Miner? Why would they come up here looking for one of those?
“There’s more,” said Joe, clasping and unclasping his fingers around the bowl of his glass. “What do you know about the Auto-Miner programme?”
“Just what I’ve read – An experimental automatic mining sub – for gathering minerals from the ocean floor and other such inhospitable places. Send it out, and a few months later it comes back to unload its cargo.”
“That’s right, but there was just one problem,”
“Yes, the failure rate was too high, they were always breaking down.” The Captain laughed. “Bit like our fleet. They’re always cutting corners and doing things on the cheap. So I take it the programme wasn’t scrapped after all?”
“No.” Joe seemed to come to a decision and downed the brandy in one mouthful. He put the glass down and his eyes seemed to have hardened.
“So what’s so important about this one then? Other than the fact that it has no right to be here,” the Captain said.
“Have you ever heard of the Micro-Pulse Weapon?”
It was the Captain’s turn to drain his glass and he leaned forwards.
“I know of it; a new weapon that was being developed back during the Cold War. That was a long time ago. What does that have to do with sneak-mining the Arctic Ocean?”
He put down the glass and stared hard at Joe. The man was looking around at the bulkheads, the furniture, the floor. Anywhere except meet his eye.
He was about to ask again but there was a tap on the door and one of the crew was standing there, eyes wide.
“Contact Sir. We can’t identify it.”
Joe struggled to his feet but the Captain reached the door before him.
“I hope you’ve been telling me everything,” he hissed as they returned to the bridge.
The contact on their sonar was small but closing fast.
“We must destroy it now,” Joe hissed.
The Captain turned to look at him, wide eyes and sunken cheeks. He looked more gaunt and haggard than ever.
“Don’t you want to recover it?” he asked. “If it really is an Auto-Miner and it’s been up here all this time then surely its payload of precious metals and minerals must make it worth recovering?”
Joe didn’t blink.
“Destroy it now,” he said. “Before it destroys us.”
The Captain gave the signal and listened in silence as his crew went to work, range and bearing to target, weapons readied and launched, and they watched as the missile was fired and acquired its target. A dull explosion signaled the Auto-Miner’s destruction, and the Captain let out a long slow breath.
“So when did we start making things that kept working,” one of the crew muttered to his mate.
“Yeah. Makes a change. Just look at this bucket we’re in here. A second hand ship that probably never worked properly in the first place.” Their laughter echoed around.
But they had a point.
The Captain glanced at Joe and raised his eyebrows.
“I seem to remember something about the Micro Pulse weapon,” he said slowly. “I remember people saying it was indestructible.”
“Not quite,” said Joe looking the other way.
“I remember hearing that it repaired itself,” the Captain pressed.
Joe nodded. “Yes, that’s right. It was programmed to patrol the oceans and used the oceans natural resources to repair itself as needed, extracting whatever raw elements it required from the seabed or from the ocean directly. It could clone any of its component parts, repairing itself as it went along. It was meant to last for ever. But they were never deployed. The cold war ended. We didn’t need them.”
“But they weren’t destroyed were they,” said the Captain. “They were used as the blueprint for the Auto-Miner, weren’t they?”
Joe nodded.
“So what you are telling me is that that thing we have just destroyed was in effect a Micro Pulse weapon. I take it the weapon part wasn’t disabled and that was why you insisted that we destroy it so quickly.”
“Well it had to retain some defensive capability. After all, our country has no mineral rights in the Arctic. Any mining mission up here has to be strictly covert.”
The Captain sighed.
“Because we’re effectively stealing from right under the Russian’s and Canadian’s noses. It would have helped, Joe, if you had told me all this up front, before we even came up here.”
Joe frowned. “I’m not even supposed to have told you now,” he said.
A shout went up from the sonar operator.
“Sir, another contact.”
The Captain sighed. “In this God-forsaken place. What sort of contact?”
“Another one of whatever that thing was we just destroyed.”
The Captain glanced round at Joe. All the colour had drained from his face.
“My God,” he said. “There was only ever one. It’s done more than just repair itself! It’s replicated itself!”
The Captain opened his eyes wide.
“Are you telling me it’s out of control? So how many of those things are there?”
Joe shook his head and for the first time the Captain saw real fear in his eyes.
“I don’t know,” he breathed. “I really don’t know.”
The Captain was about to reply when the air around him started to crackle and sparkle with a myriad of tiny flashes of light…
About the Author
Kate Kelly’s fiction has been published in a number of magazines and anthologies, including Hub, Pseudopod and Murky Depths, as well as three anthologies from Hadley Rille Books. She lives by the sea in Southwest England and keeps a website.
©2010 Kate Kelly
