Commander Bower smiled. “It’s all right, everyone. The Omega Deep was built for this. There’s no reason to remain silent. Nothing you can say inside the hull will be picked up outside.” Then, as if to prove a point, he shouted, “Woohoo!”
The sound echoed throughout the submarine.
No one followed suit.
And soon the command center was completely silent once more, the shallow breaths of the men and women who served were the only sounds that remained.
A slow smile curled Bower’s lips. Once a submariner, always a submariner. The need to run silent was etched deep in every submariner’s psyche.
Callaghan broke the silence. “Sir, it should be in visual range any second now.”
“Thank you,” he acknowledged.
Bower turned his gaze toward the downward-facing dome beneath the Perspex flooring. Like the one above his head which showed the area above, this one showed a 360-degree half-sphere vision of the area below the keel.
Twin bright lights appeared in the speckled darkness below.
At that distance, it could have been nothing more than a strange sea-creature of the deep, like an anglerfish — you know the type that holds a light above their head? — but as the range diminished, the lights increased, revealing the slightest shape of an underwater vehicle.
Commander Bower said, “Lieutenant Callaghan, can you please play any external sound received by the hydrophone on the overhead speakers.”
Callaghan adjusted her control and removed her headset. “Yes, sir.”
The gentle electric whine of twin thrusters filled the command center. Bower stared at the light. From a hundred feet, it was impossible to make out the shape of the submersible, but he recognized the whine of the electric motors — although he didn’t quite believe his ears.
Bower turned to his left. “Navigation, can you please get me a visual of that sub using LIDAR?”
“Yes, sir.”
A moment later, a clear image of the submersible came up on one of the overhead display screens. The submersible’s exact dimensions were: 20 feet of length, beam 14 feet — with a 7-foot wingspan — and a height of 5 feet. There were two glass bubble domes positioned forward and aft of each other, where a single pilot and copilot were housed. The overall shape of the submersible was sleek, like a sports-car, or more accurately, a sports underwater airplane, with narrow wings and a V-shaped tail-wing. The wings even had two large thrusters fixed, one to each wing, like jet-engines on an aircraft.
It was the sort of toy a billionaire would purchase.
Commander Bower breathed out, consciously feeling any tension that had developed slip away. A broad grin pierced his otherwise stern face. “My goodness, what the hell is a lone Orcasub doing all the way out here?”
The XO asked, “An Orcasub, sir?”
Commander Bower nodded. “It’s basically what it looks like. A two-person, flying submersible. It’s built by Nuytco Research — the same people who build our atmospheric dive suits. Look at that thing. It’s the ultimate luxury item for a billionaire. They are small enough to be easily lifted off the deck of a pleasure yacht.”
The XO’s eyebrows narrowed. “Which begs the question, where’s the pleasure yacht?”
Bower turned to face his junior sonar operator. “Lieutenant Callaghan, any sign of another submarine or a ship?”
“Nothing.”
Commander Bower turned to his XO and shrugged. “How about we follow it and find out?”
“Yes, sir,” The XO replied expressionlessly.
The CO was not known for reckless or fickle behavior. It was for this very reason that the XO was surprised to receive the order to pursue the unidentified submersible. It appeared that the old man’s curiosity had finally gotten the better of him.
No one aboard the Omega Deep could have guessed that they might end up paying for his decision with their lives.
The promotion had thrilled Belinda Callaghan, Sonar Technician, Second Class. With it, came a position on the highly secret, experimental, Virginia class block VII nuclear attack submarine, Omega Deep.
Everything about her experience on board the Omega Deep had exceeded her expectations. She sat at her console, manning the large-aperture, bow-mounted sonar array. A state-of-the-art set of devices, it could glean the faintest of sonar impressions from the ocean near and far.
This was her second posting, but the first assignment to a new asset. Her exceptional results at submarine “A” School in Groton, Connecticut, had seen her fast-tracked on board the North Carolina when natural attrition yielded an STS — Sonar Technician Submarine.
During that tenure, she detected and correctly identified a Chinese Type 094 submarine in the South China Sea at a distance of 18,000 feet. She earned herself a founding position on the Omega Deep right then and there. Captain Bower took careful note of her talents, and when the time came, he chose her.
She knew that sonar was an art. A good sonar technician must be dedicated to that art. They must think, dream and live sonar all day, every day while on board. Listening to that feed and reading the screen takes a nuanced approach because it’s the subtleties that make the sonar image.
Callaghan’s exceptional attention to detail and her methodical approach made her successful, and her dedication to continuous training made her competitive to a point. Her fellow techs knew they would one day be under her command — she could out-chart, and out-plot any of them with the roughest of data. She wanted to be the Navy’s first female Sonar Chief, and anybody that worked alongside her figured out pretty quickly she had the tenacity to get there.
All she needed was the chance to prove herself.
Right now, she’d been given that chance.
The CO had asked her, specifically, to search for the Orcasub’s mothership or submarine, and she was determined to find it.
Belinda Callaghan made a digital recording of the Orcasub’s soundwave. Like fingerprints, these could be used to identify an individual ship or submarine from any others in the water. She adjusted the computer system settings to remove all sounds associated with that submersible. In doing so, it allowed her to concentrate on her search for a second vessel.
Belinda felt the Omega Deep change direction, as her CO ordered the pilots to set a course to follow the strange yellow Orcasub. She placed slightly more pressure on her right foot, as a means of stabilizing herself. Mentally, she detached herself from the submarine’s movement and from attempting to gain a visual. Instead, she focused on her sonar screen, and let her ears search for any abnormal sounds hidden within the noise of the deep, which constantly bombarded her headphones.
It was a little over thirty minutes before she heard it.
The anomaly started out like a tiny smudge on her screen, and the sound she heard was unlike any other she could place. Her entire body went rigid like stone as she adjusted the volume on the feed and scoured the image for another trace of it.
There it was again!
She allowed herself a thin-lipped smile.
Tiny, infinitesimal — but definitely there. The image reflected a skinny worm for a fleeting moment, and then it was gone.
Was it man-made or natural?
Belinda closed her eyes and listened. She made the conscious effort to control her breathing and slow her heart rate. With everything amplified in her headphones, it was easy to end up listening to the sound of her breaths, and her heart beat instead of what was out there.
She opened her eyes and frowned. Because what was out there, had stopped. Scrolling back to her original recording of the sound’s waveform, she replayed the alien sound.