“Is good plan for once,” said Vitaly. “No more ‘Vitaly, crash submarine into this or into that.’ No crash this time.”
“I thought we’d see survivors by now,” said Alexis as she pulled herself up over the railing and onto the next flight of the cramped, dark stairwell. A swell caught the carrier from far below, swinging the tower like a metronome. The trio froze, clutching the handrails with white knuckles as rumbles echoed up from deep within the vessel.
“This is not good sound,” observed Vitaly.
“We’re running out of time. We have to move faster,” said Jonah. The trio scrambled up the two final flights, reaching the open door to the tower command deck. Shattered glass and torn-apart, uniformed bodies lay scattered. The windowed compartment had been viciously strafed, gutted before the crew even had time to take cover. Decapitated of command officers, the carrier would have been helpless as the protracted, systemic onslaught continued.
“Everybody dead.” Vitaly whispered before radioing an update to the Scorpion. There was no way to tell if the transmission made it through, they heard only crackling interference in response.
“Everybody’s dead again,” added Alexis, gulping down another dry heave. “This is seriously fucked up.”
Jonah silently fished a laser pointer out the blood-flecked breast pocket of the crumpled second officer. Bracing a foot against a computer terminal, he pushed the pointer deep into a deep bullet gouge in the nearest steel bulkhead. A faint green line shone through the blown-out angled windows and thick black smoke, the single pinprick of light coming to rest against the white radar dome of a burning, drooped-barrel Phalanx gun. The cannon still pointed across the length of the flooded flight deck. Jonah and Vitaly stared at each other in confusion.
“Their own guns — could they—?” began Alexis.
“Not possible,” insisted Vitaly.
“First things first, we have to find where the carrier is taking on water,” ordered Jonah. “I need to know how we can save this ship before we can think about who — or what — did this.”
Vitaly nodded in grim acknowledgement as he pulled a tablet computer from his waterproof backpack and plugged it into the only powered computer terminal. Although the screen was blasted apart, the CPU had survived the volley of fire from below. The tablet churned through gigabytes of data, pulling files directly from any accessible hard drive as Vitaly scrolled through radar data, daily logs, and maintenance reports before reaching the central damage-control server. A semi-transparent computerized construct of the listing carrier leapt onto the glassy screen, the 3D model showing live readings and statistics on the flooded compartments and active fires. The interior was a mess of flashing red warning notifications — waterlogged and gutted, nearly every internal system destroyed beyond repair.
The Russian pointed to the upper terminus of the underwater compartments on the rotating diagram. “These watertight doors will not last long,” he said. “Not designed for this pressure.”
Alexis looked around her. “What happens when the doors go?”
Vitaly shrugged. “We definitely sink. Maybe roll over first?”
“Can you access any of the emergency generators? Get them pumping water, balance out the ship?” Jonah asked.
Vitaly and Alexis together scrolled through the available subroutines — the vast majority were locked out by internal security, or connected to nonresponsive systems. Vitaly shook his head. “Not through usual protocols.”
“What are we supposed to do? Check them one at a time until we find one that works?” said Alexis. “That could take hours.”
Jonah was quiet for a moment. “We’ll need to go straight to an operational generator and start it by hand. Vitaly, can you use the internal cameras to increase our chances?”
Vitaly pulled open one window after another, initializing direct camera feeds throughout the sinking carrier. Most were filled with static, the feeds severed, others smoke-filled and invisible. Jonah caught a glimpse of the ship’s enclosed gym. Exercise equipment sheered from anchor bolts and piled like broken toys against the lowergmost bulkhead as the overhead fire suppression system hissed inert gasses over the bodies of asphyxiated sailors.
“I think I can narrow down,” muttered Vitaly, inputting a rapid-fire string of commands into the touchscreen pad. The screen froze for a moment, processing the instructions as the first two generators popped up on the display. Located in different compartments, the first was encased in ice from a destroyed refrigeration system, and her twin was flooded up to the control panels as more seawater spewed through the rubber seals of the nearest sealed hatch.
“So… not these,” said Alexis.
“Keep looking,” ordered Jonah. Vitaly scrolled through more feeds, finding only more ruined generators and more static.
“This is end of live feeds,” said Vitaly, closing out the last window. “The rest disconnected. I check recorded footage — maybe find working generator this way?”
“Quickly. Any remaining battery backup power this computer has won’t last long.”
Vitaly handed the tablet to Alexis and slid down the slick deck towards a row of consoles to reroute power into the failing grid.
“You good to go — try again,” he said, flipping her a thumbs-up.
Alexis brought up the first pre-recorded security camera feed, displaying a full-frame image of the bridge tower command deck as seen from the interior. It was already a scene of total destruction. Phalanx deck guns raking their own tower with arcing salvos of searing cannon fire, others robotically eliminating flight crews as they fled across the deck. Helicopter drones circled the carrier like birds of prey, emptying their rocket pods into the hull and strafing the decks with machine guns. One detonation after another erupted from beneath the mammoth vessel’s waterline as the survivors rushed the inflatable lifeboats.
“They weren’t attacked by planes or ship,” said Alexis. “My god — their own systems turned on them.”
Jonah opened his mouth to speak, but Vitaly called out from the terminal bank, unable to see the recorded feed from his position.
“I found a working generator! Restarting now — who is best of best?”
“No!” shouted Alexis and Jonah simultaneously. Alexis flung the tablet aside as she and Jonah threw themselves down the steep, rocking deck to stop him. Lights around the bridge flickered as the Phalanx deck guns twitched and swiveled on their mounts far below. But it was too late to stop the power-up. Rushing sounds rumbled up from deep within the carrier as one watertight door after another began to open autonomously, filling the already sinking ship with new torrents of seawater. The waves coming over the deck were larger now, one after another, a single swell enveloping two of the Phalanx guns just as their cannon barrels turned towards the command deck once more.
“I only start generator!” protested Vitaly.
“Hold onto something!” shouted Jonah. “We’re going down. Get ready to swim!”
More rumbles rocked the stricken carrier like a ten-point earthquake, shaking her to the keel. Alexis held on tight to the nearest console as the entire ship began to go down, white frothing geysers of escaping air erupting from the deck below, the bridge tower tilting dangerously as the ship threatened to turn over.
Charging waves crossed the sinking carrier from both sides engulfing the last of the flight deck. Only the tower was above the waves now, the building-sized steel structure plunging unstoppably downwards.