Gurevenich did not expect to find other ships in the area. They were three hundred kilometers southeast of the Kamchatka Peninsula.
“All right, Kartashkin, you may transmit.”
“Yes, Captain.” The radioman leaned into his console, depressed the button that activated the transmit mode on his headset, and said, Seeʼnee-dva-sem-zelyoʼnee.”
Blue-two-seven-green, the code they had been instructed to use in the ELF message.
They did not hear the response. Three burst-messages, communications compacted into one-fiftieth of a second bursts, were transmitted by the Molniya satellite, accepted by the data receiver, and recorded. They would play them back at normal speed.
The radioman scanned his equipment. “I have the transmission recorded, Captain.”
Gurevenich punched the intercom button. “Lieutenant Mostovets, take the boat back to fifty meters depth and resume course.”
“Fifty meters, Captain. Proceeding, now.”
As the deck tilted, Gurevenich wondered what was so important that Fleet headquarters would use military emergency channels to send him a top secret communication.
He could not imagine that war had broken out, but that did not alleviate the ball of lead that had formed in his stomach.
SECRET MSG 10-4897 l/SEP/0322 HRS ZULU
FR: CINCPAC
TO: USS BARTLETT USS KANE USS LOS ANGELES USS PHILADELPHIA USS HOUSTON
1. CURRENT ORDERS SUSPENDED.
2. PROCEED AT BEST POSSIBLE SPEED TO 26N 176E.
3. CAUTION. CIS VESSELS LIKELY IN AREA. DO NOT ENGAGE.
4. RPT ALL CONTACTS THIS CMD.
5. DETAILED ORDERS AND COORDINATES TO FOLLOW.
Cmdr. Alfred Taylor, captain of the nuclear attack submarine (SSN) Los Angeles, read the decoded message, then handed it to his executive officer, Lt. Cmdr. Neil Garrison.
Garrison, a short and lithe man built for earlier submarines, read through it quickly. He asked, “You think this is it?”
“I wouldn’t have expected it in this political climate, Neil. It’s probably some minor crisis.”
“With Bartlett and Kane involved, we may have a ship down.”
“That’s possible.”
Taylor moved over to the plot and studied it. Taylor had been in submarines for twelve years, but this was his first year as a commander and he was proud of his boat, even if it was almost twenty years old, and he had confidence in his crew. He was a compact man, kept that way by a daily set of exercises in his cabin. The planes of his face had become a little convex in the last couple of years, and his blond hair would have shown more gray if it were longer. He walked with a slight limp, the result of not moving fast enough and catching his leg between a concrete pier and a docking tender.
“All right, Neil. Plot it and give me a course.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Garrison bent over the plot.
“Mr. Covey,” he said to the Lieutenant (j.g.) who had the conn, without turning toward him.
“Sir?”
“What is your status?”
“Sir, depth sixty feet, heading zero-one-five, speed one-seven knots.”
Taylor watched as Garrison drew his line. Garrison looked up at him.
Taylor nodded his approval. “Mr. Covey, make your depth seventy-five feet. I want a heading of two-seven-five and tell engineering we want top turns.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Covey’s tone carried a new excitement.
Garrison stood upright. “At least we’ll shake off a little of the boredom, Skipper.”
The constant regimen of training, meant to keep them alert and on edge, often dulled the edges.
“We may at that, Neil.”
Each dome was two hundred feet in diameter and one hundred feet high, and there were three domes. They rested on steel piers driven deeply into the seabed and were connected by twelve-foot-long cylindrical tunnels. Each of the end domes had an airlock and a docking facility for the transportation submersibles.
From thirty yards away, Kim Otsuka thought that they looked like spider plants. That was because the top, central hub of each dome was composed of an olive-colored plastic embedded with carbon fiber. The superstrong carbon fiber material was also used in the curved beams that radiated from the tops down to the bases of the domes. There were four horizontal rows of thinner structural beams, and the spaces between the structural members was filled with a translucent plastic that had also been strengthened with carbon.
The domes appeared fragile, but she knew better. The construction and materials used were based on those tested for over two years on Harbor One.
Kaylene Thomas called the complex Disneyland West, but the official name was Ocean Deep. It was not actually very deep, however. Located thirty miles west of San Diego and about thirty-five miles southwest of Los Angeles, the complex was two hundred feet below the surface, its foundation embedded in the Patton Escarpment. Dane Brande was not going to put the tourists at extreme risk.
Eventually, one dome would house marine-theme rides aimed at a younger audience, one would contain museums and galleries, and one would focus on marine life. Marine Visions would own the complex, the transportation system, and the operating systems, but subcontractors would operate the amusement rides, galleries, and fast-food outlets. At the moment, the domes were vacant except for construction materials and a hodgepodge of tools spread over the upper deck.
The vacancy was obvious. The interior lighting made the domes stand out prominently against the darkness of the sea as the Voyager made its approach. The fact that the lights were on was a minor satisfaction for Kim Otsuka, for the lighting was one system controlled by the Ocean Deep computers, and Otsuka was the Director of Computer Systems for MVU. She designed the hardware and software systems, often in conjunction with other engineers and scientists.
Otsuka was a Japanese national. She had grown up in Tokyo and had been schooled there. For her doctoral program, she had selected Stanford University. For her career, she had thought she might work for a Hewlett-Packard or a Sony or a Panasonic. That goal lasted until the day after her graduation from Stanford, when Dane Brande called her upon someone’s recommendation. She had never thought she would spend so much of her life on, and in, the ocean. Eight years had elapsed now, gone with such speed she had barely noticed them.
She could not now imagine working in an environment that required business suits or laboratory smocks. Her working wardrobe consisted of jeans and blouses, shorts and halter tops, and occasionally a swim suit or scuba gear. Her short blue-black hair was frequently damp. She was five-two, lithe, and lively, and her brown eyes had learned to laugh a lot. The casual atmosphere surrounding Marine Visions had brought out a humorous aspect in her personality that she had suppressed for the first twenty-four years of her life. She loved what she was doing, and she loved Dane Brande for letting her do it without interference.
The domes became larger and more wavery in the triplethick porthole beside Otsuka’s seat as the Voyager closed on its destination. Around her, the others made morning talk and sipped from insulated mugs of coffee. Svetlana Polodka, the Russian fiber-optics engineer, was flirting with Bob Mayberry, who was director of electronic technology, and who was married, anyway, and had three kids. Ingrid Roskens, chief structural engineer, was bent over blueprints spread out on the deck, pointing out her concerns to one of the technicians.