Jonathan Howard - Katya's World

“Aye-aye, captain.” The first officer moved to the salvage controls. “The water’s not too bad,” he reported as the cameras flicked into instant life. “With enhancement running we should be able to see anything within a thousand. Nothing in the forward quarter, searching…”

“Incoming!” called out the sensors operator. “Single contact. Eight o’clock high. Fast, very fast.”

“Eight o’clock high!” snapped Zagadko at Petrov. Petrov started swinging the lights and cameras to look that way. Zagadko was already standing over another crewmember at her position. “Weapons! Two torpedoes on a reciprocal, forty-five degree search cones, three minute dry. Helm! Hard to port, dive for the isotherm, flank speed.”

“Torpedoes away, launched and running. Noisemakers, Captain.?”

“Yes, and wait for my signal. Petrov, have you..?”

But Petrov was looking at the main viewing screen on the forward bulkhead with sheer astonishment. Zagadko looked too and was struck dumb himself for several long seconds. All across the bridge, the crew paused to look up from their stations. Katya didn’t want to look, but she really couldn’t help herself.

“What,” said one of the crew in blank disbelief, “is that ?”

On the screen, a shape, a massive shape loomed out of the dark, the smallest part of it illuminated by the Novgorod ’s searchlights. It was unbelievably, shockingly huge, dwarfing the Novgorod . Smooth and almost featureless, it was impossible to say whether it was a machine or a creature. It swept gracefully by them, almost silent and invisible to sonar, and it never seemed to end.

Kaya heard a voice in the silence speak, so quietly that she was sure she was the only one to hear it. “Leviathan.” She looked sharply at the speaker.

It was Kane, standing by the hatch. Before she had a chance to speak, an alarm klaxon suddenly started bleating raucously, shattering the awful moment.

“We’re taking on water forward!” called an officer.

“What?” Zagadko was bemused. “With no detonation?”

“No explosion, sir,” reported the hydrophones operator, “but there was a lot of hiss, a little cavitation. It reminded me of the steam bubbles rising from a volcanic vent, very similar sound.”

“Sonar? Are you getting anything?”

The sonar operator shook his head. “I don’t know what’s going on, captain. That contact I took to be a torpedo of some sort made a close pass and then pulled away. It’s returning to… that thing — whatever it is — now. And,” he looked embarrassed and confused, “I’ve lost our torpedoes. They just… disappeared.”

“Damage control, what’s the flooding situation?”

“Much faster than the pumps can deal with, captain. We’re taking about four tonnes a minute. We’re losing trim.”

“Can we surface?”

“No, sir. We’re already too far gone.”

Zagadko stood a moment in deep thought, rubbing his earlobe. Every captain loves his vessel almost more than life itself, but every captain has to be ready to abandon that vessel at a moment’s notice if there is no alternative. “Where’s the hostile now?” he asked.

Neither the hydrophones nor the sonar operator could find any trace of the huge shape that had attacked them. “It’s gone, captain. It’s just vanished.”

“This is very calculated,” said Captain Zagadko. “It hurts us just enough to sink us and then withdraws. What’s it up to?”

Katya was wondering about that too. “Captain? He turned to her with a mild expression of surprise and she realised he’d forgotten she was there. “Captain, when it attacked us, we had multiple contacts. The Baby never stood a chance..”

“She’s right,” said Kane from the hatchway. “I was conscious throughout. It really laid into us.”

“I thought I told you to go to the ready room, Mr Kane.”

“Yes, you did. It was rather dull so I came back again.”

“You are not helping,” said Zagadko, his irritation starting to show. “Leave my bridge and…”

“What’s the point, captain? We’re sinking and you can’t stop that. There’s nothing out here but the Soup. We really don’t stand much of a chance.”

Just when she thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did. “We’re over the Soup here?” she said, pleasing herself by keeping a waver out of her voice.

The Soup was one of the great mysteries and attractions of Russalka. In the deepest parts of the world ocean, beneath the crush depths of all but the strongest hulls, a thick mineral solution formed lakes and submarine seas. It was far denser than water but still liquid and it existed in standing bodies all over the planet. Little was known of it. A few small experimental samples had been taken and these showed the Soup, as it quickly became known, was rich in metallic salts including some of rare elements. Simply put, the Soup was worth a fortune to whoever worked out a way of extracting it. Many rich men had tried and left poorer. Many poor men had tried and their bodies had not been recovered. The sheer density of the Soup was one of the things that made it so difficult to manipulate and the depth at which it existed made for a very dangerous working environment. Even a vessel capable of diving to great depths like the Novgorod could not hope to enter the Soup and survive. Every litre of Soup weighed — depending where in the world it had been gathered — as much as twenty kilograms, twenty times denser than water. Diving five metres into the Soup was like diving a hundred metres of water. The few boats that could dive that deep were already past their test depth if they reached the surface of the Soup. A few metres down would send the pressure rocketing past the crush depth equivalent and the submarine would be crumpled like a paper boat in a giant’s hand.

Unless they abandoned ship immediately, they would soon be too deep for LoxPaks to save them. Then they would have no choice but to ride the stricken vessel down into the Soup, where they would be crushed in a moment.

Kane coughed. “If anybody’s got any bright ideas, now would be a good moment to share them.”

Katya had an idea, but it was so stupid, she debated sharing it for a moment.

“Blow tanks!” ordered Zagadko.

The hull thrummed as water was driven out of the ballast tanks. “That’s helping, sir,” reported the steerswoman “We’re still sinking but nowhere near as fast. The nose is heavy but we can pull it up a little on the hydroplanes.”

“Not enough,” murmured the captain, watching the depth gauge. “Navigator!” Katya looked up, but he was talking to his own navigator. Of course, thought Katya, don’t be stupid. “Can we make Lemuria?”

The navigator stabbed at some controls — Katya was once again impressed by how much better the Novgorod ’s technology was than anything she was familiar with. On the main screen, a map of the area appeared with the stricken sub in the middle. “At our current rate of descent, we will make it,” a red circle appeared on the map, “this far.” The red circle was nowhere near large enough to encompass Lemuria Station.

The captain stepped up closer to the display. “All right, so we can’t hope to reach Lemuria. Anything else in the area? Research bases or mining encampments? Anything?”

The navigator checked his files and shook his head. Captain Zagadko swore under his breath.

So, that was that. They were all going to die and, it struck Katya, that even if she did make a complete idiot of herself, there would be no witnesses soon enough.

“Captain? Does the Novgorod carry any ship’s vessels?”

“A couple of EVA pods and that’s about it. I’m afraid we don’t have enough to evacuate the whole crew.”