heading of fifteen degrees north, and ahead two thirds. I think it best we get out of these waters as soon as possible.”
But the green soup they were in only seemed to deepen, the odd glow of the sea more redolent, until all the systems on the bridge were struck again by a wave of static and interference that crackled through the wires and over the screens of every station. Volsky felt it again, that prickling sensation of needles all through his body, and his hair seemed to stand on end. His first thought was that they were experiencing some odd effects radiating from the detonation, but it soon passed and the ship seemed to settle down, though the water around them still glowed with an ominous hue of green that rippled and shimmered all around them, radiating outward from the ship in all directions.
The Admiral settled into his command chair, and Gretchko the cat ran over and leapt up into his lap, purring contentedly.
“You have a message for the Admiral, Gretchko?” said the Doctor, reaching over to pet the cat on his head.
“Radar,” said Volsky. “Give me an update on those airborne contacts.” Volsky was already thinking he might yet have one more battle on his hands, more blood as well.
Rodenko was quiet for a moment, adjusting his consul, and looking at screens to the right and left of him as if he was trying to confirm something. “Sir,” he began. “I have no airborne contacts. There is nothing on my screen at all now. I’ve switched from rotating pulse Doppler on the main mast to Phased-Array, and still no contacts, sir.”
“Nothing? You have no reading on the surface action groups we were tracking?”
“No sir. Those destroyers that were chasing us are gone as well. I can read the coast of Newfoundland, so my system is processing signal returns, but I see no surface or airborne contacts of any kind. In fact, I can no longer read the detonation site. There should be a clearly visible column of steam and water vapor there, but there is no signal return. We just experienced another odd electronic flux, so the systems may have been compromised as before. It’s easy to process a signal return on a distant landform, but ships at sea, at this range, and in a post nuclear environment, may be difficult.”
“For both Doppler and Phased-Array systems? You are suggesting they are still out there but we cannot see them? Perhaps you are correct, Rodenko, but much more than the radar was compromised the last time we saw the ocean in this condition.”
Volsky looked at the ceiling mounted flat panel screen for his rear facing HD video system where a third ‘Tin Man’ stood a watch. The ship was pointed away from the detonation site, and he had to rely on his cameras to see if the mushroom from the 15 Kiloton warhead was still visible, particularly on infrared. The signal was unsteady, breaking up in the characteristic mottled digital squares. He sighed. “I miss analog,” he said. “With analog at least you got a picture, even if it was cloudy or full of fuzz. But this digital nonsense? It’s either pristine, or not there at all.” Then he decided on the obvious.
“Mister Fedorov,” he said calmly. “You are fond of rushing out on to the watch deck to look for planes, yes? Please take the Captain’s field glasses and do so now to see if you find anything out there that belongs in a museum. And while you are at it, let me know if you can still spot the detonation mushroom from the warhead the Captain fired. It should still be visible to the southeast.” When in doubt, there was always the comforting reassurance of the human eye to weigh in on the question.
Fedorov had the field glasses and was out on the watch deck for some time before he poked his head back through the hatch. “Nothing, Admiral,” he said with a smile. “No sign of the detonation at all. The horizon is clear and calm. I don’t think Rodenko is experiencing a system failure, sir. The ship appears to be in order, and the helm is responding, just as before.”
“Yes”, said Volsky, “But where are we steering her now, Mister Fedorov? The last time we slipped seventy years!” Volsky shrugged. There was nothing more to be done. The sudden disappearance of the opposing ships and planes had a vacant, hollow warning in it, and the vanishing mushroom cloud was worse than the rapid change in the weather the last time they had experienced these strange events. Something was clearly wrong, and he did not think it was the ship’s radar system.
“Mister Tasarov,” he said. “Do you have sonar readings on the surface action groups we were tracking?”
“No sir. The passive systems were all fouled up when our warhead detonated, but I can’t even read that disturbance any longer. I think we are too far off for active sonar to re-acquire, but we could try that, sir.”
“No, I don’t think that will be necessary,” said the Admiral. “Something tells me those ships and planes are not there any longer. But then again, perhaps they are… They seem to have vanished, but I think that is what they will say of us in time.”
Fedorov nodded his head, understanding what the Admiral was hinting at. “Well, sir,” he said. “We’re alive and well. The ship is sound, and in time we’ll discover what has happened, just as before.”
“Quite right, Number One,” said Volsky. “In time. We are obviously here, somewhere, and in spite of the color this still looks to be the Atlantic ocean. We have the who, what and where of things firmly in hand. The only question now is when.”
“Yes, sir,” said Fedorov, “and why.”
Epilogue
“Man is a mystery. It needs to be unraveled, and if you spend your whole life unraveling it, don't say that you've wasted time. I am studying that mystery because I want to be a human being.”
Epilogue
By the time Home Fleet reached the scene it was well past too late to save anyone in the sea. Admiral Tovey was out on the watch deck off the starboard rear of the flag bridge with his Chief of Staff, Daddy Brind, staring at the remnant of the great spray dome of vapor and mist that was slowly dissipating in the distance. He squinted through his field glasses, his face tired, eyes beset with an expression of pain and bewilderment. The grey swells of the ocean had settled, and they could still vaguely make out a gleam of wan light on the capsized hulk of the American battleship Mississippi, like a great behemoth that had been harpooned and now lay swamped in the misty grey seas.
The waters around them were awash with debris, the flotsam of Task Force 16, which had been crushed by a single massive explosion that the British had seen from nearly fifty nautical miles away. When King George V approached the scene, Tovey would never forget the angry steaming column he saw, as cool air and seawater were drawn upward over five thousand feet into a mushrooming cloud. What they saw now was mostly the dissipating plume of water vapor, and the silent grey rain of condensation falling at the edges of the detonation site like a shroud of doom.
“What was it, Brind? What could do this?”
The grey haired Chief of Staff was mute, his eyes glazed with shock and a strange tinge of sadness. He had no answer for the Admiral, and the two men just stared in silence. They had not felt such despair since the news of Hood’s demise had come to them, just a few short months ago. Then over a thousand men had gone into the angry sea, but this was far worse.
A white fog seemed to be settling over the scene, as they watched the fast cruisers of the American Task
