Standard Disclaimer
Chapter One
seaQuest DSV 4600
Somewhere in the Irish Sea, UK
Nathan Bridger stepped down into his quarters and wiped the sweat from his brow. He really was starting to feel the difference 30 odd years in service made. Had he been twenty two years old and fresh out of the academy, like some of his officers, he would probably have been invigorated by the run, but to his dismay his aging body did not treat him as kindly as he treated it. Not that he'd ever show it, or even let himself think it. His doctor had made a particular point that those over fifty had to exercise more, not less. Still, he was doing pretty well for his age; his competition with Captain Clayton had proved that.
He stopped by his desk, noting a small pile of mail there. Must have left by someone shortly after they shoved off from Liverpool, he thought. It was relatively unusual to get an actual letter nowadays, and this only served to increase his sense of anticipation. Letters were always important. They contained the kind of information that an e-mail did not do justice to; sometimes it was I love you, and sometimes it was a black rimmed envelope telling of death. He'd had his fair share of both.
There were three letters. The first was a statement from his accountant. His investment portfolio looked healthy. The second was a thank-you note from a family he'd met sailing in the summer almost a year before. It had taken them that long to find him and catch up through the military post-office. Bridger smiled to himself.
The third letter was different altogether. It was a good quality but faded envelope, nice heavy gage of paper, neat hand-written address that reminded him of someone. Was it another acquaintance from last summer? No, it was a more personal message than that. Maybe it was one of the 'I love you's. He slipped his thumb into the corner of the envelope, but before he could feel the satisfying rip of the paper, a voice clanged out over the ship-wide, "Captain to the bridge…"
He put the letter down and sighed in the time honoured Captain's way; there was something that deserved or demanded his attention. He left the unopened letter on the desk and headed for the bridge. It would have to wait.
"What did I waylay my shower for this time Commander?" Bridger asked his second officer. She had been analysing some of the feedback from their sensors with Miguel Ortiz.
"I think I know what's been putting our geophysics out of whack."
They both looked at the image of a dark shadow that the WSKRs had retrieved through the low visibility waters.
She adjusted her headset. "I think you'll find this one interesting, Sir."
"Define interesting."
"Interesting as in a scuttled world-war two submarine, and it's sealed with a considerable amount of air still inside."
"Okay, you have my attention now," said Bridger.
"And all this time we'd been worrying it was another of those Victorian locomotives," muttered Miguel under his breath. Bridger pretended not to hear it.
"Looking forward to London?" Ben asked his young friend.
"Not exactly. It's only going to be a tour of the museums. Doc W is giving lectures on our discoveries and I can't think of anything more boring than spending hours listening to something I already know."
Ben didn't say anything. They were helping to stow some of their new equipment in lockers with a few of the seamen and he carried on lifting for a few more minutes, allowing Lucas to speak his mind.
"It would be different if there were opportunities to meet people," Lucas said. His arms ached, more so he imagined, than those of the sailors.
"And by people you mean girls," said Ben.
One of the young seamen smirked.
"You got me," admitted Lucas. "Where else is an up and coming bachelor supposed to meet members of the opposite sex?"
"What happened to that girl you were seeing? Julia…? Juliet…?"
"Oh, Juliana, she's way too focussed on her career at the moment. And last I heard, she'd been on a Buddhist retreat and she's thinking about becoming a nun."
"She'd prefer being a Buddhist nun to dating you? What is the world coming to?"
"How am I supposed to learn how to relate to women when half of those on board are middle-aged and the rest are military and out of those, most have the power to make my life hell?"
"Tell me about it. The statistics are not on our side."
Lucas used the very last of his energy to help one of the seamen lift a particularly heavy box onto a high shelf. He envied the toned arms of the other men.
"What have you got in here anyway? More dead cow?" He asked Ben. He didn't get an answer; he rarely did, so he swung back to the previous subject. "I hear English girls are hot."
"Listen, if you do meet any girls at this museum - for your own sake - try to act human," Ben told him.
"And will there be any hot girls in the middle of the wilderness?"
"I doubt it, unless there are any tree hugging types hanging around."
"Yeah, ones that don't shave their legs."
"It's a training exercise, there aren't going to be any people, hot or otherwise."
"I wish I was going."
"Yeah, well, being stuck in the middle of nowhere trying to survive with, let's admit it - people who hate me, is not my ideal way to spend a week's vacation."
"We'll swap. You can sleep through all the Doc's lectures, and I'll be getting back to nature…"
"You wouldn't know nature if a squirrel walked up to you and decked you with a sack of nuts."
Just then, before the seamen could injure themselves laughing at the pair's exchange, Ben's PAL beeped.
"Krieg," he answered.
"Lieutenant," rang out Katie Hitchcock's rather urgent voice, "You're needed in the ward-room immediately. You're going to be in the search party."
"Sound's intriguing. May I ask where to?"
"Just get up here now, Ben," she warned, "before I change my mind."
"So what is it?" Ben asked, as he steered the launch through the murky water.
"It's a Gato class attack sub, probably commissioned in 1940 or 1941," said Katie.
"And you could tell that just from the shape of its conning tower?"
"Some of us paid attention in our maritime history class."
In the passenger section of the launch, Joshua Levin shared the joke with Crocker. He could tell she was in a good mood. It was hard to ignore how everyone was feeling when you lived in such close quarters.
"The strange thing is," Katie continued, "hardly any of these served in the Atlantic fleet and absolutely none were reported lost here."
"That's hardly surprising. They weren't exactly famed for their efficient record keeping back then."
"Or…" She prompted.
"You're thinking…?"
"It was on a highly sensitive mission and couldn't be reported."
"So it could be extremely valuable from an historical point of view." Levin stepped into the cockpit. He'd come along to cast his forensic eye over the remains.
"Exciting," said Katie, "very exciting."
"Well, we're about to find out," said Ben. They had arrived.
Out in the murky blue, Darwin circled the two craft, watching as the seaQuest's launch clamped itself onto the dark hulk of the other submarine. He knew that the crew would soon begin cutting into the hull like a parasitic lamprey, getting ready to board and find out what they could about it's past.
He could never understand the human's obsession with the past. Why was it so important to them? What had passed was past. One day they would learn to accept that. Then maybe they could be as wise and learned as dolphins.
Darwin got closer to the unholy union of vehicles, he'd promised to keep an eye on the crew, but he still felt uneasy as it reminded him of a lamprey sucking on its foe. He hated lampreys. And he wasn't fond of this place either. It was what dolphin-lore called a special place, where the spiritual world was close and could easily come through to the physical world. He'd heard that the humans knew of such places too, they called them names like Stone-Henge and The Ring of Brodgar, but his friends seemed to have no knowledge that they were in such a place right now. He had a feeling something was about to happen that would upset the world as he knew it.
There was a metallic sound which he interpreted as the crew finally cutting a door in the unknown ship.
They were in.
"They had one of these in the yard in Liverpool, completely rusted out," said Ben, "but this one is perfectly preserved. Gives me the shivers."
Their flashlight beams darted around the interior corridors, revealing cramped bunks juxtaposed to the exposed instrument panels.
"You've got the shivers?" Said Crocker as Mars and Olden went ahead of them, "I can't say I'm too keen on ghost ships myself."
Katie successfully stifled her humour at his comment.
"How long have we got?" Levin asked her.
"An hour to an hour and a half, based on the volume of air. I can't believe it's still breathable after almost eighty years." She looked around her in wonder, taking it all in. It smelled just like she'd imagined it would, the same elements they experienced everyday living on a submarine; cooking, people, algae, but with the added odour of diesel. She'd expected it to taste stale and poisonous, like all the other closed spaces they'd discovered, but this seemed too normal even to her acute senses… Too alive.
"It's cold." She pulled her jacket closed around her.
"USS Goldfish," Levin read from a plaque, "hopefully we'll be able to find out what sunk her, and maybe even figure out a way to recover her."
Katie smiled at him. "You called her a 'her'."
"I guess I did. Working with you is starting to rub off."
They continued on their way sweeping forward. By the time they'd reached the con, Katie had a distinctly uneasy feeling about the place. Levin confirmed her instinct. "Seen any bodies?"
"That's exactly what I was thinking," she replied, examining some of the gauges in the ops section. There was the sonar operator's notebook, still intact and some enamelled plates and mugs lying around. "I'm no expert, but this doesn't look eighty years old." She tipped the dregs of a cup of coffee out onto the deck.
"And have you noticed, there's no dust on anything?" said Levin.
Ben didn't look happy as he overheard their conversation. He had been photographing one of the instrument panels. "I think I've found out why we have air. The electrolytic converter is still running."
"Impossible," said Katie coming over, "there's no power."
"Maybe it's running on batteries?"
"After eighty years? I don't think so." She gave him a you're-so-un-technical look.
He snapped her with the camera. "Maybe it hasn't been down here for eighty years. Maybe it's a recent sinking."
"It's half covered with silt. Even the Titanic wasn't this sunk."
"Freak currents? Come on, you have to admit, you might have been wrong about this one."
"Look around you, Ben," she pointed out the sonar log book, "nineteen forty one."
"It's the enigma," Levin interrupted.
"You can say that again," said Ben.
"No, I mean they were carrying an enigma machine. Look."
While they were bickering, Levin had searched the Captain's quarters and found the padlocked wooden box. He shone his beam through the open hatch to the box and then back to illuminate his intense face.
"There's no record of an USS Goldfish ever being commissioned, let alone sunk, I'm afraid Commander," said Bridger, standing behind O'Neill on the bridge.
"They're carrying an Axis enigma machine as well as the codebooks. It doesn't surprise me they would keep this one a secret," her voice came over the radio.
"This could be a very important discovery, Captain," said Ford over his shoulder, "How many of these things are still intact?"
"Should I contact UEO Command and find out how to proceed?" said O'Neill.
"Affirmative Lieutenant," he said and then turned his attention back to Hitchcock, "don't disturb anything, Commander, I'm going to have to speak to the antiquities commission."
"Permission to stay and try to find out what happened to the crew, Sir?"
"Permission granted, I'm just as curious as you are. Keep me informed."
"You catch all that?" she said to Ben when she'd put away her PAL.
"If you ask me it's asking for trouble."
"I'll second that," said Crocker as they entered the galley.
"Would you look at this?" said Ben. "They have a fridge-freezer. I didn't know they had those, way back when."
"Don't open it," Katie laid a hand on his outstretched arm, "You don't know what toxins could have developed in an anaerobic atmosphere."
Ben took a step back, realising what he'd been about to do.
It was Levin's turn to smile. "Why Commander, I do believe working with me has started to rub off on you."
"So that's what killed the crew; the food. I could have told you that already," said Ben.
"Come on, let's get this over with," said Katie, and they backed out of the galley to investigate the remainder of the boat.
"What was that?" Mars said, his hand going to his sidearm. They'd reached the forward compartments, and he had to stoop to get his frame through the hatch.
"What was what?" asked Olden.
"Sounded like footsteps."
"Impossible - " Olden started, but he was silenced by a flash of ragged clothing in the hatchway ahead. He looked at his companion, astonished.
They both moved forward with renewed anticipation as Mars pulled out his PAL to contact the Commander.
"We'll be right there," she said.
As they moved into the torpedo room, Mars was sure he saw another figure darting away out of the corner of his vision. "Stop, who goes there? Show yourself! This is the UEO. Come out with your hands up!" He scanned the room, weapon and flashlight at the ready.
Nothing.
Then suddenly a crash rang out from behind an empty rack. Mars rushed forward and Olden covered him. He soon found himself face to face with grimy, scrawny features. The most terrified young man he'd even seen cowered in the corner, more like an animal than a human being.
The others piled through the hatch.
"What's going on in here?" Demanded Katie.
"Easy now," said Crocker when he caught sight of the scared kid, "no-ones going to hurt you." He made Mars lower his weapon, but he was careful to keep control of the situation. Anything could happen when someone was that desperate.
Katie came fearlessly over to him and, ignoring Crocker and the security crew, crouched down to his level. "What's your name?" She asked, placing a white hand gently on the remains of his boiler suit sleeve.
"B-Billy." He managed to get out. "Billy Doyle."
"Are you hurt? We're here to help you."
"I'm not hurt," he had an Irish accent, "and you're not... German."
"Does that surprise you?" Katie asked, a little concerned, "we're from the UEO. We're investigating what we thought was a wreck."
"How did you get in here?" Crocker asked.
Billy tried to scramble further into the corner. "You're not taking it," he said, growing agitated, "YOU'RE NOT TAKING IT!"
"It's Okay." Katie steadied his hands in her own. "We're not going to take anything from you. Billy, what happened to the crew?"
"They're outside," said Billy, his eyes flashing wildly.
"He's not making any sense," breathed Crocker.
"He's clearly traumatised," said Levin in explanation.
"Why are they outside?" Katie continued.
"Captain… thought one of the officers was a spy… executed him in front of all of us… mutiny… they're all dead, I'm the only one left… fired the bodies out of the torpedo tubes… I… I didn't want to get sick."
"I guess that would have been standard procedure back in nineteen forty one?" asked Ben.
"What do you mean, back in forty one? It still is forty one," said Billy, recovering himself.
"No it's not, it's twenty and nineteen," said Ben, "if this some sort of game, it's not funny. Tell us how you got onboard and where your crew really are."
Katie was just about to tell Ben to let her do the talking, when her PAL rang out. "Excuse me a moment," she apologised to everyone, and went to the back of the compartment to answer it. "Hitchcock."
"Where have you been?" came Ford's voice. "I've been calling you. You were supposed to check in after an hour and a half – we agreed that. I was just about to send another team over there."
"We haven't been here for an hour and a half." She frowned, checking her watch.
"I think something maybe wrong with your timekeeping."
"With everyone's timekeeping? Jonathan, I swear to you, we have been here less than half an hour. There's no way that much time could have passed."
"Don't swear, Katie, just get it right." He sounded annoyed. "I need a situation -report."
"We've found someone, a stow-away; I haven't been able to find out how he got in here yet. The structure is as sound as we hoped, so I'd recommend we bring him and the enigma machine back and let the historians do their job. I don't want to spend any more time here than is absolutely necessary."
After she'd gotten confirmation from Ford, she went back over to the group, who were still trying to reassure Billy that they weren't Nazis.
"We have to leave. Get whatever things you need and come with us," she said.
"Now I remember you," Billy said to her, stopping her in her tracks.
"I beg your pardon?"
"You wore your hair differently then and you wore a dress, but I knew it was you."
Katie looked around her at the men. Crocker stiffened, ready to protect.
"I don't know you," she said.
"Sure you do. It's Katherine, isn't it?"
"You could have guessed that from my name badge."
"The last time I saw you, you were wearing a red dress," Billy persisted.
"You're mistaken Billy, I've never seen you before in my life."
"You have."
"We don't have time for this. We're leaving."
Crocker and Mars helped the weak young man to his feet and accompanied him back to the launch.
Katie picked up the enigma machine on the way, visibly perturbed by what Billy had said.
"Don't worry," said Levin when he saw her grim face.
"I'm not worried," she assured him. "I just feel for him, that's all. He must have lost his mind down here on his own."