Haze Gray 23
"It isn't over Sir."
"What Gary?"
"Kanmusu Seawolf reports multiple submerged contacts."
"How many?"
"One hundred and four."
"Merde."
"What Canada said. OK, balls in your court Gary." Barack said.
Emily Piggot came up in a window. "Lung just dove in the bay. He was ramping up."
Everyone looked at each other. Chaos asked "Are there anti submarine nets somewhere, will the harbor hold Dwights group until we can clean this mess up?"
"Hey hey hey hey." Danny looked at the admiral "We have to pull the caisson."
"Hey hey hey" Danny face palmed "Pick them up and carry them to the water Gulliver. Of course, we can. OK, so we have net tenders with nets, and subchasers."
Kurt nodded "I'll talk to the harbor master and get the tug crews up. Where is Commander Crane? Come on Commander. You got Johnston's number?"
"Aren't nets old technology?" Stephen asked.
Chaos answered "Yes Sir, but how is he propelling these vessels, there was no smoke from that Konig until Brockton's task group lit it on fire. Consequently, no heat and very little noise. Radar and sonar reflection are all we will have. If that. Passive sonar without the props turning or engines of any kind, our weapons won't be able to use it. Magnetic detection is about all we will have. How she knew something was out there is going to be critical information. As is how the Kanmusu are detecting them now.
"Looking at the Konig there was no crew. It was held together; I don't know how really, the hopes and dreams of Imperialism? Lebensraum? But then it didn't have to be watertight either, so the subs will have no crush depth. They can be below the layers in the water column, some of which will bounce sonar, all of which change the sounds coming through them."
"MAD. Magnetic anomaly detection." Gary said, "Unfortunately that won't get them unless they are coming up to shoot torpedoes. Which we don't know if he has to or not."
Chaos nodded "Though that is a limit too. The late war torpedoes had ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder as well as lead acid batteries in them so if he takes them too deep and has a rupture he is going to lose that submarine. Probably."
Gary turned to someone "Find out how Kanmusu Seawolf is detecting the damn things." Then back to the screen "Chaos are there any torpedoes there? I could get them mark fifty fours, probably got some mark forty-six somewhere. They won't be as good as the Mod K versions, but we have them. What is Athabasca shooting? Does that tender have reloads for her?"
'Hey hey hey hey hey hey' "Thank you admiral, so your yard worked the mark forty-six and the tender has reloads plus twenty-one inch sabots for Athabasca. Nice, smart, cut down on munitions in the supply chain. And her hedge hogs. What I wouldn't give for more of those."
'Hey hey hey' "Your sub chasers have them, of course they do. Since they are now a hundred ten foot composite hulled speed boats with the same engineering plant and propulsion as the PTs obviously, so what forty knots?"
'Hey' " More, of course. They plane? Good god. and modern sonar. All right fellas here is what we are going to do, set that harbor up so I can put Dwight's task group in there.
"Get the nets up.
"Get those subchasers out and have them go active and pound the hell out of the ocean, I'll deal with PETA. That should keep the subs back.
"Get Brockton Bay and her group in the harbor. Meanwhile I'm going to pull every flying ASW asset we have toward the Atlantic and Gulf coast and we are going to sweep it clean.
"Admiral, I have some missions for your subchasers. We don't have as many ships out as we used to but the ones, we do have are crucial. I need as many of those sub chasers as you can get me to cover as far into the Atlantic as they can and the plans for them, their systems, and weapons.
"I'm also going to need to know what the hell you did to those these mark forty six torpedoes. Brockton's group has put two hundred torpedoes in the water and if they haven't hit a target they are still swimming around looking for, or being directed to, one.
"Last thing. PRT is this yours?" An image appeared of an enormous golden metallic sea snake swimming through the ocean boiling it in his passage.
Emily sighed. Then brightened "Well wherever he is Leviathan can't be far, that's the only thing that would get him ramped up that far that I know of."
"Hmmph, well as he is, what? four hundred miles south east of you that's good. Wait a minute that can't be right? Oh, he was flying for a while and now he is doing a hundred knots. On course for Bermuda. Wonderful."
"Sir we need to move your aircraft."
Barack looked at the head of his detail "Johnny if you try to budge me from in front of this screen, I am going to make you sit up on the roof of the White House this whole summer. Move the plane, send it back to Andrews even."
"Daddy go dress. You need to be presentable when Taylor and the others come back."
Johnny watched the President move off rapidly and eyed Malia, who eyed him back. He blinked at the snickering noise he heard and her suppressed grin.
Barack said over his shoulder "Five minutes, then I want PRT to tell me about the response to this."
Haze Gray
Taylor looked at her watch "Man we are going to be so late!"
Vicky swooped past "Nah, close enough I bet we get an Endbringer day. Ames check. Nothing close I can see. We have to get me a radio." She swooped off again
Taylor followed her with her eyes not quite gaping. Amy nodded "Yep Endbringer day. Oh man, PHO is going ape crackers. How the hell are they getting this video?"
Leslie pulled out her phone "Huh, downside to my drone being commercial off the shelf. Somebody else has one. Want me to take it out?"
Taylor thought about it a second to long "It's already out there, once it's on the internet its forever." Amy answered. "Pretty good footage of us blowing the shit out of the Konig in a 'these blobs hate that blob' sort of way. Oh, torpedo tracks. Wow Noelle your birds got some hits. I think. The rest of us too, lots of water columns and they don't go off unless they hit right?"
Tess concentrated for a moment. "No location data, not enough to engage us anyway, they could probably get within visual range, but we would have them long before then. No detail either. Not a very good camera really. They should have replaced it. Maybe no automated lens cleaning? It looks foggy. Yes Amy, each of these water columns is a hit. Somebody on PHO has a score sheet going. Taylor got credit for the Konig as she cracked his armor, we all got assist."
Vicky swooped in to station keep on them "Hence the bike shorts. Drones I mean. All I need is up skirted by some pervert with one of those things. Only the one civilian one, a shit ton of flat gray ones though. Safer down here."
Noelle nodded as she got her helo's rearmed and refueled "We do need to get you a radio and teach you about carrier flight patterns for fixed and rotary wing, you're like an Osprey with a butter bar driving."
Vicky grinned and started singing "I'm like a bird." while doing figure eights. Rachel eyed her. Vicky stopped singing. Nothing bird like around Willie Pete shooter. Rachel dropped the dog she was finished reloading and held out her arms, the next one leapt up. The wing dog trotted along beside her.
"Lisa you good?"
"Yeah, coming to you snorkeling. Don't shoot. IFF on. I ran out of torpedoes. Who is paying for this?"
"The Navy." Hue City came up on the net.
"Hey Hue." Taylor got out then waited. Once the greetings died down Hue told them "We are coming to your place. You have anti-submarine nets and submarine chasers. Mark fifty six ASW mines too."
Taylor blinked "I do?"
Hue laughed, "A busy yard? And an Admirals staff that is apparently cracker jack at anticipating need. Plus, a Warrant Officer five Quartermaster at the Navy Yard? I didn't even know the Navy had warrant officers anymore."
Taylor sighed "Two bird farms, one destroyer, one sub, two PT squadrons, a tender, a hospital ship, and a cruiser. Kanmusu. Two victory ships and a fleet replenishment ship manned. Not exactly a fleet."
Hue whistled "Girl you are seriously under escorted. You need a couple Desrons. Couple more cruisers too. Or more baby bird farms and you can be an assault group. Hey, did you see the big ass gold dragon?"
Lisa had put up an antenna now as well as her snorkel and hooked herself back into the internet "Only on PHO. That's Lung." She laughed "The PRT is tracking him to find Leviathan and has the response holding until they localize him."
"And this lives in your port? Imma have to keep some missiles hot aren't I. I can see it now, he's going to be all 'Hey, I'm Lung, how you doing sweet south Asian thing' and imma have to stick a tomahawk in him. Take that, how you doing?" Taylor let the voice chatter flow as she looked at the data flowing to her CIC and back out.
How the hell did she get a squadron of sub chasers? OK, depth charges, hedge hogs, those looked cool. Not many launchers per though, kind of homemade bottle rocket board things? No torpedoes, that would have to be fixed. Seventy-six millimeter like an Oto Melara compact, cool. Pardon me, three inch. DP though. with auto loaders? Oh crafty. Watch your fingers boys and girls.
No aviation. That needed fixed too.
Quad forty and two fifty cal Gatling's. Pretty good load out for wood boats in the forties and fifties. Wait, that was two twin fity cals back then? Modernized? Oh ho! Yard built like the PTS, much more impressive than their forboats.
Hmmm. wasn't there a rotary wing torpedo armed drone after the war? QH fifty crash? No Dash! Haha! Oh, it can carry two mark forty-six. Now we're talking! Lighter, more efficient power plants available, their mark forty-six were lighter. Up the fuel improve the rotors and the controls. give them autonomy, hook them into the network.
OK these things have already been fitted with M134 mini guns, laser designators, sonobouys, water landing gear, holy crap these were like gadgetized. All kinds of stuff. Hey they could do delivery. A ton? Yeah let's send this to the shops and see what they make of it.
Lisa popped up and skated along with her hands on her knees. "Whew. Damn that was a lot of freaking subs. We backed them off, or Lung distracted Leviathan. Lots of thrashing that way. She pointed south east. Lots more swooshing out there though." She swept her arm to the east.
Tess nodded "I have ninety-eight separate tracks. None closer than a hundred miles. We're too close together to get a fix between us."
Hue spoke up "Let me give you our feeds and we will slow down a bit, you can show us how you are seeing them. We can't get them anywhere near that far away. Well, I hear something, but none of my sonarmen do. CNO is bugging the crap out of the skipper for us to find out how to do this. We're supposed to pass it on to the ASW birds."
Tess nodded and directed the girls, they spread out and streamed their hydrophones. Lisa skated to Rachel and got reloaded and a drink.
Haze Gray
Danny looked at the girls sitting in an area they set up with monitors and drawing boards? Computers, a cnc five axis mill? Wait, was that one of the DWU's, all kinds of stuff, are they building a bedstead? What the hell were they up to? Lucy and Amanda were apparently in charge? He walked over. "Oh yeah, I remember those."
Lucy looked at him "We can make them better! Lighter, more endurance, autonomous, self-servicing, submarine grim reapers!"
"OK, I'm sure you can Lucy, you and your team work on that. Cinnamon roll maybe? How about hot chocolate." He looked at the sea of nodding heads with red eyes and backed away slowly to find a CS Chief and some chocolate maybe, chocolate was good for these periods, erh, times wasn't it? He remembered it was anyway.
Moments later the CS Chief, uh, food service manager Lacey had recently hired laughed "Big baby, they won't hurt you. Go check on what all those crazy guys are doing. Kurt had that Navy Liaison Crane grinning, Johnston pale and shaking his head, something about knowing where the plans of the harbor defenses from the second world war are and the base end and mine control stations still being up, gun positions too. All these little Marines are pretty excited. Plus, now Army guys, with coast artillery insignia, and Army Air corps guys with patches I've never seen."
She smirked at Danny wandering off muttering "You say they won't hurt me, but it's always a guy that gets it in the end."
Haze Gray
Barack looked at the map and the thumbnails of leaders around it. Then he smirked at Johnny "See, aren't you glad we stayed here. Now you don't have to move me when you try to evacuate the rest of the government from Washington."
He turned to the map displayed "I think he will drive past Bermuda David. I think Stephen hit it right on the head. Leviathan likes deep places. I think Lung is headed for the Milwaukie deep, if what Emily says is true, and we have no reason to doubt her, Leviathan is staying just in front of Lung. We should start getting the people in the Caribbean alerted and evacuated."
Paula Cox, premier of Bermuda nodded "As an associate member of CARICOM we must advise them of your suspicions."
Barack nodded "Good, I've already got Puerto Rico and The US Virgin Islands a warning, but let's not depend on just them to pass the word."
Paula frowned "Some of the CARICOM member states may not be accepting of your aid in light of your colonial adventures in Argentina."
Barack sighed "Let's warn them, then we can get all those parties on the call and discuss it with them if you want, really we, the United States are only holding an air and beachhead. Argentina's neighbors are attempting, successfully so far, to root out the narco gangs that took over the country and reestablish the rule of law."
"And yet your CIA super weapon, created in violation of all international norms, is at the heart of another crisis."
"My what? You look here Miss Cox, Brockton Bay cannot help what she triggered as, any more than you or I can help being born black. I will not have you insulting a young woman just because the circumstances of her birth and an accident of fortune. I would have expected more of you." The other leaders in the thumbnails looked out of the screen owlishly.
"For you to impugn a young woman who has tried to be law abiding and succeeded, only acting to defend herself or others and then using the minimum amount of force required, though it required her to risk herself even more, a personal friend of my daughters, is unconscionable.
"You can meet her and all the other Kanmusu in about an hour, two if they continue to provide the screen ensuring the safety of ten thousand of my citizens of all color's, creeds, and religions, as well as mariners from all nations, currently under attack by Leviathan using an previously unknown means, with complete disregard for their own safety.
"For which I intend to award her the Medal of Freedom, it will be her third award, some of the other Kanmusu and their civilian parahuman comrades will be receiving their second awards of the same. Two of them are so recently triggered they don't even have names yet!
"For you to infer that any branch of my government would purposely trigger someone is slanderous.
"You and I are going to have a long conversation after this is over Miss Cox!"
He turned his head to a staffer "See if there are any Cubans on Bermuda." then he cut the mike. He looked up into a smiling Michelle's face.
A Michelle who then glared at a certain thumbnail with a paling woman of color in it. Then turned on her heel and strode away. "Lawyer, we'll see about that."
Tammi blinked. What the actual fuck, the President going off on another black leader in front of god and everybody! First the President? Here?
Next Lung was out in the fucking ocean chasing Leviathan to something called a deep? How long could the fuck hold his breath?
Then German ships and submarines getting the shit blown out of them. Again. How were they ever the master race? They must have been hot shit on land because they weren't fuck on the ocean against anybody who had any kind of weapon. Yeah not so much once they weren't just fighting French and Brits on land either. Wait, were they just bullies all along? She walked to the head of the dock and made her way down the giant steps and into the water. She thought better when she was floating up to her nose in the dock.
Haze Gray
"Yeah fuck stand by to stand by to die. I'm going to find the boats!" Bam. Hannah pinched the bridge of her nose.
The cawthorn chuckled "This should be entertaining. I don't think she has ever been to the Isle of shoals. That's as close as she could get to us on land."
"You don't know Mouse Protector, I don't know how but if there is a boat near you she will be on it in a few minutes."
Armsmaster turned to the cawthorn "Can you get heavy lift to Dahlgren Virginia?"
"Yes? How heavy?"
"A hundred and twenty nine thousand kilos, times four." Dragon nodded slowly "We can have lift there, have crews standing by to rig the guns." Armsmaster said into his communication system.
Hannah asked "Guns?"
Armsmaster turned back to them "Yes, the DWU has found the coastal defense plans for this area from the war. Most of the revetments and fortifications still exist, to include the mounts for the guns, amazing they survived, guns and mounts, apparently, they were built for the Saratoga class Battle Cruisers but never used, then given to the Army who used them for coastal defense. We just require the guns which are in a storage in Dahlgren. Most of the emplacements were not built in time for them to be installed before the war ended. One hundred fifty-five-millimeter field guns were used instead. We will have to make the barbette. If we then have the Kanmusu yard make the shells they could possibly affect the Endbringers. Demonstrably they will affect their ships."
"If that works the M65 cannon were only eleven inches but were mobile. With some work they could be vastly improved, made faster and lighter for one.
"Meanwhile the anti-submarine loops from the war were left in place. I will need transportation to Smutty Nose island to install an amplifier and remote receiver transmitter for the signals."
The cawthorn turned to Hannah "Busy is good?" Hannah chuckled.