Chapter 1: The Admiral.
-Washington D.C. Nov 1st, 1994.
A car was driving up Independence Avenue. It was black with tented windows and had government plates. It passed the Capitol building. Congress was in session, but this was not its destination. The black car continued onward, passing the Washington Monument and then the Lincoln Memorial. Finally, it crossed over the wide Potomac River.
The black car arrived at the Pentagon and stopped at the main entrance. A young Officer in a white Navy uniform stepped out of the vehicle and crossed over to the back passenger door. He opened it and held the door courteously, standing at attention. As his passenger stepped out, he saluted. The passenger was an older man bearing all the trappings of an Admiral in the United States navy, with the one notable exception of a patch on his right upper arm. The atypical patch was an indication of a specialized branch of service.
The Admiral saluted the young officer in return, then, without a word, he began to climb the steps of the Pentagon and started making his way through various security checkpoints. He presented his badge, indicating his security clearance, at each checkpoint without incident. The guards kept the conversation to a minimum, but dutifully saluted the Admiral as he passed by.
The Admiral made his way to the Department of Naval Intelligence and discovered an envelope waiting for him in the message box on his desk. He was not surprised to find it there. He happened to be good friends with his superior and was well aware of what was coming. He opened the letter and found that it was exactly what he had been anticipating. His new orders. Despite knowing what they would say, he none-the-less read through the contents carefully. He grimaced slightly.
When he was finished, he folded the letter and put it back into the envelope. Without wasting a moment, he proceeded back out of his office and toward the nearby stairwell. He could have taken the elevator, but he preferred to stretch his legs instead. He made his way down until he found himself in the archives in the lower levels of the Pentagon.
At the check in desk of the archive, the Admiral found a young clerk sitting reading a book. He must have been very engrossed in whatever it was, because the old man managed to walk right up to him before he even looked up. When the young clerk did finally notice him standing there, he was a little frightened to be caught so unawares. The clerk quickly put his book down, and the Admiral was surprised to see it was about U.S. naval history. He observed by the bookmark that the clerk had not gotten very far into it yet.
"How can I help you sir?" The young man asked nervously, trying to keep his voice formal.
"Hello young man, I am Admiral Marcus Ryan. Are you the only one working here today?" The old Admiral inquired, looking around at the seemingly empty archive.
"Ah, yes sir." The clerk replied. "I'm the only one most days. The archive doesn't need a large staff. It's typically pretty quiet."
"Very well then, I will require your services." Admiral Ryan informed him. "I need to pull all the records and reports from the U.N.G.C.C. files. What is your name?"
"Ah, it's Penwood sir." The clerk replied, slowly processing everything he said. "Did you say all of the U.N.G.C.C. files sir? That encompasses an entire section of archive, sir."
"Yes, I am aware of that son." The Admiral smirked, understanding the large workload it entailed. "You'd better get started. We are going to be at it for quite a long time. Please bring me the oldest files first and the rest in chronological order from there."
"Yes sir." Penwood started to get up and saluted awkwardly.
"And would you be so kind as to point me in the direction of the largest table down here?" Admiral Ryan added. "I'm going to need lots of space."
"Yes sir, just around the corner you will find just what you need." Penwood replied, pointing with an outstretched finger.
"Very good." Admiral Ryan noted the location. "Bring the files there. I will also need some paper and something to write with."
"Yes sir, you will find everything you need in the alcove just there." He pointed to a place just behind Admiral Ryan.
…
Some minutes later, Admiral Ryan had settled into the chair and was looking down at a file labelled in big red letters. They read: 'THE FIRST INCIDENT AND THE EVENTS LEADING UP TO IT.'
"Sir…?" Penwood was standing next to Admiral Ryan, he had not heard him approach. "I noticed the name 'Ryan' was listed on the file. Did a relative of yours contribute to this report?"
"No son." Admiral Ryan smirked knowingly. "If you search through the contents of this file, you will find Eye-witness statements made by a very young seaman by the name of Marcus Ryan." Penwood looked confused. "You see, I was present for a lot of the events outlined in this report. It's not a mistake that an old man like me was assigned to sift through these dusty old records." A light of understanding sparked in Penwood's eyes.
"Oh, I see." Penwood replied nervously, not knowing how else to respond.
"Since you're going to be helping me out with this, I might as well let you in on my little secret. I have been ordered to put together a comprehensive report that is to be presented to the U.N. Security Council." Admiral Ryan explained. "But I need to whittle it down to just the essential information.
Penwood looked astonished. He now felt eager to help out with a project that seemingly carried so much weight to it.
"There were a lot of young fellows at the time who could have told you what they saw back then, but now-a-days our numbers are getting a little thin." Admiral Ryan lamented, feeling his age.
"We are lesser as a whole for that sir." Penwood noted. Ryan could tell that he earnestly meant what he said, because the young clerk seemed a little embarrassed when he smiled at him.
"Ha, I like you Penwood." Admiral Ryan said warmly. "That's why I'll tell you another secret. It would have gotten me in a lot of trouble back then, but well… suffice to say, we are well past that now."
"Oh… ok." Penwood was not sure where he was going.
"Anyways, I suppose I should start at the beginning." Admiral Ryan went on, preparing to commence a long story. I was a bright kid growing up, but I also had a bit of a knack for finding trouble too. Mischief was my constant companion. I gave my mother more sleepless nights than a kid ever had a right to." His smile widened with that last sentiment. "I graduated high school a full year early, which made my mother all sorts of happy. She thought I'd be able to do anything I wanted with my life. She thought for sure I'd be off to college with my grades, but I was labelled as somewhat of a hell-raiser you see. Some of the more unsavory behaviors in my permanent record closed a lot of doors for me. Still, I think it surprised the hell out of my mother when I enlisted in the navy at the age of sixteen. I could have waited a few months and signed up legally when I was seventeen with my mother's consent, but I knew I wouldn't get that out of her, and I was never a very patient boy in any case. I wanted to be like my old man, live a life full of adventure. I knew a guy who could doctor my documents to make them look legit. Get my foot in the door with recruiters. My father had died young just a few years earlier and that motivated me to get out and see the world. My family was poor, so there were few other options other than joining the navy."
"If you were an enlisted man, how were you able to attain the rank of Admiral?" Penwood asked. "I didn't think that was possible."
"It's not." Admiral Ryan replied coolly. "I joined the academy some years later when I figured out I liked the navy life and decided to go career."
"Why didn't you just join the academy straight away?" Penwood inquired curiously. "Surely going in with a higher rank would have been to your advantage and you had plenty of time."
"Well, to understand my reasons for enlisting, you have to understand the state of politics at the time." Admiral Ryan began to explain. "This was near the end of 1938 and the world was a powder keg just waiting to go off. I was young and dumb and wanted to see action right away. I knew if I signed up for the academy, I'd be stuck there for four years missing out." He paused, taking a deep breath. "The trouble in the world was the peace following the Great War left many nations feeling unsatisfied. They were either missing their piece of the victory pie in spoils or felt victimized by unfair treaty stipulations. This was especially true for both Japan and Germany. Also, Italy to a lesser degree. But these feelings were slowly stewing, leading towards another conflict. Like most things, it started small. Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935. I remember my history teacher saying that the League of Nations would step in and intervene. He said that they'd set things straight, but European politics interfered, and when all was said and done, the only thing that came of it was showcasing just how ineffective the League was at solving problems. The League of Nations ended up dissolving entirely in the years that followed, but that's a whole other can of worms."
Admiral Ryan took a sip from a warm cup of coffee Penwood had brought him earlier. It soothed his throat.
"Anyways, there was also the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. At first, most people saw their movement simply as a natural reaction by the German people against an unjust treaty. A lot of Americans felt the treaty of Versailles, imposed by the British and French, was too harsh, but it quickly became apparent that the Germans had more in mind beyond just standing up for themselves. They were quickly building up momentum and heading somewhere bad. In 1936, they supported the fascist regime in the Spanish Civil War and through a great deal of material support, and volunteers, helped them win. That same year, they reoccupied the Rhineland in west Germany, which was supposed to have been a demilitarized zone. Two years later, they annexed the country of Austria and then did the same to the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. Emboldened by the limited response from other European powers, they decided to annex the rest of Czechoslovakia the following year. They were on their way to annexing more territory from Poland when fate decided to intervene."
Ryan paused to sip again.
"In 1938, a red-tailed comet appeared in the sky and marked the beginning of a new era of human history." He went on. "No one knows where it came from. Can you imagine? It just suddenly appeared in the sky one day. Astronomers were baffled. 'The Harbinger' is what they later came to call it. It was like a red tear streaking across the sky, a foreboding sign of things to come. It was gone the next day, but in its place, the world was hammered by a massive and sudden meteor shower. As it turned out, Germany was hit the hardest. Their new energetic leader was killed, along with a number of his supporters in the Reichstag building. The German high command was practically wiped out overnight and that derailed most of their immediate plans. It was one of the greatest mysteries of the century. You see, the building had been leveled, like so many others in Berlin and around the world at the time, but the impact pattern was different from other locations. Stranger still, while there was a meteor found at the center of the crater, it was found to be unlike any of the other fragments found in the rest of Germany. It had a metallic core and even more odd, it was magnetic. In Germany, there was initially suspicion of sabotage from either a rival nation or a dissident group from within their own ranks. There was a highly publicized investigation to get to the bottom of it. However, after months of questions and research, they hadn't turned anything significant up. Aside from the unique qualities of the meteor itself, there was little evidence to support any accusations beyond the incident being an Act of God."
Admiral Ryan took a final sip of coffee as he began to wrap things up.
"Overall, the outcome of the incident was that Germany as a whole remained a rising power, but its aggressive foreign policy became more tempered while they attempted to rebuild and held elections to find new leadership. Of course, the meteor shower effected more than just the Germans. Along with damaging cities all across the world directly, it also seemed to spurn some nasty environmental changes. One particularly large chunk of rock impacted in the Pacific Ocean and caused tidal waves, earthquakes, and a string of volcanic eruptions along the Marianas Trench."
"In Asia, there was also trouble brewing. The Russian Revolution and civil war that followed in 1918, led to the rise of a dangerous Communist dictatorship headed by Joseph Stalin. Soviet Russia was hungry to expand westward into Europe, threatening all its smaller neighbors. The threat of France and Great Britain declaring war if they invaded Poland was about the only thing keeping them in check. The Germans had also initially made a non-aggression pact with them, but their new administration abandoned that treaty in favor of European stability. They recognized the Soviets as the greater threat and there policies switched to trying to counter their efforts."
"In the Far East, the Empire of Japan had conquered Korea and the Northern part of China and were fighting a war with the Chinese Nationalists and Communists to conquer the rest of China. The Russians and our own Government supported China against them, which was inching us closer and closer to a conflict with the Land of the Rising Sun. Tensions were already mounting before I graduated, but after I enlisted, things got even worse."
Admiral Ryan paused.
"And that leads us to this, doesn't it." Admiral Ryan tossed 'The First Incident file' on the table in front of Penwood. "Open it." He instructed politely.
Penwood obeyed. The first thing he noted was a picture of a commercial freighter. It had a note under it. It read: 'Last known photo of the Eiko-maru'.
"We didn't realize the significance at the time." Admiral Ryan said as Penwood read through the small article outlining the disappearance of the ship. "She just vanished without a trace. The Japanese company who owned the ship sent another to investigate, but it disappeared too. That's when tensions started to spike. One random Japanese vessel going missing was one thing, but for two to vanish in the space of a week was unusual and given the high tension that already existed between us, the Japanese suspected the ships may have been attacked by a submarine."
"Matters only grew worse a week later when a convoy of three U.S. cargo ships bound for China disappeared in the same area. One vessel managed to get off a distress signal indicating they were under attack, but the message was cut off before it identified who was attacking them. Our government assumed it was a Japanese retaliatory strike, but there were no survivors that could confirm it."
"With the count of missing ships up to five, both sides started to mobilize their navies. At this point, I was out of boot camp and stationed in San Diego. After the convoy attack, I was assigned to the cruiser USS Houston. Two days later, it was deployed to the naval base in Hawaii. A few days after that, the worst disaster yet occurred. A British passenger liner went missing with the same M.O. as the other attacks. There were American passengers on board, as well as people from various European countries. In total, about two thousand civilians disappeared along with the ship. This was a major international incident and the final straw for Washington."
"In response, President Roosevelt ordered the Pacific fleet into action. U.S. Naval brass responded by deploying the Houston along with about forty other warships into the waters where the disappearances had taken place. They were convinced it was a submarine, or a pack of submarines, responsible. Our objective was simply to hunt them down. The fleet split into three parts and the Houston was part of the task force to search the area where the first incident had taken place. It was in international waters, but it skirted some Japanese held islands. This was part of Washington's plan. There was a recently established Japanese military outpost located nearby on Odo Island. They wanted them to see our show of force.
"The Houston, along with USS Chicago, led a pack of destroyers into a picket line to sweep the area while the Battleships Arizona and Nevada hung back with the carrier Yorktown. All the while, fighters and bombers were scouting the area flying combat air patrol missions to spot any submarines that might attack the fleet. However, they never spotted a single one."
"Once the destroyers were in position, we proceeded to depth-charge the entire area methodically. If there were any subs hiding below before we got there, there certainly weren't any after we were done. The operation nearly went off without a hitch. When we turned the Houston back to rejoin the main fleet, one depth-charge that initially failed to explode did-so nearby our starboard side. It rocked the boat and sent a pillar of water up and over the deck. Luckily for us it was still far enough away that it did little harm. There were no casualties, but it did cause minor damage to the hull and a slight oil leak. It was nothing that would prevent us from pressing on and returning to port for repairs though. It simply meant we would trail a bit of oil in our wake. We sailed back to Pearl, confident of victory, or at least having shown off our strength."
