Katya's World (7 page)

The bridge was busy when they arrived. Deliav was just saluting the Captain.
“
I’ve recovered the data card from the distress buoy, captain.
”

“
Hold onto it for the moment, Deliav. We have more pressing business at present.
”

“
Permission to enter the bridge, captain,
”
said Katya crisply. She knew enough about the military not to go barging around on their boats like they were on a pleasure trip.

Zagadko shot them a look.
“
I’m afraid not, Ms Kuriakov
a
. We’re in a state of battle readiness. There’s no
place for
you
here. Go to the ready room, please.
”

Kane cleared his throat.
“
With respect, captain, Katya was at the controls when her boat was attacked. If you may be engaging the same foe..?
”

Zagadko was not the sort of man to dither.
“
Point taken. If you could stand just over there, Ms Kuriakova, and endeavour to stay out of the way.
”
They made a move towards the bulkhead the captain had pointed at, but he stopped them.
“
Not you, Mr Kane.
”

Kane blinked with surprise.
“
But, captain…
”

“
You weren’t at the controls, were you? Unless there’s something you’re not telling me?
”

The two men looked at each other for a moment. It was Kane who broke eye contact first.
“
I’ll be in the ready room if you need me,
”
he said and walked out with what dignity he could.

Zagadko watched him go. When the hatch had closed behind Kane, he said to Katya,
“
You and I are going to have a conversation when Mr Kane isn’t present. Count on it.
”
He turned away from her, leaving her feeling guilty and worried.

“
Range to the wreck?
”

“
Three thousand metres.
”

Katya started. They’d been hunting the wreck of the
Baby
? The captain noticed her surprise when he turned back.
“
I wasn’t about to leave her lying there for pirates to pick over, Ms
Kuriakova
.
”

“
Captain!
”
Zagadko turned to one of the sensor technicians.
“
I have something on hydrophones. Low, really low.
”

Katya remembered the ghostly sound she’d picked up herself over the
Baby
’s hydrophones. She watched as the operator dropped the frequency translation range, just as she had done. This was a military vessel; she wondered how much better the
Novgorod
’s sensors were in comparison.

“
Sonar?
”
demanded Zagadko.

The sonar operator sat hunched over his screen, looking carefully over every square millimetre of it.
“
Nothing, sir. Nothing on passive.
”

Zagadko humphed.
“
Pulse.
”

“
Sir?
”
It was the first officer, a thin, dark man with heavy-lidded eyes.
“
We’ll give away our position.
”

Katya thought that was a
redundant
thing to say. Zagadko was a veteran; of course he knew sending an active sonar pulse would be like lighting a match in a dark room. They would be able to see better, but everything else would be able to see them all the more easily.

“
They already know full well where we are, Petrov. Active pulse, sensors.
”

The sonar pulse rang through the hull as it emanated out from the
Novgorod
. The
Baby
’s sonar had made a chirpy little
“
ping!
”
It had sounded somehow friendly to Katya. The
Novgorod
’s pulse, however, was a dull, mournful beat of sound that seemed to buzz inside her bones long after her ears had ceased to hear it.

The sonar officer checked his screen again.
“
I don’t understand it, sir. We’re picking up some sound; we should be able to get a passive lock on it.
”
He waited for the sonar echoes to return. He seemed to wait a long time.
“
No bounce from the pulse, sir. I’m trying for an IC resolution – it’s giving me a range of a thousand metres but won’t give me a full solution. It’s like hunting a ghost.
”

Katya remembered her own encounter. She realised that she was sweating. The
Novgorod
was a hundred times bigger than the
Pushkin’s Baby
but she still had a horrible feeling, squirming in her gut, that history was about to repeat itself.

The hydrophones operator looked up.
“
I’m getting something… Cavitation noise, captain!
”

Katya blanched.
“
Oh no,
”
she said in a desperate little voice. Captain Zagadko looked around at the sound and was surprised to see her almost hugging herself in fear.
“
Cavitation,
”
she said in a whisper.
“
Then it attacks.
”

Captain Zagadko was becoming quite sick of this mysterious foe. He didn’t like the way it was avoiding
detection
, he didn’t like the way it had moved into an attack with none of the usual preamble of submarine combat,
and – very especially –
he didn’t like the way it
kept being referred to as
“
it
”
all the time.

He was sure it was a submarine, and a submarine is a
“
she,
”
just like any ocean-going vessel. There was an atmosphere on the bridge as if they were facing some mythical sea monster and he wasn’t having it.

“
Petrov!
”
he barked,
“
sweep the external cameras, floodlights on!
”

“
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
. S
mooth 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,
shatter
ing 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 tw
enty 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
i
f 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.