Kinsmen of the Dragons
Copyright© 2013 by Gina Marie Wylie
Chapter 8: The Battle of the North Pacific
Ben Schooland tried to ignore the grip that Minerva had on his shoulder, but the fact was that it was painful. A few feet away, Admiral Stewart stood, stony-faced, watching the plotting board.
One of the talkers in the Combat Information Center compartment of the aircraft carrier Eisenhower was reporting, “Los Angeles, sir, has only two torpedoes remaining in their aft tubes. They’ll be firing them here in a minute, when the range to the target gets down to twenty thousand yards.”
Admiral Stewart turned to the man who commanded the aircraft carrier Eisenhower, a question on his face. “What do we have?”
The captain of the Eisenhower shook his head. “We have nothing, Admiral. We’ve expended every targetable weapon aboard, except the rounds for the five inch guns and the other close-in defensive weapons.” He looked at the board. “We’re still five minutes from the target datum.”
The captain waved at the board. “My recommendation would be to tell Los Angeles to take the shot, then come about and attempt to engage with her bow tubes.”
A palliative, Ben thought. The Los Angeles was being pursued by a critter more than a thousand feet long; a target that had already absorbed six torpedo hits and three hits from surface to surface anti-submarine rockets. In the time it would take the Los Angeles to turn, the other would be upon the submarine, and Los Angeles would join the other six nuclear-powered submarines that had accompanied this force — yet another wreck on the sea floor.
The Los Angeles though, was different. Demeter, Minerva’s brother, was aboard the Los Angeles.
Admiral Stewart knew all of this. He looked up, his eyes meeting Ben’s. I have no business in this decision, Ben thought. I’m a University of San Francisco student! Peace and love, everywhere!
“Minerva,” the admiral said clearly, looking past Ben. “Those weapons of yours. Can you still target them?”
Minerva nodded. Teaching her English had been one of Ben’s own ideas. The female naval rating had been scared to death anyway, but she’d done it.
“Please, target one on the critter chasing Los Angeles. Without her, we’re toast.”
“No authority?” Ben asked on his own.
The admiral shook his head. “On my own head, let it fall. Shoot!”
The ocean boiled within a few feet of the thousand-foot critter than had been chasing Los Angeles.
One of the other talkers spoke up. “Now three minutes to target area. Starting to slow.”
The talker was as pale as sheet. Who could blame him? Anyone out here who showed the least vulnerability had been targeted by dozens of critters that made orikina look like fleas.
“A bomber wing from Guam is due in a few seconds,” someone else said. “We’re directing them. They have a load out of smart bombs.”
“Threats?” the admiral said with a tired voice.
There was a litany, staged by risk.
Minerva turned to Admiral Stewart. “Please command the Los Angeles to withdraw at flank to Hawaii. They barely have enough weapons to provide minimal defense.”
“They still have two aft shots and six forward,” the admiral said, certainly sounding reasonable.
To the west, the ocean boiled and frothed from three more undersea nuclear detonations.
“Los Angeles no longer has a reason to shoot,” Minerva said, her voice harsh. “Tell them to return to base!”
Another voice said, “We’re there!”
The way had been falling steadily from the aircraft carrier and now she lay as if becalmed. Minerva’s face went blank with concentration, and then a few seconds later, the cords in her neck appeared.
Admiral Stewart moved next to Ben. The admiral’s voice was bitter. “Please, tell me that a half dozen nuclear subs, three cruisers, four destroyers and a dozen frigates were worth this?”
Minerva looked at him, her face dreamy. “The alternative was the end of things for both of us.” She paused. “The door is closed and now I am locking it.”
“You said it wouldn’t take this long.”
“They are trying to re-open the door. If I don’t lock it tight, they’ll be back in a day or so.”
Admiral Stewart grimaced. This had been the blackest day in US Naval history, making Pearl Harbor seem like a child’s punch. Who wanted to go for a repeat?
As if in response, off to the west there was a series of flashes, quite a few of them, dimmed only by distance. After a few moments, the lookouts were reporting multiple nuclear detonations in the upper atmosphere.
Admiral Stewart sighed. “I am so totally screwed...”
Minerva took his shoulder, instead of Ben’s. “That was the Dragons lashing out at their enemies. Had the door not closed just then, those weapons would have gone to Honolulu, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Two weapons to each city.”
She paused and searched the admiral’s face. “Admiral, they even knew the names of the cities they were targeting.”
“Right now, we need to successfully disengage,” the admiral spoke, trying to deflect his own thoughts about the future.
Admiral Stewart turned to his staff. “Weather, we have multiple subsurface and aerial nuclear detonations to our east and west. Which way is safer from fallout? North or south? Threat board, which direction do we face the lightest opposition?”
“Admiral,” his staff weather officer reported, “the fallout clouds are blowing northwest. I’d say we can go south, southwest or southeast.”
“Threats?”
The tactical officer cleared his throat. He’d not been prepared for the sudden escalation of the battle to the nuclear level, and the nearly dozen explosions, even if unseen in the CIC, had definitely rattled him.
“Admiral, southeast appears to be the best choice. There are two smaller targets in that direction, the ‘chibana’ class of target.” Or, four hundred foot critters that were slower than most of the other critters out there. Of course, they made up for that by being armored heavier than any battleship.
“See if we can get those bombers working on them,” the admiral commanded.
Another person spoke up, “Admiral, the President is on the horn.”
Admiral Stewart grimaced and Minerva moved to his side. “Put it on the speaker,” the admiral commanded.
A moment later the president said, “Admiral Stewart?”
“Yes, sir. I have you on the speaker in CIC.”
“You understand that you just sent everyone in the world into orbit, right?”
“Yes, sir. But it was that or we’d have failed. Mr. President, we succeeded. Sir, there are more than fifteen thousand dead sailors out here; I couldn’t fail them, sir. Nor the people back home.”
“I understand. Eisenhower and Los Angeles are all that are left?”
“Yes, sir. Eisenhower took a hit forward that killed two men and a woman and wounded a half dozen more. We’ve got the flooding controlled and it hasn’t affected our combat capability. Sir, we’ve shot off everything we brought out with us. I’ve never seen the like, not in all my days in the Navy. We could have fired off twice as much.”
“But you accomplished the mission?”
“Yes, sir. Sir, Miss Minerva reports that in the last instant these Dragons held the door open and that they launched nuclear strikes against Pearl, San Francisco and Los Angeles. She knocked them down, sir. She says they knew what they were shooting at, down to the names of the cities.”
“What about the other young woman? Miss Zimmerman?”
The admiral sighed. “She’s fourteen, sir. She doesn’t deal well with one death — thousands of deaths were more than she could handle. Sir, she was in a lot of those people’s minds when they died. The ship’s chief medical officer sedated her. We are, sir, retiring back to base at this time.”
“Well, you do whatever you have to do, Admiral, to bring everyone else home safe. Miss Minerva, Miss Zimmerman, Captain Reubens, Commander Vega and Mr. Schooland, however, go off on an aircraft this moment, for you know where.”
“Yes, sir. Minerva’s brother is aboard Los Angeles, but they are well east of here and appear to be out of immediate danger.”
“They’ve been ordered back to base?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t worry about the heat for going nuclear, Admiral. I agreed to move Miss Minerva’s weapons to Pearl ... and when I did, I signed an Executive Order, authorizing their release if the fate of the nation depended on it. It did. You and your sailors, Admiral, deserve our deepest and most heartfelt thanks! Our nation will pay its greatest respects to your dead.”
“Thank you, sir. I’m going to need to coordinate with the Air Force here directly, Mr. President. We still have some targets ahead of us.”
“Go with God, Admiral! Get those people on a plane! You get on one too, as soon as you get back to port. I need your input ASAP.”
Admiral Stewart nodded, thanking his lucky stars that he wasn’t being ordered back at once, too.
He talked to the CAG, then to those affected. Minerva and Ben Schooland looked calm; Captain Reubens was, so far as Admiral Stewart could tell, unflappable. Commander Vega had an expressionless face. Of all the people facing him, he thought Vega would be the toughest poker player.
“You all are flying out on a jet. I’ve sent someone to your cabins to pack your things. Miss Zimmerman is still sleeping; I hope she remains that way for a while longer, but sleeping or not, she’ll be going with you.”
He motioned to Minerva. “Miss Minerva, why, if you can toss missiles around, don’t you send people?”
She frowned and looked at Ben to help her understand. Ben lifted his eyebrows, knowing the answer, wanting to do it for her. Ben turned to Admiral Stewart. “She’s sorry that she wasn’t more clear earlier, in her first debrief.
“Her title is ‘Guardian of the Southern Gate.’ While it’s true that’s partly meant in the ‘guard’ sense — that is, keeping bad people from using the gate, her function was also to make it work. The Gates are, as near as I can tell, some sort of focusing or enhancing device. Sir, when she sends something like one of those missiles the way she did, the transfer is about 99% effective. Further, she has to have ‘imprinted’ who or what she’s sending. It’s not very useful.
“Sir, with her style of nuclear weapons, that’s not important. With a living thing, sir, it would be fatal. The Gate allowed people to select their destination, and more or less mechanically amplified what she could do on her own, so that the transfer was effective to a single part in several billion. Of course, sir, if that one neuron in billions was your wife’s name, you are going to be in the doghouse.”
Everyone in CIC laughed at that.
Commander Vega was more pragmatic. “I think you should arrange to have Commander Zimmerman come along with us as far as Pearl. She has a reasonable interest in what happens to her daughter, even if she wore out her welcome.”
“Let me blunt, Commander,” Admiral Stewart told him. “Can Heather Zimmerman get past this?”
“I’m sure, sir. Until a couple of days ago, she had no idea that she could read minds. Now she can, but the results are — unappetizing. Sir, I think she’ll be able to adapt to what needs to be done as fast as anyone could who is unexpectedly thrown into combat. It isn’t an easy thing at the best of times; throw the personal dimension and that just adds to her problems. Nonetheless, I think she can adapt. Sir, with respect, I don’t see any possibility her mother will be able to do the same.”
The day before Commander Zimmerman had come unglued when her daughter was asked to go out again. She hadn’t even lasted as long as the first contact with the sea creatures before she was alternating between hysteria about the danger and concern for her daughter. The chief medical officer, the admiral and Ramon had met briefly. The debate had been whether or not to brig the commander — or sedate her and then put her in the brig. She’d been sedated, and had stayed that way throughout the battle.
A half hour later the seven of them sat in the belly of a Navy courier aircraft as it lifted off the carrier.
Minerva leaned against Ben and he wrapped his arm around her. She smiled up at him and then closed her eyes. He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead and hugged her tighter. Captain Reubens smiled at them like a kindly uncle. Ramon Vega had Heather sleeping next to him, her head on his shoulder. Commander Zimmerman was still sedated and strapped securely onto a stretcher.
They landed just before dawn at Pearl Harbor. They went from one aircraft to another, this one a B-2 bomber that flew really fast and really high.
Minerva had only roused a little when they changed planes, she came fully awake when they were a approaching the mainland. She clutched Ben’s arm, obviously afraid. “We are going so fast!”
“This is a very fast aircraft,” he said, trying to reassure her.
“I’ve never dreamed of going this fast!” she exclaimed.
Ben laughed, “Me, either! But then, you have Gates — surely that’s moving faster than this?”
She shook her head. “It is like stepping through a door, no more.”
She frowned, then looked at Ben, quite concerned. “Ben, this aircraft doesn’t have enough fuel to land!” Her brow furrowed more. “It didn’t have enough fuel to get where we are! What is wrong? I don’t understand.”
“Nothing is wrong. We fly fuel up to an aircraft like this, refill its tanks, then it flies for a while longer and then refuels again.”
“What a clever idea!” She seemed genuinely impressed with it.
“Minerva, not this aircraft, but one much lighter, with a very different engine, has flown all the way around the planet without refueling, not so much as once.”
She gaped in astonishment. “You have so much, so many things, so very different than us!”
“And so do you, Minerva. Yes, we have many things you don’t. But you have that material you made your ship out of. Your ship’s engines, the way you move bombs around ... and the Gates.”
She leaned close and kissed him very hard, more than hard enough to curl Ben’s toes. “Together our peoples will throw down the Dragons!”
The B-2 landed at Edwards Air Force Base. Partly it was for secrecy, partly because there was a thunderstorm over the LA basin, and the B-2 couldn’t take very well to the impact of raindrops.
They were hustled to a waiting helicopter, which promptly lifted off. Heather was awake again, had noticed the absence of her mother but hadn’t said anything. In fact, she’d been silent except for a very few words since she’d awoken.
Once again, Minerva was like a kid in a candy store. “This is wonderful! Still ... why didn’t we stay in the much faster aircraft?”
Jack Reubens spoke up. “Well, a couple of reasons, but basically because the President and a slew of his advisors are currently in a secure location near Los Angeles. That and the aircraft is secret and doesn’t fly in and out of just anywhere.”
He waved back to where the B-2 was being wheeled into a hanger. “Even though it’s supposed to be invisible to radar, you can see it well enough in daylight when you’re close.”
She turned and looked at it, then frowned. “Well, not exactly invisible,” she told the Coast Guard captain. “You know, we could do the same thing with our composites. No one ever thought of looking for materials that wouldn’t reflect radar waves. We can easily make them.”
“Like Ben said, Minerva, you aren’t the beggars you think you are. That plane costs a bunch of money. Build it cheaper and you’ll save us a piles of the stuff. Huge piles.”
Minerva grinned, then cuddled up next to Ben. He leaned down and tenderly kissed her hair.
She dozed for a few minutes, but then groggily came awake. She looked helpless and confused for a moment, then she shook her head, like a prizefighter trying to shake off an effective punch.
“Ben! There’s a Dragon ahead of us! I can sense him! He can sense me!”
Ben’s jaw dropped. “What should we do?”
“We just passed over him, but he’s drawn a cloak over himself. Wait! They’ve fired a missile at us!”
They’d been wired up to the helicopter’s intercom. Ben reacted instantly. “Pilot! Missile launch at six o’clock!”
Ben had been prepared for an argument, but what he got was instant acceptance. The aircraft dropped like a stone. One of the crew members at the door screamed, “Second missile at three o’clock! Both missiles are closing! Dropping chaff!”
This time the aircraft turned, while continuing it’s terrifying plunge.
Someone was screaming, “Chaff! More chaff!” There was an angry glare as something sun bright went past over their heads, then a roar of noise as the sound caught up to them.
It was all everyone could do to hang on. The helicopter was at an unbelievable angle. Then a lurch, and it tipped the other way, at the same time the dive came to a screeching halt, dragging heavily at Ben’s body. There was another sharp turn and Ben was stunned to see that they were flying low over some freeway, barely a dozen feet about the tops of the semi-trucks.
Someone was saying the word “Fuck!” over and over on the circuit.
Jack turned to Minerva. “Is there anything you can do about the missiles?”
“They followed us!” she said, clearly shaken. “There was no radar, no sound ranging. Nothing.”
“Most missiles like those,” said the Army crewman a few feet away, “are heat-seekers.” He reached behind him and felt the back of his fatigues. “I’ve shit myself,” he said with wonder.
“Heat? How can a missile track on heat? The sun is shining! Any heat-seeking missile should go for it, instead.”
“They ignore targets brighter than an aircraft engine,” another crewman said. “Besides, if you point an active heat-seeker warhead at the sun you’ve got nothing but junk.”
He spoke into his microphone, “Sir, one of those missiles took out an SUV behind us on I-5.”
The litany of the one word started up again.
“Pilot, this is Captain Reubens. We flew over one of our enemies and he recognized Minerva. You need to get the police going, right this second, to try to apprehend him!”
The cursing stopped. “I’ve called it in; I don’t think I can do better than that unless you know more. You don’t fire off SA-18’s without everyone in the neighborhood knowing it.
“Hang on, I can’t stay over the freeway. One ambush invites another.”
There was an exceedingly sharp turn and the aircraft seemed to speed up even further. “Make sure your seats are locked upright and your tray tables are up and locked as well,” the pilot said. “This might be exciting. You’ll be pleased to know, we just shut down LAX, Burbank and John Wayne airports.”
Minerva looked at Jack Reubens. “Why?”
“Too many passenger jets,” he told her. “Most of them have a couple of hundred people aboard. They don’t want to take any chances with missiles that can be targeted against them.”
“How many of the aircraft I can sense are these passenger jets?”
“Virtually all of the large one or the faster ones. Call it, during the day, a hundred flights an hour into one LA airport or another.”
“Twenty thousand people fly an hour? In one city?” she shook her head, clearly having trouble accepting it.
Jack nodded soberly. “I think back on 9/11 I saw something to the effect that a hundred thousand people were in the air and more than twice that were grounded by the end of day.”
“What’s 9/11?” she asked.
“Another bad day for my country,” he told her. “Men crashed passenger aircraft into major buildings. Three thousand people died.”
The helicopter crossed over the threshold of an airport, but it was clear to everyone that they weren’t making a conventional landing. Abruptly they swerved, then flared, slowing rapidly. A moment later they were inside a huge hanger, with loads of soldiers, weapons ready, facing outside as the big doors started closing.
Hours later they were put in the small civilian version of a Hummer, with tinted windows. They drove for several hours, then went through a series of armed checkpoints. Then a long elevator ride and a few minutes later everyone was shaking the President’s hand. Then bizarrely, photographed with him.
The President looked haggard, and as bad as that was, the others around him looked like death warmed over. Still the President’s eyes were bright and he spoke to Minerva. “You’re tired; I’m tired. Miss Minerva, right now I need information to characterize our enemies.
“You say you ‘saw’ one of them with your mind on the flight in?”
“Yes, sir. They cannot do the same things that we can with our minds, but they can do other things. He stood out like a flare in the middle of the night. But he had some sort of mechanical cloak on call. I felt him turn it on. Then he became invisible.”
“I hate to do this, but I must ask you a very personal question. I understand that while Mr. Schooland has parts of your mind in his, including all of your knowledge of how to do what it is you do, he can’t.”
“Yes, sir. It’s like imprinting my experiences seeing things into the brain of someone who has been blind since birth.”
“And Miss Zimmerman can do some of the same things?”
“I don’t understand it. We can trace the ability through families; we assumed that it was genetic. But it is an extraordinary coincidence that Miss Zimmerman has these abilities. I’ve studied her biochemistry; hers is significantly different than ours; she isn’t related to one of us.
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