Silence. Silence is one of the things that you rarely get at Naval Base San Diego, so whenever it occurs, it is cherished by all who get to experience it. Not a sound disturbed the communications room, except for, perhaps, the gentle thrum of the electronic equipment in the room. It was late, around one in the morning. Within the room, only two men were on duty. Their names were Ensign Jones, and Lieutenant Junior Grade Pullman. They had drawn the short straws and got to monitor traffic for the late shift. It was a very dull way to spend one’s time.
Pullman leaned back in his chair, stretched his arms, and sighed, “It’s getting close to one o’clock now...I would hope that someone relieves us soon, cause I am tired as all hell. What about you Jones?”
Nothing.
“Jones?” Pullman asked, glancing to his left. He did a double take when he saw Ensign Jones, fast asleep, his head supported by his arm.
“Ensign!” Pullman barked.
“Huh, wha- OH! Sorry, sir. I struggled with falling asleep last night and this late shift ain’t helping me a bit. My apologies,” Jones said, shaking his head and sheepishly glancing to his senior.
Pullman regarded him with a glare at first, but let it go, sighing once more, “It’s fine, Jones. I’m on the struggle-bus here too. But, you need to take care of your sleeping schedule a bit better.”
“Yes sir, I’ve been trying to. I suppose things could be worse,” Jones responded, cracking his knuckles.
“Oh yeah, by miles. This is a far cry from a hardship post,” Pullman said.
“I wouldn’t know, sir,” Jones said, “I’ve only graduated from Annapolis a few weeks ago.”
“That’s right, you’re still a fair bit green, aren’t you?” Pullman said with a smirk.
“Yeah,” Jones said with a yawn. “Say, did you ever serve a hardship post, sir?”
“Certainly. My last deployment was to Korea, back when I was with the seventh fleet. It’s only considered such because we’re still technically at war with the North. A knew a lot of guys who weren’t allowed to take their families with them because of the fact. Oh, and drop the formality for now, it’s only us here,” He said, searching for his coffee mug, which he found, empty.
“Alright. But that must have sucked for those guys. What did you do there?” Jones asked.
“Nothing different than from what I do here, I manned COMMs equipment,” He said with a frown, staring into his empty coffee cup.
“Ah, I see,” Jones said, turning his head over to the equipment. “So, did the last shift tell you if we were to expect anything during ours?”
“They did. We’re supposed to get an update from a high-value convoy under escort. I’m willing to bet it’s the one carrying the stuff from China.” Pullman said, getting up to go get some coffee. “I’m gonna go get some coffee. Do you want any?” He said before he left the room.
“Sure, I could use a cup of joe,” Jones said, rubbing his temples.
“Alright, in that case, watch the COMMs traffic until I return,” He said, leaving through the door in search of coffee.
“Yes, sir,” Jones said, turning back towards the radio equipment. He looked at the sticky note on the equipment above his head, noting that he should receive a call around 1:45 AM, roughly twenty minutes from then.
“I wonder what is that they had to transport that requires an escort of destroyers…” Jones mused aloud. He looked around the room for something to pass the time, after a quick search, he found an Us Weekly magazine.
“Really? This is all that’s here? I should’ve brought a book or something,” He said, beginning to flip through the pages with disdain.
After what felt like hours, Pullman returned with two steaming mugs of coffee.
“The cavalry’s arrived,” He quipped.
“Thank God, sir. I was stuck with this thing,” Jones said, waving the magazine in his hand before chucking it in the trash.
“Oh? You strike me as the kind of guy who would be into that kind of thing,” Pullman joked.
“Yes, sir, the 26 year old black Naval officer totally sounds like the type of guy who would be into magazines like that,” Jones said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Alright, alright. Anyway, here’s your coffee. I didn’t know how you liked it, so I just put in some milk and two sugars, like I did for mine,” Pullman said, taking a seat. “It’s 1:44, just about time for our mysterious convoy to drop us a line.”
“I guess so,” Jones said, donning a pair of headphones.
They waited for the traffic to start coming in, so that they could claim that they at least did something.
Over the airwaves, was only static.
The two men looked to each other; Jones breaking the silence, “Perhaps they’re late?”
“Unlikely, they were the ones who told the last shift when they would radio in. They’re late for their self-appointed check-in time, this does not jive. Let’s try to hail them,” Pullman said.
“Wouldn’t that give them away?” Jones asked.
“Not if they’re as close to the states as they’re projected to be right now, I hardly doubt there are any Chinese subs this close with all the patrols we have out there. Hail them.” He replied.
“Aye, sir,” Jones said, keying his microphone. “Naval Base San Diego to U.S.N.S Charles Drew, come in Charles Drew.”
Silence.
“Charles Drew, this is Naval Base San Diego, please respond,” Pullman tried.
Still, silence.
“Shit,” Pullman said, “We’ve got a problem.”
Hours earlier…
“Helm, adjust course to 210 degrees,” an aging man in his late 40’s said.
“Adjusting course by two-one-zero degrees, aye sir.” A young helmsman said, adjusting the cargo ship’s course along with the rest of the ships.
The ocean was unbelievably calm, very few waves rocked the ship to any considerable degree. The moon’s light seeped from the sky and splayed over the depths, causing the water to sparkle brilliantly along with the starry night sky. Rarely, for the men of the U.S.N.S Charles Drew, had the waves ever been so tame. While the world around them might have been calm, many of the men onboard fidgeted with anxiety.
Only two days ago, they were docked in Beijing, loading on China’s most important cultural and historical artifacts. As the communist government crumbled around them, the crew feared for their very lives. They could hear the sounds of fury and war advancing through the city, and knew that it wouldn’t be long before the national supremacist revolutionaries found them.
Now, many hundreds of miles out from there, the crew was finally starting to let their guard down.
The captain of the vessel had his COMMs operators send a call to Naval Base San Diego, to let them know of their progress to port.
Then, in the distance, a bright flash blinded the crew. Followed by a deafening boom, which shattered the windows on the bridge. By this time, all of the crew that were topside were on the deck, covering their heads. As the captain slowly got up bracing himself against the console in front of him, the sun was out, rather than the moon. And the GPS screen was all out of whack.
He grabbed the mic next to him and keyed the ‘talk’ button, “Lieutenant Commander Weatherson, what the hell just happened?”
“I don’t rightly know, Skipper. All the systems on board are on the fritz, big time. I’ve contacted engineering and they seem to be fine. At least, on the mechanical side of things,” A voice replied.
“Alright, have we tried to contact our escorts?”
“Yes, we have. Unfortunately, it seems we can’t get a signal out,” The voice said again.
“Right then, we’ll have to signal them.” The captain said, placing his head in his hands. He looked out the window, still shocked at the sudden change in the sky. He would have tried radioing Naval Base San Diego again, but if what his X.O just told him was right, then that point would be moot.
He looked to the men outside on the bridge wings, signalling the destroyers to his left and right. It appeared that they were having radio issues as well, but were picking up a landmass 24 nautical miles to their southwest.
This did not sit well with the captain. He glanced up to his radar screen, noting the very large landmass in the exact spot. By all accounts, it did not belong there. After all of the regular, civilian loads he’d hauled across the Pacific, he knew this to be true.
He looked to the crewman standing near the entrance of the bridge, “Sound general quarters, we aren’t standing down until we find out what the hell is going on here.”
“Aye aye, skipper.” The man said, running to go do so.
The captain told the signalmen on the bridge wing to his left to tell the escort to launch a drone, find out where they were.
A few minutes after doing so, the destroyers reported that they had tried already, but the drone couldn’t establish a satellite connection.
This also did not jive.
Well, there was only one thing for it.
They would have to go check out the landmass themselves.
The streets of Baltimare bustled with busy ponies going to and fro, moving fast so as not to be late for work. It was a brisk morning, nearly 6 in the morning and Celestia’s sun had only begun to hint at rising.
It wasn’t really an atypical day, one would think. But today was the day that Princess Luna would arrive to give a speech to the people about a new public works endeavor between the Royal government and the local city council. Supposedly, a new tunnel was going to be built and it was supposed to be the first of its kind; one which was built underwater.
The speech was scheduled to begin around 11 in the morning, and most everypony had gotten the time off to see.
In one part of the city, there was quite the nice hotel. Known for housing important or otherwise affluent ponies, it was no surprise that the Lunar diarch was staying there. Despite her outward appearance, only in the last few days have things gotten any better for the recently returned diarch. She had only been recently released from the clutches of the Nightmare and was only now beginning to adjust to the world which had moved on without her. It was a hard thing, facing her subjects after all of the horrible things she tried to do. It’s a wonder, she thought, that they let her back into government.
On the issue of government, Luna was having a rough go of things. In her absence, the confounded body of government known as parliament had been established, and have been quite annoying before she truly understood it herself. Upon asking her sister why she surrendered such power, she replied that their little ponies needed to start becoming self-sufficient if they are to survive, should anything happen to the both of them.
It was no matter though, because, Luna was quite happy with parliament. They were the ones who appropriated the funds for such a large project. It wasn’t even that much of a big issue, as there was a lot of bipartisan support for it.
But at the hotel, things were a lot less...progressive.
It was nearly 9 in the morning and Luna still lay immovable on her suite bed, producing snores that penetrated nearly two floors down. No one could really blame her that much though, trying to catch up on a thousand years worth of well, everything, would be tough on anyone.
Suddenly a huge explosion-like sound swept over the city and a bright light flared up, then vanished in the sea. Luna was now fully awake and rushed to her balcony to observe the light fading on the horizon. A guard burst into her room, to make sure their princess was unharmed.
“What happened, your majesty?” A guard said, his horn’s glow dissipating.
“T’was some sort of catastrophe out at sea, it seems. Hearken to me, we must indite a letter to my sister, for we fear that something is amiss!” Luna said with urgency. The guard looked very confused at her use of archaic equish, but understood enough to get her a quill and parchment. She took it and he stepped back out of the room, letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding in after he shut the door.
Meanwhile, at street level, the busy streets had fallen into chaos, as ponies ran to and fro at the sound of the explosion, thinking that perhaps a building was crashing down or a magical mishap had occurred. The city police had a hard time calming everypony down and restoring order.
Many ponies now looked at towards the mouth of the harbor, wondering what the receding light on the horizon was, and what it meant. In the country of equestria, it was anybody's guess.
Back aboard the ships, the anxiety from before had come back with a vengeance. Nobody aboard any of the three ships had any idea where they were, and had no idea where they were going. This went doubly so for the captain, but he had no intention of showing it. He had the destroyers go up ahead of him by 25 meters and flank his left and right. After a few moments, he ordered their ensigns down as well. No need to advertise their presence to any Chinese ships in the area.
The captain, for good measure, had all of the cargo checked and inventoried. Everything turned out to be in tip-top shape, so at least he had that. He looked out below to the deck of his ship before him, men crewing large M2 Browning machine guns. Being a part of the merchant marine, many of them had any combat experience or had carried any goods for the military before. So, it was only understandable that many of them were nervous.
He was proud of them though, despite the air of anxiety, his crew had kept a tight lid on their fear and were performing admirably. Plus, with the destroyers by their side, nary a thing could harm them. The fact he even had escorts was a feat within itself. A U.S.N.S vessel hadn’t been under U.S Navy escort since World War 2, which either meant there was a real danger to them back in China, or someone back stateside wanted a lot of insurance. The good captain’s thoughts drifted back to his crew. Would they see their families again? Would they see their homes again? No, that was to morbid. If anything was to work out, he would have to keep morale high. He hoped the naval sailors were getting a better handle on the situation than he was.
Aboard the U.S.S Dewey, it was quite a different story. The ship was alive with activity, from bow to stern. The men and women serving aboard the vessel were just as excited as they were worried, as they had not done anything exciting beyond trials after an extended maintenance period. Lieutenant Commander James Howard, in the Combat Information Center (CIC), was making sure all of the weapons that could be brought to bear aboard the ship, would be ready for anything. Per his commanding officer’s orders, he was to have the crew ready for anything. Especially Chinese submarines.
While confident in his abilities in training, it was only his first month serving and didn’t quite know what to expect. His ship was an aging Arleigh-Burke Class of destroyer, being replace by the newer Zumwalt’s. He had to admit though, as old as his ship was getting, he still loved everything about her. He was about to go and grab a coffee from the galley when his radar tech flagged him down.
“Sir, I don’t quite know how to tell you this.” The tech stammered.
“What is it? Come on man, spit it out!” The Lieutenant Commander said, leaning down to get a look at the screen.
“W-well, while I can tell you that the radar is still definitely down; it seems to be showing a contact 17 miles from us.” The technician said, scrutinizing the screen.
“So it would seem...thank you, son.” Howard responded, patting the young tech on the shoulder as he walked to a mic hanging from the ceiling.
“Captain, surface contact picked up roughly 17 nautical miles from where we are now. On our current course, we’re going to pass within two miles of them. What do you want to do?” Howard said, waiting for his C.O’s response.
“Really? Damn. Have COMM’s try to contact it and if we get no response, we’ll send a boarding party to see what their deal is. Perhaps they saw what we saw.” The Captain replied.
“Aye aye, Captain.” Howard said.
“Alright COMMs, let’s try and hail them. I’d like to do this one myself. Patch me through.” Howard said, clearing his throat.
“I can’t seem to find any channels sir, I’ll just have to put you on the local net and hope for the best.” The operator said, fiddling with his equipment. After he finished, he gave his X.O a thumbs up.
Howard nodded before speaking into the receiver.
“Attention unidentified vessel, this is the U.S.S Dewey. Please respond, over?”
…
“I say again, this is the United States Ship Dewey, are you capable of responding, over?”
Two attempts, but no dice. Howard didn’t even bother trying a third time.
“Alright, I’ll go up to the bridge and speak with the Captain. We’ll see what our next course of action should be.” He said, turning.
He sighed to himself, he was already deprived of sleep and over-stressed. He didn’t need this as well. The threat of a possible Chinese tail, losing contact with the rest of the navy, the explosion-like event that occurred not but two hours ago? Nothing added up to any logical conclusion, and that scared him.
