SWNOVELS Chapter Chapter One
– Nostradamus’ Final Warning for year, 2025 –
"Of the three sects, Lutheran, Catholic, and Mahometan, that which is middlemost, by the actions of its worshippers, shall be thrown into ruins. The first, wholly in all Europe, and the most part of Africa undone by the third, by means of the poor in spirit, who by madness elevated shall, through libidinous luxury, commit the ultimate transgression – God the Creator will again loose Satan from his infernal prison."
– Nostradamus made no predictions for after year 2025 –
Hosannas in the highest, way back in 2020, heralded the restoration of Earth’s depleting ozone layer. And with the fabled ‘global warming’ seemingly checked, the freezing waste of the Kara Sea once again stretched its icy fingers northwards to embrace the Arctic Ocean, and onwards to the North Pole – Ozone 3+4 being the effectual byproduct of the two nuclear-fusion micro-electro power complexes sited at both North and South Poles. These catalytic gasses currently supplement the natural loss of the planet’s ozone due to meteorological conditions in the PSCs, polar stratospheric clouds. As a direct result the Kara Sea now remains ice-bound for most of the year, and is only navigable by surface vessels during a short window in September. This remote, desolate expanse of ice is located off the coastline of Siberia, where it separates the Barents Sea by Novaya Zemlya in the west, and Severnaya Zemlya in the east.
(Letter #4)
USA SF PEGASUS: MARCH 2025
“You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings …”
Jonathan Rees, Submariner First-class, smiled as he copied down the words from his opened paperback novel. Not for the antiquated prose, and not for the effect the words would have on his estranged wife. The smile was for his anticipation of her actually receiving a hand-written letter in these mind-twirling, eye-swiping modern days of IT neuro-communication. “Why in hell don’cha just use your chip, Rees, I just about forgit how t’ read?” He could hear her say it in her comic, high-pitched voice. He smiled again and continued writing:
“… Some crazy lady was that Mary Shelley, that’s what it’s from, the words. I’m reading ‘Frankenstein’… the printed book, not one of those newfalutin i-lobe gizmos that crams stuff into your head with your own voice. Yep, another letter – four now waiting for mail. How are you, Baby? I miss you. I’m forty fathoms and two thousand miles from you, but I can see your coal-black face in my head shining like it was painted with luminous paint or something… that’s a compliment by the ways. I’m sorry I up an’ left like I did, but if we’d spoke… well, I just couldn’t that’s all… I just couldn’t. If I can get up the courage I will call, but I don’t know when, as there seems to be a problem with the Mare. She won’t let us make no calls… her computer’s got a wild hair up it’s, it’s broke… leastways it don’t do nothing you ask it to do, so you may not even get this letter. I must be getting old, Baby… my ears have just popped… I think we’ve started to surface… my ears never used to do that, goddamit. Hey, we’re going up kinda fast… I’ll finish this later. Gotta go – Rees.”
Rees put the letter into an envelope and stowed it in his locker, then made for the muster-gantry. He let the rails glide through his hands as the atmospheric stairway elevated him to the main deck, to the accompanying sound of crunching ice. His nuclear fusion-powered submarine had punched through the pack ice above. In the blackness of night, the sleek metal turret had burst through the ice of the Kara Sea a mile offshore of Severny, the northern extremity of the two main islands that make up Novaya Zemlya, just visible through the freezing mist.
Rees entered the crowded deck and acquainted himself with its personnel, with nods and salutations respectively, but a blaring klaxon rudely interrupted his cordial greetings. A seated crewman, Walden, turned from his monitor screen:
‘You’d better beat it, Rees… no time for your wise-ass shit… we got big trouble, here in River City, an’ I don’ mean pool!’
Rees looked quizzically to the aging seaman and was about to inquire as to what ‘big trouble’, when the captain’s voice, shrill and metallic, came over the ship’s tannoy:
‘All hands alert! Make ready to disembark! That’s all hands. And make certain your D-radiation jab is up-to-date. If in doubt ask the medical officer – If it doesn’t come up on his screens I’m sure he’ll know anyway. Okay, set emergency purge manually, then make ready to go… no panic, just get! And don’t forget to put your wooly hats on, and make sure you’ve been to the can… it’s cold out there.’
Outside on the ice, after some few minutes, the exposed turret of American Super-Fusion DMSF A-class nuclear submarine, Pegasus, opened its hatch and the crew clambered onto the surface. Mariners scurried around yapping and hurling orders as they prepared to make base-camp on the surrounding ice. The magnificent submarine was half the size and had just one-third crew of its predecessor juggernaut nuclear submarines: At one-quarter their weight and with DMSF, Detachable Modular Section Facility, plus nuclear-fusion propulsion it was fifty times more powerful and one hundred times more deadly.
Two hours on, as dawn started to break, the base-camp was effectively established. Three prefabricated cabins had been inflated with thermal foam a short distance from the protruding turret. They stood as sentinels, bastions against the inclement weather.
Captain Stewart Falstaff, a tall sixty-year-old man, upright and gritty in spite of his advancing years, stepped from the turret onto the ice. He pulled his sheepskin coat about him against the freezing air, then addressed his crew that now gathered around him on the surrounding ice. ‘Okay people, pay attention…’ He hesitated, then whispered through shivering lips to his 1st mate, a coarse-mannered, middle-aged seaman, '… You tell ‘em, Mills.’
‘Me!’ growled Mills, feeling somewhat put upon. ‘Fuck, why me?’
‘Because I’m captain and I goddamn say so, okay? – Jesus!’
’Right... okay, ‘Captain’… Sir.’ He spat the last word like it left a bad taste.
Falstaff gave a censuring frown. ‘Come on, Harry,’ he said out of earshot of the men, ‘It’ll sound better from you. I don’t want them to see my teeth chattering. You know how I feel the cold. I’m getting old; it gets into my bones. I’ll be okay in a minute.’
Mills gave a grudging shrug then turned to the crew. ‘Okay, listen up. You all know the score: The proverbial fan has fallen into the proverbial shit… an' we need someone to go back in an’ pull the proverbial fucker out.’ Falstaff gave an indulgent wince at the offending language. Mills shrugged again and continued. ‘It’s been a bad day; we got total computer loss and an active arsenal we can’t control. We bin lucky… no one injured, no one dead, but that bad day ain’t done with us yet.’ He studied their worried faces, then smiled wickedly. ‘Right, here it is, the short straw with the sticky end. We need a lean crew to go back, drop the Mare into the mud, shut her down then embalm the cantankerous fucking mare. I reckon the oldest. Them as don’t need their dangly bits in working-order no more.’
Impudent voices called out from the gathered crew: ‘What dangly bits? Mine’s shrunk back inside already.’ – ‘So’s mine. You go!’ – ‘Yeah, you go, Mills… word is you fire blanks anyways.’
There was laughter from the rest of the crew. Mills eyeballed them as if taking mental note of offenders. ‘Fuck you too, Rees,’ he said, giving a sideways look to the gritty-looking man of mixed race, ‘I know that was you, an’ I’ve sired more kids than you’ve had hot fuckin’ chow.
‘Hey, I ain’t never had a single hot meal since I signed on this rust-bucket.’
That’s because you’re always last in line, you lazy bum. And this boat is made of GRPT, it don’t do rust. That’s plasticized titanium to you, numb-nuts. Now–’
A young woman, fresh-faced with her hair tied in a seaman’s pigtail, stepped forward and spoke over Mills. ‘Aye-aye! Ready to go, Sir!’
‘You’ve got no kids…’ said Falstaff, now taking over, ’Perkins, isn’t it?
‘Yes, Captain. Perkins. –Kids… I ain’t even got married or anything!’
‘So, you don’t get to go, Miss Perkins.’ He turned from the young mariner and addressed all. ‘Now, I really need four, but I’ll take just two. That’ll give an extra ten hours of clean, unprocessed air… I hate scrubbed air… messes with my sinuses. Two others and myself will shut the Pegasus down and take her under a dense layer… so if the Mare does loose a missile, when it hits thick ice it’ll destruct before it detonates… hopefully. Then we wait it out on the bottom for a submersible. Any takers?’ He stopped and studied his dishevelled crew for a few moments. Rees pushed his way to the front.
‘Why don’t we just detach the arsenal section and let the grown-ups sort it – dat is the purpose of DMSF… right?’
‘Right, Sir…’ said Mills, giving Rees a chastising, damming look, ‘… Call your Captain, Sir.’
‘Right… Sir?’
‘We’ve tried that already, Seaman,’ continued Mills, ‘the Mare won’t let us do it.’
Falstaff leaned closer to Mills and spoke covertly. ‘What the hell you tell them that for? They didn’t need to know that.’
Mills gave a yielding shrug. ’You told me to tell ‘em, Captain. Leastways they need to know what in hell they’re volunteering for.’ He moved away from Falstaff’s censuring eyes and drilled his own penetrating stare towards the men. ‘Come on, you heard the captain.’ He strained his eyes to the back, to a seasoned looking seaman. ‘Walden, you old goat, you got eight kids that I know of, and you know the Mare like the back of your dick. What d’ you say?’
The aging seaman moved forward, instinctively blowing into his gloved hands. He smiled as he spoke. ‘My ol’ man had fifteen kids, Sir… I only just got started. The Captain’s got to order me.’
‘The hell I will,’ growled Falstaff. ‘I’m ordering no one, Sailor… I want volunteers.’
Mills lent close to his captain and spoke from the corner of his mouth. ‘Stewart, you’ll have to order them. No one’s gonna volunteer to commit suicide. It’s a sin.’
‘Oh, really? But it’s okay for me to commit suicide?’
‘Hey, you’re Captain, you don’t signify.’ Falstaff gave him a damning look. Mills shrugged, ‘You want me to come with you, Stewart?’
‘No, I don’t. I want you to stay with the crew till they come. I want you in the submersible; someone who knows the Mare’s tricks.’ Mills nodded. Falstaff turned his eyes back to the assembled crew and studied them again.
‘Please Sir, order me,’ said Walden, catching Falstaff’s eye. ‘My father would turn in his grave; he’d never forgive me if I volunteered. I wanna be there, but I need to be ordered.’
Falstaff gave a baffled shrug. ‘Okay, consider yourself ordered. Anyone else need to be ordered?’ Four of the crew stepped forward, offering themselves, one of which was Rees. He was smiling broadly. ‘Rees, isn’t it?’ said Falstaff, giving a damning stare. ‘You think this is funny, Rees?’
‘Yeah, could be, Captain.’
‘You want to share that joke, Sailor?’
‘Later, Captain, when we’s on the bottom; when we got more time on our hands… it’s a long story.’ Rees smiled again.
Falstaff continued the stare. ‘I haven’t got to know you very well, Rees…’ he said after a long, uncomfortable pause, ‘… you seem to keep out of my way. You’re in.’
’You didn’t get to know me, Captain, ‘cos I’m half black, right?’
‘You’re half black?’ Falstaff turned wearily to Mills. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me this man was half black? There was me thinking he was half white.’
Mills smiled, acknowledging the lame witticism. ‘I always reckoned he was half fucking human.’
‘Leastways, Rees,’ said Falstaff, ‘you’re the best sparks on the ship… so I’m told.’
Rees, accepting his praise ungraciously, smiled smugly to his crewmates, ‘You homosexuals hearing this?’
A burly woman mariner leaned into Rees’ face. ‘I hope you’re not including me, Honey… less you’re looking for a bust in your mouth.’
‘Would I ever, Irene… would I ever, after all we’s bin through?’ – Laughter as Rees blew a kiss.
Falstaff gave Mills a flick-of-his-hat salute, then turned back to Rees and Walden. ‘Okay, you’re both ordered. So form two orderly columns and let’s get back in the warm, I’m freezing out here!’
‘You’s da white-man, Boss,’ mumbled Rees under his breath as he turned away. Then he and Walden moved from the rest of the crew, making ready to return to the submarine.
Falstaff blew into his gloved hands and turned back to Mills: ‘Did you manage to make contact, Harry?’
‘Yeah. They say they’ll have a crew and a submersible here in four hours. They also said something about a Free French aircraft carrier stranded off New Zealand with the same catch-22 as us, a shitload of nukes they can’t control – but that’s all I could get, then contact was lost again.’
‘Damn! Okay, we’ll stay down until we fix her or disable her.’ Mills shrugged, unconvinced. Falstaff turned from the doubting eyes and addressed the remaining crew. ‘I hate to have to say this, and I know this is not the weather for it, but you got to wash-up. Scrub yourselves, and I mean scrub! And break out new clothes. I don’t think any of us are contaminated, but as none of the onboard IT seems to be working we can’t tell. Do it sooner rather than later. That’s all – Get to it!’
The three started off towards the Pegasus. Perkins ran and caught up to Falstaff. ‘Permission to pipe you aboard, Sir.’
‘How quaint,’ said Falstaff, grudging a smile, ‘Permission granted, then you go back with the others and wash yourself, right Perkins?’
The young mariner saluted, then she ran through the thin layer of powdery snow that covered the ice to the protruding turret and waited.
As Falstaff and his lean crew moved off, Mills called to the remaining group. ‘Three cheers for Captain Falstaff, Rees an’ Walden... Hip Hip Hurrah! Hip Hip Hurrah! Hip Hip Hurrah! Good luck Captain.’
Rees looked to Walden, then up to the towering turret and quoted in grand voice, ‘Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.’ He gave a wry smile.
‘That’ll suit me just dandy, Rees,’ said Walden, smiling likewise, ‘So long as it’s nice an’ warm.’ The old sailor blew again over his gloved hands.
The three stood to attention at the turret for a moment as Perkins piped them aboard with a short low, a long high, and then another low. Walden and Rees climbed the metal gantry. Falstaff gave a last nod to Mills and followed into the hatch of the protruding turret.
Half the planet away, Government House, Canberra Australia, an emergency sitting was in progress. It was a hastily arranged dual-government ANZUT, Australia and New Zealand United Territories, summit meeting.
Australian Premier, Richard G Callahan, stood uneasily under the admonishing eyes of the two unruly houses. ‘Believe me, this will pass… I promise you.’ He said it with erudite conviction. ‘In less than a month, you’ll thank me. To elect to be Nuclear-Fusion Free in this day and age is not so much impossible as preposterous!’ His words were met with boos and angry voices:
‘Shame!’ – ‘Resign, y’ mongrel!’ – ‘We want them out!’
Mitzi Thompson, a tough-talking attractive woman, stood up and hurled her words in a remnant New Zealand accent. ‘Don’t try that condescending crap with us. The French navy must remove all warheads… scuttle the bugger if necessary. It’s not debatable, it’s constitutional!’ Her acrid words were greeted with cheers from both sides of the house. ‘So get your fingers out of your butts and get that Frog carrier out of our waters!’
Absolute uproar ensued, above it, the chair called for order. After a few moments the noise calmed slightly and New Zealand’s premier, Juliet Maywether, steeled herself and shouted above the din. ’That is not ‘constitutional’, that is ludicrous! This nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is worth more than half New Zealand’s entire fleet. It’s disabled... it’s in no danger. The last thing we want is a nuclear vessel sunk in the Ditch. In a week–’
‘Callahan just said a month!’ interrupted an angry voice.
‘If you’ll let us finish…’ yelled Callahan, red in the face with fury. ‘In a week the Honfleur will be under way; in a month she’d have finished her tour and will be out of our waters. The new turbo-screws are on their way as we speak.’
‘How come she threw both?’ growled Mitzi. ‘It’s bloody sabotage! Terrorism! How come?’
‘Rubbish!’ said Maywether, forcefully. ‘You’ve read the report: one propulsion unit was damaged and they tried to take her out on the other. It was expected the other would fail under that pressure… they’re designed to do that… it just failed sooner than hoped.’
‘Bull,shit!’ Mitzi yelled back.
’Not ‘bullshit!’ roared Callahan, the veins on his temples gorging blood, ‘THAT IS FACT! – Okay, they’ve got forty IBM short-life nuclear cluster bombs. I knew this; we all knew this when they applied for access. We took the deal, part and parcel of a preferential trade statute.’
‘You mean you took their money! The house was against it, one hundred percent!’
There was uproar again from the whole house. Callahan had trouble making himself heard above it. ‘That’s a damn lie. I can name at least five of your members that were participate. Two are in the house today.’
Angry voices answered. ‘Rubbish!’ – ‘Lies!’ – ‘Name the buggers!’ – ‘We want it sunk, an’ we want you sunk!’ – ‘Take a bunch of barges and tow it out of the Ditch and sink it!’
Above cries for order, the irate voices continued, with Mitzi Thompson heading the affray. ‘Every Australasian wants that ship sunk!’ – ‘Chuck the warheads back to the Frogs’ – ‘Yeah, tow it out into the Indian Ocean and sink it!’
In the absolute uproar that followed, the Premier’s retort was completely lost