Chapter 70
Aboard the Oregon
The Oregon was well underway at top speed, and El Salvador far behind in her rearview mirror.
Juan and his senior leadership team were gathered in the conference room for a pre-mission briefing. Only Murphy was missing, still confined to his cabin.
Modeled after the White House Situation Room, the conference room featured a large mahogany desk ringed with high-backed leather executive chairs, banks of large LCD monitors on the walls, and videoconferencing stations at each position. Eric Stone had a laptop open in front of him.
“What are we looking at exactly, Stoney?” Max Hanley asked.
He nodded at one of the monitors displaying a map of the Pacific Ocean.
A gray-shaded fifty-mile-radius circle marked the map’s center, contrasting with the deep blue background.
A small red triangle representing the Baktun sat at its core.
The circle’s eastern edge lay nine hundred thirty nautical miles west of Nicaragua, the exact point where the seaplane’s last ADS-B signal vanished.
A bright yellow line traced the seaplane’s path from a Nicaraguan airfield to the red triangle.
“That’s our target area,” Eric said, “and our best guess as to the probable location of the Baktun, based on the radar and signal logs we recovered and the flight-range specs of the ShinMaywa US-2.”
“Unless he was carrying spare fuel tanks or planning to refuel at the Baktun,” Linda noted. “Then the range could be much farther.”
Eric shrugged in agreement. “In that case, he could be almost anywhere in the world.”
“I’m confident this is the target area,” Juan said. “Let’s continue.”
“Why don’t we have a pinpoint location?” Max asked. “Why the fifty-mile circle?”
“Because we don’t know if Fierro shut off his satellite signal the moment he landed or before. And that circle represents the maximum distance the seaplane could have traveled and returned safely to its base in Nicaragua on a single tank of JP-5.”
“Given the initial ships’ traffic we’ve encountered and the sea state conditions farther ahead, we’ll be lucky to maintain an average speed of fifty-five knots,” Linda said.
“That will put us at the outer edge of that circle in just over sixteen hours.” Juan checked his watch. “That puts our ETA at approximately 1030 hours tomorrow.”
“Eidolon’s text said Project Q will launch at precisely 1100 hours,” Linda reminded everyone.
Max frowned. “That’s cutting it pretty close. If Eric’s estimate is off even just a fraction, we’re going to be late to our own funeral.”
“And that’s assuming they don’t accelerate the timeline,” Eric added.
“Was Mr. Overholt able to get a reconnaissance satellite tasked over the area?” Linda asked. The spy satellites possessed Hubble Space Telescope capabilities—only, these cameras were pointed at Earth, not outer space.
Cabrillo shook his head. “He checked into it. There currently aren’t any birds on a near-pass trajectory over the target zone.
The soonest he can get one is four days from now.
He might be able to get us a Lacrosse/Onyx radar satellite in twenty-four hours but no guarantees. That’s too late anyway.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Eric said. “That boat was darn near invisible and we were within spitting range of it when it hit us. The Baktun must deploy some kind of suite of cloaking technologies. I doubt either optical or radar sats would have done us any good.”
Cabrillo leaned forward. “Let’s assume we know where the Baktun is. What else do we know about her?”
“In our prior engagement we encountered holographic drones…surveillance drones…swarming drone mini torpedoes…and a full-size carbon-fiber-hulled torpedo,” Linda said.
“We fired the Melara seventy-six-millimeter at her,” Eric said. “Airburst munitions. No damage we could ascertain. We assumed that meant she was capable of high-speed maneuvers to be able to clear the shrapnel area that quickly.”
“In short, that bucket is dangerous as all get-out,” Max said. “But nothing we can’t handle.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Cabrillo said. “We don’t know what she was holding back. We surprised her with our little charade. We might have won the battle, but my gut tells me she withdrew for other reasons. Next time we might not be so lucky.”
“My money’s on the Oregon,” Max said. “Though I am a bit prejudiced, since I helped design her.”
“Well, add this to your calculation, old friend.” Cabrillo leaned on the desk, folding his hands to emphasize the point he was about to make. “Overholt has stated in no uncertain terms we are to acquire Project Q and its underlying AGI technology.”
“In other words, we can’t sink her,” Linda said. “We have to capture her.”
Max rolled his eyes. “That means we’re heading into a gunfight with a Nerf bat. Might as well try to put a saddle on a great white shark while we’re at it.”
“It’s a challenge, no doubt,” Cabrillo said. “And we know the Chinese will get in on the action.”
“We’ve tangled with Chinese gunboats before,” Max said. “So far, it’s Oregon, one; Chicoms, bukpes.” Hanley was referring to the Oregon’s sinking of the Chinese destroyer Chengdu years before. The gun battle resulted in the partial loss of Cabrillo’s right leg.
Juan propped his prosthetic limb up on the conference table and pulled back the pant leg revealing Nixon’s handiwork of lifelike skin and fine blond hair. “C’mon, Max. You gotta give the Chinese at least a half point.”
Everyone around the table laughed, lowering the emotional temperature a few degrees.
But Eric Stone had worked long enough with Cabrillo to know his humor was masking something else.
“What aren’t you telling us, boss?”
Ross sighed. “Oh, Lord. Don’t tell me Overholt didn’t forbid us to fire on the Chinese, too?”
Cabrillo pulled his leg off the table and rolled his pant leg back down.
“I would love to tell you that, Ms. Ross, but like my mama used to say, lying is a sin, even if it’s for a good cause.”
“Why the order?”
“The Pentagon’s afraid of starting a shooting war with the Chinese. Taiwan is a tinderbox and we can’t be the match.”
Max’s eyes widened. “Are you kidding me? How are we supposed to fight both the Baktun and the Chinese without being able to sink either of them?”
“You remember that old kids’ game Operation?” Juan asked. “We just have to be very, very careful.”
“Yeah, except if we’re not careful, it’s more than our big red noses that will get lit up.”
Juan leaned back in his chair.
“And there’s one more thing.”
Everybody leaned forward.
“And that would be?” Max asked.
“Overholt said we can’t let the Chinese get that technology, no matter what.”
“So that puts even more pressure on us to succeed,” Eric said.
“But you just said we can’t fire any weapons at them,” Max said.
“All that means is we need to get to the Baktun first and grab that tech before the Chinese show up,” Linda said.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about the Baktun,” Eric said, almost as if talking to himself.
“It’s a high-tech vessel, which means they’ve got passive electromagnetic detection systems, most likely mil-spec.
If we go in hot with radio and radar blazing, we’ll spook them and we’ll never find them again. ”
Max threw up his calloused hands. “So besides tying one hand behind our backs, dropping our guns, and picking up a Nerf bat, now we have to go in deaf, dumb, and blind?”
“Stoney’s right,” Juan said. “We don’t have a choice.”
“Said the one-legged man taking tap-dancing lessons.” Max waved a hand at Cabrillo. “No offense, chief.”
“None taken. I do a mean Watusi, by the way. Eric, given what you just said, how do you want to approach the Baktun?”
Eric tapped a few more keys on his laptop. Another window opened up on the LCD monitor displaying the past-reported “demon” attacks by the Baktun. He’d pulled those calculations together when they were first trying to find the mystery ship.
“The Baktun was probably on some level of radio silence when we encountered her. But it was still able to detect these ships it previously attacked, including the Oregon.”
“My guess would be with a drone screen,” Juan said.
“Exactly. You see where these ships previously attacked by the Baktun are located? We used the relative distances between them to determine the Baktun’s general operating area when we first set out to find them.
But as you can see by the additional information I’ve laid over this map, I’ve been able to calculate the approximate distance between the victim ships and the Baktun.
The average is thirty kilometers—about eighteen miles. ”
“And that’s how far her drone screens extend,” Linda said. “That’s about the limits of tripod-mounted optics.”
“We know he’s hiding from electromagnetic detection. But he can’t escape the human eye if a ship gets close enough. That boat really does want to stay invisible,” Max said.
“That’s good work, Stoney,” Linda said.
“So we park ourselves out at twenty miles. Then what?” Max asked.
“I’d make it twenty-five miles, just to be safe,” Eric said.
“I’ve got a few ideas about what to do next,” Juan said. “But first, we need to call in Eddie and his Gundogs and get them up to speed. They’ll need to work up a mission plan for a boarding party if it comes to that.”
“Let’s break for coffee,” Linda said. “I’ll call brother Seng and we’ll meet them in the team room in thirty.”
“Agreed,” Juan said. “And after that briefing, I want a meeting with all of the department heads. I want every station, every motor, every weapon, every battery, every ammo mag, push broom, mop bucket, and electric toothbrush battle ready by 0500 tomorrow. No surprises. Anything else to add?”
“I’ve got a weird question,” Linda said. “It’s been bugging me a lot.”
“Shoot.”
“What does the name Baktun mean anyway?”
“Could mean a lot of things,” Eric said. “But a bak’tun is a unit of time in the Mayan long calendar. It represents one hundred forty-four thousand days. The end of a bak’tun signals the end of an era, and the dawn of a new one.”
Everyone in the room stared at Stone like he was an alien life-form.
Max finally broke the silence. “Remind me never to play Scrabble with you, son.”
“Almost like the AI singularity,” Juan said. “Or should I say, AGI singularity?”
Eric shook his head. “No, sir. More like the end of the world.”