You appear at a depth of 100 meters, with no idea where you are. You can feel a sense of wrongness coming from the north, and strangeness coming from the east-south-east
Recommended Course of Action: Identify where you are
Where...? How? Why!?
The last thing Molotovska could "remember", she'd been lying in peaceful "slumber", pier-side, south of Fokino in Abrek Bay, following a largely uneventful Pacific patrol... Now, however, she found herself very much awake and inexplicably back at sea. Stranger still, nothing felt
right.
Nothing! Her entire sense of self, sense of being, had been twisted and compressed. Phantom sensations lingered, a sense of her sixteen-thousand metric ton mass and one-hundred and fifty-five meter long hull... cold steel, titanium, a thick anechoic rubber skin... But a greater, newer sense of self overrode what she had always known.
Had she not been familiar with the human form, the 949AM "Oscar-II" Class SSGN would have been at a total loss over what she had suddenly transformed into. However, having safely carried roughly a hundred or more of the delicate creatures, at a time, that assumed such a shape on multiple patrols since her commissioning on December 26th, 1990, it came to her in short order. Two arms... two legs, a head and torso... a
Human Form.
Her limbs moved slowly, awkwardly, as she took command of the alien appendages for the first time. Fingers curled and stretched, legs flexed and the new human sense of self grew stronger, pushing away the phantom sense of her normal, natural form, though never fully exorcising it entirely. Though now Humanoid in form - in so far as she could tell - Molotovska could still feel the familiar pulsing of her dual nuclear reactors, like a pair of beating hearts, infusing the strange new body with all of the tremendous power she had known from the very first instant the control rods had been withdrawn and she had come to life some twenty-nine years prior.
Moving her arms about, then her legs, she explored their range of motion and soon found that not all of her usual features had vanished. The humanoid body was quite well built -
As it should be. And fitted with a great deal of equipment, as well. Steel boots with rudders, aft planes, and her proper pair of massive bronze seven-bladed propellers were present - the latter most affixed to sturdy booms extending aft from her calves. About her waist and hips, large curved panels of dark steel wrapped around in something of a plated skirt, tapering aft into a structure reminiscent of a short, stubby tail, complete with dorsal rudder.
A thick steel cuirass, its shape precisely curved to both fit her new form and provide maximum hydrodynamic efficiency, enclosed her upper torso. Along the back and curving forward at her sides, her twenty-four missile tubes were nestled into the heavy armored vest, fully armed with a mixed loadout of P-800
Oniks and 3M54K
Kalibr Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles in equal parts.
Affixed to the vest at its right side by some sort of robust articulated framework, a structure reminiscent of her proper bow and sections forward of the missile tubes hung at her side, stowed aft by her hip. Reaching for it, she found grips that perfectly fit her new human hands, one on either side of the hull-like structure, and another, as she brought it around, in front of her on its framework, at its rear. She took hold of the grips and pulled the structure around, grasping it, naturally, like one would some sort of very large weapon... And that was precisely what it was. Her bow, all six torpedo tubes loaded with a mixture of UGST's, USET-80's and the 650mm's, a pair of 65-76's, was now held at the ready in a strangely comfortable way.
Upon her hands, thick rubberized gloves and, encircling her forearms, dark steel vambraces complete with retractable forward diving planes equipped her further. Beneath all of the equipment, a thick rubberized wetsuit reminiscent of her proper anechoic coating sheathed the powerful new body from neck to toe. And, to complete the familiar yet peculiar outfit, a black and white-piped Russian Naval "Pilotka" cap, adorned with the Coat of Arms of the City of Molotovsk, sat squarely upon her head, reminiscent of her thick dorsal sail.
Despite her strange new form, Molotovska was still quite certain that she was, one way or another, still what she had always been - a Warship, a Submarine, assigned to the 19th Submarine Brigade, Primorsk Seaboard Combined Forces Command, Russian Pacific Fleet in the service of that nation, and it was her
duty to determine her position and regain contact with Flotilla HQ at the earliest available opportunity. Whatever had happened to her... might have happened to the entire Pacific Fleet! What could that mean for the Motherland? Surely nothing good!
Turning her focus outward, Molotovska found her senses were much as they had always been - a welcome familiarity, that. Passive sonar came online, depth was checked - 100 Meters - and position... Position was unknown. She quickly checked her course plot - Blank! No data, no course history! It was as if she had been deposited in the middle of some unknown sea by some unknown force.
No, that is exactly what has occurred, she decided.
The crew had arrived at the very same conclusion at nearly the same moment...
The Crew? The crew! Naturally... she realized, listening in as the Captain and his senior officers discussed the strange circumstances of their present predicament in private. The junior officers, NCOs and ratings were still very much in the dark and seemed to grow restless and nervous as time passed.
Focusing back on the external, Molotovska soon grew aware of an unsettling presence. Something to the north - bearing 016 - too faint, at first to assign a contact to, but notable, nonetheless. Like any good submarine that had plied the seas for nearly three decades, Molotovska had developed herself a sixth sense of sorts. A sense for things that proper sensors could not always correlate. A superstitious thing, perhaps, but sailors - and their ships - were naturally superstitious sorts.
Another
something soon made its presence known to her. A Something Else that lay distant, to the southeast - bearing 108. Not so seemingly malicious as that which lurked to the north, but still unsettling. Splitting her focus to eavesdrop on the crew, it seemed her sonar operators were now aware of the northern presence, but had yet to pinpoint a precise source or decide upon an identity.
Lying still was simply unacceptable, given the circumstances, and Molotovska quickly summoned the power of her twin nuclear hearts and willed it to her screws. Slowly, they began to turn, propelling her new form - with its lingering phantom mass - forward, through the water. Despite her human shape, moving felt just as natural as it always had and, soon enough, she reached her desired speed - creeping along, running silent at 5 Knots.
Her current heading of 090 - due east - was undesirable and she shifted her rudders, coming right and around to course 230 to move to the southwest and away from both of the mysterious contacts that lurked just out of reach. As she turned, she rose slowly to 65 Meters and spooled out her towed array, the long skinny sensor "tail" drifting away in her wake, curling and swaying like that of a cat, as she came around onto her new heading.
Now on course with the towed array "Tail" reeled out to its operating length, Molotovska made to spool out another array of sorts, but paused as a commotion reached her inner ear. The crew was alarmed! Their Submarine had acted without their input! The Captain and his senior staff rushed to the Con in confusion...
Could I? Molotovska wondered to herself for a moment.
"Hello?" she soon asked, directing her inner monologue in a way she'd have struggled to articulate.
Silence fell over the Con before the Captain spoke, asking who was speaking.
"I am," the hulking Submarine replied,
"The Cruise Missile Submarine, K-111, Molotovska," she added.
The officers and crew were thrown for a loop! The Submarine could
speak? Brief pandemonium reigned before hearty laughter broke over the panic like a rolling wave. The Captain could not contain himself and chuckled deep and long as those around him fell silent, looking to their commanding officer in confusion.
Regaining his composure, the boat's Senior Officer spoke up, addressing his command without hesitation. He expressed his pleasure in meeting the Submarine, then paused to glance at the heading and depth indicators. All seemed to be in order and he praised Molotovska's initiative before stating that it might well be wise to trail the communications buoy and try to link up with the GLONASS Array for a precise positional fix. Perhaps Flotilla HQ would be transmitting, as well, and some answers could be had...
A very first grin crept across Molotovska's lips and a warmth grew within her breast at the praise.
"Communications buoy deploying, Kapitan
," the Submarine reported, as a small hatch opened up in the back of her vest and a tethered buoy, vaguely in the shape of a Manta Ray, trailed away, ascending to the surface. With luck, Molotovska would have her position pinned down in short order.
--
Status:
Heading: 230 (Southwest)
Speed: 5knts
Depth: 65m
Trailing: Towed Sonar Array
Trailing: Comms Array Buoy (SATCOM UHF/GLONASS) - Depth: 0m (Float Buoy)
EMCOM Level: Alpha (No Emissions)
Sonar: Passive
Running: Silent
Actions:
Turn to heading 230 (Southwest), running silent at 5kts, move away from Northern and SSE Presences while remaining undetected
Run out Towed Array, try to resolve N and SSE Contacts (Secondary), detect anything else in the vicinity (Primary)
Float Comms Array Buoy and attempt to gain a positional fix from the Russian GPS System (GLONASS) and/or pick up any signals from Flotilla HQ
