You successfully connect to the GLONASS, but receive no signals from Flotilla HQ. (You will now appear on the Map) You also successfully resolve all contacts that you can realistically detect.
A great deal was happening all at once, but Molotovska felt she was
starting to get the hang of things. Sort of. It was a strange give and take, coordinating one's efforts with the crew... Before, in her "normal" form, she had only ever received inputs and busied herself with tasks the crew would have considered "autonomous". Now it seemed she was involved in everything, at least in an observational fashion any way. It was all very strange but seemed to come naturally enough, however unnatural the situation at hand appeared to be.
In fact, to work with the crew so, she kind of found it... interesting? Engaging? Fun?
Things were going well enough, the buoy was on the surface and had acquired the signal from one GLONASS satellite... The next was in the process of syncing and the third and fourth, she was confident, would link up soon enough and then she'd have her position! From there a next step yet to be determined, but other matters occupied her mind as the crew worked a different problem set - the strange groups of contacts to her north, southeast and, now, northwest.
All were distinctly different from one another and both Molotovska and her little sonar operators worked quickly, but carefully, to assign identities to the mystery contacts... The Southeastern Group - now at bearing 094, range approximately 28k meters - was the strangest one... Alien and foreboding... The new group - to the Northwest, bearing 295, range somewhere just outside of 29k meters - was actually the most familiar. Clearly a group of surface vessels accelerating quickly, moving away. Most had the distinctive acoustical signature of warships and more than a few were vessels that Molotovska had heard in the past with her very own hydrophones.
It was easy to get sucked into the Northwestern Group... It was familiar... Data that she and her crew were accustomed to seeing, to processing and analyzing. It was a puzzle - or set of puzzles - that the 949AM SSGN knew she could solve. Which was precisely why it would fall at the lower end of the priority list.
The
real mystery was the Northern Group... The one with that... malignant aura. That, try as she and her operators might, could not be so easily ranged or identified. The contacts were indistinct and seemed to fade in and out in a fashion unlike anything Molotovska or the crew had ever heard before. One moment, they were close... terribly close, then... far. Nearly as the far as the other Groups... It just didn't make any sense.
A primal sense of urgency, an instinctual drive to get
away from the unnatural presence of the Northern Group, nagged at the mighty submarine's new human mind. It urged her to dive deep, to increase her speed and break away swiftly... but twenty-nine years at sea had hardened her resolve and Molotovska would not be so easily driven by instincts alone.
Three satellites had synced successfully...
Just one more...
Still nothing from Flotilla HQ over the usual SATCOM UHF frequencies, however.
Could this have befallen only me?
Just a moment before the senior sonar operator called it out, the first in a series of pings echoing through the depths reached Molotovska's sensitive hydrophones. One of the contacts in the Northwestern Group had fired up its active sonar systems and was now pinging away. She fixed the Contact [
@Tank man ] - bearing 294, range 29,870 meters - and determined that it was moving away. The other vessels around it thrashing the sea would, at such a range, hopefully obscure any clear returns the searching ship might receive. If it
did turn to, Molotovska would know with time to spare and make her escape into the depths... It was something to keep any eye on, or, rather, an ear, but the Northern Group was still of the greater concern.
A second Contact [
@SeismicGuide ] in the NW Group soon joined the first in its subsurface search. Like the first, Molotovska was confident that the Contact was moving away, off, further toward the northwest. But, unlike the first, this particular active sonar set was one the SSGN
knew she had heard before. On more than one occasion. It was very clearly
American in origin. The sort used by U.S. Cruisers and Destroyers.
So what is this Amerikanskiy
and her friend up to? The Russian submarine wondered, unfazed by the sonic pulses sounding the depths around her...
At last, the fourth satellite had synced and, within two beats of her two nuclear hearts, Molotovska knew
precisely where she had ended up.
Ow-Gah-Sheema? Yaponiya?
How? And why here? She had sailed around the Japanese Home Islands in the past, at a distance, but never had her patrols brought her out to such a peculiar spot.
Such a tiny volcanic island...
Ultimately, the present "where" mattered little. The next step was resolving itself. From here, she would continue on course and break contact with the strange groups of vessels... or whatever they all were, and, once clear, she would turn towards Vladivostok, for Fokino and Home. Surely, there, she could get some answers...
As an after thought I transmit a repeating signal on VLF frequencies to any Soviet submarine to engage in combat support on the hostile fleet if at all possible.
With her position fixed and a plan of action in place, a new report from communications drew Molotovska's attention. A very peculiar message had been received... but not over SATCOM UHF as she had expected. Instead...
But the little radio operator was cut off by a very sudden change in the apparent strength of that most unpleasant Northern Presence. Before her sonar operators could report, Molotovska knew something was very, very wrong. The wavering Group of contacts had resolved itself... Over two-dozen distinct Contacts and the closest was a mere stone's throw away - bearing 018, range
557 meters!
The Captain ordered the Communications Buoy and Towed Array retracted at once and called, in earnest, for a Crash Dive!
Molotovska was already reacting, executing the Captain's orders with practiced haste and precision. The Towed Array was spooling in, shortening her "Tail" back to a nub while the Ray-like Coms Buoy was swiftly dragged below, pulled steadily downward on its tether. Fore and aft planes cranked down into position as twin bronze screws churned the water, making turns for 20 knots and forcing the humanoid Submarine into a headlong dive.
Frightened? No! Surprised, yes! Gritting her teeth, Molotovska plunged through the depths, the hydrodynamic bow-like structure bristling with torpedo tubes thrust forward, held firmly in her powerful hands. She would go deep, 450 meters or more, then run out to the south for a time, break away and leave whatever monsters lurked above - practically
right above her - behind!
40 Granits sail towards the abyssal fleet, and 40 granits strike home, though only 1 hits each battleship. Removed of their escorts, and decently hurt, they turn towards you, firing a salvo of shells towards your fleet. They all miss, but the abyssals are reloading, and are now moving towards you at flank speed.
Just as she broke through 80 meters, the surface world
exploded. A furious chorus of thunderous booms roared through the depths chasing her down. Morphing from a distinct chorus into a single, relentless thunder roll, whatever had occurred up top deafened the hulking SSGN to everything else around her.
Pizdetz
! Molotovska cursed, unaware of any such weapon like that which had, apparently, been unleashed upon her... She was not dead
yet, however, and threw all three rudders hard over, coming left, trying to get out from under the nightmare echoing after her.
As she rolled and turned, descending aggressively, the winch struggling to retrieve the Coms Buoy was overwhelmed and the tether, pulled taught, caught against the edge of the stowage hatch. Ground against the sharp edges of the hatchway, the over-stressed tether began to fray... The outer rubber sheath split... the cable within kinked and, as Molotovska reversed her turn, coming back to the right, the tether was yanked to port and caught against the opposite side of the hatchway. The forces acting upon it were enough to shear through the weakened inner cable leaving only the remains of the outer sheath to retain the Buoy. The rubber parted an instant later and the Manta-Ray-esque Buoy hurtled away, headed for the surface...
Polniy pizdetz
! It became apparent, quite quickly, that she had lost something... Right about when the gentle but persistent tug of the Buoy she'd been dragging suddenly disappeared. As the winch spooled in the remains of the tether the loss was confirmed... To receive SATCOM Messages or recheck position via GLONASS she would now be forced to periscope depth!
Passing through 300 meters, it seemed she had managed to escape whatever had occurred far above... at least for the moment. But Molotovska wasn't the sort to take any chances and reversed her turn a second time, rolling and swing back to port. The echoes of the explosions still rung in her hydrophones and she could hear little more than the sounds of her own screws, the rush of pressurized coolant and the throbbing of her twin nuclear hearts as she raced for the cold, dark safe haven that lay below.
Thundering on through 450 meters, she began to level out, gradually, and centered up her rudders, landing back on something of a southwesterly course. With so much speed and so much mass, it was not until she'd reached 521 meters depth that she leveled off, back onto an even keel. She had no intentions of slowing down just yet, and continued on at 20 knots on a heading of 212 for another ten minutes before finally cutting back to a silent, creeping 5.
By now, Molotovska's tortured "ears" had recovered suitably and, as she slowed to listen, the ghastly sounds that reached her told a tale... They were the sounds of a ship - multiple ships - dying, bulkheads collapsing, bubbles surging up from shattered, twisted steel corpses, marking, for a moment, their watery graves... Tough as she was, even the seasoned SSGN was unnerved by the sounds of death echoing in her wake.
Who has perished? Who killed them? And why? She wondered, now certain that a bizarre situation had transformed into something far more dangerous.
--
Status:
Heading: 212 (Southwest)
Speed: 5knts
Depth: 521m
Damage: Coms Array Buoy
LOST
Trailing: Towed Sonar Array
EMCOM Level: Alpha (No Emissions)
Sonar: Passive
Running: Silent
Actions:
Adjust course by 10 degrees to Starboard, hold for 5 minutes, turn back to Port 20 degrees, hold for 5 minutes, swing back 10 degrees to course 212 (South-Southwest) and hold for 10 minutes running silent at 5kts, moving deliberately away from all Contact Groups (N/NW/SE)
Run out Towed Array, try to detect and ID any contacts withing 15k meters
Repeat 10-20-10 zig-zag every 15 minutes to swing "Tail" out and check baffles
