THE KRAKEN CHAP 1

THE KRAKEN

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Dedication

As always

For Captain Tamara Long, USAF

Born: May 12, 1979

Died: 23 March 2003, Afghanistan

You fly with the angels now.

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CHAPTER 1

Briareos or Typhon, whom the den

By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast

Leviathan, which God of all his works

Created hugest that swim th' ocean-stream.

Paradise Lost

John Milton

“Whoa!”

Commander George Schiffer, skipper of the Virginia Class SSN Mississippi grabbed the edge of his desk as his vessel lurched upwards and sideways.

“Commander to Conn!”

“Yuh think?” Schiffer muttered, getting up from the desk and navigating his way to the Command Section as the boat continued to lurch.

“What in the Sam Hill is going on?” Schiffer said as he entered the Command Center.

What used to be called the ‘Conning Area’ was a ‘Command Center’ in the Virginia class. The equivalent of the Combat Information Center in a surface ship combined with a bridge, CC held all the ‘stuff’ a commander of a boat needed to access in one convenient package. Conning was forward, tactical center to port, sonar to starboard and ‘Optics Section’, what used to be periscope, aft.

“Anomalous everything boss,” Lieutenant Commander Jaenisch replied. The XO was unperturbed. You weren’t the perturbed type if you lasted in submarines. “Sonar.”

“Anomalous sonar readings in every direction, boss.” The sonarman turned around and just shrugged. “Can’t make head nor tails. But there’s shit-ton anomalous currents, sounds…”

“Where?” Schiffer asked.

“Everywhere,” Jaenisch replied. “As in in every direction except up and that’s anomalous wave action apparently due to the anomalous in every direction except up.”