Free Spiral by Andy Remic Page A

Missile Submarine 941 Typhoon Class, Moscow 16, thrummed through the dark waters 130° and a hundred miles south of the Gelz Ice Shelf. Slowly, the seven-bladed perch propellers spun down and the vessel sat squat and dark in the dim cool glow, immobile, predatory and frightening in its bulky, matt black presence.
    Juri Kolgar, Captain First Rank of the 19 th Submarine Division, drummed his fingers on the desk and stared at the readings on the screen before him. He glanced up at Seaman Bharzova and the worried expression on the young man’s neatly shaved face. Kolgar smiled warmly, and dismissed the man.
    For the past four months the Russians had been working with Spiral in an attempt to quash a new internal problem - a spate of mass rioting that had been brought on due to a Mafia-peddled designer drug, which had taken the poverty-stricken working classes by the balls and sent them spinning down the cobbled road to narcotic Hell. This drug, Lemon Vodka as it had been nicknamed, had made the Mafia-led clans even more rich and powerful, but was costing the government dear -financially, politically and, of course, socially. Spiral had been called in as a last resort to try and help stamp out the illegal importing of Lemon Vodka.
    A day earlier, the Moscow 16 had been tracking an unnamed surface vessel that was under suspicion of drug trafficking; the vessel was the size of a battleship, of unknown origins, and had been making slow progress to the north-east, close to Russia’s Arctic coast.
    Now, however, the vessel had gone.
    Kolgar had sent out Tykes, tiny aquatic machine scouts no larger than a tennis ball. A hundred had surged from the sub, humming quietly and darkly into the deep cold waters in search of the mysterious vessel that had - impossibly - evaded their most high-tech searches.
    Now they were playing the waiting game.
    Kolgar sighed, opened the drawer to his right and looked longingly at the bottle of crystal-clear liquid nestling within. He shook his head, rubbed a hand over the bristles on his chin, and closed the drawer again.
    Standing, he left the room and walked slowly to the Control Centre, which was situated above the batteries where energy from the 2x600 mwt nuclear reactors were stored in order to give the huge craft its propulsion.
    Seamen snapped to attention as Kolgar entered. He saluted his men, and took his seat on the bridge. ‘Anything on the sonar?’
    ‘Negative, Captain. Not even on the I/J band surface-target detection. But she was there, as real as a bear in the woods. She isn’t there any longer.’
    Kolgar cursed.
    ‘What about the Tykes?’
    ‘Nothing yet, Captain. They’ve spread out, and are heading away in a globe formation. If there’s anything around us, they will find it and report it.’ Their gazes met. ‘You know, Captain, as well as I that they have never missed a target.’
    Kolgar nodded, rubbing wearily at his temples. ‘Have you informed Spiral Tac of this?’
    ‘Not yet, Captain.’
    ‘Do so. Their intelligence may have some records or information on this vessel. What did we find out before it…it…’
    ‘Vanished?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Vague dimensions estimated by the BattleSubTec computers. Nothing more. An estimation of possible weapons capabilities. And the fact that it moved much, much faster than any seagoing vehicle had a right to move.’
    They waited, watching the Tyke scanners. A tense silence surrounded them, filled with the glittering glow of computer read-outs and submarine-control displays. Red light scattered like rubies across Kolgar’s heavily bearded face, and his eyes narrowed as they fixed on one of the Tyke ScannerReps.
    He pointed. ‘What’s that?’
    There was an instant of blackness, and the light went out.
    ‘What does the TerminationDisplay read?’ asked Kolgar slowly.
    ‘Zero, Captain.’
    ‘That’s impossible! No last-nanosecond read-outs? No transmissions on what was around the Tyke when it was destroyed?’
    ‘Nothing,