Tag Archives: Fiction Week

Reality Hack

Fiction Contest Week

3rd Place Finisher

By Robert Williscroft

I eased myself through the hatch into the water. My satpack increased suit pressure slightly to compensate for the press of seawater a thousand feet below the surface and turned up the heat to counter the 27° temperature. I dropped down ten feet to make room for my team. I observed each entry in my heads-up—Jer, Ski, Harry, Bill, and Sergyi, each with his own avatar. Just above them in my heads-up, our sub appeared as a gray blob, too large for any distinguishing characteristics. We carried URA-24s holstered to our legs, automatic underwater rifles with sixty hypervelocity rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber.

The seafloor was a hundred feet below, and the water was crystal clear. A thousand feet above, the sun shined brightly over the South China Sea, but not a single ray penetrated to where we were, on the seafloor, some forty nautical miles southwest of the Hainan Island coast. We were in international waters but very much inside the Chicoms’ exclusive economic zone. Somewhere below, yet nearby, was a Chicom acoustic array that allowed their intelligence people to identify and track every American submarine in the South China Sea outside the continental break. Our job was to take it out.

“Status,” I said, my helium and pressure distorted voice sounding normal in my team’s ears following appropriate processing. The five avatars in my heads-up bobbed in sequence. Even though we used Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) packets for communicating, we tried to keep comms to a minimum. We knew how to locate CDMA transmissions. Intel said the Chicoms didn’t, but we weren’t taking any chances. I angled down and headed for the bottom.

My team followed, spread out, thirty feet between divers, two to my right and three to my left. My heads-up indicated our course was 308°—exactly normal to the acoustic array we sought. The sub’s initial side-scan informed us the array lay nearby ahead of us. I carried a low-power, high-frequency CDMA scanner that detailed the bottom fifteen feet below us with quarter-inch resolution. Its return appeared in each team member’s heads-up. Twenty minutes into our survey, Sergyi’s avatar on the far right flashed.

We dropped to the bottom, having no idea what kind of sensors the array had. We turned to the right, following Sergyi’s lead in a column until the array lay directly below us, five feet down. That’s when the entire acoustic array flashed brilliant white, and I shut my eyes, pain coursing through my body. Then a disorienting wrenching twist, and I opened my eyes to find myself in an encasing chair in a featureless room.

A deep voice that seemed to come from everywhere said, “Well, that didn’t go so well. Talk it over. Figure out what you did wrong, and then we’ll do it again.”

___________________________________________________________________________

I eased myself through the hatch into the water. My satpack increased suit pressure slightly to compensate for the press of seawater eleven hundred feet below the surface and turned up the heat to counter the 27° temperature. I dropped down ten feet to make room for my team. I watched each entry in my heads-up—Jim, Doc, Hank, Jack, and Sergyi, each with his own avatar. Just above them in my heads-up, our sub appeared as a gray blob, too large for any distinguishing characteristics. Our automatic underwater rifles with sixty hypervelocity rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber were holstered to our legs.

The seafloor was eighty feet below us, and the water was crystal clear. Eleven hundred feet overhead, the sun shined brightly over the South China Sea, but nothing reached us on the seafloor, some thirty-five nautical miles from the southwest coast of Hainan Island. We were in international waters but very much inside the Chicoms’ exclusive economic zone. Somewhere below us, perhaps five miles farther away from Hainan, was a Chicom acoustic array that allowed their intelligence people to identify and track every American submarine in the South China Sea outside the continental break. Our job was to find and cut the cable feed for the array.

“Status,” I said, my helium and pressure distorted voice sounding normal in my team’s ears following appropriate processing. The five avatars in my heads-up bobbed in sequence. Even though we used CDMA packets for communicating, we tried to keep comms to a minimum. We knew how to locate CDMA transmissions. Intel said the Chicoms didn’t, but we weren’t taking any chances. I angled down and headed for the bottom.

My team followed, spread out, thirty feet between divers, three to my right and two to my left. My heads-up indicated our course was 008°—exactly normal to the acoustic array cable feed we sought. The sub’s side-scan informed us the array lay about five nautical southwest of us. I carried a low-power, high-frequency CDMA scanner that detailed the bottom immediately below us with quarter-inch resolution. Its return appeared in each team member’s heads-up. Twenty minutes into our survey, I spotted the return from the cable feed.

We dropped to the bottom to cut the cable feed. Unless we were under visual or sensor observation, the Chicoms could not possibly know we were there. I grabbed the cable in my cutter, but before I could cut the cable, something grabbed my arm and jerked me away. The area flooded with light. I saw my team members crumpled on the bottom, not moving. Excruciating pain from my right arm forced me to turn my head, only to see my severed arm hit the sand just before I passed out. A disorienting wrenching twist, and I opened my eyes to find myself once again back in the encasing chair in the featureless room, my right arm aching like hell.

The deep voice said, “That didn’t go well at all. Perhaps we need to take a different approach.”

___________________________________________________________________________

I eased myself through the hatch into the water. My satpack increased suit pressure slightly to compensate for the press of seawater thirteen hundred feet below the surface and turned up the heat to counter the 27° temperature. As my feet touched the bottom and I moved aside to make room for my team, an image flashed into my mind. Somehow, somewhere, I knew I had done this before. I watched each entry in my heads-up—Tubes, Pipes, Rog, Spike, and Boris, each with his own avatar. Just above them in my heads-up, our sub appeared as a gray blob, too large for any distinguishing characteristics. Our URA-24s holstered to our legs carried sixty hypervelocity rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber.

The water was crystal clear. Thirteen hundred feet above us, the sun shined brightly over the South China Sea, but it was pitch black on the seafloor, some thirty-five nautical miles from the southwest coast of Hainan Island. We were in international waters but very much inside the Chicoms’ exclusive economic zone. And this all was completely familiar—a been there, done that feeling overwhelmed me. We were looking for an acoustic array, and something was going to happen—I didn’t know what, but something definitely was going to happen.

Change the pattern, I commanded myself, change the pattern. On impulse, I headed for the surface, thirteen hundred feet above me.

“Stop!” Boris shouted on the comm system. “What are you doing?”

“Changing the pattern,” I answered, continuing upward.

When I reached my upward excursion limit of 170 feet, the water around me flashed with bright light. I felt a disorienting wrenching twist, and I opened my eyes to find myself once again back in the encasing chair in the featureless room. My arm didn’t ache.

“Why did you do that?” the deep voice asked.

“Change the pattern,” I said. “Don’t want to die.”

___________________________________________________________________________

I was on the periscope stand of a nuclear submarine. “Right full rudder, ten degrees down bubble!” I ordered. The Chinese words that came out of my mouth were, “Yòu quán duò! Xiàng xià shí dù!

“Change the pattern!” I said. My words were, “Gǎibiàn móshì.”

A flash, a disorienting wrench…I was in a brightly lit high-tech room. Another flash, another wrench…I was once again back in the encasing chair in the featureless room.

“Stop it!” the deep voice ordered.

“Stop what?” I asked. “Change the pattern…”

___________________________________________________________________________

I was a fighter pilot landing a Navy jet on a carrier. Instinctively, I knew my glide path was too steep.

“Change the pattern,” I said.

“Abort…abort…abort!” the Landing Signal Officer ordered. I heard, “Zhōngzhǐ, zhōngzhǐ, zhōngzhǐ.”

The flash, the wrench…and I was in another brightly lit high-tech room…for a moment. Then I was once again in the encasing chair in the featureless room.

I couldn’t understand the deep voice. Sounded like he was speaking Chinese. I started to get pissed off. I sat up.

“What the fuck!” I yelled.

Another flash, and I was back in the high-tech room. It was filled with people—in uniform, Navy uniforms…not American…

FLASH…

I ride a Gryphon hardshell wingsuit. In my heads-up, my squad shears away to avoid incoming missiles. Cowboy winks out; Jerico starts moving erratically. I am still doing 300 knots when I get hit…

FLASH…

Firefight…exoarmor taking hits from all sides. I leap over a forty-foot canyon, but a 50 cal catches my chest in mid-jump…

FLASH…high-tech room…featureless room…

FLASH…fighter’s out of control…eject…eject…chute fails to open…

FLASH

Featureless room…

“You got a handle on it yet, Ski” someone yells.

“That’s a negative. They’re overpowering my firewall…can’t hold ’em.”

“Get the fucking helmet off him!” Sounds like a female.

Something touches my head.

FLASH…

I try to roll over, but the encasing chair holds me in place. Something touches my head.

FLASH…

High-tech room…

FLASH

Featureless room, encasing chair…

“Get that fucking helmet off him!” Still sounds like a woman.

FLASH…

Everything goes dark and quiet.

___________________________________________________________________________

I opened my eyes slowly. A female with a concerned look on her face attempted to look into my eyes with an eye-exam light. A stethoscope was draped around her neck. I could see her boobs down her blouse. I blinked and shook my head.

“Hold still,” she said.

I did.

“What happened?” I asked.

A male face took her place, older, accompanied by oak leaves on his collar. “What’s your name?” he asked.

I had no idea.

“Do you know where you are?” he asked.

I didn’t.

He said, “You are Lt. Alex Randal. You were in deep VR, training for a classified saturation dive mission South China Sea seafloor off Hainan Island. The Chicoms hacked our VR system. They looped your mission, tossing in different variables. They penetrated our VR training library, started throwing all kinds of scenarios at you. Somehow, you jumped into their control VR, and then our anti-hacker squad got into a pissing match with their hackers. You were caught in the middle…

FLASH…but I wasn’t wearing a helmet…FLASH…the high-tech room…FLASH…Chinese voices all around me…and I understood everything that was being said…FLASH…“Welcome back” (in Chinese)…someone handed me a cup of tea, a pretty Chinese technician in a white lab coat…no boobs. She gestured to a chair at a table and smiled warmly.

“Let’s see what you discovered this time.”

Robert Williscroft is a retired submarine officer, deep-sea and saturation diver, scientist, author, and lifelong adventurer. He spent 22 months underwater, a year in the equatorial Pacific, three years in the Arctic ice pack, and a year at the Geographic South Pole. He holds degrees in Marine Physics and Meteorology, and a doctorate for developing a system to protect SCUBA divers in contaminated water. He is a prolific author of non-fiction, Cold War thrillers, and hard science fiction. He lives in Centennial, Colorado, with the girl of his dreams and her two cats.

Featured Image: “Sea Cave” by Bence Száraz via Artstation.

North of Norfolk

Fiction Topic Week

By Hal Wilson

“Is Jim in?” he asked, red-faced and dripping rain.

The front door underlined his question, slamming shut as abruptly as he had arrived.

“Hello Carl!” the kindly, old receptionist beamed. The question was redundant, but politeness demanded it; they both knew Carl was on-site. He was one of their few staff not already called up for the front. “What’s the matter?”

“Call him up, will you? There’s something urgent.”

She frowned – picked up her phone and dialled Jim’s line. He could hear the internal line bleep patiently, once, twice, three times… It ceased as the connection was made.

“Got a visitor,” she explained, “it’s Carl, something urgent for you… OK.”

She set the phone down.

“He’ll be up in a moment,”

Carl paced by the door, as if that could make time pass more swiftly.

He was an ageing man; hiding a modest paunch and greying hair. But he had an ex-rugby prop’s broad frame, and energy enough that people mistook him for greater youth. The receptionist, watching him, knew what was on his mind: the new arrival to town. Everyone was talking about it.

“Carl!” boomed a voice from the back of the room.

It was Jim, smiling as he heaved open a back door. Machine-sound and solvent smells followed; the essence of grinding metal and chemical cleaners; the natural home for maritime engineers like Jim. Brushing strips of swarf from his coverall, Jim shook Carl’s meaty paw.

“How’s it been in the sales team? Keeping busy?”

“How do you like the idea of some war work?” Carl replied.

“We already have contracts with…” Jim paused. “Wait. You mean they need…”

“They do,” Carl interrupted, taking Jim by the arm, “come on.”

Outside, the rain assaulted in thick drifts from the leaden sky. They hurried past the storage yard, where coffee-coloured steel tubes were stacked like so much timber. Soaked to the skin, they bundled into Carl’s car.    

“Any details about the job?” Jim asked, checking for his old-style pen and paper. The car sputtered alive, and they set off down the rain-slick road, heedless of the speed limit.

“Nothing yet,” was the answer, “I’m no good with technicalities anyway.”

“True enough,” Jim agreed.

They crossed the Great Ouse River on the back of a Victorian bridge, crenellated with iron gargoyles weeping in the deluge. The broad, brown waters of the river blurred by, giving way to the town along its banks. Here huddled lengths of terraced homes, lights burning in their windows as they waited out the storm. Much like the rest of these isles.

“How’s it been, anyway?” Jim asked, fumbling for small-talk with some engineers, his social skills left something to be desired.

“What? I only saw you last week.”  

“Well, just asking…”

“I’m fine,” Carl sighed, relenting, “just worried about the boys.”

“Still no word?” Jim ventured cautiously. The news from the east was grim. Estonia: gone, and with it some thousand British soldiers. Germany: ‘de-escalating’ – a betrayal, garbed in Teutonic politeness. All the while, Kaliningrad still held out.

Carl said nothing.

They drove on, through the heart of the old hanseatic town.

Here, they passed the Elizabethan gates of ochre ashlar, which once resisted Cromwell. There, they passed the town hall, built in the days of Drake. It had the aspect of a cathedral and a skin of chequered flint, declaring SEMPER EADEM above its door. Cobblestones rumbled beneath their wheels, and the narrow streets narrowed yet more until, at last, the river reappeared before them.

Carl pulled up in the lee of the old Customs House, sandstone-chiselled with all Wren’s hallmarks. Alabaster-capped by its Roman cupola, it watched them anxiously.

“Let’s go,” Carl directed, braving the rain once more.

The downpour took them eagerly, hungrily, like a lusting lover; they could only shiver as sharp winds embraced them also, sweeping in off the Wash. Together they hustled to a nearby quay, frantic as they rushed down its length. At the far end, they scrambled aboard a waiting boat.

“Glad you boys could make it.”

It was Steve, the town ferryman, cocooned in waterproofs and greeting them at the rail.

Steve shook them by the hand (for they were each old friends), and they felt the warmth in his ever-calloused palms; saw the glint of eagerness in his hooded eyes. His craft was an open-sided, flat-bottomed thing, ideal for these tidal flats. Without another word, Steve got them underway. His two passengers could only shudder and stamp their feet – the wind was even fiercer down on the water.

And they had a fight on their hands. The ferry would normally glide to its landing stages on the easy tides of a river that – as befitting its name – often simply oozed. But now it braved the face of the afternoon tide. The waters were racing in with express-train ferocity, while miniature whitecaps frothed and broke amid the tawny waters. At the wheel, Steve simply stood like a statue, sharp eyes peering for detail. Stamping their feet, Carl and Jim could only curse the north wind, grabbing stanchions as the ferry bellied against every wave.

Suddenly, from starboard, motion drew their eyes. A pair of black-winged Cormorants cruised carelessly by, skimming scant centimetres above the rushing waters. The two passengers followed them with their gaze, taking in the town as the birds flew upstream: rain-slick roofs gleamed like gemstones as the sun struggled through low clouds above. Under each patch of shining slate peered the ivory-white outlines of windowpanes, each one tracking them with bated breath. Farther upstream, the port’s grain silo was half-swallowed by the concrete cloud, leaving a corrugated stump to the eye.

The town was a good place for the soul, by all accounts. But it was also scared.

Anyone looking upriver could understand why. Garbed in rusting blue, moored alongside the port, was the SCOTS KESTREL. It was just one of the grain bulkers marooned at the town over the last weeks. Beyond the port’s entrance lock were another two docks. Hidden behind the agribulk sheds, both were filled to capacity with millions upon millions in lost revenue.

There were steel-carriers, timber-ships and coal-haulers. All languished immobile. Each was waiting. Waiting – either for the order to convoy or for their insurers to resume trading. Whichever came first; as their old Baltic routes were best avoided for now.

Just as concerning was the newest arrival. It was anchored mid-river for lack of harbour berths.

Its flanks were gunmetal grey, with a bladelike bow and squat bridge amidships. Immediately aft was the ship’s mast, complete with swirling radar and hedgehog-spine aerials. Farther aft were crane assemblies dangling fast boats – and, behind them, a vacant helicopter pad. It flew the White Ensign, to be sure, but the ship gave no confidence. Not for Carl, at any rate.

It was shot through with rust. It was small. And it was alone. Carl could spot only one weapon aboard. It was some trifling pop-gun cannon, mounted on an open platform.

Insane, he decided. Who would sail in that thing?

“Almost there now,” Steve announced, rousing Carl from his frigid musings. Ahead, he noticed, the port-side crane was stirring at their approach, lowering one of the ship’s boats into the river. A member of the ship’s company stood astride, waving for them to approach. Steve angled his ferry until it was close alongside, gesturing with a flick for Jim and Carl to go.


Lieutenant Commander Hart breathed deep, closing his eyes for a brief moment.

The Russian had made it far too close.

He could still see the torpedo track in his mind, still hear the collective gasp of his bridge crew as it detonated late – on the far side of their helpless ship. Perhaps some Russian technician got sloppy. Perhaps some electronics failed at that one critical moment. Either way, terror had laid a dread hand on Hart’s shoulder, only to pull away. He exhaled, trying to harness this emotion. He would have to inspire some terror of his own in the P8 sub-hunters who dropped the ball. The useless pricks.

And then there was Keegan, the poor bastard. But that was something else entirely.

The bridge deckhead felt somehow oppressively low; the air itself seemed lifeless, as if robbed of its oxygen. He had the LED lighting off for now – its glare brought on headaches after enough hours – leaving the space with the half-dead ambience of the cloudy sky outside. But with the ship lying at anchor, its engines were still. Their comms, for now, had ceased their babble. It was quiet, at last. Praise God, it was quiet.

In the momentary peace, tea mug in hand, Hart idly pursued some mental mathematics.

Five day patrol – five times twenty-four: one hundred and twenty.

Deduct sleep – five times two, or three? Call it two-point-five… twelve-point-five.

And the shakeup at Pompey? Let’s say two times twenty four, minus six… forty-two.

One hundred twenty plus forty-two… minus, what was it? Twelve point five? Bloody hell… 

Hart rubbed at his eyes, despairing. Try as he might, he simply couldn’t finish his mental gymnastics. Even so, it confirmed what he already knew: this endurance was a young man’s game.

But then, if not him to command this ship, then who?

All his friends in the fleet, men and women he had known since the early days at Dartmouth, were already committed. Each and every one.  Every colleague he knew, through almost two decades in the Service, was either deployed or holding down countless shore jobs in the absence of the rest. There were too few hulls, and not enough crews for those they had anyhow. The last Hart saw, one of the old Type 23s was still by Portsmouth’s No. 1 Basin, just waiting for hands to sail her.

“Sir,” came a voice, stirring him back to life. It was Lieutenant Asher, his second-in-command.

“Number One.” He hoped she had missed his moment of weakness.

“The civilians are on the water,” she reported, “we should have them on board shortly.”

“Good. Ensure they only see the engineering spaces. And avoid talking about Keegan, if you can.”

“Of course, sir.” Asher understood the subtext. Don’t let them realise how strung out we are.

“And when you’re done with them, report back to me. We need to discuss magazine access.”

Asher saluted and exited onto the bridge wing. Heading aft, she drew her weatherproof smock close against the rain. Hart was tired – she had seen through his façade at once.

It was no surprise. The older generations avoided the EverReady stim-pills that kept her going longer. She spat in despair. She needed Hart at 100 percent: her own seagoing experience was nowhere close to his, and she knew it. It was down to him that they survived the last patrol – barely – but his reserves were spent.

Just like Keegan.

“Keep taking the bloody pills,” she muttered.


As soon as Carl and Jim were aboard the ship’s fast boat, the sailor waved for the crane operator to hoist them back up. Unsteady, the two bent their knees and hoped to save themselves embarrassment. The sailor regarded them as if they were drunk.

“You the engineer?” he asked, raising his voice above the wind. Carl noticed the sailor was young: incredibly young. There was no hiding the boyish face, despite his easy pose and deep voice.

Almost the age of my boys, he realised. Jim nodded in reply to the sailor.

“Lieutenant Asher will take you in,” the boy replied.

He pointed to a figure waiting at the ship’s rail, wrapped in a foul-weather smock. Carl and Jim looked sidelong at each other as the hoist thunked their boat back into place.

“Gents,” the figure called, “follow me.”

Jim started as he realized the figure was a woman. She regarded them with disdainful black eyes, almost as severe as the bun tying back her auburn hair.

“Are you Lieutenant Asher?” Carl asked, pretending to ignore his friend’s awkwardness.

“Come on,” she sighed, “time is a factor.”

They hurried along the waterlogged upper decks, ducking through an awkward doorway. Mercifully, the wind remained outside. But the ship’s narrow passageways were bathed in the clinical glare of LEDs, as though they were entering a surgeon’s operation. Ahead, Asher was already racing down the ship’s vertiginous ladder. Unsure of themselves, the two men lingered at the top. The treads were narrow, slickened by the raindrops from Asher’s passage. The climb was slow and treacherous; more than once, Carl felt he was about to slip.

Together below, Asher led them deeper into the ship’s guts. The engine room, lined with silvery heat-cladding, was deserted; its single gangway was flanked by two van-sized diesel blocks. Carl looked about himself, confused by light-studded consoles; looming extractor vents; labyrinthine pipes swirling around the engines.

“Here,” Asher pointed, “this is what we need you checking out.”

Looking over Jim’s shoulder, Carl understood little of what he saw.

“What, the shaft generator?” Jim asked, peering closer.

“No, that. That thing – there.”

Carl looked across at Asher, confused. How can she not understand her own machinery?

“Excuse me, Lieutenant, are you not the onboard engineer?”

Asher paused, hesitant. Crouched on his haunches, Jim looked up at her in curiosity.

“No. Keegan, our MEO – Marine Engineering Officer… he fell. Broke his neck where we came down earlier.”

“Good god,” Carl gasped, thinking back to his own unsteady climb, “I’m so sorry to hear.”

Asher nodded thanks.

“We suffered some damage in our last patrol,” she explained, “a shockwave from close in on the port side. It’s caused some damage to our propulsion. But Keegan’s deputy had to stay ashore with some kind of duodenal, and we don’t have our usual complement of senior technical rates. So, without Keegan, we don’t know how to fix it. At this rate, we’ll be doing bare steerageway all the way home.”

“Where’s the Machinery Control Room? Have you checked the switchboards, the DC links?” Jim asked, looking around.

“Yes, our artificers did thorough tests. No wider system faults.”

Producing his pen and paper, Jim scribbled urgent notes.

Carl, no engineer himself, only loosely understood what was being discussed. He watched as Jim rolled his sleeves and made closer, painstaking observations. Minutes passed as he gave running commentary to Asher – as if she could understand, either.

“The shaft pedestal is OK, by the looks of things… Maybe it’s the flanges… No, no, it’s misalignment! Maybe from the shockwave you mentioned.” He span around, locking eyes with Asher.

“Look, I’m eyeballing it here, but I reckon the jacking screws are misaligned. That’s going to overload your bearings. But we may have caught it before they need replacing.”

Asher glanced at Carl, out of her depth.

“What are our next steps?”

“I want a second opinion,” Jim said, “let me go talk to my guys and we’ll get you a proposal in a few hours. I reckon we can replace the jacking screws for a temporary fix. Then it’s over to your guys in Pompey for a deeper look. The shockwave may have caused all sorts. Hull flexing, you name it.”   

“How long?”

“Hard to say. But we’ve got stocks on hand, what with all those docked ships deferring MRO work.”

Carl smiled, proud for his friend. Jim was in his element.

And, better yet, it was another sale to boost Carl’s own quarterly numbers.

“Lieutenant Asher,” he beamed, “sounds to me like you’re in luck.”


Lingering at the bridge windows, Lieutenant Commander Hart watched the local ferry leaving. The two passengers looked pleased with themselves. Hart gave silent thanks for the luck of reaching this place – they might yet make it to Portsmouth after all.

“How long?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder as Asher returned to the bridge.

“They’ll have a proposal for us soon. Beyond that he wouldn’t say. But he was confident.”

“What did you tell them about Keegan? They must have asked about our own engineer team.”

“I said he fell, sir. Broke his neck.”

“Hmmm. Better than the truth.”

“You said you wanted to discuss small arms magazine access?”

“Just so,” Hart said, knocking back the last of his tea. “Keegan should never have gotten access to that pistol. And how did we not see how he was headed for a breakdown?”

“We all are, sir.”

Hart set down his mug, as if it had grown suddenly too heavy. Asher watched him, hesitant.

“A friend of ours just shot himself, Asher. Without him, we were almost disabled. Don’t be flippant.”

“Sir, I’m deadly serious. We’re not going to last another patrol like this. Sooner or later, the P8 fliers will miss another contact. And then we won’t be submarine bait. We’ll be dead.”

Hart shot her a frosty glance. It softened almost at once. She was right, after all. He reached into a pocket, pulled free a signal message – fresh off the printer.

“I can’t argue with that. But I can give you good news. Read this.”

Asher looked across the message in front of her.

“From COMUKMARFOR,” she read, “return to HMNB Portsmouth for emergency refit and installation of Battle AI. Report ETA and LOGREQ!” Asher looked up, grinning for the first time in a long time. Hart was smiling right back at her.

“Number One, chase up our Navigating Officer, then have a word with the logistics rates. Tell them HMS KENNET is headed home.”

Hal Wilson explores future warfare challenges through narrative and fiction, and has been published by the Small Wars Journal. He has written finalist entries for fiction contests held by the Atlantic Council’s Art of the Future Project, as well as the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. Hal lives in the United Kingdom, where he works in the aerospace industry. 

He graduated in 2013, with first-class honours in War Studies and History from King’s College, London, and is now studying a masters degree in the History of Britain in the First World War.

Featured Image: Maintenance by khesm (via Deviant Art)