There have been many events which have occurred around the world which could be called unusual. Some get lumped into the realm of the supernatural. Ghosts, goblins, and monsters. I can tell you, from personal experience, monsters exist in this world. Did you hear the one about the Airliner that landed with no one on board except a charred corpse? How about the one about the ancient being imprisoned by angels in a pyramid? That one was me. Long story short, a satellite crashed into the desert, revealing a pyramid which housed an extraterrestrial lifeform beyond anything previously encountered in both size and power. After a nightmarish experience, two of us survived, and I was recruited away from the Air Force. I had spent the last few months settling into my new position as field operative for Vanguard.
A report fell upon my desk not long ago, lost in the shuffle of endless paperwork which was part of taking the job. Positives include a budget to upgrade my closet, a wardrobe which is flexible, the Puerto Rican food is outstanding, and I get double travel miles. Negatives include mountains of paperwork, government office furniture, and occasionally dangerous, world ending threats and creatures from myth and legend.
I scanned the box associated with the file and peeled the tape off the box lid. I immediately popping off a sticky note reading “FILE 13,” code for “put behind a lock and bury.” I tossed it into the recycle and opened the box. A flash drive and nearly 100 pages of bluster filled it. I flipped open the drive and plugged it in. A series of logs sat on the file. Each had an unusual name, so I skimmed the files, many of them bearing the format of ‘NAME-Interview-Number.’ I found one titled ‘Aldridge Interview Six.’ Deciding it was as good enough as any place to start, I clicked it.
The media player opened to a clinical office setting. An Asian male moved from in front of the camera to behind the desk and sat in a hideous lime green mid-century chair. He had a recording device on the table, as well as a tablet. He picked the tablet up and pushed a small button from under his desk. A buzz, then the sound of an opening door. He beamed a false smile and motioned for someone off screen to sit. A tall, thin male with long, shaggy brown hair sat down.
“Let’s pick up where we left off, shall we, Captain Aldridge?” The Asian man sounded almost robotic as he adjusted his eyeglasses. “You said you had just reached the South China Sea, trailing the Quilong. Is that correct?”
“Um… Yes, Doctor Lin. The Quilong,” the man with the mop top said. His voice sounded hollow and tired.
“The Chinese aircraft carrier that doesn’t exist,” the doctor responded flatly.
“It’s classified. Super advanced. Or, it was,” Captain Aldridge responded.
“Right. Just so I am up to speed, the US Navy sent your submarine to tail an experimental Chinese warship in Chinese waters. And you found it.”
“Well… Yes. She was 80,000 tonnes. Not hard to miss,” he replied.
“Quite right. Carry on, then, Mr. Aldridge,” the doctor said as he started a recording. The husk of a man in front of him, with a ghostly pallor and deep, sunken eyes, began to stare off at the oil painting of the USS Constellation on the wall. He cleared his throat, rapping his fingers rhythmically against his thigh. After a long minute, he began to speak.
“We were trailing the Quilong once we found out she put to see for trials. She was moving into the South China see towards the China Sea Basin, probably for deep water maneuvers and weapons testing. She was supposed to be the most advanced aircraft carrier in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy. Nuclear, we think, first for the Chinese.” The doctor made various notes on the pad as the man continued to speak.
“Just after sundown, our sonar operator detected an anomalous object running in deep water, around 1800 feet. We had no classification for it in the computer. It actively pinged with some kind of sonic weapon, not like echolocation but something close. It approached the Quilong from underneath. We acquired a firing solution but didn’t engage. We were supposed to observe the carrier’s maneuvers and report back, just ghost. The object circled the Quilong for several minutes from below, at a depth of around 1000 feet. The Chinese must have detected it, hard to believe they couldn’t because it was big as shit. They launched sonar buoys and immediately engaged. They had alert aircraft on deck, probably for training. They did deploy torpedoes, which were not effective… The object then retaliated.” The captain paused, not sure if he should continue.”
I closed the video, scrolling down through all the Interview videos. I found one marked, “CONTACT-Audio.” And clicked. A black screen, with a scrolling text wall of transcription followed.
Petty Officer Brandon Gibbs: “CONN, SONAR. New contact, designated Echo-3. Large body, running deep. Possible sub.”
Captain Marco Aldridge: “Give me specs, Mr. Gibbs.”
Petty Officer Brandon Gibbs: “Unknown, sir. Computer doesn’t recognize it. Whatever it is, it’s big as hell,” he replied. “Speed is eighteen knots, moving north, depth is 1800 feet, captain. Captain, the sensors are giving me a profile I’ve never seen before. It’s the size of a Soviet boomer. Never seen anything like this.”
Commander Desmond Williams: “Moving North. Is it headed towards the target?” Long pause. “Gibbs, is it moving towards target?”
Audio is interrupted by an earsplitting, high-pitched whine. A sound like a long rap against a metal pan, followed by reverberation.
Petty Officer Brandon Gibbs: “Standby.” Another long pause. “CONN, SONAR. Echo-3 has actively pinged. Not a sonar pulse, captain, something else. Possibly a counterwave weapon. Echo-3 is rising rapidly and increasing speed, now at twenty knots, sir. Twenty-five. Heading directly for target.”
Commander Desmond Williams: “Captain, there are no other American subs out here. Someone else after the Quilong?”
Captain Marco Aldridge: “I don’t know, Desi. Let’s stay quiet, see what happens. We are supposed to be observers only.”
Petty Officer Brandon Gibbs: “Echo-3 has stalled. 1000 feet down, circling. Turning at around a one-kilometer radius around the Quilong, sir.”
Captain Marco Aldridge: “Alright, let’s get an eye in the sky. I need to know what the hell is going on up there. Put a switchblade out.” Pause. “Quietly, please.”
Commander Desmond Williams: “Aye, sir. WEPS, load a switchblade into tube 1, cold open. Flood the tube and deploy.” Thirty seconds pause.
Man on radio: “Switchblade is away. Eye is in the sky, Captain. Altitude is seven zero zero feet. Sending live feed to the table.”
Commander Desmond Williams: “She’s a big girl. Plenty of MiGs on the flight deck, too. Looks almost like the Queen Elizabeth the Brits built.”
Petty Officer Brandon Gibbs: “CONN, SONAR. Torpedoes are in the water. No surface vibration, I think the MiGs are dropping them on Echo-3.”
Captain Marco Aldridge: “Guess it’s not a Chinese sub, then.”
Petty Officer Brandon Gibbs: “Captain, torpedoes are closing on Echo-3. Brace for detonation.”
Several deep rumbles.
Commander Desmond Williams: “Jesus, they aren’t playing around.”
Petty Officer Brandon Gibbs: “Echo-3 is still there, captain. Torpedoes did not neutralize. Echo-3 is diving, passing 1500 feet. 2,000. Passing 2,600 feet. Echo-3 is turning and accelerating. Twenty knots. Thirty. Thirty-five, captain. Still accelerating. Forty knots now. I’m detecting cavitation, sir. Some type of… pulsating sound, coming from Echo-3. No idea what it is. Echo-3 is still rising, on a collision course.”
Captain Marco Aldridge: “Lock a firing solution onto Echo-3, load torpedo tubes one through four. Flood the tubes and open outer doors. I want to be ready in case whatever this fucker is realizes we are here. Get me a line to Pacific Command, they need to know about this, now!”
Commander Desmond Williams: “what kind of submarine moves at that speed?”
Captain Marco Aldridge: “Do we have an ID on this thing? Sound profile? Anything?”
Petty Officer Brandon Gibbs: “Computer has nothing, captain. Impact in five, four, three, hold on to your butts!”
Distant echo.
Petty Officer Brandon Gibbs: “Echo-3 has struck the Quilong, captain. I’ve got multiple splashes above, sounds like depth charges.”
Commander Desmond Williams: “What’s the switchblade got? No, show me the external camera view. Down. Oh, my God. What the hell… what is that?”
Captain Marco Aldridge: “Load torpedo tubes five through eight, safeties off. Flood em and get em hot!”
Commander Desmond Williams: “Distress call from the Chinese, captain. All frequencies. Reads, ‘Mayday mayday mayday, PLA-N Quilong attacked by unknown… creature. Torpedoes ineffective. Depth charges ineffective. Need immediate assistance. Radiation leak imminent.’ Captain, we have to do something. Captain… Marco!”
Captain Marco Aldridge: “We aren’t here, Desi. We are a ghost, remember?”
Commander Desmond Williams: “You cannot be serious, Marco. Look at that thing! Those men are sailors doing their jobs, just like us. We have to help them!” Long Pause.
Captain Marco Aldridge: “Can’t help if we aren’t here, Commander. Maybe their MiGs will have better luck. Now take your hand off my arm.”
Commander Desmond Williams: “Whatever that is, its ripping a carrier apart. What do you think it will do to us?” Pause.
Petty Officer Brandon Gibbs: “Captain, they have floaters, sir. Multiple splashes. I can hear them screaming.”
Captain Marco Aldridge: “I hate you, Desi. I really do.”
Commander Desmond Williams: “You’re welcome.”
Captain Marco Aldridge: “Make depth six five feet, bring up missiles on through four. Fire torpedoes, one through four!”
Weapons Officer Baccara: “Torpedoes have cleared and left the tubes!”
Commander Desmond Williams: “Let’s see how it likes some MK 48s.”
Petty Officer Brandon Gibbs: “Torpedoes are tracking. Impact in three, two, one.”
Captain Marco Aldridge: “All hands this is the captain. Brace for torpedo impact.”
Vibration sound.
Petty Officer Brandon Gibbs: “Captain, Echo-3 has released the the Quilong. Dropping to depth of fifty feet. It’s turning. Accelerating quickly, captain. That same pulsating noise. It’s heading straight for us.”
Captain Marco Aldridge: “Well that worked just fine. Fire torpedoes five through eight, launch Tomahawks! Get the switchblade back into view.”
Rattling sound.
Commander Desmond Williams: “Tomahawks are on target. Closing. Impact!”
Deep rattling throughout the ship.
Captain Marco Aldridge: “Ping it, Mr. Williams. I want to know range to target. Reload all tubes and lock on. Prepare Tomahawks five through fifteen. Let’s blow this thing out of the water.”
Petty Officer Brandon Gibbs: “It’s coming right at us, captain, speed is forty knots!”
Captain Marco Aldridge: “All ahead flank, twenty-five degrees down bubble, get us out of the way!”
Loud rumble, followed by grinding metal, screams heard in background.
Captain Marco Aldridge: “Get me a damage report and re-acquire firing solution. Active Ping, now.
Loud, repetitive ping can be heard.
Petty Officer Brandon Gibbs: “Captain, the ping is driving it away from us. It’s headed back towards the Quilong, sir.”
Commander Desmond Williams: “Captain, engine room is reporting a hull breach. Reactor room is flooding.”
Captain Marco Aldridge: “Record everything with the switchblade. Keep the torpedoes loaded. Close the doors and get us out of here, now!”
Commander Desmond Williams: “it… it’s eating them. It’s eating the men in the water. Oh, God.”
Groaning metal can be heard.
Petty Officer Brandon Gibbs: “Captain, the Quilong is going down. Echo-3 has hold of her. She’s sinking.”
Commander Desmond Williams: “It’s pulling a carrier down…”
I closed the audio and sat in silence for a moment. I canned the next few items before finding the file I wanted. I placed my finger over the file labeled ‘SWITCHBLADE’ and gave it a soft double tap.
My screen was instantly filled with the brilliant blue ocean of the South China Sea. An aircraft carrier, some 800 feet long, sat in the middle of the screen. The drone circled it slowly. A gargantuan shadow, nearly the size of the carrier itself, rose from underneath it. The silhouette struck the Quilong amidships, and it lurched upward. The flight deck, made of asphalt crumbled as the ship flexed and bent slightly while rocking in the sea. Several jets and a helicopter flew off the deck into the ocean. A Russian-made MiG bobbed in the water for a moment before it was suddenly, violently ripped down.
I blinked several times. Sailors manning the flight line had been tossed into the water. They too were yanked down with unfathomable speed. Jets raced across the deck, several lifting off while one struck a chunk of deck and careened into the water. Two monstrous black orbs, each easily ten meters across, broke the surface. The blackness retracted to reveal a deep red oblong slit in each orb. Eyes. They were eyes on stalks. A mass of tentacles lashed out viciously, dozens of them. Each tentacle smashed into the hull of the Quilong. The mighty carrier lurched to port due to the massive weight. More planes slid off the deck.
Explosions racked the creature but seemed to have little effect. The water separated and a massive spiral shell rocked the ocean into vicious waves as it rose from beneath the carrier. It was nautilus. A string of MiGs pounded the shell with a volley of missiles. The drone continued to pan as it lazily drifted in its circular pattern. The giant nautilus remained undamaged. More explosions, and the nautilus released the carrier. It turned and, in one motion, sucked in a tidal wave of water with a vortex from underneath the many tentacles.
A pregnant pause, then the creature forcefully expelled the water from its shell like a garden hose. The pressure was enough to push the nautilus through the water, its massive blue and white spiral shell brutally smashing the surface of the South China Sea like a ridiculous shark fin.
I quickly made notes of what I was observing. I cut a precious glance away from the screen to open a new file on my computer. The nautilus was repeatedly struck with explosions, undoubtedly the Tomahawks which had been fired. The nautilus dove under, and the water rippled slightly from something deep beneath it. The drone continued circling, an uncaring God’s Eye view of the devastation below it. After a few moments, the monster breached again, latching onto the Quilong. Some of the mass of tentacles would scoop hapless sailors from the water, dragging them under. The carrier shrugged and slowly bent in half, the unfathomable strength of the nautilus folding the warship up like a piece of paper. The Quilong vanished beneath the waves in moments, leaving a trail of burning jet fuel, oil slicks, and debris for hundreds of meters.
I opened the file with details of the data packet pulled from the sensor array. The object designated as Echo-3, an unknown biological organism, attacked and sank the experimental Chinese aircraft carrier Quilong on 2 October 2021. The USS Richard O’Kane, a Seawolf-II class hunter killer sub, suffered severe damage and thirty-three sailors perished when she sank approximately forty miles from Leyte, Philippines. The executive officer, Commander Desmond Williams, died assisting the crew stop a reactor breach. Active sonar shows Echo-3 descended rapidly with Quilong to a depth of nearly five thousand meters to one of the deepest points of the South China Sea. Quilong did send multiple distress calls, which were answered. Chinese intelligence, as well as the Republic of Korea and Japan, also detected the distress calls.
Information has been deemed G-14 classified by the President of the United States and all pertinent information is authorized to be placed under Vanguard operations. I scribbled a few notes and texted my old friend, Malakai, the only other survivor or the incident in Iraq. We were supposed to meet for coffee to discuss a case. I think I will bring this file along, just for a bit of show and tell. I placed everything in a brand-new folder, unhandled and undamaged, and slapped a fresh label with updated information on the front.
Authority Broadhurst, Jordan- JAB82A Designate New Entry, COMMAND KNIGHT 1
Aquatic-Biological Entity (ABE-140), Kraken Class
Codename: Umibozu
Category: 4
Location: South China Sea
Length: 225 meters (with tentacles)
Height: 68 meters (Shell)
Weight: 12,700 tonnes, (estimated)
Status: Active