Deadly Apparition Read online

  Deadly Apparition

  G. Ernest Smith

  Copyright © 2014 by G. Ernest Smith. All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

  First Electronic Edition: June 2014

  Smashwords Edition

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  Acknowledgements

  I must acknowledge my editor, my inspiration and my companion in life’s journey, Mary Beth Smith. Thank you for all your help and encouragement, dear.

  I would also like to give credit to Amy Siders, Jen Dunsmore and Robert Reid at 52Novels for doing the chapter graphics and layouts.

  Thanks to commercial artist Shaunna Heth for the cover art.

  Thanks for insights from Ex-Navy torpedoman, Jeff Smith, my brother.

  Thanks to actor Jack Nolan who with his expert knowledge of accents and dialects did a great narration for the audiobook. He also helped me with Spanish phrases and inaccuracies in the text.

  And thanks to my daughter, Mona Guerrero, for doing a fine job of managing the G. Ernest Smith Facebook site.

  Commander Donald Castillo is the commander of the Virginia class fast attack nuclear submarine Kansas. It is the latest and best that the U.S. Navy has to offer. He is asked to test a new ground-breaking countermeasure that will revolutionize naval warfare. Its code name is Apparition and he will be working with a civilian test team headed by Dr. Susan Lambert. This is game changing technology born of the Hadron Collider and the Navy brass are hungry for it. But something goes wrong during testing and the Kansas and her crew disappear off the western coast of Scotland. The American and British navies perform an exhaustive search, but find not a trace of Kansas.

  Meanwhile, Castillo and the rest of the Kansas crew can not understand where everyone has gone. They can’t get a response from anyone, nor can they see anything on sonar, nor can they get a GPS fix. What’s going on? They see what looks like a replica of an old Spanish galleon sailing ship. Castillo decides to surface and approach the ship and ask if they know where everyone has gone. Instead of getting answers, they are fired upon and Castillo is captured. The Kansas’s executive officer gets Castillo back, but not before they discover that the Spanish crew thinks it is the year 1588. How can that be?

  Castillo decides to return to base only to discover it’s not there! He and Susan Lambert are beginning to suspect what has happened, but no one wants to give voice to it. It’s too unthinkable! Depression sets in as the crew reluctantly faces the truth. They are stranded in the wrong century, and there is no way back. They are faced with the enormous task of making a life in a preindustrial world with few survival skills or resources. Castillo realizes that at least they can watch a watershed event of history, the defeat of the famous Spanish Armada by Sir Francis Drake and Lord Howard. They will have front row seats. But something is wrong. Events as described by the history books are not happening correctly, and the Armada is much bigger than it should be. The English are losing the fight. They are heavily outnumbered and outgunned. Castillo is in a quandary. He and his ship have the power to affect the outcome. Should they act?

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Notes From the Author

  Other Books by G. Ernest Smith

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Aboard the Florencia

  English Channel

  20 Miles off the Flemish coast

  August 4, 1588

  “God smiles on us, Francisco!” exclaimed Gaspar De Sosa. “He gives us a beautiful morning for victory and a good wind.”

  “Yes, and he keeps Drake and his English dogs locked up in their pen. There is nothing to stop us now, sir.”

  “It is a magnificent sight, is it not?” De Sosa swept his arm at the view. Ships as far as the eye could see with taut sunlit sails pitching up and down as they plowed through sequined green waves. He breathed in the cool salt air. “We are God’s fleet carrying on God’s mission, Francisco.” He pointed at the great galleon 200 yards to the north. It rolled more slowly because of its great size. “Look at the San Leandro, Francisco. Look at the size of it. The power! How could one doubt it came from God? It must have dropped directly from heaven, for how else could you explain its perfect lines. The perfect way the deck sweeps in such a pure artful manner. It’s a force of nature, is it not?” De Sosa laughed a hearty laugh that made his great belly tremble and his black beard quiver.

  Francisco laughed too. His thin shoulders shook, and he showed his gap toothed smile, and nervously pulled at his shirt. “I think after we make our landing, we should make every Englishman line up and kiss his Holiness’s ring. What say you, De Sosa?”

  “A good idea, Francisco, but the Pope is a busy man. He doesn’t have time for English scum.”

  “Maybe they could kiss Admiral Sidonia’s ass then. Same thing!”

  Both men roared with laughter. De Sosa scanned the horizon ahead and saw nothing but the empty sea and cottony white clouds. There was no sound except the snap of banners in the wind, the rattle of block and tackle and the creak of hull planking as the ship plunged through the waves. Both men gripped the rail tightly to keep their feet as the deck heaved under them.

  “Sail!” called the lookout from above. “One point on the bow.” He pointed.

  Every deck hand turned to where the lookout was pointing.

  “That’s not a sail,” said Francisco.

  “What is it?” asked De Sosa.

  It was like a tentacle from a Portuguese man of war. One fibrous tentacle extending upward from the sea. It pointed to the sky…up and up. Then it curved down.

  “It looks like it’s coming toward us,” said De Sosa with concern. He extended his spy glass and looked at it.

  “I know what it is!” cried Francisco, his brown eyes alive with excitement. “It is a message from God. I have read it many times in the Bible. Heavenly messengers always come from the sky or the sea. It is an angel come to give us a joyful message. God is pleased with us, De Sosa!”

  De Sosa’s eyes were troubled. He wasn’t so sure this was a good thing. It was streaking across the water toward them very fast now. Faster than a racing falcon. He had never seen anything so fast! It was coming straight at them…no…it was coming toward the San Leandro. The men on the San Leandro saw it too. Th
ey were at the rails, pointing. There was a sound building like the roar of a lion. It was almost on them. It was…

  BOOM!

  There was a bright flash and the gunnel beneath De Sosa’s arm exploded into fragments and a great invisible hand slapped at him, knocking him end over end. He tumbled from one side of the deck to the other. He grabbed at Francisco and tried to stop him from going over the rail but he failed. He saw the frozen open-mouthed look of horror on Francisco’s face as he went over. The Florencia rolled hard over away from the blast. He waited long seconds for the ship to right itself, and when it finally did, he staggered to his feet. There was a sharp pain in his side and when he looked there, he saw a large shard of wood sticking out from between his ribs. Fighting against the pain, he struggled to the rail. The San Leandro was gone! There was nothing but jagged smoking pieces of wood and broken charred planks floating in the water. He also saw bodies floating in the wreckage and heard the cries and entreaties to God of dying men. What could have done such a thing?

  De Sosa looked up and saw most of Florencia’s sails had been shredded and the mizzen mast had been snapped like a twig. There were only two top gallants still intact. He quickly looked around at the surrounding ships. The Antonio De Palma’s sails were fluttering free, having been ripped free of their moorings. Most of the sails of the San Juan De Portugal were shredded like Florencia’s. La Trinidad also had shredded sails.

  “Capitan!” shouted a crewman. “The larboard hull planking has collapsed, sir! Water is rushing in! We can’t stop it!”

  “Get boats in the water!” ordered De Sosa. Then he noticed all the nearby ships were listing and putting boats in the water. Others had put up distress flags and were turning around. A distress flag meant the ship had suffered heavy damage and was out of the action.

  What could have done this? Is this the hand of God?

  “Sir,” said a crewman. “You’ve been injured!”

  He looked down at the piece of wood sticking out of his side. “I know.” He looked to where the flying demon had come. That’s when he saw another one. Another long tentacle reaching toward the sky. It arched, then plunged down and built speed as it came directly at them…no…this time it was going to pass on the other side about 100 yards away. As it roared by, he was able to see it for a split second. It was like a white stove pipe spewing white smoke with triangular attachments on it.

  BOOM!

  This time the flash was farther away, but it still knocked De Sosa and the crewman next to him off his feet and rolled the Florencia. De Sosa pulled himself up on a rail, crossed himself and said, “We’ve angered God in some way! He has sent a great demon to smite us!”

  Chapter 1

  Norfolk, Virginia

  Operational Test and Evaluation Force Headquarters

  If one had to guess what Don Castillo did for a living, one might guess he was an insurance salesman or maybe a stockbroker. He was 37, of average height, slightly frumpy and carried a bit of a paunch. He was obviously not a manual laborer with his soft hands. He had thinning wavy hair the color of dark oak and a round pleasant-looking affable face with brown eyes that seemed to disappear into slits every time he smiled. He seemed always to be on the edge of chuckling at something. One would never guess he was submarine commander in the United States Navy, unless of course one saw him in uniform.

  Commander Don Castillo sat in his dress whites in the windowless first floor conference room, waiting. The room was dominated by a large white screen against one wall and a polished mahogany table around which were wooden chairs with padded leather seats. There were four khaki clad stone-faced admirals sitting opposite him at the table doing an impression of Mount Rushmore. Gold stars glittered from their collars. Behind them were aides and support staff. He wasn’t sure what this was about, but it had to be big to draw this much brass. He was looking at three two-stars and a four-star! Admiral Zeke Montgomery, Director of Naval Nuclear Propulsion himself! Maybe I’m being court marshaled, thought Castillo briefly. No, I’ve never screwed up that bad. He glanced around the room at pictures of Navy ships and groups of important looking Navy men in silver metal frames. Whatever they were about to discuss, it was big and it was sensitive. He had to go through two security checks and three scans to get into this room. He was afraid the evil looking guy at the badging station was going to ask him to drop trousers and bend over, but he didn’t. Thank God!

  They smiled at each other uneasily. They were waiting on Castillo’s boss, Admiral Nate Baynes, head of Submarine Group 2. Castillo couldn’t help but feel he was being sized up. He was an outsider here. There were also some civilians. They all had that clean cut look of people who had been vetted and scrutinized by many agencies and eventually approved to do sensitive work for the American military. He knew Dr. Susan Lambert, of Quantum Vital Research Corporation. He had worked with her before on the test phase of the TALTAC system, an ingenious system of transducers that when directed at an enemy torpedo could destroy its guidance system. He smiled at her and she returned his smile. He didn’t know Lambert’s companion, Crystal McConnell according to her badge, also of QVR or the other QVR guy, whose name he couldn’t read. Chet something? He could feel the weight of their stares as they took his measure.

  Admiral Quentin O’Keefe, Naval Special Operations, nervously cleared his throat and said, “How’s your family, Don?”

  “They’re doing good, sir,” replied Castillo. “Kelly’s science project won first place this year at her middle school and Robin will start middle school next year.”

  “Sounds like Kelly’s a chip off the old block.”

  “Yes sir. But she’d die if she heard you say that.”

  O’Keefe chuckled. He had a bony face that seemed to be all angles. He looked at a nearby painting of a sailing ship. It was an old square-rigger from at least two centuries ago. “How’s Liz?”

  A dark shadow fell across Castillo’s face. “She’s in good spirits. Weak, but the doctors say she’s in remission.”

  “That’s good! She’s in our thoughts and prayers.”

  “Thank you, sir.” The looks of scrutiny changed to looks of sympathy.

  The door opened and Admiral Baynes rushed in wearing crisp service khakis trailed by his aide, Lieutenant Cal Moore, and another older bespectacled snowy-haired gentleman in a dark suit.

  “Good!” exclaimed Baynes. “We’re all here!” The admiral’s aide handed tan folders all around.

  “As you well know,” began Admiral Baynes, settling into his chair at the head of the conference table, “Naval electronic detection and counter measures have always been a seesaw of technology. When the Russians developed a better Q processor, we developed a quieter propulsion system. When their advanced generation detection set began detecting our flow noise, we developed anachoic polymer hull coatings. Whenever they become quieter, we improve our sonar arrays. It’s a game of one-upsmanship. Who’s to say who has the advantage at any one time? And now the Chinese are getting into it with their own boats, and they’ve gotten some help from the Russians.” Baynes tented his hands over his chest and said, “But what I’m going to tell you about is going to change all that.” He paused dramatically.

  Castillo only stared at Baynes, waiting for the delivery…the punch line, but he said nothing. Baynes had a broad face and dark skin around his eyes. It made him look like a raccoon, Castillo thought. This had to be a sign of poor health. It probably indicated a lack of sleep, but Baynes had always looked that way. Maybe it was just a natural discoloration caused by genetics or something.

  “QVR has come up with something that is so remarkable, it borders on magic.” Baynes was animated now. Well, as animated as he ever got. “We’d like to use the Kansas as our proof of concept ship.”

  “Why Kansas, sir,” asked Castillo.

  “Well, I could say because of your engineering background, Don. Or I could say because of your excellent work on the TALTAC system or the C303 anti-torpedo system. You and your crew are ver
y professional and do damn good work! And you work well with the QVR folks.”

  Castillo sighed. “Yes, sir, but the crew was hoping to get a break from this kind of thing for awhile.”

  Baynes frowned. “And do what? Go out on long boring patrols? Wait ‘til you see what this thing does, Don. And tell your boys they’re going to get a few weeks of liberty in Glasgow. They’re going to have the time of their lives!”

  “Glasgow?”

  Now the bespectacled man to Baynes left spoke. “The Glasgow division of QVR developed the Hyperdensity Spherical Conversion Emitter, sir. We thought it would be easier to take your ship there to be outfitted, rather than bring a crew and all the equipment here.” The man had a strong British accent.

  “Oh, sorry,” said Baynes. “This is Dr. Nigel Hill of QVR. He’s the director of the project. If you will open your folders, you will see a test schedule and the important dates. There’s also a brief overview of project Apparition and what it does. I want you all to read these and ask any questions, but these folders do not leave this room. Understood?”

  “Project Apparition?” asked Castillo.

  “That’s easier to say than density emitter…whatever,” groused Baynes. “It’s going to be our working title for now.”

  “What exactly does this Apparition do, sir?” asked Castillo.

  “It’s easier to show you than it is to tell you about it. That’s why Nigel and I have set up a little demonstration for you.”

  • • •

  They exited the conference room and followed Baynes and Dr. Hill down a long hallway, across a courtyard and soon found themselves in a white tiled test facility reminiscent of a municipal swimming pool natatorium complete with pool and an observation balcony. It even had that ubiquitous chlorine smell that swimming pools always have. Castillo and Dr. Hill went up a stairway onto a metal platform looking down on the test tank. Floating in the center of the blue water was a small boat no more than 3 feet long. Castillo thought it resembled a world war II battleship more than a submarine. He heard footsteps, turned and saw a cadre of civilians come up onto the platform behind them. Among them were Susan Lambert and Crystal McConnell.