NationStates Jolt Archive

[Stuff below is CLASSIFIED]

Somewhere off the Northern Konanian Coast

The submarine swam beneath the waves, sliding easily through the water. Its sleek black hull was designed to absorb sound from both sides, and her engines were some of the most advanced fashioned by the Navy. With the efforts of her crew, the FWS Akhen was one of the quietest attack subs in Konania's fleet.

The sonar officer pressed the headphones to his ears, straining his senses. His eyes were clenched shut, and after a moment, he opened them again, staring at the blank screen before him.

"I don't hear it, sir. They're gone."

"No..." The captain shook his head. The pack of Sting Ray-class drones had been in the water just moments before. He knew they were still there-- he'd been told so.

And, less than a second later, he was vindicated.

"Got 'em! Tracking two pairs of fish inbound. Reporting vectors now--"

Perfect. The crew responded accordingly, and the ship cut her engines and rotated in the water, releasing her noisemakers and triggering a noise-cancellation device within the hull. In an instant, two of the "fish" disappeared.

The entire bridge crew wondered the same thing at once-- Where'd they go?-- then--

PING! The sound reverberated loudly throughout the entire hull, startling some of them. The captain winced. PING! "I think they've found us."

PING! PING! The sonar officer reached for a switch, and flipped it off while the Akhen's pilots pulled her to the surface, below the larger gravship, floating a few hundred meters above the water.

* * *

Gravship FWS Honor

So ended the two week long hunt, and with a sucessfuly test, the Screamer would join the Swordfish and the Swordfish-Navigator torpedoes as part of the nation's arsenal.

A communcations line opened. "Nice to see you again, Akhen."

The "enemy" sub captain grimaced. "You mind turning that thing off? It lets everyone know that we're here." Which was, he considered, exactly the point. The PINGing stopped.

Akhen had done very well, holding its own against near-impossible odds. She had been found and tracked by a pack of drones residing near the sea floor. This was something that the KNDF had been using for some time now; however, they carried a new weapon that many hoped would prove invaluble.

Once tracked, Akhen was attacked by a weapon known as a Screamer. It fixed itself to the hull of the target ship, and did what one expected: made noise. To understand its use, one had to understand that a submarine's biggest asset is its ability to stay silent. With a Screamer firmly attached to its hull, every ship in the area would know its exact location.

The weapon's use was both practical and psychological. Screamers were cheap, so they could be used in numbers. They carried only a small explosive, for self-destruction, so they were relativly light-- light enough to allow the use of more complex tracking equipment, and small enough to avoid its own detecton.

Some had wondered what the purpose of a weapon was that would seek, but not kill. It was simple; sometimes capture was the goal. When a Screamer was attached to a sub, the captain would have no choice but to surface-- or be sunk.