Collectable Knicknacks
16-09-2004, 02:04
OOC: The following events are totally secret.
IC: The Mediterranean Sea, 78 miles North of Egypt, 08:56
In the middle of the otherwise unbroken, rolling waves of the Mediterranean, there sat a ship. The vessel bore no name, number, construction plates; all marks that might identify her had been erased through weeks of painstaking preparation for this one event; if it went wrong, it was vital that nobody be traceable. The ship's name had once bee Lysander, but now it was merely a hulking metal mass, drifting with the tides, moving slowly towards Egypt.
Meanwhile, some 1000 feet below the ocean 20 miles away, a lone Swiftsure class submarine was waiting for the clock to finish ticking down the seconds. At 0900, the submarine was to begin her ascent to the launch depth, and at 0920 she was to execute the launch of her payload. The sub was unarmed, save for a pair of torpedoes and four large attack missiles.
Meanwhile, the ex-Lysander kept drifting, her passengers blissfully unaware of the fate that would shortly meet them. They were to be used as a test. They were convicts, the detritus of CK's society; murderers, Nazis, racists, rapists, paedophiles, all the most hated of all society's enemies. The men and women aboard thought that they were meant to simply drift out here and be picked up by someone; that, after all, was what they had been told, and how were they to know different?
As the clock ticked away the last seconds to 0900Z, the submarine's Captain turned to his XO and gave the order to increase speed to 8 knots and take the submarine up, towards the 67ft launch depth for the missiles. The captain was shaking slightly with the realisation of what he was about to do. He, and only he, knew what lay within two of the four missiles, and that knowledge had pushed him to the breaking point over the last 5 days as the sub had made her way into the Mediterranean. It was terrifying. OK, so this was justified, and there was scarcely any better place within easy reach, but to do something to awful, even to these creatures, made his stomach churn a little.
At 0912 the vessel reached her launch depth, 67 feet. The ship waited, the missile tubes flooded, the hatches open, for her time.
Aboard the Lysander, the men and women were just beginning, in ones and twos, to eat lunch, when the first missile broke the surface and arced towards them. The missile was a variant of the Harpoon, but this one carried something far, far deadlier within its' nose: a huge concentration of Spanish Influenza virions. The missile bored in remoreselessly toward the old ship's hull; then, at the last second, veered upwards and opened its' nose, sending the ultra-fine cloud of virions drifting over the convicts. They watched, with gratitude in their hearts, as the missile "missed," and then crowed with horror as the second left the submarine and headed towards them, only to give a repeat performance.
They had seen enough. Without further ado, they began to think. They coalesced into loose alliance and dug into their knowledge. The submarine's Captain watched with satisfaction as, 8 minutes after the second missile had launched, the ship suddenly began to emit gouts of smoke as her diesel engine coughed into life. The vessel swung round and began to head south, at 10 knots, toward Egypt; behind her, the submarine followed, keeping pace easily. When the time came, they would destroy the ship, and the scientists who had so frightened the captain when he had met them would examine the corpses to determine how fast the viruses had acted. I am in the presence of evil,, the captain thought.
IC: The Mediterranean Sea, 78 miles North of Egypt, 08:56
In the middle of the otherwise unbroken, rolling waves of the Mediterranean, there sat a ship. The vessel bore no name, number, construction plates; all marks that might identify her had been erased through weeks of painstaking preparation for this one event; if it went wrong, it was vital that nobody be traceable. The ship's name had once bee Lysander, but now it was merely a hulking metal mass, drifting with the tides, moving slowly towards Egypt.
Meanwhile, some 1000 feet below the ocean 20 miles away, a lone Swiftsure class submarine was waiting for the clock to finish ticking down the seconds. At 0900, the submarine was to begin her ascent to the launch depth, and at 0920 she was to execute the launch of her payload. The sub was unarmed, save for a pair of torpedoes and four large attack missiles.
Meanwhile, the ex-Lysander kept drifting, her passengers blissfully unaware of the fate that would shortly meet them. They were to be used as a test. They were convicts, the detritus of CK's society; murderers, Nazis, racists, rapists, paedophiles, all the most hated of all society's enemies. The men and women aboard thought that they were meant to simply drift out here and be picked up by someone; that, after all, was what they had been told, and how were they to know different?
As the clock ticked away the last seconds to 0900Z, the submarine's Captain turned to his XO and gave the order to increase speed to 8 knots and take the submarine up, towards the 67ft launch depth for the missiles. The captain was shaking slightly with the realisation of what he was about to do. He, and only he, knew what lay within two of the four missiles, and that knowledge had pushed him to the breaking point over the last 5 days as the sub had made her way into the Mediterranean. It was terrifying. OK, so this was justified, and there was scarcely any better place within easy reach, but to do something to awful, even to these creatures, made his stomach churn a little.
At 0912 the vessel reached her launch depth, 67 feet. The ship waited, the missile tubes flooded, the hatches open, for her time.
Aboard the Lysander, the men and women were just beginning, in ones and twos, to eat lunch, when the first missile broke the surface and arced towards them. The missile was a variant of the Harpoon, but this one carried something far, far deadlier within its' nose: a huge concentration of Spanish Influenza virions. The missile bored in remoreselessly toward the old ship's hull; then, at the last second, veered upwards and opened its' nose, sending the ultra-fine cloud of virions drifting over the convicts. They watched, with gratitude in their hearts, as the missile "missed," and then crowed with horror as the second left the submarine and headed towards them, only to give a repeat performance.
They had seen enough. Without further ado, they began to think. They coalesced into loose alliance and dug into their knowledge. The submarine's Captain watched with satisfaction as, 8 minutes after the second missile had launched, the ship suddenly began to emit gouts of smoke as her diesel engine coughed into life. The vessel swung round and began to head south, at 10 knots, toward Egypt; behind her, the submarine followed, keeping pace easily. When the time came, they would destroy the ship, and the scientists who had so frightened the captain when he had met them would examine the corpses to determine how fast the viruses had acted. I am in the presence of evil,, the captain thought.