Shane Knox

The scream of the jetskis supercharger broke serenity of dawn. Had any morning walkers been out, they wouldn't have seen much other than the white fountain of spray in the middle of the otherwise smooth water. Shane Knox gripped the yoke of the jetski and floored it. Behind and above him were two stealth choppers their blades cutting silently through the cool morning air.

These choppers were not friendly. Slung on either side were two rocket pods fully armed with about sixty high explosive warheads. While they were not guided rockets, the area that they could effect was large enough that aim did not matter.

Strapped to Shane’s chest was a small bag, its contents, top secret. Well they were top secret while they were in the lab, few knew that the device even existed and those that did know likely didn’t even know how it worked – or even where it came from.

Shane was not one of those people until only a few weeks ago.

The lead chopper now caught up with the jetski  fired its first its first round. The heat and flash of its blast were quickly deadened by the enormous wave of spray that drenched him as the rocket missed.

In the far distance behind the screaming jetski was the Island from where the helicopter had taken off from. The island where the device currently strapped to Shanes chest was previously hidden from prying eyes. For a package as valuable as this it was fair to say that it was  was well defended for a otherwise secret location. Aside from the two gun ships that were now persuing him, the island had about 100 commandos. These commandos, currently armed to the teeth, were currently showing Shane just how royally pissed off they were that he had managed to slip past them all.

Hot, angry and powerful .50cal rounds broke through the air, their mismatched red and green tracer rounds smashed into their destination with a singular and deadly purpose, destroy.

A conga line of small white jets erupted from the ocean around him as the rounds walked their way across the bay towards him.

Another blast from the rockets struck the water just behind him. The heat from the explosion evaporating the water on Shanes face. The next round from the helicopter was unlikley to miss. The choppers were only a few hundred meters from him. If by some mircale the rocket did miss, the soldiers in their fast boat and their angry machine guns were certain to catch him.  

Shane swung the jetski around hard to the left, killing all his forward speed, going from about 100kph to nearly 0 in about 20 meters, the choppers already matching his speed, were not expecting this and quickly overtook him. The large metal birds immediately yawing hard to swing their nose around to try and take out the target from close range. Their large tail rotors screamed as the lumbering gunships banked high expecting to settle on where their now stationary target should have been.

Shane now back up to speed, aimed directly for the wake waves he had just created, placing his legs to the rear of the ski he bounced the stern hard has he hit the first wave, causing the ski to gain half a meter of height, then he rapidly pushed the nose down. Diving the ski underwater just as the lead chopper unleashed ten of its deadly missiles.

Multiple points of impact, and large mushroom clouds of water, fire and hot shrapnel lept from the ocean. By the time the clouds began to clear, both helicopters began to swarm around where they last saw Shane and his stolen prize.

As the motor boats caught up to the scene one pulled in front, a lone solitary figure could be seen standing on he bow.

Oliver Vernon didn’t look particularly happy. While he knew that the object that had been stolen from him would likely be intact, the one sided battle had taken place over the deepest part of the atol. The bottom of the bay was easily 200ft deep and retrieving it would take time.

Time he didn’t have.

Already displeased with the progress of the soldiers, he scowled at them to get the underwater ROV ready.

Racks of robotic underwater submarines swung to the sides of the fast boats and started ejecting the underwater drones into the salty water.

Originally designed to hunt and seek underwater divers threatening US Navy ships while in port, the robots were upgraded over the years to include powerful computers running the latest iterations of the Navy’s hunter AI.

The REX program was Vernon’s brainchild. Adaptable, innovative and lethal, Vernon joked that the fictional Skynet wouldnt have stood a chance against it. Able to be uploaded into nearly any device capable of housing the briefcase sized computer that was required to run it, it had revolutionised the battlefield.

While boots on the ground was still required to really hold any territory, the REX program was slowly being installed in almost all military hardware. Even the helicopters circling above had REX units installed behind the pilots seat. Each one learning from the pilot in front, suggesting control inputs, to the meat bags piloting it, soon they would be able to control anything on the planet, but for now the senators who wrote the cheques, were gun shy about allowing the software to control the million dollar assets that traditionally humans had always flown. Humans in comparison were expendable!

Below the waters surface Shane, was swimming as hard has his legs would propel him, the rebreather strapped to his back would only give him a few minutes of air. Below him lurking in the depths of the Atol was his target. Once the men above figured out that there was a nuclear submarine hiding in the centre of the bay, they would quickly move to cut it off at its only exit.

Turning back to look at the fading sunlight from the surface above he saw multiple splashes as the ROVs entered the water. He knew these would not be the slow ones often seen in nature documentaries and suspected their danger.

This was quickly confirmed as an ear piercing and organ jumbling scream hit his body. The active sonar from each of these ROVs began searching for their foe.

Him, a human meat bag with flippers and a wetsuit while each of them had high speed motors and the latest non cavitating propellor designs. It wouldn't take long for the on board computers to identify his body from the scatter of the ocean bed below.

While it was unlikley they would spot the sub below him, it was simply too large and could have been mistaken for the sea bed while he was exposed to hide from their incessant sonar.

Sonar is a curious thing. Long gone are the solitary pings we have grown used to hearing in movies sonar is actually a spectrum of frequencies, and depending on the type of sonar being used, often swings from a low pitch and quickly whips its way up to a high pitch shrill whine.

While the range on the ROVs was only limited to a few hundred meters, US Navy warships often had Sonar system many thousands of watts in power, so powerful in fact it could make the water boil around them. Incidentally in port the ROVs were found to be less effective than just simply leaving the sonar systems on. Any diver within 10 Km of the ships were likely to find their insides scrambled by the sheer power of the sonar systems. Yep Sonar could kill you.

This Sonar wasnt about to do that, but it was certainly beginning to grate on Shanes nerves. Each cascading wail from the ROVs struck his skull and shook his inner ear. Until suddenly the tone changed. They had locked on to him, the warbling sound made his stomach churn.

Behind him the sleek torpedo shaped robots spooled up their thrusters and persued him. Long spikes like that on a marlin protruded from the front. Designed to impale enemy divers they were extremely effective.

Shane had actually worked with these before, back in Australia the robots had been trialed to patrol the waters around the nuclear submarine bays on the western coast. While they didn’t have the REX computers the simple targeting computers were still very effective at hunting moving targets.

With the absence of hostile divers on the remote western coast of Australia, the other operators used to use them to spear fish food for weekend BBQs. From this experience, he knew that once the ROVs had a lock they would immediately aim for their target and accelerate.  

Shane stopped dead in the water and swung his body around. He could see the fast moving sillouette of the first ROV moving towards him at a great speed. He knew he had only one chance. Pulling the reserve oxygen canister from his webbing he stabbed it hard with his diving knife.

A jet of O2 Spewed from the side of the bottle, its high pressure contents thrusting him laterally faster than if he had tried to swim it himself.

The ROV commited to its trajectory by its sheer mass and speed couldn’t react in time whizzed past with only half a meter to spare. It would take several minutes for it to slow down, turn around and reaquire him. However it wouldn't take that long for the other remaining ROVs to do the same.

The warbling of the other ROVs shook his skull indicating that another one had now locked onto him. Out of spare O2 bottles he again dove for the murky black object that was now only 50 ft from him.

A crack of light appeared from a hump on the top of the object and suddenly several things happened in rapid succession.  

The ROV now only a few tens of meters away hit the brakes, its powerful engine swung into reverse, the REX Ai wasnt about to make the same mistake again.

A large cylindrical object appeared from within the opening chamber, silver annodised marine grade steel glinted from the murky lighting of the chamber, its sudden intensity blinding Shane.

The ROV Yawed  from left to right in the water, following Shanes every movement, by now the ROVs plan was clear, it was going to close the remaining distance much slower and try to impale him from much closer distance. REX didn’t like making mistakes and it wasnt about to do it again.

A meter long spear of titanium shot out of the cylinder and impaled the ROV directly in the sonar array on the front of it. Embedding itself like a giant tooth pick sticking out of its face.

Two sets of gloved hands grabbed Shane and dragged him inside as the giantic chamber began to close. A loud scraping noise could be heard as the first ROV and the third tried to breach the armoured sides of the chamber.

When the US navy had sold the virginia class submarines to Australia, they hadnt envisaged the australians designing and buildign their own ________ compartments. Protruding like the hump of a camel behind the sail of the giant lumbering submarine the pressurized compartment meant that Australia could deploy fighters from underwater and many kilometers from the shoreline.

Inside the compartment were four other divers. Bruce Kingsbury, the teams gunner, Billy Sing – who was drying off the stainless steel harpoon gun that had just saved his life, Keith “The Doc” Payne and the short and stocky Alec Cambell, their engineer and all round tech expert.

As the still rapidly empting itself, Shane took off his rebreather and took a large breath of the metalic air inside the submarine.

There were no hugs of victory, or high fives, Alec was already on the intercom to the ships captain.

“Go GO GO! We have the package aboard!”

The sudden acceleration caught all of them off guard, water still covering the deck sloshed hard against the rear of the chamber as the nuclear submarine accelerated as fast as it could. The time for stealth was over, this was make or break, if the solders or REX units above figured out that it was an Australian that had stolen the package, then all bets were off.

A loud metalic twang shook the walls as the submarine collied with the remaining underwater ROVs.

Once the floor was clear, a hatch to the inside of the submarine opened, all of the men quickly slid down the ladder, Doc last as always sealed it shut behind them.

Making their way through the submaine they entered the __Center of operations in a submaine is called what? __________

The Captain Teddy Sheean was talking to Allan Cuthbertson. Both men were gesturing wildly in the air in front of them. Much like the vaunted F-35 multi role fighter of the 2020s submarines employed their own version of situational awareness. Large goggles like that of a Dakar rally driver were beaming a three dimensional overlay of the Atoll straight into their retinas. Red blips slid slowly across the surface above the submarine – the attack boats. While higher still the helicopters flashed in and out of existence as the military satellite above relayed the surface information to the submarine.

Donning a similar pair of goggles Shane joined in, the scattered remains of the ROVs could be seen behind the submarine, grey and motionless, no longer a threat. To the east a large rectangular object could be seen making a slow but rapid arc swinging towards the only exit to the atol.

It was unlikely that they yet knew that there was a large nuclear submarine below the water, the idea was as absurd to them as it likely was to their persuers above. Still it made sense that they would move to cut the exit off even if they didn’t know what they were blocking.

Allan glanced at Shanes chest and the package he had strapped to it. Raising an eyebrow simply asked “Intact?”
“Yes sir”
Turning to the Captain he said, “Then they are probably quite fucking pissed off and thankfully quite disorganized right now, are we going to be able to get out of here without a shooting match?”

“If that blasted cruiser doesn’t turn on its sonar we should be OK,” replied the captain.  
As if on que the sonar operator sitting on the console behind him let out a yelp, “Active sonar above us captain!”

Yellow waves began emminating from the surface in their AR goggles, the helicopters had dropped bouys. Like the ROVs sonar they wouldnt take long to figure out that there was something large and moving below them. The shrill warble of their sonar could be heard shreeking from the small speaker on operators consol.

While Shane wasn't a sonar operator himself – it was clear that the bouy hadnt yet locked onto its target. Likely it was looking for something smaller, but even then, with active sonar it was pretty hard not to miss the football field sized submarine rapidly moving below the water.

Alec still dripping from his swim was already sitting at the Electronic warfare console. His fingers nimbly dancing across its keyboard. “Sir I can apply physical or electronic countermeasures your choice” Also wearing goggles you could tell that Alec also well understood the danger of the situation.

“Save the physical for once its clear they know what they are dealing with”

Subtly Nodding, Alec began queuing up a playlist of other sounds as well as recordings of the bouys the system had already made.

In the hours before they had pulled off their heist other divers had placed robotic sonar emitters at various locations across the bay. At staggered intervals they began blasting false echos of the sonar and mating calls from a pod of whales they had overheard as they entered the bay.

Above them, Oliver was cursing. All but one of his ROVs was still talking to him, but it was blind and unable to see. Its sonar array was spewing red errors across the page.

He had hoped that he would be able to patch in the signal from the helicopters buoy to enable the REX unit aboard to continue to hunt for the diver. But that was failing to do any good. It was as if its gain was wildly out of tune. Echos of the underwater walls of the atol were overlapping themselves on his display, and a pod of wales seemed to be right in the middle throws of some sort of mating ritual.

His only option which seemed unlikely to work was to turn on the ROVs camera. Normally they didn’t bother with the camera. Silt and a lack of light usually made it useless, only good for inspecting stationary objects up close when the ROVs intense LEDs could break through the milky darkness.

The static of the analogue transmission flicked onto his tablet. He could see the silver of the harpoon protruding from the nose of the ROV. Its silver shaft reflecting off the intense lighting that was now swtiched on.

He spoke to the microphone strapped to his wrist. “REX download all footage from the moment the the ROV entered the water and analyse what you see”

The watch converted his request to plain text and the large language model that sat below REXs tactical neural net began analyzing and pulling together an assortment of plugins to tag and analyze the footage. Server fans a continent away ramped up to full speed as REX applied its full network to its creators task.

The slowest part of the whole process was the retrieval of the footage from the ROV that was drifting below the surface of the water.

Much like a microwave finishing a cooking cycle, Olivers tablet let out an audible “Bing!” Two key frames alternated back and forth. One dark and grainy and the other a diffused crack of light just before the sonar array went offline and something struck the ROV. The harpoon.

Oliver understood before even REX could finish writing its report. They had a freaking submarine!

“Cut off the bay! He is still alive and there is a Submarine down there!”

---

Down below the effect of Olivers order was nearly instantaneous. The cruiser instantly turned on its Sonar Array. Much more powerful than the helicopter dropped buoy, it began boiling the water around the hull of the boat and its towed sonar array.  Thousands of watts of sound shook the water and started bouncing off the hull of the submarine.

The crews AR goggles adjusted themselves to filter the yellow simulated sonar emissions that suddenly overwhelmed the tactical display.

“Shit, get those physical countermeasures ready Campbell! We are going to need them pretty much right now!” The shrill emanating from the sonar console was filling the room, everyone tried hard to ignore it. Alec, focused on his task pulled his headphones on, drowning out everything going on in the _____.

Alec much younger than the other operators on his team found he worked best when listening to music. When not diving underwater, if it wasnt for his short size you could pick him from the group by the headphones always wrapped around his neck.

With the stress and sounds of the ___ now drowned out Alec was in his element. The virginia class submarine was first and formost an attack submarine, Designed to hunt and kill other submarines and marine vessels. Unlike many american subs whos main purpose was to deter anyone from launching a nuclear attack by carrying up to thirty ICBMs the virginia class held most of its ordinance in the bow.

While the sub was very good at hiding, a feature that they had taken advantage of over the last few days as the Sub had snuck into the atol, it also found itself in a situation that was very much not in its favor. With one exit the cruiser could both sense any torpedoes and use its own countermeasures. Worse they would be able to use the torpedos to identify the submarine.

The Americans had made it for the australians afterall. Instead, the Australians had removed the normal ordinance of one of the tubes and installed ….



---=== Break the story here to write about the other characters then pick back up again once they have been fleshed out==---

Bruce kingsbury, Grew up on farms, - tough as nails as good on a motorbike as a horse. Gunner!
Affectionately called the gun Teddy (IRL he took a bren from another soldier called lindsay “teddy” bear.)

Billy Sing – sniper 150 – 300 confirmed kills IRL WW1

Allan Cuthbertson – stern officer type in movies

Alec Campbell – young but fiercy loyal – Tech/engineer

Keith Payne – The doc (

Some other names that could be used.

Teddy Sheean – Boatsman (captain of the sub ? )

Clive Caldwell – aviator also a bit of a lover of the piss :) Was courtmartialed for liquor transactions !


--=== Ideas for the physical countermeasures==---

it has to be launched from the torpedo bay.
C                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
It has to be fast and it has to overwhelm the sonar systems on a navy warship.

How will it be fast enough to get through the water?

Hypercavitation, supercavitation – followed by a laser – a rail gun ? Quite a super weapon!

Underwater poses a problem. Combo of the german (steerable head)  and russian (stream of gas injected at the front of the design)  designs. 400Kph,  Range is 10 to 15km . If its a rocket – how is it able to return or how is it undetectable?

Maybe its massive – it skims past the target – and then rail guns it ? Rail gun ? Or does it drop smaller micro drones in its wake? Can it deliver a payload like a soldier underwater? Why would australia develop something like this ? Why keep it a secret from the USA?

- Suspicion about compelled use of the submarines that arose in the 2030s following the “something wars”