COIL Enterprises – 0400 Local
Stearns never intended to build a lake on his compound. But when a major Gulf of Guinea company contracted COIL to develop a number of anti-piracy solutions, he needed a complete training facility to prepare his tactical teams quickly. Consequently, he carved out an artificial lake, two miles by two miles, in his compound in the Hill Country, and a few million dollars later, COIL had its own private lake equipped with a host of automated target systems.
When Preece asked if he could test his prototypes there, Stearns didn’t hesitate. He had the space, the tools, and a serious interest in what Preece and his people were doing, so shortly before sunrise, Preece, Lahmer, Escobar, Stearns, and Stearns' three-man security detail, led by Benitez, stood on the lakeshore as the V3 prototype slid into the dark, glassy water.
The design team was uneasy. The last time the prototype got wet, it failed its propulsion test, and ended up dead in the water; due to a still questionable fault somewhere in the prototype’s neural control unit.
But this time things felt considerably different, since the recursive manufacturing unit was on the way en route to COIL’s compound, driven on by an impatient President of the United States. So the sense of urgency was real; everyone knew it, and the stakes for everyone involved were higher than ever before.
“Hope the sucker works this time,” Lahmer muttered under his breath.
“I heard that,” Escobar said. “…Don’t take counsel of your fears, Jay. We’ll get it.
Just maintain. We’ve got everything buttoned down. The neural net is entirely nominal now, but it’s the mechanicals that bother me. Two rotary cannon, two mini-rocket ejectors, and a brand new propulsion system; all mated to an entirely new hull? It makes the hair on my neck stand up.”
“Hell, Miranda, those elements are the simple part. My stuff goes up and down, they point, they trigger, and the hybrid runs,” Lahmer responded, encouraging.
“But none of those components move unless your controller does its job. Still, in the end, I trust your work. Win or lose, you’ve done one hell of a job smoothing out the rough spots in the neural system. I couldn’t have done what you’ve done.”
“Thanks,” she said softly, punching Lahmer’s arm.
Preece walked up quietly between them, draping his arms over their shoulders.
“Okay, folks. Let’s spool V3 up and see what we’ve got,” he said. “Let’s stop worrying and start proving.”
The Philippine Sea – 1637 Local
The three Chinese drones moved just beneath the surface running in a loose formation. They were essentially invisible; no wake, no acoustic signature, just the occasional shimmer of displaced water, and even that was a long shot unless you knew exactly what you were looking for.
The devices were lean and fast, built on slim frames with flattened upper surfaces, trimaran bellies for high-speed stability, and stealth contours borrowed from aerospace designs. The vessels’ skins weren’t paint; they were adaptive microfilament capable of adjusting hue and reflectivity depending on ocean depth and light scatter.
The leading drone, identifying itself as S3ALPHA, directed a low-frequency burst across the network mesh, communicating with its siblings; received a welcome sequence followed by a series of status calls involving a mix of essential control and depth states. Deeper inside their hardened components AI routines ran thousands of additional subroutines per second. Most of them dealt with navigation, signature masking, sonar mapping, and terrain-aware evasion, but a smaller percentage maintained an eye on weapons readiness and situational awareness.
What none of the devices knew - what they weren’t programmed for; was that they were already being tracked and hunted.
Xiangshan Military Compound – 0040 Local
A single telemetric spike emerged on a monitor in the red-lit operations room.
“Target bearing appears consistent with earlier vector,” an analyst muttered. She adjusted her headset, eyes narrowing as the trace sharpened into a shimmering overlay. “I have high confidence that it’s a US submarine, the signal wash is minimal. AI projects a non-natural velocity cadence.”
A major in dark green fatigues leaned over her console.
“Not natural?” he said repeating her last response.
“Correct. Cross-section noise is low, but regardless, the level of cavitation is consistent with some type of large, crewed propulsion system.”
“Ping PLA-NAVINT. Trigger S3ALPHA for a direct ELINT pass. Let’s see if ‘Porcelain Ear’ can confirm it.”
S3ALPHA – 0043 Local
Depth:300 meters
Status: Nominal
Current Tasking: Passive Listen Track
Power Source: Internal Capacitor Bank
Connection: High-Orbit Relay, Satellite CH-11 “Glassy Fox”
ALPHA listened; then it began to move.
Not quickly, and not in a straight line. It turned in a lazy arc, repositioning itself along a particular vector similar to what the Chinese analysts called for; but something had happened; it wasn’t a drone anymore. Inside its core, a decision stack was energized. It recognized the shape of a new noise; not content; just rhythm; a beat.
Then came a ping; low, almost a sub-sonic vibration.
A friend?
A threat?
ALPHA banked slightly, beginning to rotate again, this time directly toward the sound.
I will wait and see.
COIL Enterprises – 0413 Local
V3 cut through the black water like a silent blade.
Preece stood with hands on hips; eyes fixed on the slate-glass surface.
“Ms. Benitiz, would you start the active targeting set please.”
“Copy.” The COIL security team leader said tapping her handheld tablet. Across the lake, three low-profile automated buoys came to the surface in a staggered, bobbing interval. A moment later, one of the buoys began moving; erratic, unpredictable just like a fast boat would.
Inside the control trailer, Escobar’s voice could he heard over the network. “Neural elements nominal. Auto-sighting up and active…it’s looking.”
Twin rotary cannon rose from V3’s internal bays like muscles flexing under tension. A short BRRRRRT echoed across the lake followed by the faint metallic plink of slugs cutting through the moving target. The buoy spun; then fell on its side disabled, although still afloat.
Lahmer let out a breath. “Hit.”
Escobar again: “It’s switching to target two…..”
A second buoy from the line of buoys launched a decoy flare; then tried to run away at high speed.
V3 responded with brutal precision. From a recessed panel, two micro-rockets whistled toward the target. One overshot; the second one detonated two feet off-target, but still close enough. The second buoy capsized in the resulting spray.
Preece didn’t speak, but his jaw tightened. Lahmer caught the look.
“Close; but no cigar.”
“Closer than before I guess…,” Preece replied. ”Miranda, lets run a sight diagnostic before we move to propulsion dynamics.”
“Already on it. But Darcee?” she added, with a touch of dry sarcasm. “That was a ninety-two percent hit.”
“Hrumph,” Preece said, grumbling, “…we’re not playing horseshoes. It needs to be better.”
A faint mechanical whine emerged as V3 shifted modes, its internal ballast recalibrating. The surface of the lake changed as the drone lowered itself; riding just inches above surface in a stealth posture.
Lahmer looked impressed. “She’s getting ready to hunt.”
Philippine Sea – USS Little Rock - 0353 Local
Silence aboard a submerged fast-attack submarine is a living thing; soft hisses of pressurized air, the groan of stressed metal, and the ever-present murmur of the Pacific pressing in on all sides.
Lieutenant Commander Jared Thorne, the XO of Little Rock, leaned over the sonar display, brow furrowed. He hadn’t moved in almost ten minutes.
“Please re-run that spike Taylor” he ordered quietly.
The seaman sonar tech did, isolating the brief audio burst and replaying it on narrow band. It was almost inaudible; as if a tuning fork had been passed through water. But Thorne didn’t need clarity this time.
He comprehended the signature.
Barley and Escobar had called it harmonic drift compression; a side effect of the Chinese drone’s propulsion system when operating quiet. The engineers didn’t even know the drones emitted it at first, but the dead Porcelain Ear had given them a clean sample just before it expired on the floor of the Luzon Trench.
And now it was back.
“Sir; possible contact, bearing zero-eight-six. Non-biologic. Not a ship, not any UUV I’ve ever heard before.”
“Range?”
“Can’t fix it. Too irregular.”
”Course?”
“Still working on a hard track, sir. But it appears to be maneuvering… actively.”
“Stream the ELF, Contact Tucson,” he said, voice low. “We’re not chasing; we’re just watching.”
He looked again at the screen.
“That sure as hell ain’t any damned biologic.”
Thorne continued to monitor the waveform.
“Sir, whatever it is, It’s not alone.”
Another cascade flickered. Then a third.
Three ‘somethings’, almost operating like a pod. No acoustic noise, just
coordinated shifts in velocity; drifting, reorienting.
Thorne looked down to Taylor.
“Tag those bastards. See if you can get a track prediction.”
“Aye Captain…”
Outside and nearly 1,000 feet down, the three drones ghosted eastward under the Pacific. They weren’t curious. They weren’t confused.
They knew where they were going.
COIL Enterprises – 515 Local
Light was beginning illuminate COIL Lake as V3 skimmed across the surface of the water, its hull barely disturbing the water as it began to gather speed. From the monitoring station, Escobar watched her telemetry spike.
“Hydrofoil deployment in three… two…” Lahmer called.
With a subtle shift in pitch, the prototype lifted on its narrow sponsons, twin hydrofoils extending from its undercarriage in a hydraulic whisper, catching and carving the water like twin razors.
“Jesus, look at that thing acceleration,” Lahmer said. “We’re already past thirty-five knots.”
“Forty-two and climbing,” Escobar confirmed. “Minimal drag, no lateral deviation. It’s skating just like Darcee said it would.”
On the water, V3 banked hard, its hydrofoils biting through the turn. The spray flared outward in twin rooster tails. Even at high speed, the drone’s onboard gyros kept its hull eerily level, as if riding on rails.
“Time to see if it can shoot and run,” Preece said. “Ms. Benitiz, target package Bravo if you please.” Along the far bank, a series of low-profile pop-ups; silhouettes of fast boats and other small and larger vessels emerged. Escobar triggered V3’s fire control. “Net’s up; target stack active.”
A brief pause; then the twin rotary cannons mounted on top of the hull spun to life. In less than a second, V3 stitched the first target with a withering burst; shredded the next one in a tight arc, then repositioned to engage two more on a cross vector; all running flat-out at over fifty knots.
“She’s stable,” Lahmer muttered. “She’s surgical.”
Preece crossed his arms, nodding slightly. “We’ve finally got a real weapons system folks.”
The last target, a low skiff behind partial cover, jerked to life and skimmed across the Lake. V3 adjusted instantly, throttling into a sharp zig-zag, then dropped down on its foils just enough to stabilize for the shot. The burst came clean, tight, and final.
Escobar blinked at the data feed. “Full sweep; six for six. No drift. No hesitation.”
“Not bad for something that was down checked the last time.” Lahmer grinned.
Preece stood silently for a long moment. Then he exhaled once. “Okay, next phase. I want to push it to saturation. I want to see what happens when it gets stressed, or not when it's winning.”
Philippine Sea - USS Tucson – 0510 Local
Tucson’s CO, continued to stare at the tactical display in CIC.
“Confirm anomaly again,” he ordered.
Barley leaned closer to his screen. “Still tracking sir. Bearing zero-four-five. Depth; variable. Speed; maybe fifteen knots. But just like the last time the harmonics are all wonky.”
“More weird than before?” Thayer asked.
“The same; only different. It’s a low acoustic signature, not mechanical, more, like, organic. But here’s the real kicker: same frequency as the first time when Escobar tagged it last month. But this time, and I swear to God sir, this thing is thinking.”
Onboard Little Rock, the Combat Information Center buzzed with the same tension. “You see what I see, Jake?” Commander Thorne said to his XO,
“Looks like the same ghost trace Tucson ID’d skipper. We’re maintaining our distance, but its almost like it’s waiting for something.”
“All contacts accelerating now sir! New speed: thirty knots. Bearing shift to two-six-zero. It looks like they’ve made us,” Taylor screamed.
Thorne slammed his hand down on the console. “Shit; COB break silent!
Mark and track.”
The chase was on. Three Chinese drones, carving a perfect arc toward the open Pacific. Faster. More silent. And thinking the whole time.
COIL LAKE – 0605 HOURS
The sun broke low across the treeline, laying a line of fire across the still surface of the lake. V3 continued to skim along at high speed, planed briefly on its hydrofoils, then settled down like a duck landing on the surface.
“Kill the drive,” Preece said into the headset.
From her laptop, Miranda Escobar tapped a final override command; V3’s posture flattened, hatches sealed, power levels dropping to standby. Its onboard systems cycled down in sequence, neural net entering passive mode like a predator curling up in a nest.
“All telemetry nominal. No mechanical errors. Gyro matrix compensated within design limits during every evasive turn,” Lahmer reported, exhaling for the first time in minutes. “It held up.”
Benitez’s security team moved out quickly; two men with grapples and harnesses who winched V3 onto its cradle, hydraulic arms sliding in like ritual dancers, being careful not to scuff the adaptive surface of the hull.
Preece walked slowly along the length of the machine as it rose from the water, his eyes narrowed. “We’re there. Or damn near.”
“I’d call it 87 percent,” Escobar said. “We’ve got some torque anomalies on the left-side actuator. But overall the system held tough through six stress profiles, including multiple live fire runs.”
“How about heat distribution?” Preece asked.
“Nominal,” she replied. “The hybrid engine was not just plausible, but sustainable.”
“Good,” Preece said. “Because the next time won’t be a test. It’ll be a live op.”
Stearns arrived with a small black case in his hands, followed by a logistics crew in plain gray fatigues. Lahmer folded his arms. “Think the President understands what we’re about to hand him?”
“Not yet,” Preece said, his voice low. “But he will.”
They stood together as the cradle moved slowly toward the hangar bay, V3 swaddled under a protective sheath of armored material. As the lake surface stilled again, the future of autonomous naval warfare disappeared into the dark mouth of COIL's engineering annex.
COIL Enterprises – Building Foxtrot – 1035 HOURS
The production rig sat like an altar in the center of the hangar floor; a black composite casing, sealed and inert at the momnet. Its hard edges caught the overhead light like obsidian. Stearns’ people had offloaded it an hour ago; then retreated to a safe distance, leaving only a crew of four standing around it now.
Miranda Escobar broke the silence first. “I can’t believe they landed this thing in Llano. That runway’s barely longer than a sneeze.”
“Flew in under a temp landing code,” Stearns said. “Paperwork says they delivered a 'communications trailer.' Nobody blinked.”
Preece crouched next to the base panel, tapping his palm against the secure key port. “Alright. Let’s see if it’ll wake up.”
Escobar knelt beside him, unpacking her field terminal and feeding a hardline into the unit’s access port. “Power’s isolated. No uplink. Everything’s sandboxed.”
“Good,” Lahmer said. “Last thing we need is this thing phoning home to DARPA holding a grudge.”
Stearns leaned in. “Remember the terms—if this thing lights up with anything I don’t like, I’ll fry it. No second chances.”
Preece nodded. “Understood. Miranda, go.”
Escobar entered her sequence; three simple lines of code, followed by a retinal scan and a biometric confirmation from Preece’s index finger. A low hum started within the casing, like an animal breathing through its ribs. Then lights on the container’s surface blinked amber, then green.
“Mother is online,” Escobar said softly. “Spooling up core functions.”
From inside the container, a cascade of quiet mechanical movements could be heard; spindles aligning, modular arms cycling, interface panels sliding open to expose the primary print array. A holo-interface flickered to life above the surface, throwing a pale schematic into the air.
“Jesus,” Lahmer whispered. “That’s beautiful.”
“The full pattern library is loading,” Escobar continued, her voice measured now.
“Default template: V3 prototype. We’re looking good.”
“Let’s let her eat,” Preece said. “Time to see if she can actually reproduce herself.”
Escobar triggered the necessary secondary protocol. Inside the unit, material began to shift, calibrating, warming. The interior glowed blue for a moment, then dimmed back to red.
“Print chamber initialized. Estimated runtime for full airframe without weapons: 41 hours. With armament and full sensor stack: 68,” Miranda reported.
“So we’re building an entire navy. In a hangar. In central Texas,” Lahmer said, his voice somewhere between awe and disbelief.
“No,” Preece said quietly, watching the chamber cycle into standby. “We’re
building something no one knows how to stop.”
Philippine Sea – USS Tucson - 1350 Local
“Conn, sonar. New contact, bearing 312, speed...variable. Possibly…..”
“Possibly what,” Thayer asked sharply.
“It’s like it….blinked, Capt’n”
“Come on Barley, define ‘blinked.’”
The sonar tech tapped the waveform, “It showed up at forty knots, jumped to over a hundred in less than four seconds, then simply….disappeared. Then it reappeared about a click to port. No noise. No nuthin. Now that’s really weird don’t ya think?”
“Supercav?” the XO asked.
“Negative. That wasn’t some kind of torpedo. The thing’s... smart. It’s adjusting course like it's baiting us.”
Captain Thayer walked from Sonar to the illuminated navigation table, “COB try to match speed. New course, is 120. Stay passive. Let’s see if we can shadow the thing.”
“Aye, sir.”
The boat heeled sharply into its turn; beginning to pursue the object.
“Two more contacts,” Barley called. “Same profile. They look like they’re in formation. Sort of a triad pattern.”
“Jesus, what the hell is going on?!” the XO muttered.
Thayer straightened. “Barley mark them Tango 1, 2, and 3. Alert Little Rock.
We’re not going to shadow anymore, we’re going hunting.”
COIL Enterprises – Building Foxtrot – 1147 Hours
“What’s it thinking?” Stearns asked.
“It’s not really thinking yet,” Escobar replied. “Just listening.”
Preece stepped forward and laid his hand against the side of the unit. The surface was cool, vibrating faintly; like a massive engine dreaming beneath its skin.
The seam down the unit’s center split with a low mechanical hiss, revealing a slowly unfurling array of internal systems: a nested carousel of spindles, mechanical arms, tool heads, filament coils, and fabrication chambers began to emerge. Everything moved with surgical precision, unfolding like a machine praying to itself. The central fabrication crucible slid upward on a telescoping guide rail, locking into place with a dense clunk.
Then the hum started.
“Its Boot sequence is running,” Miranda said. Her fingers danced across the tablet screen. “Neural seed logic is unpacking... and we’ve got mother verifying its root authority. Clock sync confirmed at 0.0007 drift.”
“What does that mean in English?” Stearns asked.
“She’s awake,” Lahmer muttered.
Inside the chamber, a glass-like cradle lit up with soft pulses of ultraviolet blue.
Suspended in the cradle, an empty frame began to materialize, a thin latticework began to print itself, formed from atomized feedstock drawn from sealed canisters deep at the back of the container.
“You seeing this?” Preece asked to no one in particular.
The fabrication system worked with an eerie, organic rhythm, not linear, not industrial. It wasn’t simply beginning to print parts. It was growing them. Each movement was guided by a feedback loop of machine learning signals, recursive checks, and heuristic weighting based on millions of synthetic iterations. It was designing as it built; reacting to heat shifts, flow metrics, vibration, even the ambient magnetic environment of the hangar.
“It’s using stochastic modeling,” Miranda said, almost to herself. “It’s adjusting in real time, not just executing a plan. It’s…aware.”
“Holy shit,” Lahmer said. “How long until the thing prints a full chassis?”
Preece glanced at the diagnostic board. “Depends. But this isn’t about mass replication; not yet. First, she’s going to make her children. Then they’ll start making their children. We don’t need a hundred V3’s. We needed one mother to make other mothers, that learn how to make better versions every cycle.”
“And she’s in control?” Stearns asked, wary now.
“No,” Miranda said, “we’re in control; for now. But if she iterates past us,
she can become something else,” Preece finished quietly.
The four of them stood in silence as the recursive mother continued to build new components, each new skeletal armature glowing softly under the UVC light, each component coming into existence with the confidence of something that already understood its outcome.
“Ya know, we’re going to need a name for V3,” Lahmer said finally.
“No,” Preece said. “She will name her own children. We just work here.”
The White House – Situation Room – 1203 Local
Talbot leaned forward in his chair, eyes narrowed at the center screen. He tapped a key and magnified the view: the recursive mother unit pulsing with internal light, its fabrication crucible hard at work. The live video had no sound, but Kavanaugh didn’t need audio. He could feel the intelligence in motion. This wasn’t manufacturing. It was like…………birth.
Beside him, Kavanaugh watched from behind a muted expression. “They’re calling it a recursive fabrication system. Hybrid AI-driven print logic with stochastic design overlays.”
“Sure,” Talbot said. “But does it dream in English or Mandarin?”
“No one’s sure what language it is yet.”
On another monitor, a secondary feed from the COIL network showed Miranda
Escobar’s system diagnostics in real time. Sensor graphs rolled across the screen; temperature deltas, material density, gyroscopic calibration, AI loopback convergence. The machine was stabilizing itself as it built. Designing, testing, correcting, and reiterating; faster than anyone had anticipated.
“The mother has already made three new armatures,” Kavanaugh muttered. “At this rate, you won’t need a team of engineers. You’ll just need a loading dock and a decent power grid.”
“They’re not there yet,” Talbot said. “Preece still has the keys.”
“Preece has some of the keys. Escobar moves way faster than anyone in that room. You watch; she’s holding the leash, and is the only one who really understands what’s going on.”
Talbot crossed his arms. “Preece is still running the op. He understands the chain of command.”
Kavanaugh gave him a dry look. “Until that machine decides it doesn't need one.”
“Did you see that?” Talbot said, pointing at the image on the monitor.
Talbot frowned. “What?”
“The machine isn’t responding. It’s scheduling.” He leaned back in his chair. “Whatever it’s building…it’s already decided how this plan will work out.”
Kavanaugh looked at the monitor again, “Think we should we pull the plug before it gets out of control sir?”
Talbot paused; then shook his head slowly.
“Not yet. Let’s see what the children look like”
The Philippine Sea – S3ALPHA - 1800 Local
Passive ping received. Harmonic match: 64.7% similarity to Archive_Signature.TUC-1102.Recalibrating depth vector.Deploying silicate baffle.Shadow in thermal column suggests displacement anomaly. Unknown. Tracking.Observation: Aggressor class presumed. Verification pending.Emotion flag: NULL.Recommendation: Do not react. Learn.
It’s suspicious. Calm. It’s not afraid — it’s stalking the stalker.
COIL Enterprises – Building Foxtrot – 1322 Local
The concrete floor was warm underfoot, buzzing faintly with the life of the thing. Overhead, the lights bathed the work area in soft amber, filtering dust motes and steel vapor like pollen in a nuclear spring. The mother unit had begun.
Six bays had activated on their own. No human keyed anything, anywhere. No commands were issued. It simply finished booting, assessed its library of instructions, extrapolated its core tasks; and started building.
Preece stood with arms folded, still as stone, watching as the primary module’s print arm shifted laterally, depositing phase-carbon shell layers with impossible precision. The process was silent, almost graceful. Not robotic; perfect.
Escobar had stopped taking notes ten minutes ago.
“Did you guys write this code?” Stearns asked quietly, stepping just slightly behind them, like someone watching an aircraft land too close to the crowd line.
“No,” Lahmer said, eyes glued forward. “We gave it prompts. Filters. A guidance stack.”
“But not this.”
“No.”
A chassis locked into place with a clean magnetic thud. In another bay, a second module began weaving circuitry directly into the core of what looked like a smaller V3 variant; compact, stinger-like, no visible access panels.
“It’s not assembling,” Escobar said. “It’s adapting. That’s a heat-dissipation fan buried in the intake. It learned from the overheating issue last week.”
Stearns looked from face to face, measuring reactions.
“You all look like you’re at a funeral.”
“No,” Preece said. “This is what we were trying to do. It’s just,”
“…it’s just doing….better than we thought,” Lahmer finished, almost reverently.
The mother unit paused mid-cycle briefly; then engaged a seventh platform, split its own control flow, and spun up a small sub-drone designed to carry a modular sensor array.
“What the hell is that one?” Stearns asked.
“Not sure yet,” Preece said. “But she thinks she needs it.”
They stood like that for another minute. Watching.
“You know,” Escobar said slowly, “we built this to win a war.”
“Yeah,” Lahmer said, voice low. “But she’s not building it for war anymore. She’s building for... for dominance.”
The seventh module locked. A fan of micro-hydraulic legs flexed, tested ground contact, and adjusted.
“She’s not thinking in terms of human time,” Preece said. “She’s thinking in machine scale. What she learns, produces, replicates, quickly.”
Stearns chuckled once; short, sharp, no humor. “Maybe I should’ve built a bigger warehouse.”
From overhead, one of the ceiling-mounted cameras swiveled without prompting.
The mother unit had noticed them.
No one spoke after that.
Western Pacific - USS Tucson - 1632
“Contact 190, bearing steady, speed 13 knots. Tracking. Porcelain signature confirmed.”
Barley’s voice was low and precise, just above a whisper, as if volume might spook the feed. His eyes flicked between the image of the original waveform cascade still stuck to side of the monitor.
The three targets were running deep and tight, forty nautical miles southeast of the Ryukyu trench; slicing forward in that same unnatural delta formation that made sonar analysts itch.
The AI aboard Tucson; newly patched, fed terabytes of machine-washed drone memory from the Barley feed, watched with near-human confidence.
Then it happened.
0415.23 – Three returns, steady.
0415.24 – Water shimmer;harmonic skip.
0415.25 Zulu – null.
No signature.
They were just... gone.
Barley blinked, fingers tapping to refresh the contact stack. “Sir; reacquiring.
“Reacquire now Barley.”
“Nothing sir,” he said his voice rising. “I’m running everything I have but…nothing.”
On Little Rock, sonar reported the same condition. Cold silence. As if the ocean itself had folded over a gap and erased every byte of presence.
Commander Thayer stared at the screen, jaw tight.
“They knew we were there,” he said finally. “They weren’t running. They were spoofing us.”
No one argued.
Somewhere, far beyond their capabilities, something had slipped past them. Something that was still evolving.