The initial shock was hard for Akin, Perry, and Wells to get over, Ke managed after she forced her brain to wander through it. Miller and the SEAL remained expressionless infront of Kessler and Hochberg, the rummaging sounds of the SEAL teams below adding din to the sloshing currents of the sea. Miller gestured into the bridge and made the first suggestion.
“Very well, Ensign Ke will brief the Strike Force leadership here on the Good Faith while the Pennsylvania positions itself to recieve us.”
Without a word, Ke nodded and mumbled to Wells as she guided the group to follow her to the briefing room, “grab the rest of the logs…I’m only up to the ’50’s…”
Wells acted as though she said nothing and slipped away toward the navigation room. Perry waited until Miller and the relics with the SEAL walked past first. In the heavy fatigues and the balaclava it was impossible to tell what kind of shape Hochberg or Kessler were in. They stood erect, they didn’t have an old man’s hunch. They wore sunglasses that blocked their eyes and the bit of skin Perry could see appeared normal colored. Hochberg was a half a head shorter than Kessler and Kessler was just barely taller than average, neither man seemed particularly special with their walk or their motions. Perry still couldn’t take his eyes off them. As the crowd filled into the briefing room with its long table and comfortable chairs, everyone took their seats except Hochberg and the SEAL.
Ke took her position by the whiteboard out of habit and quickly thought of a way to incorporate it, but nothing came to mind. She looked back to the group staring at her and wished she could have the faceless masks that half of them wore. The gleaming back of Kessler’s oakleys felt piercing to Ke and she coughed slightly to clear her throat.
Hochberg’s arms folded across his chest and muscles budged behind the blue-gray fatigues.
“Shortly after Kessler and the group was offloaded to the life rafts off the Nova Scotia coast, Sajer read the files Lieutenant-Captain Kessler left behind. It appears he attempted to subdue and handle Burton but that a mutiny ensued.” Ke looked expectantly at the door for Wells to arrive wth the remaining records.
For a moment she could remember bullshitting her way through presentations in school. Her teachers were never relics from the source material though. No one shifted from the news, it was clearly expected.
“The ship was disabled during the brawl and about half the crew was killed when the scuttling failed. Burton managed to get everyone into dive suits full of Kettle water-“
“Did they reactivate the gyroscope?” Kessler’s mind was ahead of Ke’s knowledge.
“Not before 1951, Lieutenant-Captain.” Ke replied.
Kessler seemed to look to Hochberg and Hochberg spoke, a thick German accent on his tone, “If Sajer hadn’t timed the scuttling right Burton could have preserved the kettle from tipping.”
Kessler nodded, “With the Kettle and the Gyroscope operational the Brunhilde is both invisible and almost impossible to sink, even with modern torpedoes.”
“She doesn’t have a sonar signature or radar shape?” Akin’s surface warfare training had been decades ago but he knew how advanced torpedoes had gotten.
“It was a side effect of the gyroscope. She lays nearly flat sideways and radar signatures become scattered and confusing. The double hull also scrambles sonar efforts. It’s hard to tell what was on purpose and what was a mistake with the engineering and Brunhilde. Kessler spoke, almost wistfully.
All eyes in the room returned to Ke. She tried to stall for more time, wondering how hard it was for Wells to bring the rest of the goddamn log books. “I think Burton was quite comfortable at the bottom of the ocean, researching and figuring out all the ways the Kettle extended life and repaired tissues.”
Kessler’s hand rose up, “You said you saw her go mobile. Said she came up from a cloud of sand and mud and was moving again. Yes, Ensign?”
Ke nodded, “Yes, Lieutenant-Captain.”
Kessler’s raises hand shifted slightly to palm up, “I haven’t been. Lieutnant-Kaptain for 70 years, it’s Captain now,” his hand came down and pulled his glasses and balaclava off.
The man’s face was as fresh and new as it had been in the old black and white images. The whites of his eyes a thin pink sheen. He continued speaking.
“Burton is a fanatic and a true believe, but he’s a megalomaniac first. He’s an Englishman with a German mother and he went to Germany during Hitlers Ascension to be part of the master race. England and America were big belivers in Eugenics and Burton believed it would be the purest and best future for humanity. I knew about him before Wormwood, it’s why I stalked him during the mission. Why I convinced him I was a communist. I know why we have to destroy Brunhilde, ensign, I want to know what it’s doing now and how we can bury these last ghosts of Hitler.”
Wells stumbled into the room with the rest of the books, looking out of breath and obviously late. He hefted the crate with both arms carefully to the table but Hochberg reached over with one arm and hoisted the crate as though it were an empty cardboard box, setting it gently on the polished wood.
“The good doctor took notes, ja?” Hochberg said, his voice obviously passing through a grin.