Sea Strike

by James H. Cobb

  The digital iron log was flickering at fifty-one knots. Thomson grinned down at it as his fingers closed around the master power levers.

  "Okay, old girl, now let's see what you've really got."

  The USS Cunningham and Retainer Zero One thundered along side by side.

  The big destroyer was ripping the sea open in her desperate race for survival. Her bow wave, shaved from the ocean's surface by her razor-sharp prow, sheeted up and back cleanly, nearly to the level of her foredeck.

  Back aft the snowy arc of her rooster tail rose to deck level and above.

  Every seventh wave she encountered exploded at the touch of her stem, wreathing her in its spray.

  This was a moment frozen in the minds of Vince Arkady and Gus Grestovitch. Never would the Duke appear any more beautiful than she would in these last few seconds before her imminent destruction.

  "Tracks are merging!" Charles Foster's voice cracked despite the fight he was making for control. On the Large Screen Display, the torpedo graphic was overlying that of the Cunningham.

  "Sound collision alarm!

  The two-toned electronic yelp filled the CIC. All hands grabbed for a solid hold and braced themselves. All except Christine Rendino. The Intel continued to stare forward into the Alpha screen, her arms crossed defiantly.

  "Tracks still merging ... "

  Amanda caught sight of a familiar shape out of the corner of her eye.

  One of the exterior monitors had locked onto Retainer Zero One. Almost of its own volition, her hand went to the camera controls, zooming in on the helicopter's cockpits seeking for the face of the man in the pilot's seat.

  "Frequency shift! We have a frequency shift!"

  When the executioner's ax is falling, dare you believe in life?

  "We have track separation! Torpedo is slowing! Torpedo is slowing ...

  Torpedo has run out of fuel, Captain. Torpedo is no longer a factor."

  "All engines ahead standard." Amanda had to force the words out of her throat. The scream of the Cunningham's turbines trailed down into a protracted sigh.

  She counted slowly to ten before opening the 1-MC circuit. "All hands.

  This is the Captain. We had a little trouble there, but we're out of it now. Resume stations. We've got a sub to go after."

  All around the Combat Information Center, aching lungs accepted oxygen and the copper taste of fear was swallowed away. A plume of coolness roared out of the air-conditioning ducts, heralding the return of normalcy. Christine Rendino folded over on the console divider between the command and tactical stations, her breath emptying out of her.

  Dix Beltrain gestured toward her with his thumb. ' ' of these days.

  Captain, this gal has got to be wrong about something.

  "

  "Fa" sure," the Intel's muffled voice replied. "But ain't you guys glad today wasn't it!"

  EAST CHINA SEA 37 MILES WEST OF KUME SHIMA ISLAND

  0131 HOURS ZONE TIME; AUGUST 19, 2006

  The Red Chinese submarine captain leaned against the railing of the periscope pedestal. Around him in the red-lit dimness of the control room, the duty watch sat or stood at their stations, their eyes fixed forward by the iron discipline of the People's military.

  He knew where he had made his error. Engaging and killing the Nationalist frigate had been right. That had been part of the mission.

  Likewise, so had lingering in the target area to await the arrival of the first rescue ship. It was required that they do as much damage to the People's enemies as they could before the end.

  But then it had been an American man-of-war that had responded to the sinking. And not just any American man of-war, but one of the new ghost ships about which so many wild rumors gathered.

  He should have taken his shots and then immediately disengaged.

  He hadn't, however. He had chosen to linger in the shelter of the Nationalist survivors, trusting in the Westerner's perplexing, yet convenient, military compassion to shield him from the lashback of their sophisticated weaponry.

  He would run after his torpedoes had struck.

  Only, his torpedoes had not struck. And now there was no place to run.

  There were helicopters out there, systematically boxing him up within a growing network of active and passive sonobuoys.

  There was something else out there as well. Shortly after outrunning the torpedoes, the propeller beats of the American destroyer had faded into an ominous silence Now there were only faint traces of sound filtering in from the limits of their hydrophone range Spectral transitones as soft as a wolf's footsteps in the snow The American was wanly circling back, turning the hunter into the hunted '

  That cowardly son of a bitch, ' Dix Beltrain pronounced each syllable of the epithet with careful venom, "is just hanging out there under those life rafts "

  "Not cowardly as much as extremely pragmatic, Dix He knows we can't get at him without killing some of those men " Amanda raked back her sweat-damp hair and smiled grimly

  "I wonder if he's ever read Monsarrat "

  "Who, ma'am?"

  "Nicholas Monsarrat He was an English author who served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War In one of his books, The Cruel Sea, a British corvette captain is confronted with a dilemma similar to this one

  "His ship has detected a German U-boat directly beneath a group of sinking survivors, and he is left with a choice He can drop his depth charges, destroying the U-boat, but also killing the survivors Or he can hold his fire, allowing the survivors to live, but also allowing the U-boat to escape and sink other Allied vessels and take other Allied lives "

  The tactical officer glanced back at the Large Screen Display. Inhaling deeply, he let his breath escape in a short "whoo "

  "So what did he decide?" he inquired "He chose to drop, Dix. Fortunately for us, military tech has changed some since then. We may have some other options.

  "

  "Surface transitory Bearing two four zero." The Red attack boat captain looked up at the call from his sonar operator.

  "Surface impact. Possible torpedo drop. "

  Had the Americans decided to sacrifice the Nationalists?

  "Torpedo going active on the bearing "

  They had. It was the only militarily sound choice that could be made.

  "Torpedo is acquiring. Bearing is constant."

  "Engines ahead full. Come right to three one zero Five degrees. down bubble. Set depth to two hundred meters'"

  Futile act Futile! The American antisubmarine rocket had delivered a Mark 50 Barracuda torpedo as its payload The deadliest of the deadly There would be no contest in this duel, but the game must be played out until the end

  The V ROC round had impacted some distance from the Man's position, giving the attack boat a chance to work up to a fleeing speed Radical turns to port and starboard followed, creating diversionary knuckles in the submarine's wake Steep dives to hunt sound masking thermoclines High angle powered ascents to climb out of the seeking weapon's cone of acquisition The full spectrum of escape and evasion maneuvers available in the subwar lexicon The Barracuda had a counter for each move The Han had neither the sophistication necessary to fox the incoming Mark 50 nor the performance required to open the range and evade The Red crew gradually became aware of an intermittent outside irritation--piercing almost superaudial, and growing in strength Ultrasonic sound waves were striking the Han's hull, the sonar impulses being produced by the seeker head of the converging torpedo A hypertech Deathwatch beetle in the submarine's bulkheads ticked off the last minutes The spacing between the impulses shortened and they heard a new sound the hot hiss of a torpedo propulsor Somewhere within the Han's internal darkness, someone whispered his peace to a God his society forbade him to acknowledge The hissing grew in intensity, softly overwhelming, until suddenly it ended in a resounding slam

  But there was no shattering concussion No rending of metal No explosive inrush of water Just the trailing rattle of the dud torpedo frame rolling a
way along the hull The crew of the Han exchanged glances and began to wonder if they might yet survive "That unarmed fish flushed him out, ma'am," Beltrain reported "I've gotta read this guy Monsarrat's book "

  "Come by my cabin sometime and I'll loan it to you, Dix What's his position?"

  "Bearing three four oh relative off the bow Range is twelve miles Heading three hundred and fifty degrees true Depth three five oh Speed twenty six knots "

  ' ' from the life raft group?"

  "About six miles to the north of them, ma'am. We have a safety margin."

  "Very good." Amanda keyed in to the surface-to-air circuit.

  "Gray Lady to Retainers. Kill him."

  "Okay, Gus, you heard the Lady. Spin ' up. We're rolling in."

  "Aye, aye, Lieutenant. We've got good links and locks.

  Positioning and drop points coming up on the HUD."

  They were over clean water again, well clear of the oil slick. As the Sea Comanche's nose came around to the north, luminescent grid patterns and targeting reticles seemed to materialize inside the tinted windscreen, the targeting path that would guide them in to the drop point. In the distance, the repetitive flash of Retainer Zero Two's navigational beacon could also be seen.

  "Zero Two, this is Zero One. I've got you to the south.

  Let's set up a convergence here and whipsaw this son of a bitch between us."

  "Roger, Zero One. Coming in."

  "Set for snake-acquisition pattern. Set depth for two five oh. Drop at two miles."

  "Roger, Zero One."

  "I've only got one unit on board, Nance, so you'll have the follow-through. I will disengage to the east. You will overfly to the north and reverse back into the contact to reengage."

  "Will comply."

  "You got all that, Gus?" Arkady called back into the rear cockpit.

  "Got it, sir. The fish is hot. Verifying that warhead and drop safeties are off."

  The waves shimmered fifty feet beneath the helo's belly.

  On the Heads-Up Display the drop hack crawled in under Zero One's nose as she bore down on her release point. Over the radio band Nancy Delany called out her run. Her voice was tightly controlled. Arkady knew that this would be the first time she had ever delivered live ordnance on a living target.

  "Coming in on drop point. Three, two, one ... drop!"

  Its weapon released, Zero Two flared upward and climbed.

  "Zero Two is out. Zero One is in. Three, two, and one. Torpedo away."

  Streaming its drogue chute, Arkady's Mark 50 hit the water in a clean dive, vanishing beneath the surface with a metallic flash.

  "Both units running hot, straight, and normal," Grestov itch reported laconically as Zero One turned away.

  There was nothing else to be said. The Han was trapped between two converging torpedoes. No matter which way the sub turned, she would be turning into her own death, leaving her absolutely no place to go.

  The systems operator pulled the gain bar of the sonar audio output all the way down and waited.

  A patch of ocean suddenly went a hazy gray as a million water droplets were shock-bounced off the surface. An instant later, a towering geyser of white foam lifted into the sky.

  "Yeah, babe!" Grestovitch heard his pilot exclaim with a quietly fierce satisfaction. "We nailed that sucker!"

  Just to make sure, Gus kicked the audio back up.

  The reverberation of the blast rang through the local sea environment, but the sonobuoys had already acquired a massive transitory. The unmistakable shriek of high-pressure air boiling into ballast tanks. The death scream of a mortally wounded submarine.

  "Confirm that, Lieutenant. Detecting emergency blow.

  He's coming up!"

  "All right." Arkady lifted his hands off the controller grips for a second, clinching his fists at shoulder height in a brief gesture of victory. "Gray Lady! There she blows! She's surfacing!"

  "Acknowledged, Zero One." He could hear cheering in the background beyond Amanda's voice. "Keep him covered and keep us advised. We are moving in to pick up the frigate's crew now. Very well done, Retainers!"

  Arkady grinned. The queen had bestowed the touch of her hand.

  A widening circle of foam formed on the ocean's surface.

  A wedge of turbulence appeared within it, and a great black ax blade suddenly cut the waves.

  "She's on the surface now," Arkady narrated over the open mike, bringing Zero One into a hover just off site.

  "Looks like damage to the forward hull. Sail damage. One of the clearwater planes is gone ... Decks awash now. She doesn't look very stable. They'd better get the crew off that thing fast ... She's settling by the bow! She's going down!

  Oh, Jeez! Gus, get the camera on this!"

  The inward rush of water through the torpedo gash was winning out over the outward flow from the ballast tanks.

  The growing weight was radically shifting the Man's center of balance forward, pushing it back into a dive angle, pushing it beyond a dive angle.

  The submarine's hull began to pitch into the vertical, the bow and sail sinking while the stern rose. The cruciform tail fins broke water and lifted almost majestically into the sky, the great bronze scimitar blades of the propeller still revolving slowly.

  It was both mesmerizing and appalling. Arkady found himself sidling the helo in closer, warily circling the wavering column of steel. As he came around to what had been the deck side of the hull, he noticed movement and a thin trickle of steam.

  Just above the waterline, a hatch had swung open. At its mouth, a figure in a mustard-yellow life jacket struggled like a half-crushed insect, billows of white vapor swirling out past him. With a final convulsive lunge, the figure rolled out into the sea. Feebly, he began to swim away from the doomed ship.

  There was more movement within the hatchway. Another man was trying to fight his way clear. "Come on," Arkady found himself murmuring. "Come on. Come on!"

  This one didn't make it. The hatch rim dipped beneath the surface.

  Arkady jerked his eyes away, trying to cut off the image of what must be happening in the gut of that hatchway: the choking inrush of the sea, the merciless pressure that pushed away from the light and into the final darkness.

  "There she goes, Lieutenant," Gus said.

  With a stately deliberation, the submarine's stern was disappearing beneath the sea. Sinking vertically, it was gone in a matter of seconds, leaving nothing behind but a swirl and a flurry of bubbles in the water.

  That, and a single figure adrift in a life jacket.

  "Gray Lady, this is Zero One. The Han is a goner. I repeat, the Red boat has gone down. We have a single survivor in the water. I am orbiting him at this time."

  "Zero One, this is Gray Lady," Amanda replied, an intentness in her voice. "Drop a smoke float and hold station over the survivor until we can get a boat out there. We're going to need to talk to this guy."

  36 MILES WEST OF KUME SHIMA ISLAND 1404 HOURS ZONE TIME; AUGUST 19, 2006

  Rescue operations were still in full sway aboard the Cunningham.

  Half-emptied life rafts clustered around the destroyer's flanks, and all three of her missile-handling cranes were deployed and lifting Zodiac boat loads of survivors up to the weather decks.

  On those decks, a rescue assembly line had been established.

  Hospital corpsmen ran triage, separating the wounded and injured from the stunned and shocked. The former were given into the ministrations of Doc Golden, while the latter were moved along to the next phase.

  Cunningham hands led the Nationalist sailors belowdecks to the showers.

  Hot water and gasoline cleared away the clinging residue of the oil slick and fresh clothing was issued.

  Then they were taken to the crew's lounge and mess deck, there to be given food, hot coffee, and a quiet time to become reacquainted with being alive.

  The Nationalist Navy personnel were given something else as well by the men and women of the Duke. A multitude of gentle sla
ps on the back, acknowledging nods, and quiet words of support, understood even if the language wasn't. If fate had turned just a little bit differently, they all could have been left floating around out there.

  "We're going to have to get her down into the hangar bay in a hurry, sir," Zero One's crew chief yelled over the declining whine of the helicopter's turbines. "We've got medevac helos coming in from Seventh."

  "Roger, Chief. Carry on," Arkady replied, levering himself up and out of the Sea Comanche. A RADCON (Radiation and Contamination) Team circled the helicopter, waving Geiger-counter probes over the fuselage surfaces, scanning for any radioactive agents that might have escaped from the sinking Chinese nuke.

  Arkady was more than a little pleased when the team leader gave him a thumbs-up and pulled his people back.

  Standing with one foot still in a fuselage step indent, Arkady peered into the rear cockpit.

  "What it is, Mr. Grestovitch, is a successful mission."

  Their hands came up and met in a ritual palm slap.

  "Another day in toward five and out, Lieutenant," the S.O. replied sardonically.

  "Still not planning to re-up?"

  "I would have to be out of my fucking mind, sir."

  Arkady laughed and dropped to the antiskid decking.

  Across the helipad, Lieutenant (j. g.) Nancy Delany leaned against the crash-containment barrier, almost lost in the bulk of her flight suit and survival vest.

  As Arkady crossed over to her, he noted that the quiet natured brunette was looking even more somber than usual.

  It was understandable. She had served aboard the Duke throughout the Argentine campaign and had seen some hard duty. What she had never done before was to drop the hammer on another human being.

  "Well, Nancy. Paint yourself a sub under your cockpit."

  She looked up, and her brown eyes widened. "Me, sir?

  We both dropped on the sub."

  "Yeah, but I got a good look at that boat when it came to the surface.

  You dropped off her bow, and as far as I could tell, all of the damage was in her forward aspects. My call is that your unit made the kill, and that's how I'm writing it up. Welcome to the history books, Lieutenant."