by Joe Buff
"Concur," Wilson said. "XO, since this was your idea, you take the conn."
"Aye aye," Jeffrey said. "This is the XO, I have the Conn."
"Aye aye," the watch standers said.
"Helm," Jeffrey said, "listen up. We only get one chance with this. I want to put on a quick burst of speed and then drift between mines 31 and 32 at an angle of forty-five degrees to the current. As our pivot point crosses dead center between the mines, use our remaining steerageway to come to port to keep our stern from trouble. When we're completely through, turn to starboard. Face north-northeast, bow-on to the current, and hold us there."
"Understood, sir," Meltzer said.
"Okay," Jeffrey said. "Here we go. Helm, using auxiliary propulsors only, rotate the boat onto a three three five heading."
"Heading three three five, aye," Meltzer said.
"Now we're starting to be driven downstream," Jeffrey said. "On my mark, go to ahead two thirds smartly. We're deep enough the pump-jet won't cavitate."
"On your mark ahead two thirds smartly, aye."
"Ready … Ready … Mark."
"Maneuvering acknowledges ahead two thirds smartly, sir."
"Very well," Jeffrey said. "Steady as you go … Steady … All right, we have enough momentum. Helm, all stop, stop the shaft, then feather the shaft to minimize our drag."
"All stop," Meltzer said, "stop the shaft, feather the shaft, aye … Maneuvering acknowledges."
"Now let us drift without propulsion noise or wake," Jeffrey said. "This current turbulence should mask our lateral pressure wave at such slow speed. Helm, on my next mark use left standard rudder, make your course two nine zero … Mark."
"Left standard rudder, two nine zero, aye … Steering two nine zero, sir."
"Steady," Jeffrey said, "steady … Our stern's drifting too much, hard left rudder!"
"Hard left rudder, aye."
"Make your course two six zero."
"Make my course two six zero, aye," Meltzer said. "Steering two six zero, sir."
"Okay," Jeffrey said, "okay, that's better, we've shimmied through. Now take our way off, Helm. Back one third smartly. Right standard rudder, make your course zero two zero."
"Back one third smartly, aye, make my course zero two zero, aye. Maneuvering acknowledges back one third smartly. Steering zero two zero, sir."
"Very well, Helm," Jeffrey said. "All stop, hover on manual."
"Maneuvering acknowledges all stop, sir. Hovering on manual."
"Very well, Helm," Jeffrey said.
"Good job, XO," Wilson said.
Good job, Jeffrey Fuller, Ilse silently cheered.
Still in the game, Jeffrey told himself, as Challenger loitered past the line of mines, holding position all too near the next one. This close inshore they'd have conventional warheads, not nuclear. Directed energy probably. This far down, even with a foot-plus-thick ceramic hull, a big shaped charge meant certain death.
It made sense the minefield began out past the 3,000-foot curve — since maximum effective magnetic-anomaly detector range was some five hundred yards, this was the greatest depth at which surface and bottom sensors combined would offer perfect coverage.
"Master 14 aspect change," Lieutenant Sessions called. Jeffrey's TMA team confirmed that one of the enemy surface contacts had just altered course.
"Captain," Jeffrey said as he studied his plots, "on its present heading Master 14 will pass directly overhead."
"Turn off all fans and air scrubbers," Wilson said. "Turn off all freezer compressors." COB acknowledged. With twenty warm, sweaty, heavy-breathing bodies in such close confinement, the CACC quickly got stuffy.
"Sonar," Jeffrey said, "any blade rate difference on that contact? Could they have heard our fancy footwork just before?"
"No blade rate difference, Commander," Sessions said. "No sign they've detected us."
"Target classification?" Jeffrey said.
"We're getting clearer tonals now. She's German, sir, Klasse 103B destroyer." Sessions spoke briefly to one of his staff. "From our tapes she sounds like the Rommel."
"An aged ship, but deadly," Commodore Morse said. Jeffrey thought he seemed awfully relaxed, then remembered Morse had been through this before, against Argentina's General Belgrano and her escorts, in the Falklands War.
"Captain," Jeffrey said, "Rommel hasn't been pinging like the other patrols. Her slow speed suggests she's retrofitted with a towed array."
"She's still coming right for us," Sessions said.
"Sit tight, people," Wilson said. "We're boxed in by the mines." Morse actually smiled. "There's naught to do but pray."
In a few minutes Rommel passed close by to starboard— obviously the mines were programmed to ignore Axis shipping.
"Captain," Jeffrey said, "we're getting scattered blue-green laser pulses, looks like a variable-depth LIDAR projector, trailing deep."
"Enough to paint our hull?" Wilson said.
"It's touch and go, sir," Jeffrey said. "If it was our own side's equipment, return signal strength would be right at the detection threshold."
"Any change in the destroyer's behavior?" Wilson said.
"Mechanical transient!" a sonarman shouted. "Range and bearing match Master 14!"
"What is it?" Jeffrey said. "And lower your voice."
"Object in the water," Sessions called. "Probable depth charge! … Confirmed, confirmed, depth charge coming down!"
"Phone Talker," Wilson said, "collision alarm. All hands rig for depth charge."
"Gimme a status update, Sonar," Jeffrey said. "What's the depth charge depth? How far off is it?"
"Passing through twelve hundred feet now, sir," Sessions said. "It's a noisy one, it's tumbling … It's drifting right in our direction … Second depth charge coming down!"
"COB," Wilson said, "can we get out of the way?"
"Not by much, sir," COB said, "not if you want to keep quiet and stay in one piece."
"Even if they miss," Jeffrey said, "we'll get sympathetic detonations from the CAPTORs all around us."
"First one's passing through two thousand feet!" There was a bang outside the hull, then the smell of urine as a seaman peed his pants. Sessions turned to Jeffrey and grinned boyishly. "That sounded like an empty spray can imploding."
Jeffrey snorted. "Rommel just threw out the garbage." Jeffrey glanced at Ilse as she dared exhale. She looked on the verge of giggling in relief.
"All right, everybody," Jeffrey said, "back to work." He turned to the embarrassed seaman. "Go get cleaned up. I've done that in my time. It's a natural reflex, don't sweat it."
"Man," someone said, "I'm wide-awake now."
"Enough, people," Jeffrey said. "Sonar, what's Master 14 doing?"
"Steaming as before, sir. I think we're okay."
"Good," Jeffrey said. Morse smiled at Jeffrey. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"
"The last thing the bad guys expect," Jeffrey said, "is an Allied sub deep in their minefield." He chuckled. "That's why we're here."
Ilse was really sweating now in the odorous CACC. Fifty mines so far on their route plus two more thread-the-needle sprints. They'd practiced some of this in simulations, but that was play-pretend with made-up data. Now Challenger was utterly committed and this was partly Ilse's idea. She looked at the large-scale terrain display once more. There it was to the north, the bulge in the continental shelf, remnant of the 130-millionyear-old geological stretching that split India from Africa. Beyond the huge plateau, in deeper water, lay three seamounts, extinct underwater volcanoes, labeled by the soundings at their peaks. Each projected high from off the ocean floor, almost 1,000 meters deep around their bases. Mount 183 rose dead ahead of Challenger, Mount 146 loomed ten miles to the north, and Mount 98, the tallest, sat on a small plateau of its own ten more miles east of 146. Here, amid these seamounts, the bottom currents from the Agulhas Current were channeled, cornered, and forced to divide. Here fluid turbulence scoured the bottom, sweeping round the seamounts' flanks, then
grew chaotic in their lee before resuming course. Here, Ilse had concluded, Challenger should lurk. At the base of Mount 183, amid the stones and shells and boulders, constant flow noise would conceal the vessel's presence, boundary separation round the terrain would scramble enemy Doppler, and the hull would go unnoticed.
The steady movement of the water would let the sub keep up three knots to cool her reactor, ram-scooping cold seawater through her main condenser. It would also help her maintain steerageway, all while hovering stationary over the ground with auxiliary thrusters.
The drift and mix of currents would disperse the vessel's thermal plume. Upwellings of ocean nutrients, lifted along the forward face of Mount 183, would feed vertebrates and phytoplankton near the surface, increasing turbidity and so decreasing LIDAR range. The seamount's massive bulk would shield the boat from enemy sensors, and the broken contours would help cloak Challenger with confused reverb and shifting horizontal water density gradients.
Ilse knew that these same conditions foiled the use of the Boer sound surveillance system, generically called SOSUS, which was why the seamount peaks and valleys were so heavily mined. To everything else was added acoustic interference from heavy industry along the South African coast, mechanical vibrations through the earth, more noise confusing hydrophones near the bottom. A more perfect hiding place, Ilse told herself, for an SSN crew with the nerve for it, could hardly be imagined. But Rommel made one thing clear: pinned down here among the CAPTORs, beneath the constant Axis ASW patrols, if once detected Challenger would surely be destroyed.
Ilse eyed her screens again. She checked and double-checked the boat's indicated position against the charts, the gravimeter, and the data she'd brought with her. Finally she cleared her throat.
"Commander Fuller, this is the spot."
"Very well, Oceanographer," Jeffrey said. "Helm, all stop. Hover on manual."
"Maneuvering acknowledges all stop," Meltzer said. "Hovering on manual."
"Captain," Jeffrey said, "with your permission we'll get rolling."
"Proceed, XO," Wilson said. "Godspeed, and I relieve you."
"You have the conn," Jeffrey said.
"This is the captain, I have the conn."
The watch standers acknowledged.
"COB," Wilson said, "we're safe enough for now, and the equipment and crew effectiveness require it. Reactivate the air-conditioning, please." COB acknowledged. Jeffrey, Ilse, and Meltzer stood up. The navigator took over at Fire Control, and the relief pilot sat in as helmsman. Commodore Morse walked the departing threesome down the passageway toward the Ocean Interface Hull Module at the aft end of the accommodation spaces. On the way they stepped over supply crates, lashed to the deck and covered with floorboards. Then, there in front of them, ten paces before the beginning of the reactor compartment shielding, was a large sphere with a hatch in its side. The hatch was open, revealing a ladder.
Jeffrey stepped into the sphere, then looked up through the massive hatch of the mating collar. Shajo Clayton grinned down at him.
"Checklists are almost completed," Clayton said.
"Best of luck," Morse said, shaking everyone's hand. "Remember that saying from somewhere or other: He who dares wins." He looked Ilse right in the eye. "And she who dares wins too."
Ilse smiled. "You're enjoying all this, aren't you, Commodore?"
"Busman's holiday," Morse said. "Old British custom, you know"
"Let's move," Clayton said. "We're behind schedule, we'll lose the tide." Jeffrey let Ilse and Meltzer precede him up the ladder. He shook hands with Morse again.
"I want to hear all about it when you're back," Morse said.
"Wish us luck," Jeffrey said, then remembered that Morse just did that. Jeffrey climbed the ladder and went through the hatch. Now he stood in another sphere, the hyperbaric lockout chamber within Lockheed Martin's sixty-five-foot-long, fifty-five-ton Advanced SEAL Delivery System minisub, the ASDS. Above his head was the minisub's roof hatch. One SEAL, the senior chief of Clayton's boat team, was in the little two-man control compartment forward. Meltzer joined the chief, taking the other position. Jeffrey and Ilse followed Clayton aft, into the transport compartment. Clayton's five shooters were all sitting there, dressed in black, pumped up and excited.
"We saved the two front seats for you," Clayton said. "Terrific," Jeffrey said. "I hate bulkhead seats."
"If you get seasick," Clayton said, "just keep facing forward."
Jeffrey chuckled. Ilse made a face.
"Now," Clayton said, "let's think about this. I'm in tactical command of the mission, Meltzer's in charge of the ASDS, and you're senior officer present afloat, except we aren't afloat yet. Then there's Captain Wilson. So who gives whom permission to get under way?"
"We should go through proper channels," Jeffrey said.
"Um, yeah," Clayton said. "But from the top down, or vice versa?"
"Maybe we should form a committee," Ilse said from across the narrow aisle. "You know, to study the question." She made eye contact with Jeffrey, and he thought she looked very beautiful. The black hood she'd pulled up really did something for her.
"Is ten a quorum?" Jeffrey said. "You can be chairwoman, tie breaker." Easy, Jeffrey told himself. We could all be dead in an hour or two. That's no reason to flirt. There was a dull thump from forward, another from aft. Then Meltzer's voice came over the intercom. "Hatch secured, swimmer delivery vehicles secured, SDV tow bridle in place. We have a window in the threat TMA, Challenger now popping up."
"I don't feel anything," Jeffrey said a little later. "Do you?"
"No," Clayton said. "You don't if everything works right." Meltzer came back on. "We're at two hundred fifty feet. Ocean Interface conformal hangar is flooded and equalized, Challenger's pressure-proof bay doors are open. ASDS ready to disembark."
Jeffrey picked up a mike. "We're all set back here."
"That was all so quiet," Ilse said.
"That's the idea," Jeffrey said. He fastened his seat belt and Ilse did the same.
"They should put pictures up or something," Ilse said. "It's like a subway without windows in here."
"Travel posters," Jeffrey said, smiling at her again. The ASDS lurched, shimmied, rose, and moved forward.
"We're under way," Meltzer said. "Challenger's dropping down."
"Any sign we've been spotted?" Jeffrey said into the mike. After a pause Meltzer answered. "Negative. I'll turn on the data repeater, you can watch." An LCD screen lit up: depth, course and speed, a nay chart, a sonar display. Jeffrey couldn't help but study the data. He reminded himself he should trust Meltzer — the kid was very well trained. So was the SEAL, in effect now chief of the boat. But Jeffrey couldn't help it. "Pilot, can you give us the last tactical picture they downlinked from Challenger?"
"One sec, Commander," Meltzer said. More info appeared on the screen, a slightly stale snapshot from Challenger's powerful sensors. Jeffrey examined the picture: the seamounts, the plateau, the coast. Red diamonds were everywhere, surface ship contacts. Their speed vectors ran through his head. He tried to relax, just a passenger now, but he simply couldn't help it. Another voice came on the intercom, the SEAL chief copilot. "We're rounding Mount 183. Commencing approach to the objective. We're starting a tape to put through our transducers. Do you want to hear it back there?"
Jeffrey palmed the mike again. "Yeah, play us some slow dancing." That might calm him down. A whale song filled the compartment.
"Briefing folders, everybody," Clayton said, handing them out. "Last chance for any questions, and your bright ideas."
The ASDS put on some up-bubble, heading toward shallower depth. Nearer the surface the sub surged and heaved, too small to escape the wave action of the manmade hurricane topside.
"Hang on," the SEAL copilot said. "It's rough out there with the storm." The ASDS pitched and rolled even harder. Jeffrey saw the depth gauge fluctuate as each wave propagated past, piling on pressure in turn, the wave height aggravated by conflict between the
Antarctic swells from one direction and the high winds from the other. Abruptly the minisub aimed sharply upward, leveled off, and there was a loud fluting sound from the overhead.
"Compressed air venting," Meltzer's voice said as they dived back down. "We'll do that again in another few minutes. Real whales stay under awhile, Ilse said." Jeffrey turned in his seat. "Can you tell from the recording, Ilse? Are we a boy whale or a girl whale?"
"Commander Fuller," Meltzer's voice said a few minutes later. "Can you come forward, please? We may have a problem."
Jeffrey got up and went through the lockout chamber into the control compartment. He had to bend his head — the ASDS was only eight feet high on the outside. The miniCACC was cramped, switch banks and monitors everywhere, dominated by the four 21inch LCDs and big joy stick of the integrated control and display system.
"What's up?" Jeffrey said.
Meltzer pointed to the broadband sonar, the tonals, the TMA plot. "This new contact, Master 18. It's been acting like it's following us."
"Hmmm," Jeffrey said. He looked at the traces on the tactical picture, then examined the bottom chart. "We're paralleling the two-hundred-fathom curve now, the south edge of that big plateau. Could be he is too, part of his patrol routine."
"But he changed speed — he's closing the range. And on this course, two five five true, he's pooped constantly by the waves."
"No one would do that by choice," Jeffrey said. "What kind of ship?"
"A Warrior-class patrol craft, sir, just four hundred tons."
"They're not meant for ASW," Jeffrey said. "Last we knew they just had cannon, machine guns, and antiaircraft missiles … But they can do thirty-five knots. They outmaneuver us even in this weather, even when we're well submerged … So let's see what he's up to. I'll stay."
"Hello," the SEAL copilot said a little later. "More company. Designate this Master 19." A new line was descending his waterfall. The SEAL began running a new TMA. Soon Jeffrey saw another red diamond pop onto the tactical screen. "Classification?" Jeffrey said.
"Sachsen-class destroyer," Meltzer said. "By Blohm and Voss, no more than two years old."