by Joe Buff
"We can use the gravimeter again," Ilse said. "Can't we?" Beck watched the next rise coming up. It was higher than the first one, and the back side dropped more steeply.
"Pilot," Eberhard said, "starboard ten rudder, steer zero four five."
"Zero four five, jawohl," Coomans said.
"There's the other wreck on the chart," Jeffrey said. "This one's supposed to be a Royal Navy destroyer from World War One."
"Master One aspect change!" Kathy said. "Master One turning to starboard."
"New course is zero four five," Bell said.
"Helm, make your course zero four five."
"Sir," Ilse said. "That takes Deutschland further from the upcoming wreck."
"Concur," Bell said. "Our gravimeter resolution will not discriminate targets quickly enough this time."
"I know, XO. I'm sure that's what Eberhard plans."
"Captain, if he can gain adequate separation, he can hit us with a nuclear torpedo. The nearest Swedish border is over three hundred miles away, protected by tall mountains in Norway."
"I know, XO. We have a fifty-fifty chance of guessing right: Is it Deutschland at the wreck, or is it the decoy?"
Both ships were very close to Bergen now. The wind was blowing east. East of Bergen was Oslo, Norway's capital, twice as large.
"Brilliant decoys loaded in tubes six and eight," Beck said. "Flank speed, and courses, preset."
"Very well, Einzvo."
Beck watched his screens once more. The ridge approached quickly. Deutschland topped the rise.
"Open outer doors, tubes six and eight. . . . Tube six, los. Tube eight, los."
"Both tubes fired."
"Pilot, port thirty rudder."
Coomans acknowledged, even more confident than last time, almost cocky. Deutschland banked very hard.
"Both decoys operating properly," Haffner called. "Running steady at fifty-three point three knots, and emulating Deutschland's flank speed noises." Deutschland herself lost way. Eberhard ordered the ship to stop and hide against the wreck.
"Captain," Kathy said. "Master One appears to have launched a decoy. Contact has split in two."
"Confirmed," Bell said. "One contact maintaining flank speed on course three five zero. The other also maintaining flank speed, on zero four five."
"So he didn't use the wreck at all this time." Again Jeffrey thought of Bergen and Oslo. He thought of Challenger's crew and priceless intelligence payload, and the fact his ship was not expendable. Which sonar contact should we follow?
"Which one do we follow, sir?" Bell said.
Jeffrey hesitated, agonized.
"Captain?" Meltzer said.
Jeffrey decided to punt. "We'll split the difference, folks. Helm, head down the middle. Make your course zero two three."
Meltzer acknowledged; Bell nodded—he concurred. "Fire Control, snap shot, ADCAP in tube one. Onto course three five zero, shoot."
"Set. Stand by. Fire."
"Snap shot, tube three, zero four five, shoot!"
"Set. Stand by. Fire."
"Both units running normally," Kathy said.
"Sir," Bell said. "You said before this is pointless. He'll stop them with antitorpedo rockets."
"I know." Jeffrey smiled. "The ADCAPs are twenty knots faster than us. They'll run ahead and tell us what to do.... Decoys don't have AT rockets, XO. Eberhard has to shoot. Whichever contact shoots, that's Eberhard."
"Captain," Beck said. "Challenger has fired a Mark forty-eight Improved ADCAP at each of our decoys. Weapons are overtaking the decoys. Challenger maintaining flank speed on course zero two three."
"Perfect, Einzvo. Perfect."
"What's he waiting for?" Jeffrey said. "Our ADCAPs are getting too close."
"Both ADCAPs still chasing the decoys, sir," Beck said. "Challenger still making flank speed on zero two three. . . . Separation from Deutschland increasing rapidly."
"We're in Fuller's baffles now. He'll never hear our eels, till it's too late." Tubes two and four were reloaded with Sea Lions, with maximum yields preset. The sonar time delay off the left wall of the Trough and back was almost sixty seconds now.
"Open the outer doors, tubes two and four."
Beck relayed the commands. "Separation approaching six thousand meters, still increasing rapidly."
"Tube two, los! Tube four, los!"
"The ADCAPs are in easy range of his AT rockets now. What is he waiting for?"
"Captain," Bell said. "What if neither one is Deutschland?" Jeffrey swallowed. "Helm, hard left rudder!" Challenger swung to port. The blind spot in her baffles swung to starboard, away from the wreck.
"Torpedoes in the water!" Kathy shouted. "Two Sea Lions, one nine zero, closing speed seven five knots!"
"COB, use the side thrusters! Meltzer, get our bow left fast!" The fates of a million civilians in Norway hinge on the rate of this turn.
"Challenger turning hard left," Beck shouted. "Challenger closing the range to Deutschland rapidly."
Eberhard cursed, then ordered Coomans to get underway to increase the separation. Beck watched the plot as the Sea Lions both chased Challenger, and she led the eels round to the left, trying to catch up with Deutschland. The Sea Lions weren't in lethal range of the target yet, but the separation from Deutschland was still adequate. . . . It wasn't too late to end this all right here, just as Beck had intended: Kill Challenger and Jeffrey Fuller and God knows how many innocent people on land.
Ilse gripped her armrests as Challenger tore in a circle at flank speed—Eberhard got in the first shot, after all.
The bank of the turn was so steep, Challenger's rudder began to act like stern-planes on full dive. Meltzer tried to pull up.
"We're in a snap roll!" Meltzer shouted; Challenger was out of control. The master ship control display showed the bow aim at the seafloor. The rear photonics sensor showed the pump jet churn up the bottom muck. The two atomic Sea Lions gained on Challenger'
s tail by the second. Both Sea Lions went active.
Beck watched the tactical plot in morbid fascination: Challenger's in-extremis turning radius, versus Deutschland's acceleration and the kill zone of the eels. Which outcome meant that Beck would win, and which that he would lose? What did he want endangered more, his body or his soul? "Separation now inadequate for nuclear weapons!"
"Einzvo, safe the warheads! Sever the wires! Pilot, maintain flank speed! Port thirty rudder, cut across Challenger's wake as she turns! Make your course three three zero." Toward the left side of the Trough.
Beck safed the weapons. He felt relief, then felt doubled inner shame, both for what he'
d tried to do and for
his gladness that it failed—but throughout, he'd done his duty.
"We're inside Deutschland's self-kill zone!" Bell shouted. "His weapons have to be safed!" COB and Meltzer had barely recovered from the snap roll; the most immediate crisis had passed.
"Sorry, Captain," Meltzer said.
"Jesus," COB said, "that was close."
"Master One separation now forty-six hundred yards," Bell said.
"He-regained his lead and then some," Jeffrey said. "He's also learned his turning radius is better than ours."
"We're all out of conventional torpedoes, too. Eberhard has to know that, sir—else you'd'
ve launched a third one at the wreck along with the other two chasing those decoys." Bell was smart, and fast—Jeffrey hadn't seen that last point quite as quickly; he drew some comfort from Bell's capable backstopping. We've come a long way together since that argument we had.
"Concur, XO, and we're much too close to Norway to use any nuclear fish. . . . Eberhard holds all the cards. Our options just keep getting narrower and narrower." SIX HOURS LATER.
At the command console, Jeffrey belched. He'd eaten lunch too fast, and gotten acid stomach. His bruised chest and his old leg wound still ached, and his face still hurt from the burns received in the Sound.
Good. The last thing he wanted to be
was relaxed. The discomfort kept him on edge, kept him focused.
Ilse had grabbed another catnap, then eaten with Jeffrey, alone in the wardroom together. Now she was back at her console, too. The sexual tension between them during the meal—their first private time since they had both believed they'd die on the missile lab raid—had been electric, unspoken but unmistakable. Mutual desire and anticipation for the future, though intangible, seemed very real. For this, too, Jeffrey was glad. It helped him stay wide awake, and reminded him he had something to live for. Could Ilse become the soul mate he'd never before thought he might have, a fellow warrior of the opposite gender, the two of them a couple who braved the fires of battle side by side?
Now, in public, he and Ilse were strictly business—a
lot had to happen before they could get back to such daydreams. Jeffrey pondered his screens; the relentless stern chase continued. As he watched, Deutschland and then Challenger dashed out of the north end of the Norwegian Trough. Both ships still hugged the bottom, in water thirty-three hundred feet deep. They were down in the Shetland Channel now, entering the Norwegian Sea, forced to head north-northeast at this point by a line of ancient volcanic ridges to port. Eberhard was undoubtedly using echoes off the closest ridge to keep tabs on Jeffrey behind him.
Over the last few hours, Deutschland had slowly widened her lead to six thousand yards. Jeffrey eyed the on-line nautical chart. This was the moment he'd waited for. The gale above now blew northwest, toward the ice cap and northernmost Greenland. The surface currents here formed a slow counterclockwise gyre. Airborne fallout would blow to a desolate wilderness. Seaborne fission waste would circulate with the gyre, as lighter elements floated and aged and heavy ones fell to the seafloor.
"Captain," Sessions called from the nay console. "Advise we are now two hundred nautical miles from Norway, the nearest friendly or occupied land."
"Captain," Bell recited formally, "advise rules of engagement now leave us weapons free with atomic warheads."
"Very well, Nay. Very well, Fire Control." Jeffrey and Bell went through the procedures to arm tactical nuclear Mark 88's and have them loaded in all four working torpedo tubes, the starboard-side tubes, odd numbers one through seven.
"Preset warhead yields, all weapons, to maximum yield." Bell acknowledged and relayed commands.
"Make tubes one, three, five, and seven ready in all respects." Jeffrey decided to wait. Much as he wanted to get in the first salvo, he also wanted just a bit more target separation. He was very far from home, and any further damage to his battered ship could well mean total ruin.
"Captain," Beck said, "advise separation now is fifty-five hundred meters." Beck called the master weapons status page onto his main console screen. Nuclear Sea Lions were loaded in tubes one through eight, and armed—the port-side autoloader had gotten jury-rigged repairs at Trondheim; the starboard-side tubes still needed manual loading by chain fall.
"Very well, Einzvo. Set weapon yields, odd-numbered tubes, to minimum." Defensive, antitorpedo shots. "Set weapon yields, even-numbered tubes, to maximum." Offensive shots, against Challenger, who any moment would go weapons free by Allied ROEs. Beck repeated the orders for confirmation, then relayed commands to the weapons officer. He confirmed to the captain when the orders were carried out. Beck shuddered to think of the cataclysm to come: Any detonation in deep water was fifty times as destructive as in air—water was very rigid, and had a much higher speed of sound. At close enough range, a one-kiloton Sea Lion could do to Challenger what the Americans had done to Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Challenger's warheads, one tenth the size of Deutschland's, were deadly enough.
"It's time to finish Challenger off," Eberhard said. "Make tubes one through eight ready in all respects." "All tubes ready, Captain."
"Fuller won't hear it behind us. Open all outer tube doors."
"Outer doors are open." Beck was much happier now; they'd reached an isolated, unpopulated area, with ecologically favorable currents and winds. A good choice for the final battleground. The target separation for Deutschland's weapons was still narrow, but aggressive warshots followed by skillful tactical maneuvers might make up for that.
"Tube two," Eberhard ordered, "target Challenger, load sonar bearings, and los!" Ilse listened on her sonar headphones, while she studied data on the Norwegian Sea, and tried to refine Kathy's ray traces.
Ilse heard it; Kathy said it. "Torpedo in the water! Inbound torpedo bearing zero one five, a Sea Lion!"
It's started, Ilse told herself. The final confrontation, deep and with atomic weapons. Everyone in the CACC felt the tension mount.
Jeffrey ordered a nuclear countershot, then a turn away, due east. Meltzer had to use the rudder gently, so they wouldn't break the wire at flank speed—which didn't help them any to evade the inbound torpedo. This countershot had better be telling. Jeffrey had to husband his ammo carefully; Challenger's rate of fire was dangerously slow. Bell launched noisemakers and jammers, which were also running low.
Ilse heard the two torpedoes, one Axis and one friendly, their nerve-jarring racket Dopplered up or down as they came at her or receded. She heard the gurgling hiss of the chemical noisemakers, too, and the undulating siren scream of acoustic jammer pods. How can we possibly win? Deutschland has twice as many working tubes. Kathy reported that Deutschland had fired another Sea Lion. Deutschland changed course west, still making flank speed, and launched noisemakers and jammers. Jeffrey fired another fish, this one aimed at Deutschland. Bell launched more noisemakers and jammers, then Jeffrey ordered another turn, south. Deutschland launched a Sea Lion to intercept Jeffrey's incoming fish, then launched another to intercept Challenger.
Deutschland launched another weapon at Challenger, then made a hard turn north. Jeffrey .watched the tactical plot. There were seven nuclear torpedoes in the water, tearing in • all directions. Some chased Challenger, some chased Deutschland, some chased each other's torpedoes as nuclear counter-shots.
A sharp crack sounded through the hull. Jeffrey felt a big shove from astern, and the ocean all around was filled with terrible rumbles.
"Unit from tube one has detonated!" Bell said. "First incoming Sea Lion destroyed!" Aftershocks hit over and over, as the fireball shot for the surface, throbbing as it blew outward against the sea pressure, then collapsed, then rebounded hard: The blast echoed off the surface, then hit hard. The ocean heaved as the fireball broke the surface and drove into the sky. The blast echoed off the ridge terrain to port and then hit hard. Bell detonated another antitorpedo torpedo, and the punishment started again.
"Fire Control," Jeffrey yelled above the noise, "maximum yields, reload tubes one and three smartly!" Kathy said they'd lost sonar contact with Deutschland. The ocean shattered. Sledgehammers pounded Deutsch-land's hull. Fireball aftershocks hit again and again, then blast echoes off the surface and the ridge. Beck watched meaningful target data cease as the atomic sonar whiteouts blossomed. " Best guess for next snap shot at Challenger is due south, Captain."
"Too obvious. Let's bracket him." Eberhard ordered a two-eel spread; Beck complied. Another of Challenger's weapons went off. It snapped the wires to two of Deutschland's Sea Lions.
Jeffrey tried to visualize the action in his mind. The computer data was meaningless and stale. Somewhere in that maelstrom Sea Lions sought him. Somewhere beyond the fireballs and tortured bubble clouds, Deutschland would
launch more. Somewhere northeast a Sea Lion blew, set on maximum yield, lured perhaps by a noisemaker. Challenger rocked.
Jeffrey ordered a snap shot due north.
"Unit is running normally," Kathy said. Then she jotted. "Inbound torpedo. Sea Lion bearing zero six five! Range eight thousand yards and closing fast. Torpedo has gone active!"
Jeffrey heard the hard metallic dinggg. He ordered a defensive countershot; Bell acknowledged.
"If that inbound weapon's set at one KT," Bell said, "we won't intercept in time."
"Helm, hard left rudder. Make your co
urse two seven zero." West.
"Lost the wire, tube seven! Inbound weapon tracking us due west."
"Helm, hard right rudder!"
"Unit from tube seven will fire on backup timer now.
The sea convulsed again. Fireball aftershocks, and terrain and surface blast echoes, were becoming almost continuous. Demons punched the ship from every side.
"Helm, hard left rudder!"
"Inbound torpedo still running," Kathy shouted. "Confirmed," Bell said. "Interception not successful." "Status of weapon reload?"
"All tubes empty. None will ready in time."
"Fire more noisemakers. Fire more jammers. Helm, make a knuckle smartly."
"Inbound weapon now in range-gate mode."
The dingggs came very fast.
"Helm, another knuckle." Challenger lost ground.
"No effect," Bell said. "Weapon separation now three thousand yards."
"More noisemakers and jammers!"
Bell complied, Jeffrey waited. Seconds ticked away. "No effect. Separation now two thousand yards."
Close enough to smash our stern wide open, even set on lowest Axis yield. Bell dutifully watched his screens, and uselessly reported, "Inbound weapon will blow any moment. No tubes ready to fire."
There was nothing more Jeffrey could do. He glanced at the back of Ilse's head, as she sat there in her earphones, bravely typing. What wasted opportunities. Jeffrey waited to die. He'd failed the one hundred twenty people in his crew, and all their loved ones. There was a thud behind the ship.
"Weapon has fizzled!" Bell shouted. "Assess warhead was damaged by our countershot!" In his mind, Jeffrey saw Eberhard's face. We're not dead yet, you smug Prussian SOB.
"Helm, hard right rudder. Make your course two seven zero." West again, and toward the volcanic ridges.
Jeffrey watched his weapons status screen. A Mark 88 was presented to the tube-one breach. Jeffrey and Bell did the arming procedures.
"Tube one is ready to fire!"
"Snap shot tube one due north shoot."
SIMULTANEOUSLY, ON DEUTSCHLAND.
There was a wall of noise and heat between Deutschland and Challenger. To Beck, the reverb coming through the hull was painful, deafening, and the sonars were virtually useless. Torpedoes, their wires broken by the blasts, ran out of control. Something exploded—a kiloton, one of Beck's own. Did it home on Challenger, on a bubble cloud, a noisemaker, or another torpedo? Impossible to tell.