Barracuda: Final Bearing mp-4

by Michael Dimercurio

  “Offsa’deck, sir. We’re leaving the Aleutian Trench now, sir. We’re officially in the Pacific.”

  Phillips looked over at the speed indicator, the readout showing forty-three knots, the deck vibrating slightly from the turbulence of the seawater flow over the Vortex tubes, particularly since the ship’s hydrodynamics had become uneven with the loss of the number-one Vortex unit.

  “How long to go at flank?”

  “Arrival in the northern quadrant of the Oparea is slated for thirty hours from now, sir.”

  It wasn’t good enough, Phillips thought.

  “Put this on the status board and pass it on to your relief, Mr. Porter — we won’t be coming to periscope depth until just before we penetrate the Oparea. And I want us running at flank until then, to hell with navigation errors. In fact, put that in the ship’s deck log, that I ordered us to blow off going to PD until we’re at the forty-fourth parallel. That gives us forty-three knots all the way. What’s that do to the time?”

  “Takes it down to about twenty-six hours. Captain.”

  Still not good enough.

  “Off’sa’deck, send the engineer to the wardroom.”

  He hung up the phone, clicked the remote and the bullets continued to fly on screen. He watched a few moments until he saw Walt Hornick’s head appear at the round red window to the centerline passageway, then got up and walked out into the brightness of the passageway.

  “I’ll buy you a cup of coffee, Eng,” Phillips said, walking the engineer across the passageway to the opening to the crew’s mess. He poured the engineer a cup of fresh steaming coffee, a glass of bright red Kool-Aid for himself, the mixture so sweet he had to wince to choke it down. He steered Hornick to a dinette table in the far corner, pulled out two cigars, one for Hornick, one for himself. He noticed the engineer didn’t flinch this time as Phillips stuffed the stogie into his mouth and lit the end.

  “Well, Eng, before we get into this I want to ask you a question.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Have I ever meddled with your department? Micromanaged you? Given you rudder orders?”

  “No, sir.” Hornick seemed confused.

  “But I have given you goals to achieve, right? I’ve told you the big picture of what I’ve wanted and left it to you to get it done, right?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “How do you feel about that, Eng?”

  “How do I feel about it, sir?”

  “Yeah. How does that feel? I’m assuming you haven’t been treated like that before.”

  “You’re right. Skipper, I haven’t. Captain Forbes before you was the ship’s real engineer. I just took orders from him and tried to satisfy him. He was never satisfied. I had a letter of resignation written, I was going to resign my commission and go into business with my father-in-law but Forbes left before I could submit it.”

  “Where’s the letter now?” Phillips puffed and looked at the smoke drifting into the overhead.

  “I tore it up after we did that emergency startup of the reactor, Skipper.”

  Phillips looked at Walt Hornick, the slightest hint of a smirk on his face. “So how do you feel about this patrol?”

  “I’m fully committed to the ship’s mission.”

  “And how does your engineering plant relate to that mission, Eng?”

  “Sir, we’re a steam-making service. You want RPM, we’re in business to give it to you.”

  “Then I want to tell you about a problem I have.” Phillips withdrew his Writepad computer from his shirt pocket and put it on the surface of the dinette table’s checkered oilskin tablecloth. He clicked into the software, finally displaying a small chart of the northwest Pacific, looking down on the earth as if from low orbit.

  “This is our position.” A small dot pulsed brightly east of the Kamchatka peninsula. “This is where we need to get to, here east of Hokkaido Island at latitude forty-four north. By the book that’s thirty hours away. I did my part by ignoring the regs to come to periscope depth every eight hours, so for the next twenty-six hours I’ll continue deep. I’m only allowed to ignore the PD requirements if I’m under the icecap. But I’m willing to risk the creeping nav errors in the inertial system to get there faster. It might be a stupid decision — it’s deep out here, but I could still hit a submerged peak at the Kuril Island Ridge as we cross the fiftieth parallel. But here’s the situation, Eng, I won’t lie to you. Admiral Pacino’s going into the Oparea with just a couple of submarines and he’s going to try to duke it out with the whole Maritime Self Defense Force’s Destinys.”

  “You know that for a fact, sir?”

  “We got an intel brief at the last periscope depth. Pacino called for our position and everyone else’s and ordered the initial task force of subs into the Oparea. Only seven ships, not counting the Pasadena in the Sea of Japan. Which means he needs some serious help.”

  “Wow.”

  “Which means I need to deliver Piranha into the Oparea now, not twenty-six hours from now. So, do you have any. recommendations, Eng?”

  Hornick had come a long way since Phillips had arrived at Electric Boat. He smiled slightly, his eyes slits against the smoke of his cigar clenched between his teeth.

  “As a matter of fact I’ve been working up something for you. Skipper. I think I can do better than the forty-three knots we’re doing now. We’re seeing a lot of drag from the Vortex tubes out there in the potential flow field around the hull. But we have a hell of a lot of unused reactor power. I did some research into the design calculations of the power train, from the propulsor to the thrust bearing through the reduction gears to the main engine rotors and casing, including the journal bearings. I followed the design upstream through the steam headers to the steam generators, and back the other way through the condensate system, looking at pumps and maximum flow rates. The steam generators’ ability to put out dry steam at rates greater than designed was catalogued in the files, and I took it back into the main coolant loop to the core, looked at core metal temperatures and control rod binding at this age in core life.”

  Phillips hadn’t the slightest idea what Hornick was talking about. He had just asked him what time it was, and Hornick was building him a watch.

  “And?”

  “And, sir, I found out that the power plant is designed for conditions at the end of its life, thirty years from now, when the core is full of fission-product poisons, the metal is neutron embrittled, the steam pipes have some slight stress corrosion cracks, the condensers have tube leaks, the feed pumps have seal leaks, the main coolant piping is slightly clogged with corrosion products, the steam generators have lost 5 percent of their tubes and the generator’s chevron moisture traps are eroded and half gone. So that running the ship at 100 percent reactor power will be safe thirty years from now, the designers limited us up front.”

  “So, are you saying you have some kind of, what? Hidden reserves of power?”

  “Sir, by my calculations we could take the core to 200 percent power with some modifications authorized by you.”

  “Like what?”

  “I can run in battle-short mode long enough to reset the trip points for the nuclear instruments. That way the plant won’t trip out until it sees 230 percent power. We’ll be raising average coolant temperatures to get better power from the steam, which isn’t all that safe but it will work. Also, I’ll have to restrict access to the aft compartment, we’ll have much higher radiation readings.”

  “Will we have permanent damage to the core?”

  “Yes, sir,” Hornick said as if it were obvious. “We’ll have some slight fuel-to-coolant leaks, fuel-element failures, and main coolant radioactivity will escalate by a factor of ten to twenty. You won’t be able to walk through the tunnel without your hair standing on end. And when this mission is over we’ll have to shitcan the reactor and decontaminate the entire reactor compartment and every piping system inside it. Other than that, nothing should break. We’ll be able to double thermal power going to th
e turbines.”

  “How does all that relate to velocity?”

  “Well, sir, doubling shaft horsepower won’t double ship speed. With parasitic drag, to double velocity would require you to quadruple your power. So by doubling power we’ll only have 41 percent more speed. That’s about sixty-one knots.”

  “You’re kidding me, Eng.”

  “We won’t know till I crank it, sir, but hell, I say go for it.”

  “Admiral Rickover will spin in his grave.” The father of the nuclear navy, Phillips knew, was such a stickler for reactor safety that he would probably haunt the ship. “Sir, his tomb was empty three days after he died.”

  Phillips laughed. “Okay, Eng. What the hell order do I give you to make all this happen?”

  “Well, why don’t you say, ‘Engineer, elevate reactor limits to 200 percent.’ Then, when you’re ready to give it the gas, order the helm to go to emergency flank.”

  Phillips gave the order,

  Hornick vanished aft, still puffing on the cigar. Phillips walked into control, briefing the O.O.D on what the engineer would be up to.

  As the ship accelerated to emergency flank, the velocity indicator passing forty-five, then fifty, fifty-five knots, on to 59.8, slowly increasing to sixty, topping out at 60.6 knots, the deck shook steadily. Everywhere that Phillips walked, the ship trembled, the vibration irritating but then, who cared as long as the ship could make the speed? He peered over the chart flat panel and calculated the time to the Oparea. With their new-found speed they would be in the Oparea in slightly over eighteen hours.

  Hornick showed up on the conn, the deck still trembling.

  “Anything you can do about the vibration, Eng?” Phillips asked.

  “Sorry, sir. I made sure it wasn’t the thrust bearing or the drive train. I think the shaking is from the Vortex missiles. Some kind of turbulence from hauling them through the water at the speed of a torpedo. Plus we’re unbalanced with the first one gone.”

  “Think the shaking will hurt the ship?”

  “The electronics should handle it,” Hornick said. “It’s the crew I worry about. Bad for crew fatigue.”

  “THIS IS THE CAPTAIN,” Phillips said into the circuit one microphone, his voice booming through the ship. “WE ARE RUNNING FOR THE OPAREA AT EMERGENCY FLANK. YOU’LL ALL BE HAPPY TO KNOW WE’RE BREAKING A US SUBMERGED SPEED RECORD AT OVER SIXTY KNOTS. THAT IS WHAT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DECK VIBRATIONS, WHICH COULD LEAD TO CREW FATIGUE. FOR THE NEXT EIGHTEEN HOURS ALL OFF-WATCH PERSONNEL ARE ORDERED TO THEIR RACKS. GET SOME SLEEP, GENTLEMEN. ONCE WE’RE IN THE OPAREA THERE WON’T BE MUCH SLEEP FOR ANY OF US.” Phillips clicked off, looked at Hornick, then at his watch. “Eng, I think I’m going to follow my own advice.”

  “Aye, sir. I’ll be aft. I want to make sure the protection circuitry modifications go down okay.”

  Phillips was asleep within thirty seconds of hitting his pillow.

  CHAPTER 31

  NORTHWEST PACIFIC

  SOUTH OF SHIKOKU ISLAND

  SS-810 WINGED SERPENT

  Tanaka walked into the crew messroom. All fourteen junior officers and Hiro Mazdai were now present. In a corner of the room the Second Captain displays rotated through the navigation, sensor, ship control and weapons-status panels. There was no one in the control room during the briefing — the Second Captain had complete control. While they were in the waters where Tanaka expected to see contact with the enemy submarines, he would need to brief his officers, and the sooner the better.

  The officers stood at attention as he walked into the oblong room, its central feature the long narrow conference table. Tanaka waved the men to their seats and poured himself a cup of tea, then sat at the head of the table, consulted the notes on his personal computer pad, looked up.

  “Officers, I will be brief. Item one — the history to date. The Three-class ships sent into the deep Pacific have experienced success. The surface-action groups being sent here have been attacked successfully. Three aircraft carriers and their associated ships have been put on the bottom. I believe few of the Destiny III submarines survived the encounters, the escort submarines are assumed to have sunk them. So at this point we have only Two-class submarines to defend the waters of the Home Islands.”

  “Item two — our history of encounters with the American attack submarines. The information received to date shows that the only submerged encounter between a Two-class ship and an American submarine was our own attack of the vessel that torpedoed the supertanker. Either the Americans are at a severe disadvantage or that ship was poorly trained. For now I want to remind each one of you that our success against the first American could have been more from luck or a bad day for the Americans than our own skill or ship quieting. So we will maintain absolute ship silence in our future encounters, and whenever we detect an American we will assume he has detected us.”

  “Item three — the collected intelligence about American intentions. Mr. First will post the electronic chart display. We believe that the Americans will enter our close-in waters in pairs or threes. These are known as wolfpacks, although we may think of them as being more like frightened teenagers pairing up before going into a dark forest. This will prove most helpful to our tactics, because we will be more efficient at killing them. They will be clustered, so once we detect a pair we will shoot torpedoes at them both, putting down two with the work of sinking one. In addition we will know that all submerged contacts we see will be hostile, while the American commanders must keep in mind that another friendly submarine is nearby, which will make them hesitate when they launch their torpedoes. We believe they will split their force between north and south of our waters and work their way to Tokyo Bay in their attempt to sink our force. Then they could go up Tokyo Bay and cause some damage, making their position much stronger. We will concentrate on preventing that.”

  “I expect that their forces will arrive in two waves, one now, the second in three days as more of the Pacific ships arrive in zone. Our tactics will be to try to sink the initial task force, reload torpedoes, then rescour the zone for Americans. My intuition on this matter is, I believe, sound since I have spent more time in the vicinity of the gaijin than anyone here.”

  “That is all, men. If any one of you has questions, submit them to Mr. First and he will bring them to me.”

  Tanaka left the room, his officers coming to rigid attention as he left. Mazdai hated that he was cold with the younger officers, Tanaka thought, but their generation was, he felt, soft, compromising. Perhaps he could get through to them by example. Perhaps his hatred of the Americans would be contagious.

  Regardless, he was determined that the mission succeed.

  CHAPTER 32

  NORTHWEST PACIFIC

  TWENTY MILES SOUTHEAST OF POINT MUROTO-ZAKI, SHIKOKU ISLAND

  USS BIRMINGHAM SSN695

  Comdr. Robert Pastor had rigged the ship for ultraquiet three hours before crossing into the Japan Oparea. The rig was designed to maximize ship quieting so that the sonar system could more easily hear into the sea without the interference of noise made by the Birmingham herself.

  Pastor walked through the ship from the shaft seals as far aft as a man could go to the goat locker forward, checking the rig, and found the wrong reactor circulation pumps running — the engineering officer of the watch had one, two, three and four on, when the pump combination three, four, five and six was much quieter. Forward, in one of the crew-berthing spaces, he had found a boombox going, the volume down but music pouring out of it anyway. One of the navigation technicians was trying to fix a spare electronic cabinet in the nav space aft of control, which Pastor immediately stopped, the crew prohibited from doing maintenance during the rig for ultraquiet.

  Pastor, on sneaker-clad feet, was of medium height, slightly paunchy but with Midwestern good looks, a healthy hairline, a thick mustache, blue eyes clear and penetrating. His expression rarely changed from a glare or a smirk, the glare normal, the smirk a sign of approval.

 
Pastor had been in command for only a year and was still finding himself, his command style, but so far the ratings were good. He had passed Admiral Pacino’s attack-trainer test, having put an Akula Russian submarine on the bottom at the same time he was under attack by a destroyer unit of the Royal Navy — in Pacino’s wild scenarios anyone could be the bad guys. Pastor was considered a tough captain, a disciplinarian, a by-the-book man so long as it made sense to go by the book. He was good to his officers, took them out for dinners, which came out of his pocket at a thousand dollars a shot, until Admiral Pacino ordered him to put those expenses on the ship’s account, telling him they were rewards for good performance. When Pastor had said that the men brought wives and girlfriends, Pacino had told him it was the least the captain could do for them in exchange for all their long hours and weeks away.

  Pastor had been thinking lately about what he would do when his command tour was over, something that every nuclear sub skipper asked himself. Command of an attack sub was the end of sea duty. The day they turned command of the sub over to someone else was a dark day in the lives of most skippers, not unlike giving a daughter away at a wedding. They would be proud to have done a job well, the ship, like the daughter, an accomplishment, but now someone else would be in charge of her. Pastor saw nothing that interested him after command, not in the Navy’s bureaucratic quagmire in Washington, not in the shore-training commands, not in the surface navy. A new program had been commissioned to allow sub skippers to take command of a deepdraft oiler or supply ship as a stepping stone to commanding an aircraft carrier, from which a man could make flag rank. But that would take another fifteen years of going to sea on surface ships. Besides, Pastor now had two lovely daughters, six and eight, growing up in a world that was becoming more bizarre by the minute, and Pastor was beginning to think that all the sea duty, all the time away from home was beginning to affect the girls.