Barracuda: Final Bearing mp-4

by Michael Dimercurio

  Chief Omeada had just zeroed the frequency bucket, wiping out all previous data. Now the computer was going to wait and collect sound in that specific tonal range, display noise that it received at a higher level vertically. The graph was almost like the bottom of an hourglass, the sand representing each piece of sound at a particular frequency. If the graph line rose horizontally with time, the line flat, then there was no one out there.

  If the graph line became a spike with a narrow peak at a particular frequency, there was a pure tone out in the sea constant with time. And the sea did not generate pure bell tones that lingered as time passed. Only machines did.

  Porter received his coffee and slurped it, the tingle running through him as he stared at the sonar screens.

  If only he could detect the Destiny and beat out Omeada he would never let the chief forget it.

  He flipped through the sonar displays, but seemed to feel a resonance of the tingle at the time-frequency display.

  He watched the six frequency buckets on the screen, barely blinking, until his scalding hot coffee was gone and the frequency at 154 cycles per second had spiked into a narrow finger of sound.

  The Destiny was out there and by God he had found it. He put down the coffee mug and ran toward the door to sonar, colliding with Omeada, who was running out of sonar into control.

  “We’ve got him,” they said at once, rubbing their foreheads from the collision.

  USS BARRACUDA

  Admiral Pacino woke up from a sound sleep at the prodding of Paully White.

  “Sir, it’s two a.m. Kane’s manning battlestations. We’ve got a Destiny.”

  “About time,” Pacino muttered, slipping into coveralls and leather deck shoes. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, feeling the gauze of his injured eye, wondering when if ever the eye would heal. He pulled on the eyepatch as he left the stateroom, careful to avoid the rushing watchstanders.

  The large control room was packed. Kane stood on the conn with his officer of the deck, Scott Court. XO Roger Whatney stood below between the conn platform and the attack center. The consoles of the attack center were filled with officers, adjusting their solutions, trying to find one that fit the data to the Destiny.

  Kane nodded curtly at Pacino and Paully, then addressed the watchsection. Pacino strapped on a battle headset so he could listen to the conversations in the room.

  Again he felt he was watching from the sidelines, and with it the thought that this action should be his. He shook his head to concentrate on the battle in front of him.

  “Attention in the firecontrol team,” Kane announced from the conn. “We have designated the sonar contact as Target One, Destiny-class submerged submarine. We now hold Target One weakly on the thin wire towed array forward-looking beam, his 154 Hertz tonal coming in clearly. We hold him at bearing west, approximately two six five. There’s no broadband from this bearing.

  This isn’t much to go on but we will be putting out multiple salvos of Mark 50 torpedoes on the bearing to the target. That’s all, carry on.”

  SS-810 WINGED SERPENT

  Tanaka looked at his watch. It was after two in the morning and he had been staring at the Second Captain screen for what seemed forever. He was tired and frustrated.

  He told himself he would watch the screen for one more hour, then go to bed in spite of the Americans out there, the pounding of his heart from the uppers, the shaking of his hands, and the acid in his stomach.

  The mission had gone on too long. The Americans and their waiting game had finally gained them an advantage.

  He swept the heavy green-shaded lamp to the deck, brought his hands to his face, his hands shaking.

  He desperately needed sleep but there was too much of the amphetamines in his system. He was feeling closed in by the ship, by the mission, by the lack of contact with an enemy.

  When would it end? And how?

  USS BARRACUDA

  “Firing point procedures. Target One, horizontal salvo, tubes one through six, one quarter degree offset, twenty-second firing interval,” Kane announced to the control room. There was no sound in the room except the whining of the gyro and the low rush of air from the air handlers.

  “Ship ready,” Jeff Joseph, the battlestations officer of the deck, reported.

  “Weapons ready,” from the weapons officer.

  “Solution ready,” the XO finished.

  “Tube one, shoot on generated bearing,” Kane commanded.

  “Set,” pos-two operator Lieutenant Porter said.

  “Standby,” the weapons officer called and rotated the stainless steel trigger to nine o’clock.

  “Shoot,” Kane said.

  “Fire!” weapons said, pulling the trigger to the right.

  The launch sound blasted into the control room, highpressure air venting from the downstream side of the ram that pressurized the torpedo tanks. Pacino felt his hearing was half gone.

  “Tube one fired electrically, sir,” the weapons officer called.

  “Conn, sonar,” Chief Omeada said. “First fired unit, normal launch.”

  The second torpedo was fired, the control-room crew reading from the same script, then again for unit three, until six torpedoes were fired. Kane powered up the weapons in tubes seven and eight and opened their outer doors while having the torpedo-room crew reload one through six. It took a few minutes, but seven and eight came up to speed and were ready to fire.

  Kane shot them, a total of eight torpedoes traveling through the sea, intent on hitting the Destiny that he had estimated to be twenty nautical miles away. Impact would be at a point somewhat closer than the Destiny was now, since he was getting closer with time. The impact point was about seventeen miles to the west, with calculated time for the torpedoes to reach impact point eighteen minutes from now. If they had fired a Vortex missile, Pacino thought, impact time would be more likely only four minutes. Anything could happen in eighteen minutes.

  “Attention in the firecontrol team,” Kane said. “With eight fish on the way, we wait to see what Target One is going to do. He may counterfire, and if he does I intend to cut the wires in all tubes and run east. Otherwise, we’ll sit and listen.”

  SS-810 WINGED SERPENT

  Tanaka craved sleep but he knew if he went to bed all he’d do would be to listen to the complaints of his body.

  He grabbed the water carafe and drank out of it, the water running over his chin — and when he put it down he saw that the Second Captain display was full of broadband noise, pulsing broadband noise.

  He sat back down and scanned through the screens, his jaw falling open as he realized what was happening.

  A half-dozen American torpedoes were screaming in toward them. How long had they been in the water?

  Why hadn’t anyone detected the American who fired them? What happened to his officers in the control room?

  And how the hell did six — no, seven — no, now it was eight! — torpedoes get launched at them?

  He grabbed his uniform tunic and ran out of the room to control and found his first officer Hiro Mazdai crouched over the Second Captain display being run by the mechanical officer, Lieutenant Commander Kami.

  “What’s going on? What are you doing? Man full battlestations and get the weapons in tubes eleven and twelve warmed up. Open the outer doors! Why didn’t you detect the Americans?”

  Tanaka came up closer to first officer Mazdai, who had stood at attention. Tanaka slapped him hard; a red welt appeared on his cheek.

  “You have brought dishonor on my ship, Mr. First. One more mistake and I will relieve you. Permanently. Is that clear?”

  “Very clear. Captain.”

  “Now get those tubes ready to fire!”

  “Yes sir.”

  USS BARRACUDA

  “Any activity from the target yet?” Kane asked Omeada in sonar.

  “Nothing yet. Captain. I don’t think he can hear us yet.”

  “He sure as hell should hear our torpedoes—”

  A
low rumble could be heard through the hull, just barely audible. Kane looked up at the sonar screen, which had been selected to the broadband waterfall display ever since battlestations were manned. A large white patch appeared at bearing north, the sound intense from its reading on the screen, the white patch of sound spread out over ten degrees of azimuth.

  “What the hell was that. Chief?”

  “Something blew up from the north. Skipper. Could be a nuclear blast from what I can see.”

  “Good God,” Kane said to Pacino. “You don’t think they have nuclear torpedoes, do you?”

  “No. They don’t need to. The Nagasaki is the most destructive torpedo in the world right now. If our Mark 50s could do what it does, we’d have no problems.”

  “So what was that noise?”

  “That, Captain Kane, was one of ours.”

  “But we don’t—”

  “Just fight the ship against the threat at hand.”

  Kane didn’t need to worry about the explosion from the north. It was Bruce Phillips shooting a Vortex missile, putting down another Destiny II.

  Paully White looked up at Pacino from the control room deck and mouthed the word, “Brucey.” Pacino just nodded.

  SS-810 WINGED SERPENT

  “What was that?” Tanaka yelled at Mazdai. “What was that sound? What does the Second Captain show?”

  He received no answers from the man or the machine. Perhaps it had been the detonation of a Nagasaki torpedo against a distant American, perhaps one of the northern deployed units.

  “Status of the tubes?”

  “Weapons are warm. We still have no sonar data on the launching ship.”

  “You still have no contact?”

  “Nothing, sir. The sea is empty. Look for yourself.”

  “The sea is not empty, Mr. First. We are looking for the wrong thing. The computer is filtering out the noise we seek.”

  “No, sir, it is correct. The American Los Angeles-class ships—”

  “This is obviously not an LA-class vessel. It is something else, British or French.”

  “No, the computer was looking for them also.”

  “Then maybe the American Seawolf class. We’re not filtering for that.” Tanaka knew time was ticking but he had to solve this problem and solve it now.

  “Seawolf class had three ships. One sank from a flooding or torpedo accident. The other is on the US east coast being built. The third was in Hawaii but it never got underway. The Galaxy satellite photos showed it pulled into a maintenance barn. It never emerged.”

  “It might have sneaked out during a storm or with a cold reactor submerged or any of a hundred ways a sub can be sneaked to sea.”

  “We would have known—”

  “Obviously, First, we didn’t know! Now reset the filters for the Seawolf class and find this submarine. I want torpedoes in the water in two minutes.”

  USS PIRANHA

  Bruce Phillips stood on the conn and heard Gambini’s voice calling in something from sonar.

  “Say again. Master Chief?” Phillips said.

  “We’ve got distant noises that I’m classifying as torpedoes, all concentrated on a bearing set to the south. I am not, repeat, not, calling torpedo in the water.”

  “I’m confused. What’s the deal?”

  “Sir, the torpedoes appear to be… Mark 50s. This may be a battle with another US unit and the Japanese. All I can detect are the torpedoes, they’re the loudest, but there must be something going on to the south.”

  “Attention in the firecontrol team. After we launch this Vortex at Target Five we’ll clear datum to the south at emergency flank. There may be someone down there who needs our help. Firing point procedures. Target Five, Vortex tube six.”

  The launching litany continued for the sixth time since the first Destiny was shot. With the missile that Phillips had launched at the arctic ice ridge, after this one was gone, he was six missiles down, four to go. The launch sequence went as the previous five had, ending in a deafening roar of the Vortex rocket motor ignition, the noise easing as the missile flew underwater downrange, then the second deafening transient as the missile hit the fifth Destiny and exploded.

  “Helm, left five degrees rudder, steady course south, all ahead emergency flank,” Phillips ordered.

  Piranha came up to emergency flank turns, almost sixty-one knots, her deck shaking hard as the main engines shrieked aft, the steam flow-rate twice the maximum allowable.

  SS-810 WINGED SERPENT

  “Sir, may I remind you that we still have eight incoming torpedoes and we have not evaded them? Shouldn’t we turn the ship and run?”

  Tanaka glared at Mazdai. “Don’t ever again advocate turning and running from the enemy. I’ll kill you.” He bent back down over the console and bit his lip, the filters for the Seawolf class now entered into the Second Captain’s processors. All there was to do was wait to collect the data. The American was out there and he was dangerous. He had the acoustic advantage, he hadn’t shown up on the Second Captain system with the Los Angeles-class filters set up, so he had to be a Seawolf.

  Yet how did he get by the Galaxy satellites? It didn’t make sense but the proof was in front of them, the Second Captain beginning to show data coming through the filters. The screen annunciator went off, confirming the sounds of the Seawolf-class submarine. Perhaps they didn’t have the acoustic advantage after all, Tanaka thought, perhaps it was just that the Second Captain was looking for the wrong sounds.

  This battle might yet be turned around.

  “Sir, what are you going to do about the eight torpedoes?”

  “I’m going to let the Second Captain take care of it as soon as the two Nagasakis are away. Now let’s maneuver the ship to get a range on the Seawolf out there. And then we can launch.”

  USS BARRACUDA

  “Still nothing from the target, Captain,” Omeada’s voice said in Kane’s headset. The Destiny hadn’t counterfired, hadn’t maneuvered, just kept going as if he didn’t care that he’d been shot at, or didn’t know. But it was one thing not to hear the Barracuda. It was another not to hear eight loud Mark 50s.

  “That’s a fact. Captain,” executive officer Leo Dobrowski reported from the attack center. “Contact has maintained course and speed. He doesn’t know we’re here, or our torpedoes.”

  “Very well, then, we’ll keep waiting.”

  Pacino glanced at Paully White, an uneasiness filling him.

  USS PIRANHA

  Bruce Phillips stood over the chart, his pointer shaking over its surface with the vibrations of the deck. The speed indicator showed a velocity of sixty-two knots now, since all but four of the Vortex tubes were gone.

  At this rate, assuming the noises they had heard were at the limits of sonar detection, fifty miles, the ship would be in the vicinity of the battle in another forty-five minutes.

  Phillips looked up at the overhead, wondering if that would be enough.

  SS-810 WINGED SERPENT

  “Finally,” Tanaka said as the first leg of data was in on the American Seawolf. Now he could turn the ship to get a parallax range. “Left minimum rudder, ship-control officer, come to course north.”

  Tanaka watched the data fall into the Second Captain, waiting tensely, biding his time. All the while the incoming eight American torpedoes were soaring in at them, arrival time could be as soon as five minutes. The thought occurred to him then that the SCM, the sonar countermeasures feature of the Second Captain, might malfunction and he would have to eat his words about being able to take torpedo hits and survive. Of course, if that should happen, he would not long be embarrassed. He would be on the sea floor, dead.

  “Tube status?”

  “Ready to open the outer doors. Tubes eleven and twelve are flooded, weapons warm. The enemy location and velocity are locked in, gas generators ready to arm an outer-door opening.”

  “Good, open the outer doors.”

  USS BARRACUDA

  “He’s maneuvering,” Kane
said quietly to Pacino, his hand covering his boom microphone. “He knows we’re here.”

  “Getting a range on you,” Pacino said. “He’ll be opening his outer doors soon and then we’ll have company, Nagasaki torpedoes. Have you got the ship positioned so we can hear the target without our torpedoes masking him?”

  “We’re going north at full speed. I don’t dare flank it or our noise signature will double.”

  “Just keep your bearing separation in mind—”

  “Conn, Sonar,” Omeada’s voice called on the battle circuit, “we have transients coming from Target One. I’m calling torpedo tube doors coming open.”

  “Very well, Sonar,” Kane replied into his headset, looking at Pacino. “Helm, all ahead flank.”

  “Ahead flank, aye, sir, maneuvering answers, all ahead flank.”

  “Helm, right one degree rudder, steady course zero two zero.”

  “Rudder right one degree, sir, passing zero one zero to the right, ten degrees from ordered course… steady course zero two zero.”

  The deck trembled slightly as the ship accelerated, the reactor circulation pumps aft — huge pumps, each the size of a compact car — started up, their 1500 horsepower motors spinning the rotors, pumping the coolant water through the core so the reactor power could double from 50 to 100 percent.

  “Any minute now, sir,” Paully said to Pacino.

  SS-810 WINGED SERPENT

  “Shoot,” Tanaka commanded. The torpedo in tube eleven left the ship under the force of the gas generator’s steam pressure, the torpedo’s engine starting and spinning the pumpjet propulsor of the Nagasaki torpedo to full revolutions. The Nagasaki dived to 400 meters and sailed on toward the target.

  Tanaka remembered what he had been thinking about using only one torpedo per American submarine, but this was a special circumstance. The Seawolf-class ship would be a threat on an even playing field with the Destiny II class, and a single Nagasaki could not be completely trusted to tear it apart. A second torpedo launch was the safe thing to do.

  “Tube twelve,” Tanaka said. “Shoot!”

  The twelfth Nagasaki launched by the Winged Serpent departed the bow of the ship, starting its engine and accelerating toward the target. “That should take care of the Seawolf,” Tanaka said, his mood improving. “Now for the incoming eight American torpedoes.” He concentrated on the Second Captain console, switching it to the ship-control and weaponevasion screens. He found what he was looking for, the function that would turn control of the vessel over to the Second Captain and allow it to use the massive computing power to ping out with the ventriloquist SCM sonar system.