Barracuda: Final Bearing mp-4

by Michael Dimercurio

  “But sir—”

  “Mazdai!” Tanaka was furious, even raising his hand as if to strike Mazdai, but then they both froze, hearing the sound of a submerged rocket motor. There were no words capable of describing the power of that roar as the missile came shrieking in toward the Winged Serpent.

  The Vortex missile detonated, raising the temperature of the vicinity around it to that of the sun’s surface.

  Toshumi Tanaka was vaporized, the atoms of his body so elevated in temperature that they lost their electrons and became a plasma, glowing brilliantly in the depths of the sea.

  Nothing was left of the ship, its steel becoming a plasma of iron and carbon atoms. The Second Captain died along with every living being aboard, the computer able to watch itself die, its consciousness much quicker than the processing of the human mind. It sensed the collapse of the hull, the propagation of the plasma front, the sequential vaporization of its process-control modules, watching the plasma eat it alive, finally howling in electronic pain as the plasma devoured it. There was nothing left then but a cooling bubble of gas and a shock wave of a pressure pulse moving through the ocean. An external observer would never have suspected that one of the world’s greatest designs had passed with nothing left to mark its passage.

  USS PIRANHA

  XO Roger Whatney looked up at Phillips.

  “Sir, now that the missile is away, maybe we should evade those Nagasakis.”

  Phillips looked down at Whatney and thought about Pacino’s simulation in Norfolk. He’d be damned if he’d experience in reality what he’d experienced in that simulator, running from the Nagasakis and dying on the run.

  He would die with his boots on, his Vortex battery empty.

  “No, XO. Goddamned if I’m going to run.” Phillips raised his voice to the men in the room. “Attention in the firecontrol party. We’re going to do the same thing for ourselves as we did for the Barracuda. Helm, right two degrees rudder, steady course two three zero, all ahead two thirds. Mr. McKilley, give me a phantom target straight ahead, range four thousand yards.”

  “We won’t make it, sir.”

  “Five thousand yards and that’s it.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Firing-point procedures, phantom target at five thousand yards bearing two three zero. Vortex unit ten.”

  The reports rolled in, and Phillips called for the launch. He put his fingers in his ears one last time, feeling sad that the last Vortex was gone. If only the icepack hadn’t eaten up the first missile, he would still have a ticket home.

  USS BARRACUDA

  Admiral Pacino pulled himself to his feet and made his way to the conn. He and four other men remained conscious, one of them Paully White, the other the helms man, the third the executive officer, Leo Dobrinski, the fourth, the chief of the watch at the wraparound ballast-control panel. The survivors seemed to have picked at random. Dimly Pacino registered that David Kane was collapsed on the deck of the conn. He bent down, fighting his dizziness, and rolled Kane over. Kane’s face was shattered, blood coming out of his nose. Pacino put his face down near Kane’s and heard rattling sucking breathing. Kane must have taken a hit in the chest as well as his face. Pacino lowered him to the deck. The ship was dying, he reminded himself. Save the ship, save the plant, then save the men, his old mentor Rocket Ron Daminski, long dead now at the bottom of the Mediterranean, had taught him back on the Atlanta. It sounded coldblooded but it made sense. A dead ship ensured a dead crew. Karie was wounded and down. Pacino was the senior submarine-qualified officer aboard. Navy Regs said he was now in command. Ironic. All the time since Seawolf had gone down he had missed command, and now it was his — a submarine crippled, drifting, probably flooding and sinking, hit by a Nagasaki torpedo, an enemy Destiny out there to be fought, a ship’s company that probably numbered more dead than living. Get with it, he ordered himself, and stood upright on the conn.

  “This is Admiral Pacino,” he said in a ringing, probably foolish sounding voice. “I now take command of the USS Barracuda in the absence of her commanding officer in accordance with US Navy regulations.” He paused, wondering if anyone would dispute his claim, but all he saw were the eyes of Paully White and Leo Dobrowski, both ready for orders.

  Pacino reached for the circuit-one microphone. “ALL STATIONS, THIS IS ADMIRAL PACINO. CAPTAIN KANE IS WOUNDED. I HAVE ASSUMED COMMAND. ALL STATIONS REPORT DAMAGE STATUS IMMEDIATELY.”

  “Paully,” Pacino said, “get the reports off the battle circuits. Helm, keep this damned thing level.” Pacino pulled the 1JV phone from the conn cradle. “Maneuvering, Captain. Maneuvering! Pick up if you hear me.” There was nothing.

  “XO,” Pacino said to Dobrowski, “lay aft and get the reactor back up.”

  Dobrowski was gone before he had finished the order.

  “Goddamnit, Paully, what’s on the phones?”

  “There’s no one reporting. Admiral. We’re it.”

  “Get into sonar and see what you can do. Just stay on the phones.”

  White ran into sonar, leaving Pacino with the helmsman and the chief of the watch.

  “Get the battle lanterns going. Chief. Mark ship’s depth.”

  “Sir, we’re at one thousand feet and sinking. Speed is one knot, we’re showing no power and I have all ahead flank rung up.”

  Were any more torpedoes coming in? He was helpless if they were. If the ship sank any deeper he’d have no choice but to surface the ship. He grabbed the 1JV phone to maneuvering.

  “XO, what’s the status?” Pacino shouted into the phone.

  “Sir, it looks like the plant scrammed on shock. I’ll have to do a fast recovery startup but I’m all by myself! I can’t do this by myself.”

  “Hold on, I’ll send Commander White aft.”

  “Paully!” Pacino shouted into his headset.

  “Yes sir. Sonar’s down and Omeada’s dead. So are the other guys, there’s blood everywhere—”

  “Paully, get aft now and help out the XO. I want power yesterday, you got it?”

  White rushed out of sonar and ran through control, one hand up at Pacino as he rushed by on the way to the aft compartment.

  “Depth thirteen hundred, sir!”

  Crush depth was coming up in another six hundred feet. If Paully and Dobrowski didn’t get power up by then, he would have to emergency blow, and then it would be all over, the Japanese air force would blow the Barracuda to the bottom. Assuming another Destiny didn’t do the job for them.

  * * *

  The tenth and last Vortex launched by the Piranha detonated two and a half miles from the firing ship. The blast effect and fireball reached out to the surrounding waters, propagating outward spherically, the immediate blast zone a mass of high-energy steam and plasma, the effect further out a pressure shock wave moving at sonic velocity through the water. The Nagasaki torpedoes launched against the Piranha were on the Piranha side of the Vortex blast zone, the weapons passing each other on the way to their respective targets. But it hardly mattered, the blast and shock passing through the speeding torpedoes, vaporizing the one furthest behind, smashing the structural framing of the torpedo in the lead, the latter self-detonating in an explosion that was designed to rip open an enemy submarine hull but just dissipated outward in the waters of the Pacific.

  The threat of the Nagasaki torpedoes was eliminated, but the effect of the saving Vortex missile had to be endured. The shock wave hit the Piranha like a huge fist. The reactor scrammed, tripped out, the shock of the blast knocking all but a handful of men to the decks and spilling their blood.

  In the aftermath of the battle there were two submarines left, one crippled and sinking, the other shut down and whole but in deep shock. If that were all, the two submarines might have recovered without incident.

  But that was not all.

  Ninety kilometers to the south the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force Destiny II submarine Spring Sunshine made its way northward, its Second Captain reporting on the many explosions fr
om the battle zone.

  CHAPTER 40

  USS BARRACUDA

  “Sir, depth is eighteen hundred, a hundred feet from crush depth.”

  Pacino had no choice. He had no reactor, a sinking submarine a hair’s breadth from crush depth and a crew of only a half-dozen functioning men. It no longer mattered who waited for them on the surface or who lurked in the area with armed Nagasaki torpedoes. The choice: Certain death from the pressure of the deep, or possible life from the safety of the surface. Pacino chose the surface.

  “Chief of the Watch, emergency blow forward.”

  The chief stood and reached into the overhead for the chicken switch, the lever that would admit ultrahigh pressure air directly into the main ballast tanks forward.

  He pushed the lever upward, and an immediate loud roaring invaded the silence of the dead control room as the air filled the forward ballast tanks.

  The depth indicator didn’t stop its downward drift, the gage now reading 1815 feet, only eighty-five feet above crush depth. Around Pacino the sounds of the metal of the hull protesting and groaning could be heard — the prelude to a hull failure.

  “Chief, emergency blow aft,” Pacino commanded. The chief pushed the aft lever forward, the roaring noise doubling as the aft tanks were being evacuated of seawater.

  The ship was now tons lighter, even at this depth.

  The depth gage continued its downward drift, at 1825, 1830, 1840, until it froze at 1860, the depth staying constant.

  Pacino thought that crush-depth figures were subject to some errors, that no one really knew what pressure the hull would collapse at until it actually did, but then the deck slowly inclined upward, and the depth indicator clicked up one foot. Just one, but that was enough. The gage began to click some more, the deck inclining upward as the ship began to rush toward the surface, the digital indicator showing the vessel picking up speed.

  “Keep the ship flat if you can,” Pacino told the helmsman.

  If the up-angle was too much, the ship would come up and dump the air from the ballast tanks, then sink back down again.

  The depth gage unwound, and even with full plane angles the helmsman couldn’t keep the deck level. Pacino grabbed a handhold as the deck inclined upward past thirty degrees to forty-five, the deck becoming more of a wall than a floor. The gage whizzed through the numbers—500 feet, 450, 300, 200, 100, until the ship careened from the deep and leaped from the sea, only the pumpjet aft remaining submerged as the ship rocketed through the waves, froze in space for a long moment, then crashed back down into the sea.

  The depth gage came back down, 100 feet, 200, but then the downward plunge stopped and the ship again climbed back to the surface, bobbing in the waves, rolling slowly to port, then to starboard.

  “THIS IS ADMIRAL PACINO,” Pacino said on the circuit one, his voice booming through the ship. “WE HAVE EMERGENCY BLOWN TO THE SURFACE. CONTINUE TO BRING BACK THE REACTOR.”

  Pacino raised the number-two periscope to see what was around them there on the surface; the sea was empty.

  It might take hours to recover the plant and resubmerge the ship. He wondered how long it would take the Japanese to realize he was there for the taking.

  USS PIRANHA

  “Where are we now?” Phillips asked.

  “Normal full power lineup,” Walt Hornick’s voice said on the phone circuit. “We should have full propulsion in about one minute.”

  “Very well. Nice recovery, Eng. You’ll get a medal for this.” If they survived, Phillips thought.

  Five minutes later full propulsion was back online and Piranha was back.

  “Master Chief. What do you hear?”

  “Sir, the news is mixed. The Destiny is gone, but the Barracuda did an emergency blow to the surface.”

  “Damn. How far, XO?”

  “Geo plot shows them about six miles from here, Skipper. Bearing one one five.”

  “Helm, all ahead flank, right full rudder, steady one one five.” The deck rolled as the large rudder order was followed, the ship’s speed accelerating to forty-three knots. “What are you thinking. Captain?”

  “If the Barracuda is on the surface they could be in trouble, especially if the Japanese come to call. Helm, all ahead emergency flank.”

  * * *

  It took six minutes to reach the Barracuda’s position. Phillips came shallow and slow, cleared his baffles and ascended to periscope depth at the walking pace of five knots. When the periscope cleared, he could see the Barracuda rolling in the waves, no men on her deck.

  “Conn, Sonar, new contact, submerged Destiny II class, bearing one nine zero, contact is distant, designate Target Seven.”

  “And we’re fresh out of Vortex missiles.”

  “What now, Skipper?” from Whatney. “We surface and get the Barracuda crew out of there,” Phillips said.

  “But sir—”

  “But nothing. Admiral Pacino’s aboard. You ever consider what would happen to us if he got taken prisoner? Mr. Court, take us up and bring us alongside.”

  * * *

  The next hour was like a drunken memory to Pacino.

  The Piranha surfaced almost right next to them, thrusting up against their hull, lines coming over, men with safety harnesses crawling over the hull. Pacino ordered the hatches opened, and the Piranha boarding party came aboard. He felt himself getting dizzy as they carried out the men. He sat at the pos-two control seat and put his head on the console, the dizziness overwhelming him. Finally he felt strong hands drag him up by the arms, and he was lifted up the ladder, feeling himself go more limp.

  In a blur he found himself carried aboard the Piranha and lowered down the ladder into the hull, conveyed to a pile of blankets in the crew’s mess. He saw a face hovering over his, a voice saying Good Lord, he looks white, must be internal bleeding, and he sank in the cold and the dark and knew no more.

  USS PIRANHA

  “Diving Officer, submerge the ship to eight zero feet.”

  Phillips was on the periscope, watching the empty Barracuda. He knew what he had to do now, with the incoming Destiny II submarine. There was little choice.

  It seemed to take forever for the ship to get down. Once it did, he was ready. The torpedoes in tubes one, two, three and four were flooded, open to sea and warmed up, all of them programmed with the location to the Barracuda. There was no way he’d let the Japanese have such a prize, a technological wonder. He would sink it before he’d allow that to happen.

  “Conn, Sonar, Target Seven, Destiny II-class submarine, continues inbound, signal-to-noise level increasing.”

  “Sonar, Captain, does he know we’re here?”

  “Don’t think so, sir.”

  “Let me know.” Phillips took his face from the periscope.

  “Attention in the firecontrol team. I intend to put four torpedoes into the Barracuda to keep it out of Japanese hands, then hightail it out of the Oparea and head to the deep Pacific. With luck we can be gone before Target Seven, the next Destiny, knows we’re here. We’ll be doing a periscope approach on the Barracuda. Firing-point procedures, tubes one through four, Target Eight, surfaced US submarine.”

  “Ship ready, sir.”

  “Weapons ready, sir.”

  “Solution pending, sir.”

  “Final bearing and shoot, USS Barracuda.”

  “Ready, Captain.”

  Phillips pressed a red button on the periscope grip.

  “Bearing mark.”

  “Two seven six.”

  “Range mark, three divisions in high power.”

  “Range fifteen hundred yards.”

  “Set,”

  “Standby.”

  “Shoot one,” Phillips commanded.

  “Fire one.”

  “Tube one fired electrically.”

  The other three torpedoes were launched then, Phillips’s eye on the periscope lens. The torpedoes hit one after the other, the black rising clouds of spray and smoke from the explosions spectacular. There
was not much of the ship to see on the surface to start with, only her sail and the top of her hull normally exposed, 90 percent of her below the water, but after four torpedo hits, the ship settled and sank quickly.

  Nothing was left of the Barracuda except a white foam on the surface.

  “Dive, make your depth six hundred feet. Helm, right five degrees rudder, steady course east, all ahead emergency flank. Lowering number-two scope.”

  Phillips stood and leaned on the conn rail. He stayed and watched the chart and listened to Gambini’s reports on the Destiny II class. Target Seven, but the Japanese submarine had apparently never detected them. He seemed to be heading for the sound of the explosions coming from what used to be the Barracuda, but by the time he got there, the Piranha was long gone.

  Phillips watched as the ship crossed over the boundary of the Oparea and headed east, the vibrations gone now that the Vortex tubes were no longer there, all of them jettisoned after the firing of the individual weapons.

  * * *

  A few hours later, Phillips slowed to flank, and six hours after that, turned off the reactor circulation pumps and coasted down to full speed. He came to periscope depth, transmitted a situation report and a request to the Mount Whitney, and went back deep.

  He took one trip up to the crew’s mess, a makeshift sickbay for the men pulled off the Barracuda, and found the unconscious form of Admiral Pacino.

  “Well, Admiral, you don’t know it, but you saved our lives with your little control-room simulation-trainer. If not for you I’d have run from those Nagasakis. If not for you I wouldn’t have had any Vortex missiles. You kicked their asses out here. I just wanted you to know that.”

  Phillips stared at Pacino for a long time, the man’s skin white and unhealthy-looking, the eyepatch still strung across his bad eye, his lips swollen and chapped.

  Finally he walked away. As he did, a slight smile seemed to come to the admiral’s lips, although no one was watching to be able to say either way.

  EPILOGUE

  Twelve hours later the ship surfaced a second time and discharged the patients, Pacino among them, into the Sea King helicopters for medevac to the Mount Whitney. Pacino didn’t wake up as he was loaded, and was still unconscious as he was unloaded from the chopper and hauled into sickbay. It would be two days before he opened his good eye.