by Rob Tiffany
Submarine Warriors
The Enemy Beneath
ROB TIFFANY
Hood Canal Press
Copyright © 2011 Rob Tiffany
All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the author or publisher.
Created, encoded, printed and bound in the United States of America
This book is a work of fiction. The authors and publisher have taken care in the preparation of this book but make no expressed or implied warranty of any kind and assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Hood Canal Press books are available through booksellers and distributors worldwide. For further information contact Hood Canal Press at http://www.hoodcanalpress.com.
Visit the author at http://robtiffany.com
ISBN: 0-9798912-4-8
ISBN-13: 978-0-9798912-4-3
DEDICATION
This book has been extra-special for me because it involved my kids and even their friends. Writing the rough draft of a chapter and reading it to your children as a bedtime story is a wonderful experience. It’s also the best way to get feedback from your target audience to ensure that it reads with the voice of a middle-grade boy or girl.
Thanks to Mike, Nick, Caroline and my wife Cathy for being such an integral part of this book.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
i
Prologue
1
1
The Mission
4
2
The Cover Up
25
3
The Plan
37
4
Stealing the Sub
48
5
The Chase
66
6
Finding their Fathers
78
7
The Rescue
93
8
The Escape
114
Epilogue
132
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many people and events in my life helped shape this novel. It began with the Sailors, Marines, and SEALs I served with as a Submariner in the U.S. Navy. Living beneath the waves for months-on-end while reading Tom Clancy, teaching myself how to program software, and running missile drills made a lasting impression on my life. In writing this middle-grade adventure novel, I received inspiration and feedback from friends, fellow writers, and my family. Hood Canal Press takes this idea from a Word document to something tangible and special for readers all over the world. Last but not least, Cathy and Kathy get an extra-big Thank You for all their help.
Prologue
Deep beneath the frigid north Pacific, the ocean floor trembled as a pyramid-shaped structure emerged from underground. The glowing, crystalline tip of this otherworldly object revealed itself above the seabed. It illuminated the dark ocean depths, and the surrounding, near-freezing water began to boil. Hundreds of feet up, the surface bubbled and spewed water into the sky like an erupting volcano. Marine life scattered in every direction to avoid the intense heat projected from this underwater anomaly.
A large cruise ship was returning from a two-week Alaska voyage. Destined for the port of Seattle, it was about to leave the Pacific Ocean behind and enter an inland waterway called the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Without warning, the giant vessel rocked violently back and forth as it encountered an area of turbulent, bubbling water. Crewmembers and passengers alike were thrown to the deck as the collision alarm sounded. Many of the tourists relaxing in deckchairs suddenly found themselves thrown overboard into the boiling sea. The ship’s compass spun wildly as loose metal objects flew violently through the air.
“Helm, give me a hard, right rudder and accelerate to full speed!” ordered the Captain.
“Controls are unresponsive sir,” the Helmsman replied. “We can’t navigate away!”
“Radioman, send out an SOS!”
Moments later, the ship tilted upward and plunged beneath the churning waves, entombing thousands of innocent people.
The White House
“Mr. President, I need you to take a look at this.” The Chief of Staff entered the residence to wake him up. “Twelve hours ago, one of our satellites picked up an unusual heat signature from the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Washington State. Some of our scientists think it’s an underwater volcano, but we don’t know for sure.”
The groggy, young President sat up and turned on his bedside lamp, glancing at the clock. “Darren, nobody mentioned anything about sleep deprivation during the campaign. Why do I need to know about an undersea volcano in the middle of the night?”
“Sir, an overdue cruise ship never made it home to the Port of Seattle.” The Chief of Staff dropped a classified folder on the President’s lap. “Its last known GPS coordinates were in the vicinity of the heat disturbance.”
“I suppose the two of us didn’t get much sleep during our Delta Force days in Afghanistan either. Go drag the NSA and the Joint Chiefs out of bed and meet me in the Situation Room in thirty minutes,” the President ordered his longtime friend.
Chapter 1 > The Mission
Subase Bangor
Cold, Pacific Northwest drizzle added to the tearful scene on the Delta pier as crewmembers from the USS Alaska said goodbye to their wives and children. The gray skies seemed to blend in with the dark water and black submarines. One hundred and eighty sailors from the Blue Crew were departing for a seventy-day strategic deterrent patrol. Alternating Blue and Gold crews ensured continuous operations for America’s Trident fleet. With twenty-four submarine-launched ballistic missiles each, professional submariners kept their nuclear arsenal at-the-ready in order to deter other countries from attacking the United States.
Captain Connery’s twelve-year old daughter, Caroline, hugged him tightly. She knew it was almost time for him to lead his crew on another undersea mission.
“Dad, when are you going to get out of this submarine business?” a tearful Caroline inquired. “I’ve lived half my life without you around.”
“This is my last patrol, I promise. After this, I’m accepting an Admiral’s post here at the base. We’ll see each other so much you’ll get sick of me.”
“So you’ll finally be an Admiral like Granddad?” Caroline smiled.
“Don’t sound so surprised.”
“I’m happy for you, but this better be the last patrol,” retorted Caroline. “Don’t make me come after you. I’ve got super powers, you know.”
Just down the pier, the Alaska’s Weapons Officer, Lieutenant Wyatt, bumped fists with his son Nick as he crossed the gangplank onto the flat missile deck of the sub. “I expect you to take out all the aliens in Halo by the time I get back.”
“You know it, Dad,” Nick yelled back as he ran down the pier. “I can handle any creature or boss they throw at me.”
Nearby, Mike found himself face-down on the pier with a grimace on his face.
“I keep telling you, those untied shoelaces are going to trip you up one day,” Sonarman Timbers said as he helped his son off the deck.
“Sorry, Dad.” Mike looked up. “It’s always dark when I get up for school and my eye-hand coordination isn’t at its best when I’m tying my shoes.”
Petty Officer Timbers pulled a plastic glow stick off his life vest and put it in Mike’s hand. “The next time you need some light, just bend this tube, and it
will start glowing brightly.”
“Thanks Dad.”
“Hey Mike, give me a ping,” laughed Annie as she walked by with her best friend Chrissie. “Without my dad the Quartermaster, you bubbleheads wouldn’t know where to go.”
“Oh yeah, well, without my dad, the Alaska would be flying blind.” Mike gave the girls a quick comeback.
“Without the Radioman, the sub wouldn’t receive emergency action messages,” Chrissie chimed in. “You’d be cut off from the rest of the world without my dad.”
“I’d like to see your dad climb outside the submarine and fix a radio antenna while submerged,” shot back Mike.
“Enough arguing.” Sonarman Timbers broke things up. “Your dads are all important and we’ve got to get this show on the road. We’ll see you back here in a few months.”
The somber group of officers and men made their way down the escape hatches into the large ballistic missile submarine. The families and loved ones of the men who wore silver and gold dolphins on their chests consoled each other as they headed back to shore from the triangular Delta Pier. It’s a scene that’s been repeated hundreds of times since America began guarding its shores by patrolling the ocean depths with her most powerful weapon.
“Hey Caroline!” shouted Nick. “Let’s get everybody together and meet at my tree house. I think everyone’s safely below decks by now.”
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll text the others and see you guys over there.” Caroline climbed into her mom’s Suburban.
Once the last man dropped below decks and closed the remaining open hatch, the Officer of the Deck picked up a microphone and barked, “Station the maneuvering watch.”
The crew scrambled to man their posts in preparation for getting underway. The idea of getting almost two hundred men from their bunks to their assigned stations in less than five minutes is easier said than done. The cramped quarters, narrow passageways, steep stairs, and small watertight doors of a submarine pose quite a few challenges to a sailor trying to get somewhere fast. Thanks to years of training, the engine room, torpedo room, missile control center, sonar shack, maneuvering, radio room, and control room were all manned and ready to go with seconds to spare. The Captain, Officer of the Deck, and two lookouts were stationed up in the sail to lead the way as the eyes and ears of the sub.
USS Alaska
It might come as a surprise to know that submarines require the help of tugboats when navigating through rivers or narrow channels and when arriving and departing from a port. This time was no different as a large tugboat, tied to the port side of the Alaska, gunned her engines to pull the submarine away from the pier.
“Ahead one-third,” the Captain called down to the Helmsman driving the sub.
“Ahead one-third, aye,” replied the Helmsman as he twisted the Engine Order Telegraph to the right.
Back in the Maneuvering section of the sub, the one-third bell rang. This alerted the nuclear engineer on watch to apply enough steam to the sub’s turbines to attain the requested speed, the slowest. The Petty Officer gradually moved the large wheel to release the steam created by the nuclear reactor, and the propeller shaft began to turn.
The USS Alaska made its way northward through the Hood Canal. Often mistaken for a river, the Hood Canal is the largest fjord in North America. Twenty minutes later, safety cross-arms were lowered on the Hood Canal Bridge to stop civilian car traffic. Built by the military, the Hood Canal Bridge was designed to open so submarines could pass through and reach the Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The strait is basically a large, nautical freeway between the US and Canada where ships and subs travel from the Puget Sound to the Pacific Ocean. It’s common to see cargo ships, oil tankers and cruise ships coming and going through this Inland Passage.
The submarine spent several hours transiting through the strait. This was a real treat for the sailors who were outside on watch in the sail. The beautiful Olympic Mountains lay to the south and Vancouver Island to the north. Finally, the Captain gave the word to move the bridge down from the sail and into the control room. The USS Alaska was emerging from the western mouth of the strait, and the Pacific Ocean was opening up before it.
“Something feels different this time,” the Captain thought to himself as he stared at the never-ending horizon of dark blue water. “You’ve got to keep it together for the sake of the rest of the crew.” He gazed one last time at the lighthouse at Cape Flattery on the port side of his sub. With a final puff on his cigar, he climbed down the ladder and closed the hatch above him.
“Diving Officer, submerge the ship.” The Captain dropped from the ladder onto the deck of the control room.
The control room is the nerve center of the sub and a very busy place. Here you find the Helmsman and Planesman who drive the sub, the Quartermaster who navigates, the Chief of the Watch who maintains the ship’s buoyancy, the Fire Control Technician who launches torpedoes and missiles, the Diving Officer who maintains depth, and the Officer of the Deck who orchestrates everyone’s activities.
At the Captain’s direction, the Chief of the Watch called out, “Dive, dive!” on the 1MC microphone and then sounded the claxon.
Large vents on the hull of the sub opened and released air from the ballast tanks. Someone observing this from afar might mistake this for a whale spraying air and water from its blowhole. As the tanks filled with water, the Alaska became less buoyant and slipped beneath the waves to enter the Pacific Ocean.
“Dive, make your depth four hundred feet,” the Officer of the Deck ordered.
“Make my depth four hundred feet, aye,” replied the Diving Officer.
With that, the crew began its normal watch rotation for their seventy-day patrol. It was business as usual for America’s latest generation of submarine warriors. One-third of the crew was on watch, and the other two-thirds were working, reading, playing video games, taking college courses, watching movies, or sleeping. Most were unaware of the secondary mission in store for some of their shipmates.
Captain Connery met with his senior officers in the Wardroom, a small room in front of the Galley where officers eat their meals and hold meetings.
“Gentlemen,” the Captain called everyone to order.
“As you know, we have a secondary mission that will commence in a few hours from now. The logistics of this mission require us to rendezvous with the Navy’s newest and most advanced Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle, the USS Omaha Beach. It’s currently waiting for us, one hundred nautical miles off the coast of Washington State and is manned by a single pilot. The Weapons Officer and three senior Petty Officers representing sonar, radio, and navigation will be joining me for this operation. When we transfer to the Omaha Beach, the Executive Officer will be in charge of the Alaska and it’s his job to keep her safe.”
The Captain glanced at the XO with a wry grin. “I’m not really sure what we’re getting ourselves into here. All we know is that a cruise ship disappeared in the same area where our satellites detected an unusual heat anomaly coming from the bottom of the sea. Some think it’s a new Bermuda Triangle and others speculate it’s an underwater volcano. XO, I’m preparing for the worst, so I want you to keep the Alaska at a safe distance while monitoring our activities.”
“So how will I know what a safe distance is, Captain?” asked the XO.
“Stay ten miles away and monitor us with passive sonar. The Omaha Beach will send you continuous telemetry data via High Frequency Internet Protocol (HFIP) so you’ll always know our status. If things start to go badly for us on the Omaha Beach, I want you to get the Alaska out of harm’s way at flank speed. Mr. Wyatt, assemble the rest of the team and meet me at the aft escape trunk in thirty minutes. We’re adjourned here.”
USS Omaha Beach
Out of the murky darkness of the North Pacific, a bright, silvery object slowly converged on Alaska’s position as it arrived at the rendezvous point.
The Omaha Beach represented a radical departure from deep submergence rescue
vehicles (DSRV) of the past. Looking more like a futuristic space ship than a miniature submarine, the Omaha Beach boasted its own small nuclear reactor to provide it with years of electricity and propulsion. The steam from its next-generation reactor could spin its propellers fast enough to achieve submerged speeds in excess of 100 knots. This enabled it to outrun almost any of the world’s fastest torpedoes. Its flexible, titanium-composite hull allowed it to reach depths greater than 5,000 feet below the surface. Rather than having a giant bubble of glass in the front to see out of, the Omaha Beach was covered with tiny sensors and cameras. What appeared to be a wall of glass to anyone inside the sub was really a flexible Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED) display designed to replace the typical forward viewport. This was safer than glass and allowed other information to be layered on top of the underwater view. Crewmembers could make hand gestures in front of the display to move pictures, text, video and other items from one part of the screen to another.
The Omaha Beach attached its docking collar over Alaska’s aft escape trunk with a thud. Captain Connery spun open the hatch and greeted the Omaha Beach’s pilot. The rest of Alaska’s away team made their way into the high tech sub and manned their respective stations to begin the mission. The pilot undocked the DSRV from the Alaska and it began to hover. Quartermaster First Class Love entered the coordinates of the mysterious heat anomaly into Omaha Beach’s navigation system.
“I heard the best minds from DARPA and US Navy research created this sub.” Captain Connery surveyed the interior of the sub with the amazement of a child.
“Yes, sir,” replied the Pilot.