Threat vector

by Michael Dimercurio

  "Nothing," the older man said.

  "Want some coffee while we wait, Al? I've got the best beans this side of South America."

  Novskoyy smiled, revealing the even teeth of a younger man. "I would like that."

  Grachev nodded and keyed his console, ringing the galley below.

  "Tango sierra, this is november uniform flag, over."

  Petri picked up the red handset. "November uniform flag, this is tango sierra, over."

  "Twinkies purchased, over."

  The surface task force had moved its merchant ships out of the way of the Mark 5 Sharkeye.

  "Roger," Petri said. "Tango sierra is letting out the dog, over."

  "Roger, understand, letting out the dog, november uniform out."

  "OOD, launch the Mark 5," Petri ordered.

  "Launch the Mark 5, aye, ma'am. Coordinator, Offsa'deck, shoot tube one."

  "Standby," came over Petri's headset from the executive officer, Paul Manderson, in charge in the attack center on the middle level.

  "Shoot," the weapons officer, Dick Van Dyne, said.

  "Fire," Dietz commanded.

  Even here, high above the deck of the submarine, the violent launch of a torpedo tube could be heard and felt. Petri scanned the water of the channel to see if she could see the torpedo-mounted Mark 5 blasting out of the amidships torpedo bank and running down the channel, but there was nothing but the blue-green bay water.

  "Tube one fired electrically," Van Dyne's voice reported.

  "Bridge, Sonar, own ship's unit, normal launch," Senior Chief Henry called.

  The Mark 5 Sharkeye sailed down the channel, heading out at thirty knots to the opening of the bay, to a point ten miles east of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, where it would deploy the Sharkeye acoustic daylight pod. Until it reached its destination, Petri would keep the ship here in mid-channel. This search would be damn thorough. There would be no boards of investigation to accuse her of missing anything.

  "What's the SSNX doing?" Grachev asked, sipping his coffee next to Novskoyy.

  Aft, in VR sensor cubicle number two, Captain Second Rank Mykhailo Svyatoslov flew at seven thousand meters above the Chesapeake, looking down at the surface warships escorting the merchant vessels southward, the submarine still in mid-channel, stopped.

  Svyatoslov selected high power in his binocular vision, making the gyrostabilized view below expand until he seemed to be hanging suspended from the sky fifty meters above the sail of the sub-

  marine. He could see the three khaki-clad officers on top of the fin talking to each other, bent over a chart, looking down the channel.

  "Sir, nothing. It's just sitting there."

  "That's odd," Grachev mused. "I would have expected it to come screaming out of the bay looking for us."

  "They may think their ships were sunk by terrorist bombs loaded aboard before they sailed. Maybe the SSNX is having trouble."

  "No. If the SSNX was having problems, there would be tugboats coming to help it. And there are no tugboats. Plus the surface merchant traffic is being kept out of the area. That's suspicious. And a surface warship task force. Hey, Mr. First, what's the surface ship order of battle?"

  "One Aegis II-class cruiser, three Bush-class ASW destroyers, three fast frigates."

  "No chopper carrier. The destroyers, they got helicopters on deck?"

  "Yes, all three, but the rotors are stowed."

  "Hmm. Still nothing doing with the SSNX?"

  "No, sir."

  "Weapons Officer, turn the four Bora units to heading three zero zero, northwest," Grachev ordered.

  "Sir, they could run low on fuel," Lynski said, sounding uncertain.

  "I'll turn them early. We're going to cut the corner instead of coming in due west."

  "Why?" Novskoyy asked.

  "I have a feeling that if these units get detected, we'll want the surface group and the SSNX to think

  the launching point was east-southeast instead of south. They'll probably launch a hundred counter-measures down the bearing line." Novskoyy nodded.

  The Mark 5 Sharkeye slowed as the onboard ring laser inertial package indicated it was nearing the target area. The propulsor spun down until the unit was at bare steerageway, controlling its direction as it approached the sandy bottom at a depth of twenty fathoms, 120 feet. The body of the torpedo angled upward as it continued to slow, finally landing on the sand of the bottom.

  The nose section split open, and ten basketball-shaped hydrophone sensors floated out of the unit. Each of the spheres had a different preset buoyancy and weight. All were tied to the torpedo body below and to each other by thread-thin wires. In the next seconds the spheres rose in the warm water, coming to rest at different depths. The linked spheres formed a single acoustic daylight array scanning the near ocean, ten miles east of the mouth of the Chesapeake. As the array came online, it first reported the positions of the group of surface ships overhead and to the south. It looked west and saw the Bay Bridge pilings. And off to the southwest, four high-speed incoming torpedoes.

  Dutifully the Mark 5 Sharkeye sensors fed the data to the torpedo body below, to the central processor, which emotionlessly reported the data down the fiber-optic wire back to the torpedo room of the stationary Devilfish, and from there to the Cyclops battlecontrol computer, which read out in

  the control room where Paul Manderson, the XO, stood watching a flat display panel acoustic daylight image readout, and to the bridge repeater on the forward lip of the sail, where Dietz, O'Neal, and Petri all saw the data cascade into the display at the same time.

  "Torpedo in the water!" Dietz sputtered. "No, four of them, bearing one zero two, range twenty nautical miles! Captain!"

  "I see it," Petri called, her voice eerily calm. "Call it, OOD, and get us out of the bay, ahead flank."

  Dietz shouted into his boom microphone, "I have the conn, Helm, Bridge, all ahead flank! Steer course zero eight five. All spaces, Bridge, multiple torpedoes in the water!"

  "Bridge, Helm, throttling up to flank. Steer course zero eight five, Bridge, Helm, aye, RPM passing one zero zero, steady course zero eight five, reactor power eight zero percent."

  The ship began to move, slowly at first, the bow wave building up, the deck beginning to tremble with the power of sixty thousand horses at the shaft.

  "Belay reports, Helm." Dietz turned to Petri. "Captain, shouldn't we be heading into the bay? We'll be driving into four torpedoes."

  "I'll tell you why, OOD. Sonar, Captain, classify incoming torpedoes."

  "Bridge, Sonar, torpedoes are Russian Republic Bora series weapons, with ducted water-jet propul-sors, making way at approximately forty knots, range extremely distant, outside forty thousand

  yards but with very distinct up-Doppler, all units definitely inbound."

  "Sonar, Captain, can you distinguish if they are Bora I or Bora II weapons?"

  "Captain, Sonar, Bora II."

  Petri looked at Dietz, whose eyes had grown wide. "We have four plasma-tipped torpedoes on the way in, OOD. If we turn around, they'll follow us into Port Norfolk. They could wipe out downtown if they detonated at the waterfront. We'll take Devilfish to open ocean, distract the torpedoes, and draw them north. Meanwhile we'll put out our own counterfire. But first, rig the bridge for dive. As soon as we're clear of the Bay Bridge, pull the plug—we're going down. Got it?"

  "Yes, ma'am," Dietz said, his eyes glassy with shock.

  "Down ladder!" Petri shouted, opening the grating to the bridge access tunnel and lowering herself quickly down the accessway to the upper level of the operations compartment.

  "Could be submerging."

  "It has all of five meters under the keel," the first officer sniffed.

  "Looks like it's settling into the water." "Mother of God, what is it doing?"

  "I don't care, goddammit," Petri spat. "Take her the fuck down!"

  "Aye-aye, Captain. Pilot, open the aft ballast tank vents. Maintain one fathom under the keel with the high-frequ
ency bottom sounder, nonsecure mode."

  "Sir, I can't keep up with it at this speed. I'll bottom out."

  "Do your best. If it's between broaching the sail and scraping bottom, pop out the sail."

  "Pilot, aye."

  "This is the captain," Petri's voice boomed on the Circuit One. "We have four inbound Bora torpedoes, and it looks like they are programmed to come into the channel and find us. We're at the mouth of Thimble Shoals Channel now, and we're going to keep heading east. With any luck, the torpedoes will follow us and not continue into Norfolk Harbor. We'll be putting out Mark 58 torpedoes on the incoming bearing line."

  Petri put up the microphone and stood at the periscope stand, looking down on the hastily assembled battlestations crew.

  "Attention, fire-control team," she said. "I plan to put three Mark 58 Alert/Acute units down the bearing line to the incoming torpedoes. As long as we're whole, we'll put out a dozen Mark 58s." It

  might cost every crewmember of the submarine, but she had to get those plasma weapons away from the residential section of the bay. "Carry on."

  "Sonar, Captain, do we have anything on the firing platform?"

  "Captain, Sonar, no."

  "OOD, status of the slot buoy." She'd ordered the ejection of a radio buoy with the simple message "Devilfish under torpedo attack this position."

  "Slot buoy away, Captain."

  "Tube status, Weps?"

  "Tubes two through six dry-loaded with Mart 58s. Power connected, ring lasers warming up, gyros starting now."

  "Watch them. Report when ready. I want an immediate launch when they're set."

  The deck shook with the power of the mair motor pushing them through the shallow water at 50.8 knots. For a moment Petri contemplated shifting to emergency flank, then decided against it. It was hard enough maintaining depth control with flank bell on. The extra speed was not built into the bottom sounder's nonsecure littoral water evasioi mode, and they could easily bottom out or broad at whatever the SSNX's top speed turned out tc be at emergency flank.

  She glanced at the chart, seeing that they'd exited the bay.

  "Pilot, left one degree rudder, steady course zero four five." A larger rudder angle could send them into a snap roll, and the single degree would turn them on a dime at this speed.

  "One degree, zero four five, aye, my rudder is left one degree."

  Petri scanned the bottom sounder. The Cyclops interface showed there to be ten feet of water above the sail, about thirty feet below it. There would be one hell of a rooster tail above them, she thought, wondering if another news camera would be catching this.

  "Sonar, Captain, torpedoes tracking us?"

  "Conn, Sonar, yes."

  "Dammit."

  "Captain, units two through six warmed up and ready for launch. Request to flood tubes."

  "Make tubes two through six ready in all respects. Report status."

  "Aye, Captain," Van Dyne reported from the weapons interface panel. "Port bank flooded, flooding starboard bank. Port bank pressurized. Request to open port bank outer doors."

  "Open port bank outer doors."

  "Aye, Captain, port outer doors rotating open, ready to shoot two, four, and six."

  "XO, you have three firing solutions entered?"

  "Yes, ma'am," Manderson snapped in her headset. If only they had something they could launch against the incoming torpedoes, she thought. But shooting down an incoming torpedo would be like taking rifle aim at a quarterback's football toss from the highest row of the stadium.

  "Range settings?"

  "Mark 58 unit two, set to search at ten thousand yards. That's our safety unit. Unit four, fifteen

  thousand. Unit six, twenty thousand. Passive cir-clers with active-range sampling."

  "Very well. Firing point procedures, tubes two, four, and six, linear salvo."

  "Ship ready," Dietz reported.

  "Weapon ready," Van Dyne said.

  "Solution set," Manderson said.

  "Tube two, shoot on generated bearing," Petri said. Ten minutes into her first submergence as the ship's captain, she was shooting.

  "Set," from Manderson.

  "Standby," Van Dyne said, keying the standby fixed function key.

  "Shoot," Petri ordered.

  "Fire!" Van Dyne said, hitting the fire fixed function key.

  A quarter-second swish noise sounded, the prelude to the sudden boom of the torpedo firing ram venting its high-pressure air inboard. The deck jumped as if they were in a bus that had hit a speed bump at fifty per, and the eardrums of every crewmember took a closed-fisted blow as the ship's atmospheric pressure spiked from the air overpressure of the firing ram.

  Two decks below, the Mark 58 Alert/Acute torpedo was ejected from the tube. Its engine started, reporting back by fiber-optic wire that all was normal.

  "Conn, Sonar," Chief Cook's voice rang in Petri's ear. "Incoming torpedoes are getting closer. Still tracking, constant bearing at one six zero. Rough triangulation between own ship's acoustic

  daylight arrays and Mark 5 remote array puts first incoming torpedo at range four thousand yards."

  "Sonar, Captain, ping active and confirm acoustic daylight range."

  "Conn, Sonar, ping active aye."

  A sudden bing noise rang out, the noise loud in the whisper-quiet control room.

  "Conn, Sonar, we have a high Doppler return from the bearing to the torpedoes. Range shows three four zero zero yards."

  "Captain aye," Petri said. With the first torpedo at that close a range, they would need to do something. "OOD, have we got room to put the torpedo directly astern and run northwest?"

  "No, ma'am. We'll run aground in . . . five minutes."

  Petri bit her lip. "Pilot, all ahead emergency flank."

  "Emergency flank aye, Maneuvering, Control, emergency flank, report when ready. Captain, Maneuvering answers preparing for emergency flank bell."

  Hurry the hell up, Petri thought.

  The first of the Bora II torpedoes closed relentlessly on the retreating target. The ship's loud wake noise and propulsor cavitation at such a shallow depth gave it away. Fuel level was low but calculated to be well within requirements for putting the warhead on target.

  The Bora II had increased speed to attack velocity, 125 kilometers per hour, against a target that was running at barely ninety-five. As the Bora

  drove on, the target became steadily closer. It was time to rotate the arming fail-safe plate and align the low-explosive charges with the intermediate explosives. The computer closed several interlock contacts in the ignition circuit to the heavy plasma warhead in the mid-body of the torpedo. It would not be too much longer.

  "Speed climbing to fifty-five knots, fifty-six, fifty-seven . . ."

  "Belay the report, Pilot," Petri called. She needed to think. What would be the effect if she turned, hard, just as the torpedo was closing? The five-ton weapon was much more maneuverable than a 7,700-ton submarine. It would be like trying to outmaneuver a motorcycle from the wheel of a bus. Was there a chance that she could drive the Devilfish outside the search cone of the torpedo?

  "Steady at sixty-four point nine knots, ma'am," the pilot reported.

  "Very well," she said absently.

  For the next three minutes, Petri pushed the watchsection to launch torpedoes four and six, the units away. She cut the wires and ordered the starboard tubes readied, but it would take a few moments to line up.

  "OOD," Petri asked, "what's the bottom here?"

  "Captain?"

  "Mud, silt, clay, sand, or rocks?"

  "Chart says sand, ma'am."

  "Not good enough. Click through to the Hydro-logical Survey of 2017. Quick! I want the exact bottom conditions at a point a half mile directly in

  front of us! Diving Officer, mark sounding and sail clearance!"

  "Ma'am, sounding five fathoms, sail clearance twenty-five feet."

  "Take her down, to sounding two fathoms, and watch the bottom suction! We're taking her
close!"

  "Yes, ma'am, but we're at emergency flank. The bottom sounder won't keep up if there's an obstacle ahead."

  "Keep her down. What buoyancy have you got?"

  "Neutral within a hundred tons. We didn't get time to do a trim, Captain."

  "Flood depth control one and two till they're full."

  "Flooding depth control one and two, Pilot aye."

  The ship, plowing ahead at almost sixty-five knots, nosed downward toward the bottom. On the other side of the conn platform Bryan Dietz's head sprouted droplets of sweat as he stroked the software keys of the WritePad computer.

  "What is it?"

  "Not there, yet, Skipper."

  She'd never been called that, she thought strangely, her mind becoming unfocused in this moment of stress.

  "Come on!"

  "Almost, okay, I've got the survey, inserting the lat/long now."

  "Come on, come on!"

  "Sand, ma'am. Sand down to a depth of a hundred fifty feet!"

  "Good. Pilot, maintain two fathoms under the keel."

  "Pilot aye, two fathoms, ship's depth is one hundred feet, ma'am."

  "Very well. Attention in the fire-control team. When the torpedo is close, within five hundred yards, I am going to take her into the sand of the bottom. We'll grind to a halt and with any luck bury ourselves in the sand and the torpedo will keep going. We will full-scram the reactor and deenergize the entire electric plant—vital and non-vital AC buses, the DC grid, all the way to the battery breaker. That will kill every piece of machinery aboard with the exception of Cyclops. OOD, check on Cyclops emergency cooling. Maneuvering, you got all that?"

  "Conn, Maneuvering aye."

  "OOD?"

  "Cyclops emergency cooling is fined up, Captain."

  "Very well. Sonar, Captain, range to incoming torpedo number one?"

  "Seven hundred yards, but the range is ver rough, ma'am."

  It was now or never, Petri thought.

  "Everyone grab a handhold!" She took a deef breath. "Pilot, take her down, one degree dov angle on the ship! Maneuvering, Captain, on impact, insert a full scram and open all breakers! Pilot, if she bounces, you keep the down angle."