"Captain," Judison said, "we've got a rooster
tail, very slight, at the location of the bearing intersection. Looks like a periscope or mast. This guy's atPD!"
"Firing point procedures, tubes one, two, and four, Mark 58 Alert/Acute, target twenty-six, highspeed run to enable, passive snake, wire-guidance-enabled. Report!"
McKee moved his point of view to the camera onboard the Predator, training it to the location of the bearing intersection. There, clear as day between the blue waves with their slight whitecaps in the sea breeze, was a pole protruding from the water, a slight white wake behind it.
McKee commanded with his cursor hand that the weapon status and tube status come up on a display board hanging in space in front of him. The tubes were loaded with spun-up Mark 58s. They were ready to shoot, and they had a firing solution to a submarine that was a Severodvinsk class. So why was he hesitating? This was his mission, what he had come here to do.
"Ship ready," Dietz said.
"Tubes one, two, and four, weapons ready," Van Dyne reported.
"Solution ready," from Judison.
"Cyclops ready," the Cyclops system said.
"Shoot on generated bearing," McKee said.
"Set."
"Cyclops has the room in standby."
"Shoot!" McKee ordered.
"Fire!" Van Dyne said.
The deck jumped as the heavy torpedo was launched.
"One fired electrically," the Cyclops system said.
"Conn, Sonar, unit one, normal launch."
The deck bounced again, the second torpedo
crash hitting McKee's ears.
"Conn, Sonar, two, normal launch."
The litany continued until three units were on
the way to the Severodvinsk sub.
"We may go home early," McKee muttered.
"Sir, any transmission replies from the surface force?" Svyatoslov said in Grachev's headset.
"Nothing," Grachev said from the command console.
"It's been eight minutes, sir. We should really pull the plug and see what's happening with those torpedoes deep."
"Very good. Ship Control, lower all masts, three hundred meters, ten-degree down angle! Right one degree rudder, steady course zero six zero, ahead four zero percent. At three hundred meters throttle back to three zero RPM."
Grachev waited impatiently until the vessel penetrated the layer depth and leveled out deep. He looked at aux two for information, and his eyes bulged out as he saw what was coming. The original torpedo they'd found was no longer orbiting and no longer where they'd seen it, but was now a few kilometers farther southwest. In addition, it had been joined by what looked like a dozen more, all of them on the way to the surface force. But what hit him between the eyes was the torpedo coming straight at them from the east, far north of the group of torpedoes heading for the surface force.
"Torpedo in the water!" he screamed, his voice choked.
"Four torpedoes in the water, Captain," the Second Captain announced in its level voice, on top of Grachev's. "Bearing zero eight eight, zero eight seven—"
"Second, Bora II immediate launch pending tubes one and three, bearing east, immediate enable, medium speed. Autocycle to tubes two and four! Ship Control, ahead a hundred and eighty percent power, depth six hundred meters, left two degrees rudder, steady three zero zero degrees!"
Vepr came around to head northwest, diving deeper, almost to her maximum operating depth. While she was passing north, tube one fired a large-bore Bora II torpedo. When the ship was almost steady on course 330, tube three fired, forcing that weapon to have to circle back around to the east, giving it much farther to go than the tube one unit.
Once Vepr was steady on course 330, the Second Captain automatically cut the weapon wires, shut the outer doors, and drained the tubes, then opened the doors on the middle tube bank, doors three and four, and shot those torpedoes. The deck began to shake as the ship sped up beyond its normal full speed. The reactor was now pushing beyond the rated power level by 80 percent, as the steam plant was rated to take up to 180 percent reactor power. The additional power would gain them only a few clicks over the ship's rated speed, eighty-five clicks. If the additional 80 percent gave them fifteen more kilometers per hour, he would be more than grateful, but drag increased as velocity
squared, so to double speed they'd have to more than quadruple power—and more, because reactor power became diminished by all the electrical loads the ship required, such as fast-speed recirculation pumps, each the size of a truck, and increased air-conditioning and steam-driven feed pumps. So power to the turbines would give them perhaps 10 or 15 percent more speed.
In two more seconds, tubes three and four were ready to fire, and the Second Captain launched them. Four torpedoes down the bearing line to the launching submarine.
In Grachev's chest his heart hammered so hard he thought it would affect his speech. He glanced over at Svyatoslov, his look as hard as he could make it, but the first officer had forsaken the command console for one of the virtual-reality consoles. The first officer had left his VR cube door open, enough that he could lift his goggles and see Grachev. Obviously he was keeping an eye out, because when Grachev looked over, Svyatoslov looked over at him. Grachev glared at him, and Svyatoslov nodded back in understanding.
Grachev put his hands in his pockets. If those torpedoes closed in on him, he could always punch out the control room. Of course, by then the surface force would be shredded metal. He glanced at Novskoyy, who had moved to the chart table and was leaning over it to try to see what the torpedoes were doing.
Who were these men who had so boldly sneaked in here and launched a dozen weapons at the surface force—which so far had done nothing but sail here from the Ukraine—and now four at him?
the Mark 5 Sharkeye on this side of the surface force. It was so far south that its triangulation range to the hostile sub, target twenty-six, was crude and losing accuracy. But then, there had been no time, and there was certainly no time now, because he had a torpedo—no, two—in the water now, both aimed for him. The enemy sub captain must have aimed them down the bearing line to the torpedoes that were coming in on him.
McKee took a breath, ready to shout an order to turn east and run, but realized if he did that he'd lose the tactical picture. Putting his machinery—screw and turbines and motors—between the acoustic daylight spherical array and hull arrays and target twenty-six would lose the target. It was true that McKee could then put more distance between the ship and the incoming torpedoes, but he had to see what the enemy sub was doing. If the Severodvinsk sub managed somehow to evade McKee's torpedoes, he could vanish, costing McKee precious minutes and maybe more searching for him. He'd come this far looking for the destroyer of the Princess Dragon and the Devilfish, and he'd be damned if he'd turn tail and run.
Which reminded him. The Hammerhead was moving, still at ahead one third, five knots. He needed to freeze the ship in the sea so that they minimized radiated noise and didn't show any "up-Doppler," the Doppler effect upshifting a reflected sonar pulse's frequency from an object moving toward the listener. If he was at the same speed as the sea around him, the sonar pulse from the torpedoes bouncing off his hull and going back to the
torpedoes would return at exactly the same frequency as the transmitted sound and the return from the surface waves. If the torpedo was transmitting active pinging sonar, it might even discard return sonar sounds that were within a few Hertz of the transmitted tone, allowing them to escape even though they would be dead in the water.
"Pilot, all stop!" McKee ordered. He was glad for a moment that he couldn't see the faces of the control room officers. To a man, they would be horrified. The standard operating procedure called for McKee to turn, put the torpedo on his rear quarter, and go to emergency flank, 200 percent reactor power. Instead he was going to stand in his boots and let the torpedoes come. It was suicidal.
"Pilot, hover at this depth, and make sure you're silent, and
place the reactor on natural circulation."
If stopping was a sin, shutting down the reactor with no pumps was a mortal sin. It would take vital minutes to come back to full power, time that could mean the difference between life and death on the sea bottom. But it still made sense, because shutting down the plant would make the ship that much quieter.
"Hovering, sir, rector going to nat-circ."
"Urn, Captain?" Judison said. "We should be running—"
"No, Hammerhead will stand and fight. Van Dyne, prepare to shoot tube three's Doberman Mark 17. XO, grab a VR cube and ride that Doberman to these torpedoes."
"State champs on the flea-flicker, I know. I want
Dietz on the circuit in VR three when I'm in two, sir. He can help back me up."
"Fine. Pilot?" McKee's calling for reports was a throwback to the ways of the past. In reality, a skilled operator should be able to get the information quicker from the Cyclops system, and McKee was going through the system's three-dimensional displays, but he still preferred to hear news from the crew, and to give orders to them instead of the computer. Otherwise, this would turn into a one-man show.
"Reactor is in nat-circ. Hovering on the trim system."
"Very well. Van Dyne?"
"Tube loading one, two, and four with Mark 17s. Tube three outer door open, Mark 17 Doberman ready."
"XO, launch tube three when you're ready. And get those damned torpedoes. When tubes one, two, and four are ready, you and Dietz take command of them, and get two units out there. Leave two units in the tubes for reserve."
"Aye, sir."
"Van Dyne, prepare vertical-launch tubes nine through twelve for immediate Vortex Mod Delta launch."
"Captain, we're too shallow. We need to be at least at eight hundred feet—"
"Pilot, flood depth control and take us to nine hundred feet."
"Flooding to nine hundred, sir."
"Muzzle doors opening VLTs nine through twelve."
"Attention in the fire-control team," McKee said to his impersonal boom mike. "We're going to counterfire with Mark 17 Doberman antitorpedo torpedoes to the incoming weapons, and we're going to put out a second salvo of Mod Deltas down this asshole's throat. Carry on."
The room was quiet for long and agonizing moments. It began to sneak into McKee's consciousness that they might not make it out of this battle in one piece, and his order to bring the sub deep didn't help their chances. Beneath them was water three miles deep, and if he and Judison and Dietz didn't get them out of this, that rocky sea bottom would be their final resting place.
"Captain, depth nine hundred feet," the pilot reported.
"Very well."
"Sir," Van Dyne said, "Vortex tubes nine through twelve are pressurized, request to open muzzle doors—"
"Open muzzle doors and launch when ready."
"Aye-aye, sir, nine through twelve assigned to target two six. Doors opening."
Come on, McKee thought impatiently. The deck jumped under his feet as Judison launched his Mark 17. McKee waited another minute, and the second Mark 17 Doberman was launched. A third barking noise sounded, much quieter, and coming from farther forward.
"Unit nine launch," Van Dyne reported.
"Very well."
The battlespace below McKee in the three-dimensional view was filling with the Mod Delta
Vortex missiles and the first two Doberman antitor-pedo units. With nothing further to do but wait, he turned to see what was going on with the torpedoes targeting the surface force. To his surprise, the surface ships had broken formation and scattered, most of them breaking to the south or southwest. Apparently the Severodvinsk had been able to warn them during its periscope-depth excursion. He blinked and brought up tags on the ten torpedoes. They would have extended runs now. They had originally been scheduled to begin hitting, but the surface force had failed to make two turns following the diamond pattern to fall into the torpedoes' traps. Fortunately, the torpedo seeker cones would still be seeing the target ships.
"Unit ten launch."
The enemy torpedoes were getting closer and closer. The closest one was now about seventeen nautical miles away, going forty-five knots. Time-to-impact was twenty-two minutes. But the main thing now was that McKee had to stop the firing ship, target twenty-six, from shooting any more weapons.
"Unit eleven launch, sir."
"Very well."
But should he fire the entire load at the Severodvinsk? And the torpedo room, too? But if he shot more Mark 58s, he wouldn't be able to wire-guide the Mark 17 Dobermans into the path of the incoming torpedoes. No, he decided. Anything else he launched at target twenty-six would have to come from the vertical-launch tubes. Vortex missiles. He had four left and four on the way. Sud-
denly the first-launched Vortex solid rocket engine ignited. The flame trail was represented as a bright white blowtorch flame in the deep layer of the virtual sea below McKee.
"Unit twelve launch and unit nine, normal rocket motor ignition, Captain."
"Very well, Weps."
"Sir," the Cyclops system reported. "Terminal speed increase on Mark 58 unit three."
McKee looked south for a second, seeing that one of the Alert/Acutes was closing rapidly on one of the fast frigates, which, in spite of its name, was one of the slower vessels in the task force. But he had no time for that. What he had said to the control room watchstanders was true: he didn't care about the surface force.
"Cyclops continue silence," he said. Shut the hell up.
"Unit ten normal rocket motor ignition."
"Belay reports," McKee snapped. / can see for myself.
Two minutes later, four of the Vortex underwater three-hundred-knot plasma-tipped missiles were on the way. Time of flight—four minutes thirty-six seconds. After that, it would be too late for the Severodvinsk. As if to punctuate his thought, the first plasma detonation sounded from the south with a roaring BOOM. The fast frigate exploded into iron filings, marking the first deaths in what would be a very long morning.
"Come on, let's go, get tubes one through four lined up! We need more ordnance on the target,"
Grachev said. The counterattack was going very poorly. Vepr was losing. Only four weapons were out down the bearing line. By fleet training standards, he should have been able to pump out at least three tube banks by now, twelve large-bore weapons. There was no time to spend thinking about why they'd been slow, but it probably was a partially clogged tube drain strainer or corrosion clogging the line that drained down the tubes. The slower drain-down meant the computer had had to wait longer to stuff the tubes.
"Mr. First," Grachev said, "what have you got on the Second Captain's analysis of incoming torpedo range?"
"We've got a very crude wiggle range, sir, but it's not like acoustic daylight—"
"Wish we were shallow enough to use a Shchuka sensor, eh, Mr. First?"
"Um, sir," Svyatoslov said, "range is less than fifteen kilometers on the near unit, about eighteen on the most distant. And there are four more launched in the past minute."
"Four more?"
"Yes, sir."
A wide, ugly streak appeared on aux two and three. Grachev stared at it, then realized Novskoyy was beside him, likewise staring.
"Second Captain, report the additional detects to the west."
"Sir, new detects are incoming torpedo units five through eight, with a louder sound signature, signal-to-noise ratio increasing by forty-five decibels."
"Second, are you sure these are torpedoes?"
"Captain, sound analysis indicates the presence of a solid rocket motor."
"Solid . . . rocket . . . motor."
"Sir, I think we're in deep, deep trouble."
"Captain," the Second Captain computer voice said, "incoming weapons have been analyzed for approach velocity."
The system paused.
"Well, what is it?"
"Captain, incoming torpedo units five through eight approach velocity confirmed at five hundred fifty kilo
meters per hour."
"What?" Grachev shouted. What was going on with his computer?
The computer began repeating its sentence, taking Grachev literally. Svyatoslov broke in. "Sir, they're underwater missiles. Over five hundred clicks. Blue laser guidance. They'll overtake the conventional torpedoes in a few seconds, and they'll be here before you finish your next sentence."
The next ten seconds were busier than entire months in Grachev's life. Novskoyy began to frown. Svyatoslov practically interrupted himself to hurry forward. Grachev stared down at the main display. The first-launched torpedoes—plotted on the main display—were overtaken by the first of the oncoming underwater rockets. Grachev shouted into his boom microphone, "Second, calculate time to impact of the first rocket torpedo!"
"Captain, impact time zero nine twenty-seven hours local time, which is seventeen seconds from now."
In the next second Grachev, thirty-four years old, father of a toddler, and in command of the number one nuclear attack submarine of the Navy of the Ukraine, realized that today was the day of his death, that for him, his thirty-fifth birthday would never arrive. And although in Martinique's and Pa-velyvich's minds he was already dead, dying today would make it even worse. And he'd never even gotten to say good-bye to the two of them after Kolov and his men had brought him in the dead of night.
Grachev pushed Svyatoslov aside and ran the five steps to the ship-control cubicle and ripped open the panel to the manual control compartment separation panel, the "punch-out" panel, the one they called "the panic button."
It represented the only chance they had.
He pulled the lever that opened the panic panel. He barely heard the alarm, a klaxon sound, wailing in the compartment as he threw the panel cover to the deck. The panel cover spun downward to the deck in slow motion, sinking only a few centimeters by the time Grachev wrapped his fist around the third lever down and pulled it from the top detent down to the bottom. The process of punching out the control compartment began as ten explosive charges received the electrical signals to detonate. Ten explosions severed the cable and fiber-optic lifelines connecting the control compartment to the first compartment. The explosion happened so quickly that by the time Grachev released the third lever and reached back up to the first lever, the
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