Seawolf End Game

by Cliff Happy

  “Son of a bitch,” Goodman whispered. “Sneaky motherfucker…” he added and then glanced toward Kristen, “Sorry, ma’am.”

  Kristen eyed Chief Miller, who looked to be near collapse. “Fabrini, maybe we should to get the chief to sickbay.”

  “I’m all right,” he gasped, clearly in distress. “I just have to catch my breath.”

  Kristen didn’t have the luxury of time to argue with him. She returned to listening, hearing the other torpedo still searching for a new target, its active sonar pinging loudly as it hunted for a reflection off anything. The Seawolf was now coasting, her pump-jet dormant and making almost no discernible sound, although Kristen would have bet her own heartbeat, as well as everyone else’s, had to be audible through the hull. It had been another narrow escape from a second torpedo fired from the Akula. She doubted they would be so lucky a third time and redoubled her efforts, struggling to squelch her anxiety and focus on nothing but the sounds coming from the direction of the Russian. But she was also picking up the sound of a second submarine—the one that had come in behind the Seawolf. The Audacious’ torpedo had struck home, and Kristen could clearly hear the submarine going down.

  “Con, sonar,” Fabrini reported. “We’re picking up the sound of a third submarine going down. Bearing one-five-eight. We think the Audacious got one.”

  “Roger that,” Kristen heard Brodie’s measured reply.

  “Hey, I think that torpedo has found something,” Hicks whispered. “Its bearing has changed and has increased speed to flank.”

  Kristen spun her dial to focus on the direction where the remaining torpedo was moving as Fabrini reported what Hicks had heard to the control room.

  “Look sharp, sonar,” they heard Brodie over the squawk box. “I think we’re about to find out where that Akula is.”

  Kristen listened closely. The circling Russian torpedo had gone active and was pinging off someone’s hull. It was either the Audacious or the first Akula. Kristen was hoping for the latter when she heard a distant pump-jet come to life as the submarine the torpedo found picked up speed. “It’s the Audacious,” she reported, anxiety gripping her at the thought of the British now running for their lives. The Brits had risked their lives to save the Seawolf and were now paying for it. “They’re launching countermeasures,” she added as she listened to the torpedo closing in.

  “Stay on the Akula!” Fabrini reminded her forcefully.

  Kristen realized he was right and returned her focus to the general direction of the last rocket torpedo. She then heard, launching quietly from one of their own torpedo tubes, another MK48. The torpedo was almost silent as it swam out of the tube and moved away from the Seawolf.

  “What’s he doing?” Goodman asked, wondering what Brodie was firing at.

  “Look sharp,” Fabrini replied, echoing Brodie’s own words.

  Kristen had no idea why Brodie would fire another torpedo. They had no target, just a general direction where they thought the Russian might be. Kristen closed her eyes, and her fingers were gently resting on her controls when she heard a sudden grunt of pain from behind her.

  “Chief!” Fabrini shouted in alarm.

  Kristen felt the bulk of Chief Miller slam against the back of her chair. The force of his body nearly propelled her into the console. She turned sharply and saw the badly overweight chief collapsing to the floor, grimacing in pain and gripping his chest. The men around her were all shouting, and for a brief second there was pandemonium again, but she commanded them to be silent.

  “Dammit,” she snapped, “freaking out won’t help any of us.” She then motioned to a couple of seamen who were lingering along the rear bulkhead. “You two! Get the Chief to sickbay! The rest of you get back to work!” Kristen ordered, knowing it had to sound mighty coldblooded and heartless to order the rest of them to ignore Chief Miller, who appeared to be having a heart attack.

  But to her immense surprise, they didn’t argue. Hicks and Goodman went back to work on their stacks while Fabrini directed the two men she’d designated to get the stricken chief to Doc Reed.

  Kristen did her best to put concern for Miller out of her mind as she returned to searching the depths while Goodman reported on the Audacious and the torpedo closing in on her. “Range six hundred yards and closing,” he said, beginning the deadly countdown.

  Kristen blocked out the sound. Instead, she listened to the depths in the direction the Akula had fired on them from.

  “Four hundred yards.”

  Kristen ignored the grim report and stayed focused on the distant Akula. She was rewarded a moment later when she heard the slightest whisper of sound: water rushing softly as if through a tube.

  “Submerged contact, bearing zero-one-four. Submarine flooding its tubes.”

  “Two hundred yards,” Goodman reported at the same time, as if ringing the death knell for the Audacious.

  Kristen put her hands to her headphones, ready to remove them but anxious to hear more. Then she heard the MK48 they’d recently fired go active as Brodie ordered the tracking party to engage the torpedo’s seeker head and light up the water around where the Akula had to be hiding, lashing the sea in front of the torpedo with active sonar.

  Kristen removed her headphones as the torpedo destined for the Audacious exploded. She didn’t wait for the shockwave to finish reverberating around them before slipping her headphones back on to be rewarded by the sound of the Akula moving and firing another rocket torpedo.

  “Akula Nine, bearing zero-one-four,” she reported as the Akula turned away from the homing MK-48 ADCAP now racing toward it at over fifty knots. “Shkval torpedo in the water. Passing through seventy knots. Speed increasing rapidly.”

  “Sonar, where’s that torpedo heading?” Brodie asked coolly.

  “The Russian fired the rocket back down the bearing of the MK-48,” Hicks replied.

  Now they realized why Brodie had fired the MK48 without a target. After launch, the torpedo swam away from the Seawolf at a diagonal. So, when it went active and headed for the Akula, it was no longer on a direct line between the Seawolf and the Russian. This meant the incoming rocket torpedo was heading not at the Seawolf, but at empty sea.

  “Con, sonar,” Kristen reported. “Akula Nine now at thirty-five knots, bearing three-five-eight. Our MK-48 is at fifty-five knots and homing in on active sonar.”

  “Roger, sonar. What’s the status on the Audacious?” Brodie asked. She knew this had to be hard on him. She’d only met the British crew briefly while at Sasebo, whereas Brodie and Captain Gardener were lifelong friends.

  “She’s trying to get to the surface, Captain,” Fabrini reported. “We’re picking up a lot of transients coming from her. She sounds to be pretty beat up.”

  “Roger that.”

  Three seconds later Kristen heard another MK48 clear its tube and head for the Akula. The Akula was racing away from the Seawolf at flank speed, trying to outrun the first MK48 coming at it, so the Russian would never hear the second MK48 over the noise of her own power plant.

  Kristen listened as the Akula pulled out all the stops in a futile effort to gain more speed. The Akula had been a tough opponent, tougher than it should’ve been. The Russian had outsmarted a MK-48 and sent two Shkvals at the Seawolf. But now that the situation was reversed, Kristen felt no sense of pride. They’d done what they had to do, but she could find no pleasure in it.

  She passed the fleeing submarine off to Goodman who started calling out the ever-decreasing range between the Akula and the MK-48, which appeared to have a solid lock on the fleeing Russian. “Five hundred yards. The Akula has launched counter measures and is turning. Coming shallow,” Goodman reported.

  Kristen listened impassively.

  “Range two hundred…” Goodman said with excitement in his voice. A few seconds later, the torpedo detonated. “Gotcha, you cocksucker!” Goodman nearly cheered, only to be thumped on the back of the head by Fabrini who was standing behind him.

  “Knock it
off,” Fabrini barked. “That damn well coulda been us.”

  They listened as the Akula, now making all kinds of noise, tried to run away from the second MK-48 closing in on the double-hulled, fast-attack boat. But the Akula, now injured and with what sounded like a badly damaged screw, had no chance. They managed to reach the surface, but the second MK-48 bore in on them relentlessly, striking less than a minute later.

  Kristen listened as the Akula’s blade noises stopped and the sound of her power plant was replaced by alarm claxons from inside the submarine. There was a secondary explosion, and over the speaker above their heads the men in the sonar room heard the Akula beginning to slip back beneath the waves. There were a lot of transients and Kristen assumed it was the sound of men abandoning the sinking submarine. She couldn’t help but feel sympathy for them. Odds were many were already dead, and many more would not get off the boat before she plunged back into the depths.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Control Room, USS Seawolf

  Kristen reported to the control room ready to deliver a damage report. Ski had arrived from engineering, and she saw he was soaked in seawater. Apparently there was some flooding in engineering. She bit her lip at the thought of how close they’d come. She then noticed Brodie on the periscope platform talking into the Gertrude.

  The Gertrude was a rather crude but very effective sound system that allowed two submarines, when very close, to communicate through the water without sending out any radio signal. Brodie was in the process of speaking to his counterpart on the Audacious and getting a damage report from his old friend, Alec Gardener.

  “It sounds like you’re out of it, Alec,” Brodie told him.

  There was a long pause, and then Kristen heard Gardener’s voice over the squawk box, “I’d prefer not leaving you Yanks to have all the fun, Sean.”

  “Nah,” Brodie responded. “Get your people out of here. We’ll clean up what’s left,”

  She didn’t know how badly damaged the Audacious was. In the sonar shack, Kristen had clearly heard what sounded like metal banging alongside of the British submarine’s hull. After surfacing, the Audacious had been able to submerge again, but she was clearly in no condition to continue the fight.

  “There’re at least two more Akulas in the area, old boy,” Gardener warned Brodie. “They’re going to come looking for you.”

  Brodie’s response was dead serious, “They better be damn careful they don’t find me.”

  “Good luck, Sean. Sorry to leave you like this.”

  “Don’t sweat it. Buy me a pint when we get back to the beach.”

  “Count on it, mate. Good hunting.”

  Brodie hung up the Gertrude.

  Kristen waited as Brodie received detailed damage control reports from the XO and the Chief Engineer. Graves was also soaked to the bone with seawater. Two pipes had ruptured following the first torpedo detonation, and the Seawolf had taken on several tons of water before they’d managed to seal the leaks.

  “How’re things in sonar?” Brodie asked her after receiving Graves’ and Ski’s reports.

  “Two of three port side passive arrays are off line, plus Martinez’s head went halfway through the class stack. Technicians are working to repair all damage as we speak, but the port arrays aren’t looking too promising at the moment, Captain,” Kristen reported, keeping it all business.

  “Good job on the Akula,” Graves offered with an approving nod.

  “He was good, sir,” she replied. “Plus I had a lot of help.” Kristen didn’t feel responsible for anything. A combination of factors had decided the fight with the Akula, and she certainly wasn’t the only cause of the hard fought victory. “Excuse me, Captain. I was hoping to go to sickbay and check on Chief Miller and Martinez.”

  Brodie’s expression was unreadable. As impassive as ever. His eyes were cold and without any hint of emotion. But when Brodie didn’t answer her question, Kristen realized why. She looked at the XO with a questioning eye.

  Graves’ expression was somber.

  “No,” she whispered desperately.

  “Doc Reed pronounced Chief Miller dead a few minutes after he got to sickbay, Lieutenant,” Graves explained sadly.

  Kristen was rocked by the news. She looked at Brodie and saw, barely contained by the mask of command, something she’d yet to see in his eyes. He was trying to hide it, but there was profound pain there. “Sir?”

  “Petty Officer Gibbs,” Brodie said in a barely audible tone.

  Kristen felt her insides twist painfully. “No,” she whispered.

  Brodie replied with a steady gaze but said no more. She knew Brodie and Gibbs were close, but as the captain, he couldn’t afford any emotion at the moment. Everyone was counting on him to keep them safe.

  Graves explained, “He was in engineering when the torpedo detonated.”

  Ski looked pretty broken up about it as he added, “A steam pressure line ruptured. To reach the shut off valve, someone had to go through the rushing steam.” Kristen didn’t have to hear more. The steam lines contained high-pressure steam at over a thousand degrees. No one could survive it. “He didn’t even hesitate,” Ski said, choking up.

  Kristen forced down the emotions, remembering how—when she’d first come on board—it had been Gibbs who’d gone the extra mile to make her feel welcome. Now he was gone.

  “I’m sorry, Lieutenant,” Brodie offered with a tightly controlled voice.

  Kristen looked at them. Ski was almost crying. Graves was shaking his head in grief, but Brodie was a rock. Or perhaps he was to the others, but she knew it was all an act. He was grieving as much as, if not more than, anyone. Kristen recognized what he was doing, and knew she had to do it, too. She had to force the grief, the pain, and the sorrow down deep until the crisis was over. Fortunately, she had some experience with burying her pain.

  Kristen took a deep, steadying breath and slowly exhaled, forcing the memories of Gibbs aside for the moment. “Sir, with your permission, I’d still like to check on Petty Officer Martinez.”

  Brodie nodded. “We’re relaxing Zebra and going to Yoke so everyone can get some grub. Make sure you stop by the galley. We’ll need you fresh and alert if another Akula comes after us.”

  Ski cut in bitterly, “Which will certainly happen. Everyone within a thousand miles must know we’re here by now.”

  There could be no doubt about this assessment from the Chief Engineer. The Iranians would know for certain about the loss of their frigate and quite probably the loss of their Kilo submarines. As for the Akula, if it was under Russian control—which no one on the Seawolf knew for certain—it would have some sort of distress beacon similar to the BST-1 Buoy employed by US submarines. So, it was only a matter of time before the surrounding water filled with search and rescue craft, and other predators looking to settle the score with the Seawolf.

  Kristen went directly to sickbay. As she walked, she suppressed the guilt she felt for not having helped Miller when he’d collapsed in the sonar shack. She knew CPR; she might have been able to save him, but she’d coldly ordered him taken away and returned to her duty. The pain of losing Gibbs was far harder to suppress. He’d been a friend, certainly the closest one she’d had on the Seawolf, yet she knew almost nothing about him. Brodie knew everything about everyone on board, yet her frosty exterior automatically meant she kept people at a distance.

  She entered sickbay and found about half a dozen men there. Most had already been treated, and a few were ready to return to duty. The majority of injuries were minor lacerations, a couple of broken bones, and one man with minor electrical burns to a hand.

  “Are you injured, Lieutenant?” Reed asked as he glanced up from a laceration he was sewing closed.

  “No,” she replied. “I wanted to check on Martinez and….” She glanced over at a table and saw the bulk of Chief Miller’s body lying on it. A sheet covered his head and most of his body, but his lower legs and shoes were still visible. Then she saw a body bag lying
on the deck.

  “Doc says I’m okay, Miss,” Martinez told her from where he was lying in a bunk. There were several cuts on his face and head that had already been sutured. “He said I’m lucky I’ve got a hard head.”

  Kristen hardly heard him as her eyes focused on the body bag. She swallowed the grief still threatening to overwhelm her, and stepped over to Martinez’s bunk to visit with him for a moment while trying not to think of Gibbs or Miller any longer. Kristen finished visiting with Martinez and left him with, “You just take it easy, okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She then walked over to a cabinet and silently removed a second sheet. While the others watched in silence, she completed covering Miller up.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” Reed offered. “There was nothing we could do.”

  Kristen said no more. Instead, she just nodded solemnly.

  “I’m really sorry, ma’am,” Reed repeated.

  Kristen paused, knowing Reed was probably feeling guilty, too. She looked at him, knowing it wasn’t his fault. “Me too, Doc,” she admitted. “Me, too.”

  Then came the hard part; she turned and knelt down beside the body bag. She steeled her nerves, knowing that Gibbs’ body wouldn’t be pretty. The images would be seared into her psyche forever if she opened the bag, but her friend deserved no less. With the others watching, she unzipped the bag to look upon him a final time. High-pressure steam burns weren’t pretty to look at. She tensed her stomach to swallow a bitter cry as she looked upon Gibbs’ horribly burned face.

  “He didn’t suffer long, ma’am,” Reed offered, as if that might lessen her pain.

  Kristen didn’t respond; instead, she silently zipped the bag closed and walked out.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  K-955 Borei