Straits of Power

by Joe Buff

  COB and Meltzer sat at their ship control stations with little to do. Jeffrey had his task group in a holding position, drifting silently with the tidal currents, being pulled slowly away from the mouth of the Strait.

  He glanced at a chronometer on a bulkhead. “Two hours late. We should’ve heard something.” He was talking mostly to himself.

  “They may have a problem on Dreadnought, Captain,” Bell said, “like releasing Texas from the tow.”

  Jeffrey grunted. “If it’s bad enough, it could take them all night. That’s even assuming Dreadnought got to her proper place on time.”

  “No change in pattern of enemy antisubmarine patrols, sir.”

  Jeffrey almost snapped at Bell. He could see for himself exactly what was or wasn’t happening, just by looking at the tactical plot. But Bell, as fire-control coordinator, was doing his job, giving Jeffrey regular updates.

  “Very well, Fire Control.”

  Much more of a delay and they’d lose the wrong-way tide Jeffrey wanted, and they’d also be forced to cross the deep Alboran Basin just inside the Strait in broad daylight.

  On the sonar speakers, Jeffrey heard the churning, swishing noises of surface craft, enemy and neutral, all tracked on the tactical plot. He paced some more, and kept peering at the chronometer as it ticked away each second, on and on.

  He heard a sound like distant, rolling thunder.

  “Loud explosion bearing three-two-five,” Milgrom shouted. “Underwater explosion, nonnuclear, range one hundred thousand yards!”

  Northwest, fifty miles. Exactly where it should be. Jeffrey rushed to his seat and buckled in. “Fire Control, signal Ohio: Get under way, formation for passage through Strait.”

  Chapter 25

  Challenger and Ohio began to approach the Strait of Gibraltar. For now they made ten knots, the fastest they dared go here if they hoped to retain their stealth, to try to beat the clock on the all-important changing tides. Challenger’s eight torpedo tubes held six high-explosive ADCAPs and two brilliant decoys. Ohio’s four tubes held three ADCAPs and one decoy.

  Ohio’s twenty-four eight-foot-diameter missile tubes bristled like an underwater battleship’s big guns. Her dozens of SEALs were geared up for action, with both of her ASDS minisubs already loaded and ready to deploy on a moment’s notice to harass the nearby African coast if needed; more SEALs could lock directly out of the ship in scuba very quickly. Ohio’s hundred-plus Tomahawks would already be programmed for targets on land or at sea that might threaten Jeffrey’s task group. The silo containing Ohio’s forty-two Polyphem missiles had its top hatch open, to ripple-fire immediately at anything in the air that could drop torpedoes, depth charges, or sonobuoys within dangerous range of herself and Challenger.

  Ohio’s crew and SEAL company were set on a hairpin trigger. All Parcelli and McCollough needed were acoustic-link orders from Jeffrey. The mouth of the Strait loomed closer by the minute.

  But if we do have to open fire, our goose is cooked. At this of all places we must stay invisible. The prearranged diversion by Dreadnought and Texas simply has to work.

  Jeffrey kept his focus roving between the displays on his console and the crew sitting or standing all around him in the control room. High tension and anxiety were visible on faces and in body language. COB’s and Meltzer’s necks and shoulders seemed unnaturally stiff as they sat with their backs to Jeffrey, steering the ship and controlling her buoyancy. Some crewmen had growing crescents of sweat around their underarms. Others used pieces of toilet paper, kept handy for cleaning their touch screens, to dab at their foreheads instead. A few of the newer people endlessly squirmed in their seats, or gripped their armrests much too hard. One youngster started to wipe his console screen repeatedly, compulsively, causing a pile of wadded tissue to accumulate on the deck—until a senior chief squeezed his elbow and whispered reassuring words.

  The inner effects of fear and worry, or excitement and battle lust, that people around him were feeling, Jeffrey was unable to see. Thoughts of home and family, prayers, grim determination, or daydreams of valor and glory? He could only guess. Tightened chests, churning stomachs, cramping intestines, these he imagined all too well from how his own body protested.

  Jeffrey knew he had to say something, do something, for himself and for everyone else.

  “Chief of the Watch,” Jeffrey ordered in as calm and routine a tone as he could muster, “put gravimeter display and tactical plot on all periscope-imagery monitors.”

  COB acknowledged. The unused, darkened screens around the control room came alive.

  Now at least they all saw what Jeffrey saw. He couldn’t make the risks and the burdens any less than they truly were, but he could make this gesture of sharing. Sharing the one thing that, as warriors with no turning back now, they’d crave the most: information, situational awareness, the big picture of what was going on outside the hull and beyond the narrow horizons of their individual consoles.

  The gravimeter showed the shorelines of occupied Morocco and Spain. It showed the hills and mountains beyond, and the folds and humps and pillars in the seafloor under the water. It showed Morocco and Spain getting closer and closer together, and the water ahead getting shallower.

  Another distant rumble sounded over the sonar speakers.

  “Loud explosion bearing three-two-five,” Milgrom reported, “non-nuclear, range ninety thousand yards.” Closer than the previous blast; Milgrom’s voice was controlled, but subdued.

  “Captain,” Bell said, “enemy platforms converging on site of explosions.”

  Jeffrey watched the tactical plot on his screen. Crewmen without the same data on their consoles glanced at the monitors very briefly, when they dared shift their gazes from fixating on their own displays.

  German airplanes and helos were dashing to join the escalating fight between their brethren on the one hand, and Dreadnought and Texas on the other. Enemy surface warships went to flank speed, and headed northwest like the aircraft. Merchant shipping altered course to stay well clear.

  “Sonar, status of any submerged contacts to northwest?”

  “No submerged contacts held, sir.”

  It was too far, and Dreadnought and the sacrificial hulk of the semi-salvaged Texas were too quiet. Jeffrey knew he’d asked a dumb, impatient question: New contacts were always reported immediately, without prompting from him.

  “Nature of detonations?”

  “No torpedo engines detected yet. Conjecture weapons expended were Axis mines or depth bombs.”

  “Very well, Sonar.” Did Dreadnought use an off-board probe to set off a mine on purpose? A faked blunder to draw attention, as was her job?

  Jeffrey hated not knowing what was happening with the two Allied submarines forty-five miles away. “Fire Control, status of communications with Ohio?”

  “Acoustic-link carrier waves still open in both directions, sir.”

  Jeffrey’s task group was keeping in formation with each other, and maintaining a sonar signature with as few changes as possible, by sending a steady stream of random numbers through the low-probability-of-intercept acoustic link. The transmissions served as navigation beacons or running lights that—hopefully—only the task group units could hear, and that neither unit would lose.

  “Sir,” Milgrom called out, “aspect change on Master Four-two.” Master 42 was a passive sonar contact held on the bow sphere and the port wide-aperture array. She was a German antisubmarine frigate, of the modern Brandenburg class. “Master Four-two relative bearing now constant, signal strength increasing.”

  “Master Four-two is approaching us, sir,” Bell reported.

  “Blade-rate increase on Master Four-two,” Milgrom said. “Flank-speed blade rate, sir!”

  The tactical plot showed the Brandenburg accelerating toward thirty knots—faster than Challenger dared go because she’d be too noisy, and faster than Ohio could possibly go. The frigate, a formidable type of warship somewhat smaller than a destroyer, was coming from we
st-northwest, pinning Jeffrey’s task group against the African shore. She was only twenty nautical miles away, closing fast, and she carried four torpedo tubes and a pair of Super Lynx sub-hunting helos.

  Jeffrey regretted having put the tactical plot on the unused periscope monitors: A shock wave of consternation ran through the control-room crew, more than would have been the case without all those reminders of the peril that was increasing for Challenger and Ohio every moment.

  Barely at the portal to the Strait, and already we’re detected and trapped.

  As if to foreshadow their doom, another loud explosion sounded in the distance, and Milgrom reported Axis torpedo engine noises near where Texas and Dreadnought would be.

  “Captain,” Bell said, interrupting Jeffrey’s thoughts, “Ohio signals, ‘What are your intentions regarding Brandenburg?’ ”

  “Signal Ohio, ‘Steady as you go.’ ”

  Bell looked surprised, but repeated the message aloud and then had it sent. Parcelli acknowledged.

  Milgrom reported more explosions in the distance, and Allied as well as Axis torpedo-engine sounds.

  The Brandenburg was still closing.

  As the reverb from the distant torpedo warheads died away, Milgrom reported two airborne contacts approaching at over a hundred knots.

  The Brandenburg’s sub-hunter helos, working as a team, just like in our own standard doctrine.

  “Contact on acoustic intercept,” Milgrom almost shouted. She steadied herself. “Axis air-dropped active sonobuoys.”

  “Close enough to detect us?” Jeffrey demanded. He couldn’t hear them on the speakers.

  “Not yet, sir. But helo search pattern developing suggests high risk of detection at their closest point of approach.”

  “Sir,” Bell said, “Ohio signaling, ‘Repeat, Flagship, what are your intentions?’ ”

  “Fire Control, reply to Ohio, ‘Repeat, steady as you go.’ ”

  “Sir,” Bell objected, “you heard what Sonar said, they’ll be on top of us any minute.”

  “Send the message to Ohio as I dictated.”

  Bell acknowledged, and then Parcelli acknowledged receipt.

  “Listen up, people,” Jeffrey said. “We don’t know for sure that the Brandenburg knows we’re here. The Axis might just be checking this area in case the two Allied subs they’re fighting off Trafalgar are a diversion.”

  “But, sir, that means the diversion failed.”

  “No, XO, it means the Axis aren’t stupid. We’ll have to make a mini-diversion of our own and hope our stealth holds up.”

  “Captain?” Bell was obviously confused.

  “They’re working hard to make a contact on any Allied sub or subs near Morocco, correct? Let’s satisfy their appetite. Give them something to detect.”

  “Sir?”

  “Fire Control,” Jeffrey snapped, “program brilliant decoy in tube seven to sound like HMS Dreadnought.” Jeffrey studied the tactical plot, and weighed the range and speed of the Brandenburg and her two helos. The picture was kinetic, dynamic, making it very hard to project ahead.

  “Captain,” Bell said, “Dreadnought is presumed detected well northwest. Enemy will know our decoy is a decoy.”

  “Exactly. Have decoy run at stealthy speed due north for five minutes.” For Jeffrey’s trick to work, he couldn’t rush it, but five minutes was cutting things close. “Then have decoy go to Dreadnought’s flank speed on course zero-eight-zero.” Toward the mouth of the Straits; the real Dreadnought was as fast as Challenger.

  Lieutenant Torelli’s weapons-system specialists went to work. He downloaded the full acoustic profile of Dreadnought from Milgrom’s people, from their huge database of different vessels’ signatures. The brilliant decoy was programmed.

  “Fire Control, Weps,” Torelli reported. “Decoy ready.”

  “Decoy ready, aye,” Bell said. “Captain, decoy ready.”

  “Decoy ready, aye. Firing-point procedures, decoy in tube seven.”

  Bell and Torelli began reciting orders and acknowledgments and status reports.

  “New contacts on acoustic intercept,” Milgrom said. Her voice was an octave lower than the first time they’d been pinged, but now she was gritting her teeth. “Air-dropped active sonobuoys, much nearer to Challenger task group.”

  This is going to be tight.

  “Fire Control, make tube seven ready in all respects, including opening outer door.”

  Bell acknowledged and passed orders down the line. Torelli announced when tube seven was flooded and equalized and the outer door was open.

  “Tube seven, shoot.”

  “Tube seven fired electrically,” Torelli said.

  “Unit is running normally,” Milgrom said

  “Five minutes till that decoy starts making a racket,” Jeffrey thought out loud. Five minutes in which either helo’s sonobuoys, or their dipping sonars, might find us.

  “Signal from Ohio,” Bell said. “ ‘Decoy will reveal task group’s presence.’ ”

  “Signal Ohio, ‘Message received. Steady as you go.’ ”

  “But—”

  “Send it, XO.”

  Bell did as he was told.

  Jeffrey glanced at a chronometer. Still four minutes before the decoy starts to get rambunctious, as its built-in active sound emitters give off conspicuous noise.

  Enemy sonobuoy pings began to be audible over the sonar speakers.

  “Attempting to suppress hull echoes,” Milgrom stated. Using active out-of-phase emissions.

  “Don’t attempt,” Jeffrey told her. “Do it.”

  “Sonar, aye.”

  Now Jeffrey could hear, fading in and out, the roar of helo engine turbines and the clatter of their rotor blades.

  We’re dead ducks if they find us.

  He looked again at the tactical plot and the chronometer. It was a race against time, and a test of each side’s technology and tactics, whether the sonobuoys would see through Challenger’s and Ohio’s acoustic masking before the brilliant decoy kicked in.

  Jeffrey’s people were all on the edge of their seats. The control-room air was stifling from so many overstressed bodies packed so close. For now, there was nothing they could do but wait. A few of them were so sweat soaked that Jeffrey was concerned they’d become dehydrated. There were nervous coughs from dry throats, stifled desperately to maintain ultraquiet.

  Suddenly, pings came very close—some of the crew were jolted in their seats. There were also distant explosions, as other German forces battled with Dreadnought. Milgrom made her usual announcements, and gave assessments. Underneath her impressive self-control, Jeffrey knew she had to be very worried for the safety of her Royal Navy friends.

  Inside his own control room, Jeffrey saw that a few men’s hands were trembling. The phone talker and some others with not enough to keep themselves busy stared at the overhead in abject fear, as if waiting for a depth charge or a torpedo from a helo to be dropped right down their throat—inside the arming radius of Challenger’s antitorpedo rockets, and coming at a very unfavorable angle for using noisemakers. Jeffrey sympathized with how they felt. He had to force himself to not rock back and forth in his seat with his fists clenched, as if to physically urge his decoy to do its thing soon and do it well. The Brandenburg was still charging in their direction.

  And I’m sure she has torpedoes in each of her tubes, to add to the punch of her helos.

  There was a series of booms due north, close in. People who didn’t realize what they were looked terrified. A roaring, throbbing, whining noise rose in strength very quickly. The roaring got deeper, the throbbing got faster, and the whining rose in pitch.

  “That’s our decoy,” Jeffrey announced before Milgrom could report it. “Faked reactor-coolant check valves slamming open, boom boom boom. Then phantom Dreadnought going to flank speed.”

  The sound of the decoy competed with ever-closer and louder enemy sonobuoys.

  Then the helo engines and rotor blades also changed in s
trength and pitch.

  “They’re going after the decoy,” Jeffrey said, with self-satisfaction that he hammed up intentionally for his crew. “They know it’s not Dreadnought herself. They think it’s a decoy she launched a while ago to create a diversion at extreme range.”

  Bell finally understood. He grinned. “Since she wouldn’t create a diversion right next to other Allied submarines, they think there aren’t any Allied subs in this local area.”

  There were splashes over the sonar speakers, then shattering concussions came through the water. This time, as the reverb and vibrations diminished, Jeffrey could only hear the enemy helos, receding.

  “Assess our decoy destroyed by depth charges,” Bell announced.

  “Aspect change on Master Four-two,” Milgrom called out. Now it sounded like she was trying to suppress a smile. “Bearing drift is left. Assess Master Four-two in tight turn, maintaining flank speed.”

  “She doesn’t want to miss the tail end of the fun with Dreadnought and Texas,” Jeffrey said. Soon Bell confirmed that Master Four-two had steadied on a course for Cape Trafalgar.

  Jeffrey listened to the echoes and rumbles outside. Some were from the nearby depth charges the helos had dropped out of spite, to kill the decoy. Some came from the much more serious battle in which Texas was supposed to die, but from which the real Dreadnought was meant to escape, back into the Atlantic—repulsed from trying to enter the Strait of Gibraltar.

  “Signal from Ohio, sir: ‘That was hairy, but I’m impressed.’ ”

  “Fire Control, make signal to Ohio: ‘Maintain formation, increase speed to thirteen knots.’ ”

  Chapter 26

  With the fans switched off, the air shipwide was getting very dank. In Challenger’s hushed control room, Jeffrey and Bell gripped their armrests. Their knuckles were clenched almost bloodless, not so much from fear—though there were plenty of reasons for fear—as from the need to brace themselves in their seats. Challenger shimmied, plunged and rose and fishtailed. The ride was never this rough at such a modest speed when the ship was out in the open ocean and nicely submerged. But Challenger wasn’t in the open ocean. Jeffrey’s displays told him so, and his crew’s intensely careful work reemphasized the point. They were inside the Strait of Gibraltar.