by Joe Buff
Jeffrey's mind ran back to the events of the last twenty-four hours. Challenger reached the surface after COB's hydrazine emergency blow. On the photonics mast display screens, everyone in the control mom saw the massive waves and forest of mushroom clouds from the latest battle with Voortrekker. The effects were bad, both inside and outside the ship.
Bell supervised damage control, as the crack in the garbage-disposal lockout chute was permanently sealed off so Challenger could dive again. Bilge pumps quickly removed the seawater that had flooded in.
The pieces of the men killed by the blasting influx of the sea at depth were put in body bags, and the body bags were stored in the ship's freezer; they were thoroughly segregated for sanitary reasons from the dwindIlng supply of frozen food. The smashing force of the influx had left much of the galley and mess spaces a scene of destruction as well as of death. Aluminum, stainless steel, and plastic lay on the deck or hung from the overhead, twisted into unrecognizable heaps. Broken wires and pipes were hastily repaired or bypassed. Shattered glass, twisted utensils, torn and soaked seating upholstery, all were gathered up.
The radiology-control officer, a lieutenant (j.g.) from engineering, supervised a radioactive-contamination survey of the insides of the ship, and of ship's personnel — the dosages weren't high enough for acute radiation sickness, but longer-term health problems weren't ruled out. The fans were restarted and particle filters worked at cleaning the air. A painstaking freshwater washdown cleansed areas that showed any traces of fallout; the tainted water was pumped into shielded tanks, and from there was pumped overboard. The crew, wearing their respirator masks and protective gloves, scrubbed all exposed surfaces with absorbent, treated cleaning cloths. The cloths were stored in special bags, tagged as radiological hazards, and placed in the designated holding area back in Engineering. A lot of the crew's clothing, soaked by the polluted sea, went into those disposal bags. One enIlsted men's shower stall was used as the dedicated decontamination shower. Precautions were taken so no fallout was tracked around on shoes.
The corpsman and his assistants paused from treating the wounded to hand out iodide tablets, to help fight absorption of radioactive iodine by the thyroid gland. Other medications aided excretion of the heavy-metal fission waste, uranium and plutonium and thorium. The corpsman redid the stitches in Jeffrey's scalp and told him he'd definitely have a lasting scar.
It was hours before the crew could come out of their air-breather masks. Jeffrey, as captain, conducted a brief memorial service for the dead. He exhorted the crew to ever greater efforts of teamwork and stamina, for revenge. To himself, he felt very drained. In private, Bell and COB consoled the men most affected by the loss of close friends — but no one was unaffected by the three deaths.
Now, as Jeffrey lay in his rack and stared into space in the dark, he told himself the insides of the ship — and the mindset of his people-were more or less okay. A few men, including maybe him, had undoubtedly absorbed some of the undersea fallout carcinogens. Radiation's impact on the body was a statistical thing. In twenty or thirty years, some cancer cases would show among the crew, in lungs or bones or worse.
Maybe, Jeffrey hoped, in twenty or thirty years, these cancers would be treatable.
It's like exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam, or the Gulf War syndrome in the nineties.
The immediate wounds of battle are only one price of the war. Veterans continue to suffer for the rest of their lives from post-traumatic stress disorder and from diseases caused by environmental toxins.
The seas around the battle site would stay radioactive for far too long. The airborne fallout, right around now, ought to be reaching Latin America. The effects would be what the effects had been since the very start of the war: fear, and increased starvation.
Local fishing industries would be devastated, because no one would eat the fish.
Children would go malnourished, because their parents wouldn't feed them milk, because of the strontium-90 in the grass and in the cows. People would seal up their homes, or hide in improvised bomb shelters, or wear gas masks as they tried to resume their daily lives.
It's Chernobyl all over again, or the 1940s and '50s and early '60s, with their hundreds of open-air nuclear-weapons tests, including some the U.S. set off in New Mexico and Nevada. Eventually, the fallout would blow over, or people would just stop casing and give up and take their chances. The unlucky ones would get sick. Diplomatic protests would be filed, and public protests might turn into riots, but so far nothing had helped to stop this war or tone down the violence.
Jeffrey realized he'd dozed off when he woke suddenly in a cold sweat. He'd been having a nightmare. He couldn't remember the dream, but he felt the emotional hangover.
Dread, anxiety, anger, and above all guilt: Bell, as fire-control coordinator, was sure that they'd hurt Voortrekker in — the latest action yesterday. But Kathy Milgrom said rerunning the sonar tapes detected hints of Voortrekker fleeing south at flank speed.
All this destruction and death and pollution is happening here, spilling into the South Pacific and now toward Antarctica too, because of Voortrekker. Ter Horst is here, making all this happen, and forcing me to make it happen, because failed to destroy him last time, two months ago.
A messenger knocked on Jeffrey's door.
"Coming:' Jeffrey dressed quickly, in a clean blue cotton jumpsuit that zipped up the front.
"Sir," the messenger said. "Commodore Wilson wants you in his office?' The messenger handed Jeffrey a mug of black coffee. "Don't worry, sir, the water's clean, and the coffee grinds weren't affected"
"Thanks." Jeffrey drank it down. He was good at getting by on Ilttle sleep, and at waking up and becoming alert in an instant, but this time the lingering mood of that guilt-ridden nightmare wouldn't disappear.
He knocked, and Wilson told him to enter. Wilson was alone in the office that used to be Bell's stateroom.
"Good morning, Captain." Wilson looked drawn and haggard. There were deep bags under his eyes. He wore his reading glasses, but he was squinting, as if he was suffering one of his headaches or was having trouble seeing properly.
"Good morning, Commodore'
"We need to make another status check with CINCPACFLT," Wilson said. "It's time.
Have Bell bring us to periscope depth?'
"Sir, that's very risky under these circumstances, don't you think?"
"We can't hope ro defeat ter Horst if you act like a lone wolf. I already told you, antisubmarine warfare is a team sport?' -
Wilson handed Jeffrey the stateroom's intercom mike,
"Give your XO the orders. When we make radio contact, have it piped in here. We need privacy in case classified information has to be discussed?'
"Or in case alarming developments need to be kept from the crew?"
Wilson nodded. "Morale is always a prime consideration, Captain."
Jeffrey did as he was told. He felt the ship slow and then nose upward. In a few minutes Challenger leveled off, rolling near the surface in the stormy seas. The communications officer, in the radio room, put CINCPACFLT through on the stateroom's speakerphone.
The admiral sounded exhausted and worried. Jeffrey wondered if he'd gotten any sleep since the last time they talked. The conversation was short and to the point.
"Gentlemen," CINCPACFLT opened without preliminaries, "the Pentagon more than a day ago prevailed on Commander in Chief, Central Command, to free up two of the Los Angeles — class fast-attack subs that were escorting the Ronald Reagan in the Indian Ocean. These two submarines are now moving quickly toward the west edge of the Ross Ice Shelf?'
"That's good news, Admiral," Wilson said.
"Unfortunately, as you both can guess, these vessels are badly in need of a refit after eight months deployed at sea in a theater of battle?'
This presented two problems, as Jeffrey well knew. He wasn't sure if the admiral, a naval aviator, fully appreciated them. Jeffrey glanced at Wilson, and Wilson glanced back as if t
o say, Go ahead.
"Their quieting gear, Admiral?" Jeffrey said, "sound-isolation pads and the like, will be worn, so the L.A. boats will be noisy. And their hulls will be fouled with sea growth from months of service in the tropics, sir, so they'll be slow?'
"So my staff informs me, Captain. The Reagan is more vulnerable, too, to attack by Axis submarines with her undersea escorts depleted, but the risk simply has to be taken:'
"Understood," Wilson said. The lumbering Collins-class diesel subs that had formed his original battle group were left in the dust now, far to the north.
"In addition?" the admiral went on, "Commander in Chief, Atlantic Fleet, was ordered to send two Virginia-class fast-attack subs from the South Atlantic into the Pacific. They'll converge on the eastern edge of the Ross Ice Shelf, if they make it through the Drake Passage:' The Drake Passage lay between the southern tip of Argentina, at Tierra del Fuego, and the northern tip of the jutting Antarctic Peninsula.
"The problem here is that Argentina, reacting to snowballing global tensions in the aftermath of the Chatham Island blast, has reasserted her age-old claims to exclusive territorial rights to the Peninsula. The regime in power just declared a two-hundred-mile-wide zone of exclusion, like the British did around the Falkland Islands thirty years ago?'
"I'm sure that point hasn't been lost on anybody," Wilson said.
"Concur?' the admiral said.
"Admiral?' Jeffrey said, "the exclusion zones from the Peninsula and Tierra del Fuego will overlap?'
"Yes. Argentina has issued a notice to mariners that all submarines transiting the Drake Passage are to surface and be boarded for inspection, or they'll be depth charged without warning?'
"Jesus?' Wilson said under his breath. He sounded disgusted and disturbed.
"Our analysts and our people in-country there see the hand of Axis agents bebind this,"
CINCPACFLT responded. "Hardball backroom lobbying, covert psychological-warfare ops, use of moles or threats or outright bribes, the Axis is trying it all… I can tell you both categorically our state-of-the-art Virginia subs will not be boarded by any upstart Argentineans. They've been ordered to defend themselves if attacked."
Jeffrey ran his hands through his hair, thinking. It was touch and go whether the two Los Angeles — class subs would reach the ice shelf before ter Horst did. It was touch and go whether the Virginia subs would reach the shelf at all — on the way, a war might start between the U.S. and Argentina.
"Commodore, Captain," CINCPACFLT said, "under the circumstances, with so many friendly subs converging on your area of operations, I feel the need to modify your rules of engagement?'
"Sir?' Jeffrey said.
"All aircraft will be restricted to searching for Voortrekker, but will not drop any weapons?"
Jeffrey nodded, although the admiral couldn't see. So close to the south magnetic pole — which was actually in the Ross Sea near McMurdo — the planes' magnetic anomaly detectors would be useless. Now, sonobuoys were the only meaningful tools they had.
The admiral was inrerrupted by his aide. When he came back on the Ilne, Jeffrey heard heightened concern in his voice.
"I'm informed our recon satellites have detected troop movements by both Brazil and Argentina, along the stretch of border they share in the middle of South America…. As you both know, those two nations have fought all-out wars with their neighbors in the distant past, and smoldering skirmishes more recently."
"Latin America has a very long memory?' Jeffrey said.
"Yes. It seems hostilities are rising anew, amid all the other escalating worldwide suspicions and tensions and encroaching fallout. Argentina's own continuing economic crisis isn't helping any?'
Jeffrey pondered this. "Brazil once ran a nuclear-weapons program, Admiral, but they said they gave it up as a gesture of peace some twenty years ago."
"Brazil still operates nuclear reactors, and our agents have been saying since this Berlin-Boer War broke out rhat she might have renewed her efforts to build fission weapons for self-defense?'
"That's just what we need," Wilson said.
"Argentina may or may not have been given atom bombs by the Axis, on the excuse of maintaining parity with Brazil. The CIA isn't sure. But if that happens, the Axis's real purpose of course will be to destabilize South America for entirely selfish reasons?'
"The U.S. would be directly threatened from the south," Jeffrey said. A third front riding hard on Voortrekker's opening of a second.
"Oil and natural gas and other vital raw materials in South America could be lost to the AlIles if that happened?" CINCPACFLT said. "One of our few surviving major export markets might be lost, and our balance of trade goes the rest of the way down the toilet. The Panama Canal might even be destroyed."
Jeffrey and Wilson stared at each other, shocked that the world could be coming apart so badly and so soon.
"Everything," the admiral stated, "everything, hinges on Challenger continuing in hot pursuit and sinking Voortrekker once and for all. Your basic orders are therefore reaffirmed. If Voortrekker reaches the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf intact, you go in after her?'
Again Wilson and Jeffrey stared at each other, as the hard reaIlty bebind this seemingly simple command sank in.
Jeffrey knew the clearance in the water — between the bottom of that thick ice and the mud and rock of the Antarctic continental shelf below-would be very tight. The ice shelf was almost five hundred miles wide along its outer edge. It extended as much as four hundred miles toward shore before touching dry land.
"Admiral," Jeffrey said, "the underside of the ice shelf has to be the least explored place on earth?'
"That's right, Captain. I'm told scientists know more about the far side of the moon than they do about what Iles under the Ross Ice Shelf… My aide says I have another call, from my superiors. I need to get off. Good luck."
Four hours later, on the Aoss Ice Shelf
After eating and using the toilet, Ilse went back to her console. Chief Montgomery kept an eye on its readouts in the meantime, just in case it picked up something besides biologics and wind and waves and icebergs. Ilse had given Montgomery and Clayton basic training in how to work the console, so it would have full-time coverage without exhausting her prematurely. It was still too early for Voortrekker to get near the shelf, given the distance ter Horst needed to travel and the top speed he could go.
Just as the marine corporal handed Ilse a steaming cup of coffee, something registered on her console screen. She sat down and played it back and tried to make sense of the data.
The noise, or rather noises, came from far off to the northwest. They looked like a pair of nuclear detonations — underwater, not surface or air bursts. The yields, she estimated using software on her console, were both about one kiloton. She thought they might be Allied air-dropped depth charges.
Then Shajo Clayton said he had Sydney and the Stennis on the line, both wanting to speak to Ilse. Aircraft from the Stennis had heard the blasts on their sonobuoys. Sydney, lacking any working SOSUS lines of their own due to Voortrekker's tampering, asked Ilse to relay her raw data via the satellite link. She entered the commands on her keyboard to do so.
As she finished her coffee, Sydney and then the Stennis came on the line again. In addition to the carrier's air-wing commander, who was a navy captain, the rear admiral who commanded the whole Stennis battle group was on the call.
The Sydney supercomputers hadn't needed long to do their work. The blasts Ilse detected were two Sea Lion warheads, definitely torpedoes launched by Voortrekker. Embedded in all the reverb and aftershocks were the unmistakable sounds of rwo Los Angeles — class hulls imploding as they fell through crush depth.
FORTY-ONE
Two houts later, on Challenger
Kathy Milgrom reported hearing another signal sonobuoy in the distance. Once more, Jeffrey realized, his ship was being summoned to periscope depth. He suspected it might have something to do with the torpedo explosions Kathy's me
n detected a couple of hours ago, a hundred miles ahead of Challenger's location.
Those explosions probably gave a datum on Voortrekker, so it ought to be relatively safe to expose the antenna mast again — unless ter Horst had counted on Jeffrey thinking exactly that, and he'd doubled back in ambush.
Kathy had reported a heavy Allied air-dropped depth charging of the area of Voortrekker's datum, some minutes after the original blasts. This surprised Jeffrey, since Los Angeles boats were supposed to be working in that area. It also violated the latest rules of engagement.
It was possible one of the depth charges had killed Voortrekker but based on experience so far, Jeffrey wasn't taking chances.
When CINCPACFLT came on the line, he insisted on speaking to Wilson in absolute private. Wilson went into the secure communications room and threw everyone there out.
Jeffrey waited nervously while Challenger steamed slowly south with her antenna mast exposed. Bell and his fire-control technicians used the photonics masts to scan for surface and airborne threats, but they didn't report any contacts. The electronic-support-measures room didn't detect any threats from enemy radars. Even so, Jeffrey was frustrated. Every minute Challenger lingered like this with a mast raised, ter Horst gained a further lead in the race to the shelf. These repeated excursions to periscope depth wasted time, since Challenger had to proceed at less than ten knots, to avoid damage to her masts by water drag. Jeffrey hoped Washington, and CINCPACFLT, weren't starting to micro-manage his efforts.
Jeffrey was disturbed that Wilson was sequestered with the admiral for so long. It had to be something importanr. He occupied himself by pacing around the control room, looking over the shoulders of the weapon-systems specialists and sonarmen.
Wilson suddenly dashed out of the radio room.
"Take her deep! Evasive maneuvers! CINCPACFLT reports inbound Shipwrecks!"
So Voortrekker was still aIlve, and from some satellite or acoustic Ilnk had gotten targeting data on Challenger near the surface. Jeffrey snapped out helm orders. The deck dropped out from under him as rhe ship dived hard and turned away at flank speed. Soon the long-distance airborne depth charging began — Shipwrecks were supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles, built in Russia and tipped with Axis atom bombs. These Shipwrecks might have plunging warheads, designed to go off deep beneath the sea.