by Joe Buff
"Sir, we're low on ammo."
"For Christ's sake, so is he! Obey my orders!"
"Fan spread north, aye aye."
"Sir," the sonar chief called, "inbound weapons signal strength increaSing rapidly. Range is closing very fast." "Helm, increase speed! More! Faster! God damn him!"
FORTY-EIGHT
On Challenger.
Jeffrey mentally held his breath as the green timer at the front of the control room ran down toward zero and Challenger continued south. He sensed his crew become uneasy in a new way, and he couldn't blame them. To settle them with a firm grip, he coldly told Sessions to take the green number off the screen.
This is it, the start of my final big push, to try to shove ter Horst through a looking glass of his own making. Shove him through to the far side, the losing side, to see if I can make him crack like glass. Jeffrey wondered how ter Horst would react, personally, if Jeffrey's efforts succeeded. Would ter Horst become abusive to his crew, or a raging screamer, or just shut down inside, or what?
Jeffrey waited for reports from Sonar and Fire Control. Outside Challenger; all around, thunder still rumbled continually from the echoing reverb of Voortrekker's three earlier atomic detonations, the first such weapons ever set off in Antarctica.
One way or another, today, those three won't be the last. Jeffrey's own fish were running southward, and Voortrekker would surely launch counterfire. Jeffrey felt self-revulsion at having to contribute to this defiling of the environment — but he shook it off so he could carry on with his duty. Minimize the damage, he told himself.
Win and you can minimize the environmental damage.
Data from Sonar and Fire Control flashed onto Jeffrey's screens.
"Voortrekker running south now, Captain," Bell said. "She's launched noisemakers and jammers…. Voortrekker has fired torpedoes. Torpedo courses near due north, torpedoes no threat to Challenger… Voortrekker's speed imposSible to estimate, but appears to have increased substantially."
"Good, good," Jeffrey said. He'd had Challenger quietly sidestep east, after deploying the minisub, and he let Voortrekker keep on moving south. Then Jeffrey snuck his Mark 88s out and around behind ter Horst, hiding them at first in the noise of ter Horst's own weapon blasts against Jeffrey's ASDS minisub. The end result was that Challenger and Voortrekker traded places — now Challenger was closer to the ice-shelf edge, and Jeffrey was the pursuer, not the pursued. His Mark 88s churned through the water ahead of him.
Jeffrey smiled like a wild animal. "We have ter Horst on the run, XO… Helm, maintain chaSe, but keep a safe distance until our units blow."
"Understood, sir," Meltzer said. The relief pilot's seat was empty. Jeffrey's conscience tortured him, and he ordered a qualified senior chief to take the position.
"Captain," Bell said, "our weapons are being confused by bubble clouds and ice debris from Voortrekker's Sea Lion shots at our minisub."
"As expected."
"Units will detonate in one or two minutes, sir." "Very well."
Sending Harrison off in the mini was the hardest order Jeffrey had ever had to give.
Harrison volunteered, when Jeffrey had explained what needed to be done and why. Jeffrey thanked Harrison, but inside he knew the truth. Harrison was too young to grasp the meaning of his own mortality. Too young to really comprehend that he wouldn't be around to bask in the rewards of his valor, that he'd just be dead.
When I said I needed to become more ruthless than ter Horst, I wasn't kidding.
When this is over, if we survive, I'm putting Harrison in for the Medal of Honor. I'm just sorry it has to be posthumous… It seems such an empty gesture, to take his parents' son away and give them back a little case with a piece of metal and cloth, and tell them he was a hem.
As if to emphasize Jeffrey's culpability, the water heaved and smashed at the ship when Challenger's outbound weapons detonated. The effects were the same as when Voortrekker's Sea Lions went off against Challenger's mini: noise, heat, bubble clouds, smashing boulders, tumbling slabs of ice. Ship damage and crew injuries.
But this time the shelf above reacted differently — and when Voortrekker's errant Sea Lion countershots blew, the reaction became even worse. The new phenomenon eclipsed anything Jeffrey had met before.
Jeffrey watched as the outside pressure readings fluctuated madly. Sea pressure drove the control room's depth gauges, and their readings became meaningless too.
"The shelf is flexing up and down!" Ilse yelled.
Then Challenger began to be shoved forward and backward. It went on and on, and wasn't a propulsor malfunction, and nothing Meltzer did could stop this crazy, sick-making back and forth. Jeffrey wondered what the hell was happening.
Ilse explained it. "Entire shelf reverberating from atomic blast effects! Water under the shelf is sloshing due to bottom protrusions shifting toward and away from the shore!"
Jeffrey heard a terrible, menacing, crackling noise, immensely strong but far away, carried through the body of the shelf, then down through Challenger's hull. The crackling became a deep, protesting rumble. There was a drawn-out, ripping, tearing boom.
The pressure fluctuations and the sloShing grew even stronger. New roaring and crashing, and watery rushing, Sounded from all sides.
"Conjecture massive piece of outer edge of shelf has calved!" Ilse shouted. "Conjecture new iceberg is many miles across and wide!"
Jeffrey ordered Meltzer to keep pressing ahead, south, to stay on Voortrekker's tail. That newborn giant berg makes everything harder.
Sessions pointed out that, according to the latest estimate maintained on his navigation console, Challenger had gone in past the point of no return.
But Jeffrey now was fixated on his goal. "Very well," he acknowledged formally, by rote.
It took minutes for the atomic shock waves and fireball energies and reverb to die down somewhat, and for the motions of the ice shelf to subside. To avoid ter Horst pulling an opportunistic vanishing act in the chaos, Jeffrey ordered Kathy to ping on the bow sphere.
Kathy reported that Challenger gained a definite contact on Voortrekker, still south but also west of where Jeffrey expected. Kathy assessed that Voortrekker could hear Challenger's ping, too. Jeffrey ordered a course change westward, to channel Voortrekker south. He used the threat of point-blank nuclear fire to force ter Horst to keep his distance. Jeffrey dearly hoped ter Horst didn't decide to come close and take Jeffrey with him. Bell warned that acoustic and terrain conditions would gradually improve — to the point when Voortrekker could get a usable firing solution on Challenger from farther away.
"Very well, Sonar, Fire Control." Jeffrey put steel in his voice.
Then Bell pointed out something else. "Captain, even if your tactics do break ter Horst's focus, we still have his first officer to contend with. He'll be command qualified, sir."
Jeffrey frowned. "Oceanographer?"
"Captain?" Ilse said.
"This Gunther Van Gelder, the guy you ran into on Chatham Island. Is he ter Horst's yes-man, or is he good?"
"I don't know Van Gelder well. We met at parties and banquets a handful of times when I was Jan's date. Jan held court and did most of the talking."
Jeffrey nodded impatiently. He forced himself to be a good listener while Ilse got to the point.
"I can say Van Gelder is not a yes-man. He's modest and even-tempered, but very capable, or Jan would never have picked him. Jan's crew is the best they've got. They're proud, and devoted to their captain."
"Does Van Gelder have a weakness or a blind spot?"
"If he does, it might be that he feels morally troubled about the war. But I don't see how that helps us. He's not the sort to turn traitor, or start a mutiny, or anything like that."
On Voortrekker
Van Gelder watched hiS screens nervously, reacting to what had been done to him and ter Horst and their ship. Now everything was reversed: Fuller showed his willingness to go nuclear here, "and Challenger hounded Voortrekker
mercilessly — farther and farther in under the ice.
Van Gelder eyed the navigator's countdown clock and nodded grimly to himself. The green number that showed Voortrekker's time remaining to turnaround and escape from the shelf had suddenly fallen past zero, with Challenger's clever trap and Fuller's jarring change of tactics. Now the green number actually showed a negative figure, the ever-expanding margin by which Voortrekker missed her deadline to survive. The red number, Voortrekker's paltry lifespan until the enemy missile subs launched, kept ticking down second by second — Voortrekker was doomed.
"Hundreds of them," ter Horst said. "Hundreds of them. All flying and falling through the sky. Then their fission triggers ignite, and the hydrogen starts to burn, like in a star.
Hundreds of stars, shining over the Ross Ice Shelf. Shining through the ice, saying hello."
Van Gelder was alarmed by ter Horst's mood and tone of voice. The captain sounded dreamy and withdrawn. Van Gelder searched for something diplomatic to say, to get ter Horst to respond with a purpose, to bring back the ter Horst he knew.
"Sir," Van Gelder urged, "recommend deleting time-toturnaround from countdown clock." The useless negative number was just eroding crew morale.
"Leave it up. It fascinates me." Voortrekker continued south, since ter Horst had the conn and he didn't issue new helm orders.
Van Gelder thought fast. The situation was truly desperate, but ter Horst was reacting passively, maybe pushed beyond rational thought. He would surely recover soon, but by then it might be too late for constructive action. This Jeffrey Fuller is good. Much too good.
But he isn't suicidal. Something doesn't make sense.
Van Gelder double-checked with the sonar chief and the navigator. Challenger was still in pursuit, still playing cat and mouse with the tables turned.
If we ran out of time to be a safe distance from the shelf when the H-bombs explode, then Challenger also ran out of time.
Why would Fuller subject his ship to intentional self-destruction? It can't be so he's sure he's got us pinned under the shelf, to prevent us sneaking out like ter Horst wanted — leaving the U.S. to nuke the shelf needlessly. Ter Horst's plan for that went by the boards already: we're decisively pinned and Fuller has to know it.
So what is Jeffrey Fuller doing?
Van Gelder had a flash of insight. It wasn't the first time this had happened during combat, that strange and inexplicable discontinuity in his brain, when Van Gelder's mind was struggling in confusion and then suddenly the insight was simply there.
He knew how Fuller intended to survive. It was brilliant, but it was much too late, starting now, for Voortrekker to try the same thing.
Van Gelder began to form another plan. He saw how Voortrekker might yet get away: Challenger would be Voortrekker'S ticket home, if Van Gelder could play things just right.
If it works, I'll turn the tables on this Fuller just like Fuller turned the tables on ter Horst.
I'll yank Fuller's whole ingenious gambit out from under him, and use an even nastier one in return.
As much as time was of the essence, now more than ever, Van Gelder's worst mistake would be to let ter Horst sink Challenger too soon. That possibility was very real, if ter Horst reacted out of vengefulness or spite — which were the only things ter Horst had left, unless Van Gelder did something drastic now.
Van Gelder explained his plan. He had to go through it twice for ter Horst to fully understand. Ter Horst was aghast at the audaciousness, the deviousness of it. Crewmen in the control room murmured or squirmed.
Van Gelder realized he'd suffered tunnel vision. So intent was he on his captain, he'd forgotten for that split second that the rest of the crew was there.
Van Gelder saw he'd blundered at this crucial juncture, and squandered his value as first officer, as a backstop to ter Horst: he'd kept his grip when ter Horst lost it, in public. He'd out-thought his captain in front of the crew, in the face of the enemy. While they were all under terrible stress, he came up with an answer ter Horst hadn't seen.
The dwindling still-aggressive part of ter Horst knew it too. Anger rose in ter Horst's eyes, driven by embarrassment and jealouSy.
Van Gelder felt deep regret, but he knew what he had to do and he couldn't stop now. If survival meant indirectly humiliating his own commanding officer on the record, so be it.
If they lived, and later in retribution ter Horst ruined Van Gelder's career, the sacrifice was needed to save the ship.
"Captain, you're tired," Van Gelder said gently, to preempt any irrevocable outburst from the man. "Sir," he added more firmly, "let me take the conn for just a while."
Minutes later, an Challenger
"How are they coming in the torpedo room?" Jeffrey asked.
Bell palmed the intercom mike and called. He spoke to the weapons officer. Bell held the mike and turned to Jeffrey.
"It's touch and go, Captain. At least we haven't had an explosion or fire down there yet."
"Tell them to hurry up. Our lives depend on it." "Captain," Kathy called out, "we've lost passive sonar contact with Voortrekker."
On Voortrekker
Van Gelder had the conn. He'd ordered the helmsman to slow down suddenly, but continue on course. This ought to make Voortrekker drop off Challenger's passive sonar screens, and lure Jeffrey Fuller into closing the range.
Next to Van Gelder, ter Horst sat, outwardly quiet but watching and listening.
Van Gelder dreaded what ter Horst might do next: The man alternated between seething rage and anguishing self-pity. Nothing prevented him from taking back the conn and acting impulsively. Van Gelder had no objective grounds on which to officially relieve his captain of command — intuitions on someone's moods, and intangible looks in eyes and reading of faces, wouldn't stand up under any court-martial's scrutiny. But Van Gelder didn't trust ter Horst to have the iron will and unerring sense of timing needed to destroy Challenger and yet escape the H-bomb blasts. Van Gelder trusted only himself.
It was a weird and sad business for Van Gelder to see his captain so reduced. Ter Horst's ego lay stripped to its underlying childishnesS. His former tactical IQ was mostly dyS-functional now, ironically crushed between the hammer of Fuller's greater skill and creativity — and the anvil of Van Gelder's own.
"Messenger of the Watch!" Van Gelder snapped. "Sir?"
"Have the Kampfschwimmer leader come to the control room."
Commander Bauer appeared a minute later. He seemed surprised to find Van Gelder in evident charge. Bauer glanced at ter Horst and was startled by what he saw, but the German immediately covered up any reaction. Bauer turned his attention to Van Gelder and conducted himself professionally.
"You requested my presence, FirSt Officer?"
"Your two surviving dialysis divers, they're able to make another sortie?"
"Of course."
"And you carry high explosives? Demolition charges, for underwater use?"
"Yes, we have materials for blasting and cutting."
"Load what you need into the minisub, smartly." Van Gelder told Bauer what had to happen.
"I'll go myself," Bauer said, "to make sure things are done properly, especially the last part." Bauer shook Van Gelder's hand good-bye.
FORTY-NINE
On Challenger
"Still no passive sonar contact, Captain," Kathy reported. "Assess loss of contact is not due to change in sound propagation conditions. Conjecture contact has reduced speed and is evading."
"Go active, Sir?" Bell prompted.
Jeffrey thought this over. "No. I did that once before."
"Trail him on nonacoustic sensors?" Ilse suggested.
Jeffrey worked his jaw back and forth. He knew there was consternation all around him in the control room, that now of all times they'd lost their target. But Jeffrey wouldn't let his people's worries annoy or distract him. The chess match with the enemy had reached the endgame phase, and Jeffrey was fully engaged.
Bell opened his mouth to say S
omething, but Jeffrey waved a hand to cut him off.
Whoever was making the calls on Voortrekker, something didn't add up. Voortrekker must be sneaking to the side, to lay another ambush. Ter Horst might well gain twiSted satisfaction in sinking Challenger — in winning this duel dramatically — even if Voortrekker herself were then destroyed by an outside force, the H-bombs. That seemed more in character than ter Horst going for a self-immolating mutual kill from sheer orneriness.
Jeffrey began to debate with himSelf whether Voortrekker would use nuclear or high-explosive weapons now, whatever ter Horst's or Van Gelder's motivations.
Then he had a better idea. "I think I know where they are. They're where we'd least expect them to be, dead ahead, to the south. They probably stopped completely the moment they Slowed to break our sonar contact… Fire Control, we'll do what they least expect us to do. Reload all tubes with conventional ADCAP units. Helm, maintain course and speed."
Jeffrey intended to get in very close. Quickly, Challenger closed the range to Voortrekker's last known datum.
Jeffrey measured the minutes that passed by what remained on the big red timer. He didn't think beyond that deadline, and to him nothing else mattered. Challenger was a machine, and the crew were cogs in that machine. Jeffrey would use them all as tools with equal, heartless dispassion. Jeffrey needed to keep up the pressure on Voortrekker, and stay in ter Horst's face, to win the final melee. Hanging back was a losing proposition.
Jeffrey realized Voortrekker held one terrible advantage — the Boer ship could merely go dormant and run down the clock, since they had nothing more to lose. Maybe Voortrekker wasn't lurking dead ahead. Maybe she hadn't turned to the side and doubled back to lay an ambush, either. Maybe she'd snuck off somewhere to hibernate, leaving Jeffrey to chase his-own tail in ultimate frustration — while ter Horst's pyrrhic victory was to have the last laugh on his foe.
"Passive contact on the bow sphere!" Kathy called out. "Weak but good contact on Voortrekker, bearing one eight zero!"