Barracuda- Final Bearing

by Michael Dimercurio

  Roger Whatney, the Royal Navy lieutenant commander and executive officer, walked quickly into control, strapped on a one-eared headset and tested the phone circuit with his south-of-England accent. Whatney was the firecontrol coordinator, the owner of the “solution” to the target, the output of Meritson’s pos-two console meshed with the manual plot’s backup solution.

  Whatney would function as the captain’s auxiliary brain, a sounding board, fully empowered to disagree with the commanding officer where the target’s motion was concerned although the captain could override him with a gesture.

  Next to Meritson, on the console further forward, position one, Joe Katoris seated himself and put on a headset.

  Katoris would back up Meritson, doing his own dance with the computer, trying to outdo Meritson’s solution, and in place to track the secondary target should another Destiny or other hostile target appear on the scene. His other function was to return the console to geographic mode so Phillips could see a God’s-eye view of the battle zone, then toggle back to his dot-stacker mode when Phillips no longer needed the geo plot.

  On the console next to Meritson aft, position three, was Ensign Braxton, his display a hybrid, able to stack dots or do a line of sight mode on friendly contacts, if Piranha had had a wolfpack partner or surface action group to be careful of. He was the safety man, there to remind Whatney and Phillips of friendly ships and keep the torpedoes away from them. And if a hostile ship surprised them he would track it for a quick reaction shot. Aft of Braxton in the fourth console Lt. Tom McKilley, the weapons officer, was at that weapons-control console, a larger version of the first three units, this one with a full computer keyboard on the lower section on the right. The upper display was filled with colored windows that displayed weapon status, one window for the torpedoes, another for the Vortex units. The lower part of the console to the left of the keyboard was dominated by a large stainless steel gleaming lever with a suicide knob on it, a semicircle engraved onto the surface of the console, the word standby written at the nine o’clock position, the letters spelling fire at three o’clock. The lever was the firing trigger for the torpedoes and missiles. At one point Dynacorp had experimented with a simple covered square soft-feel function key for the firing mechanism, but the submarine captains had complained bitterly, the firing trigger dear to them, the wimply fixed function key an insult to John Wayne macho submariners who tested it. They demanded their World War II trigger back and soon got it. McKilley brought up the Vortex window and monitored the gyro spinup and data readback for unit number two, the forward upper missile on the port side. He jettisoned the missile cap forward and the blast cover aft of the missile tube, the tube now open to the sea fore and aft. He went through the software screens, testing the missile, finally satisfied. On the conn Scott Court in his starched and creased coveralls turned to scruffy Bruce Phillips in his cowboy boots, still wearing the flat-brimmed leather hat with a headset crammed underneath it, his dingy poncho covering his chest, the revolver handles protruding from the hip openings. “Sir, battlestations are manned.” Phillips leaned over the conn rail, squinted his eyes, put out the cigar. He looked down on the watchsection. “Attention in the firecontrol team. We got ourselves a bad guy at bearing two one zero and we’re going to kick him in the tail. You cowpokes got all that? Firing point procedures. Target One, Destiny II class. Vortex unit two.”

  “Ship ready, Captain,” Court said. “Weapon pending, sir,” McKilley said. “Solution pending, sir,” Whatney said. “Recommend maneuver to course three zero zero to get a range to the target.”

  “Status of the weapon, Weps? Why are you pending?”

  “Sir, I need the solution range.”

  “Why?”

  “If he’s too close the detonation takes us out with it. Remember the icepack, sir? This thing has a kill radius of about two miles.”

  “Oh, hell, Weps, he’s way the hell out there, and besides, that’s my problem. Solution status, Coordinator?” “Sir,” Whatney said, “I’ve got a bearing, but that’s it.

  It’s not a firing solution.”

  “Okay,” Phillips said, loud enough to stop all talking in the room, “listen the hell up. The next man in this watchsection who tells me we need the range to Target One gets a spur in his ass. Straight up the hole. Goddamnit, men, this isn’t like shooting a ridge, this is a fucking… Japanese… submarine.

  Okay? You got that? Now, dammit, firing point fucking procedures. Vortex two. Target Goddamned One. What’s the status?”

  “Ship ready, sir,” Court said. “Weapon ready, sir,” McKilley snapped. “Solution ready. Skipper,” Whatney said. “Shoot on generated bearing!”

  “Standby,” McKilley announced, pulling the trigger to the left. “Fire!” Phillips called.

  The noise of the missile launch was deafening, but this time Phillips had his fingers clamped into his ears for the thirty seconds it took the unit to clear the immediate vicinity. He looked up at the sonar screen watching the track of the missile, wondering if he were about to go up in smoke himself. Even if he were too close, inside the blast zone of the missile, there was something satisfying knowing that he would at least go down scoring a major hit on one of the Destinys, but then he thought of Abby O’Neal and regretted the thought. He wanted to live through this, and knew only his ship, his crew and his instincts could hope to win this fight.

  He waited, one second running into the next, the noise of the Vortex missile long gone. As the silence lingered he wondered if it had been a dud, a dud that had provoked a Nagasaki counterlaunch. Even if it did, he decided, he would not run. He would stand his ground and keep firing Vortex missiles until one hit the target. Hell, a Vortex missile might even target an incoming Nagasaki—wouldn’t that be a trick, a weapon that homed in on and destroyed the enemy’s weapon. Still he waited, and still he heard nothing.

  Finally: “Sonar. Captain, line up the BSY in active mode and report when you’re ready,” he said into his headset microphone.

  The Vortex missile blew through the water at terminal velocity, over 300 knots, the waves high above flashing by in a blur. The solid-rocket fuel burned rapidly, the missile getting lighter with each passing second. The unit’s blue laser seeking device scanned the water ahead in a wide cone, the need for last-instant depth and course corrections vital to success.

  When the target appeared in the blue light shining through the water, the computer realized the target submarine was far below it, deeper by some three hundred feet. The aft nozzle rotated and sent the missile into a dive as it corrected its course by a few tenths of a degree.

  The target size grew from a speck to a huge blur in milliseconds, and the missile’s warhead of seven tons of high molecular density Plasticpac detonated and ignited the sea around it to a temperature approaching the surface of the sun.

  Toyoda in the Eternal Spirit was’still in his bunk thinking of Suni when the missile arrived. The hull ripped open, and the Eternal Spirit became a huge teardropshaped mass of vaporized iron and steam rising toward the ocean surface above. The steam formed smaller bubbles, the ocean condensing the steam into smaller bubbles and eventually collapsing them from the pressure and nearfreezing ocean temperatures, the sea boiling with loud noise for the next thirty hours.

  “We’re ready to go active. Captain,” Gambini’s voice reported from Piranha’s sonar.

  And just then the ship shook to a violent earsplitting explosion as the Vortex missile detonated on target. On the sonar screens, all screens of the broadband system went completely white, the sonar blue-out complete, so much noise in the ocean that there was nothing to hear.

  The explosion went on for a long time, roaring and ebbing and roaring again.

  “Officer of the Deck,” Phillips said to Court, “secure battlestations. I’ll be in my stateroom.” He clomped out of control and disappeared into the door marked co STATEROOM.

  eighty miles east OF hitachi, japan USS Barracuda In the sonar room just forward of control. Chi
ef James Omeada sat at his console glaring at the sensors. He checked his watch. In two minutes Lt. Chris Porter would come barging in to ask the usual questions—”Any contacts?” and “You us in’ the right search plan?” and “What’s the status of the BSY?” Omeada and Porter had worked together as sonar chief and sonar officer for almost two years. Secretly Omeada liked and admired Porter, but for reasons long forgotten he was crusty with the young chubby officer, regularly throwing verbal barbs at him, especially in front of the other enlisted men, which most officers would strongly object to. At first Porter had taken the insults, since most of them were based on Omeada’s correct assertion that sonar officers didn’t know squat about the BSY-2 combatcontrol system, the combined firecontrol, sonar suite and navigation computers. Sure, they knew how to play with their little knobs in the control room and stack their little dots, but the real work of nailing down an enemy sub was done in sonar, and Omeada felt Chrissy needed to know that.

  However, inadvertently Omeada had created himself a monster. Chris Porter had taken aboard each insult about his dangerous lack of knowledge, withdrawing from sonar to study. The next day he’d be back, exploring the same question he’d asked the day before, but now armed with knowledge and often challenging Omeada’s own knowledge, more than once sending the sonar chief to the tech manual. It was almost spooky how Porter did it—he sure as hell didn’t spend any extra time on the ship. The sonar officer was notorious for leaving the ship at five p.m. every day, no matter the crisis, and at sea, he rarely missed sleep, reliably counted on to be in his rack when he wasn’t standing officer of the deck watch.

  In fact, Porter slept so much that Omeada had taken to calling him Bunky. Porter hadn’t reacted, had never threatened Omeada in spite of his elevated rank. He took Omeada’s taunts as if he himself were just another of Omeada’s seamen striking for sonar technician. Porter’s acceptance of Omeada’s criticism and the way he responded to it by learning rather than resenting had gained Omeada’s unconditional respect. This was something that had never happened to him, respecting an officer. The other chiefs in the goat locker gave him tremendous grief about it. After all, Omeada had spent years putting down officers and their lack of knowledge coupled with the fact that they got all the credit, all the glory, all the medals and all the money. Omeada, in his defense, kept saying that Chrissy Porter was different, that he was “heavy,” submariner’s respectful term for knowledgeable. The other chiefs had just laughed and made noises about Omeada and Porter having some kind of weird thing going on. Now that it was Omeada’s turn to take the heat, he learned a lesson from Porter and accepted it, and soon the sarcastic taunts of his fellow chiefs died down.

  Omeada was still amazed, after twenty years of frustration with officers, how much he did admire Porter. So much so that he felt dutybound to disguise that feeling in front of the men, doubling his cuts at the twenty-six-year-old lieutenant. As for Porter, an odd thing had happened to him during the course of their association— he became bitingly sarcastic, to the point that the other officers accused him of being Omeada with lieutenant’s bars, which he met with Omeada-style wit.

  In addition to the growth of their professional relationship, Omeada could now closely predict Porter’s rhythms. Of course, it helped that Porter was a soul who loved routine, always coming on watch at midnight, going off watch at zero six hundred hours, sleeping until he could no longer sleep, then coming into sonar to check the status of the equipment prior to taking his watch. Porter would be coming into sonar now to get his prewatch brief in about ten seconds. Five seconds.

  Two. One. Zero.

  “Hello, Chief,” Porter said. Porter, of medium height, paunchy with pasty skin, a five o’clock shadow, a double chin and a receding hairline, looked fifteen years older than his age. “Any contacts?”

  “A thousand of them, Bunky. All over the map. All high-value Destinys. I just forgot to tell control about them.”

  Porter leaned over a console and punched some softtouch function keys, flipping the display through several channels, spending only a moment looking at each.

  “You us in’ the right search plan?”

  “Oh, my God! I knew we forgot something. The search plan. Williams, get the damned plan entered in.”

  “Come on. Chief.”

  Omeada pointed to the computer running in the corner of the room. Porter nipped through the windows, seemed satisfied with the plan.

  “What’s the status of the BSY?”

  “Broke-dick, sir. Down hard. I just neglected to tell control.”

  “Chief.”

  “Nominal, okay? Jeez, you’re worse than my motherin-law. Although, come to think of it, you do kind of look like her. She’s got a gut just like you.”

  “We can’t all be skinny and beautiful like you. Chief.”

  “Don’t forget young-looking. With silky skin.”

  “And great legs.”

  “I try.”

  A serious look crossed Porter’s face. “I’ve got a feeling about this watch.”

  “I don’t want to hear about your feelings, sir. This isn’t an encounter group.”

  “Oh? You wouldn’t know it from all the moaning and groaning in here. Let me know what you get. Today’s the day.”

  “Have a good watch, sir,” Omeada said. Porter stared at him for a moment, realizing it was the first statement made in a month by him without sarcasm. It seemed to confirm Porter’s feelings. Today was the day, this was the watch.

  Porter took a detour from his usual prewatch tour and went below one deck to the torpedo room, went forward past the shining green-painted Mark 50 torpedoes stacked neatly on the hydraulically controlled racks. He stopped at one of the torpedoes and touched its flark, its surface cool and smooth. Stenciled on the side were the words “mk 50 mod alpha warshot.” Porter walked again to the forward bulkhead to examine the tubes.

  All eight had large white phenolic tags with red letters proclaiming “warshot loaded.” Porter stood there for a moment, then walked back up the ladder to the upper level, arrived back in control and nodded to Lt. David Voorheese, the man Porter would relieve as officer of the deck. Porter scanned the status boards, the navigation plot, took a final look at the sonar display and told Voorheese he was ready to take the watch.

  “Nothing going on. The Oparea’s empty. Captain’s racking, XO’s got the command duty officer, the place is dead. Midwatch as usual.”

  “Captain’s night orders?”

  “Same as last night’s. Find the Destiny. Don’t wait to shoot at him while you’re manning battlestations.”

  “Hell, maybe I’ll just shoot his ass and let you guys keep sleeping.”

  “Fine. You got it? I’m tired.”

  “One more thing. Where’s the admiral?”

  “He haunts the place, hangs out in sonar or the crew’s mess. Guy works the crowd a lot. Never seen a guy with two stars shoot the shit with a third-class petty officer for a half-hour.”

  “That shows you he’s got nothing to do. You know these riders. No responsibility, no worries, just leave the driving to ship’s company and watch movies, eat ice cream and sleep, maybe diddle themselves while looking at some of that Tahitian porn we picked up the last run.”

  “If I had nothing to do I’d get about twenty hours of sleep. Well, the engineer calls.”

  “You working aft tonight? We’re rigged for ultraquiet.

  You can’t take anything apart, Voorheese. Hit the bunky, man.”

  “Good point. Helm, Quartermaster, Mr. Porter has the deck and conn. See you, buttface.”

  Porter raised his voice. “Helm, Quartermaster, log that Lt. Christopher Porter the third has the deck and conn for the midwatch on December 26, the watch in which we expect to put at least one Destiny submarine on the bottom of the Pacific.”

  100 kilometers northeast OF hitachi, japan SS-810 Winged Serpent Lt. Comdr. Hiro Mazdai heard the dressing-down that the captain was giving one of the junior officers. Mazdai was in his f
irst officer’s stateroom, trying to concentrate on the chart of the offshore waters, but only hearing Tanaka raging at the officer about his failings and how weak he was. In Tanaka’s view everyone but himself was weak.

  The captain was driven to find and sink the Americans.

  For the sake of his own sanity Mazdai wished he’d get it over with, put them on the bottom so this mission with Tanaka could come to a conclusion.

  seventy miles northeast OF point oshikahanto USS Piranha Bruce Phillips picked up the phone from a sound sleep.

  He listened for fifteen seconds, said, “Man silent battlestations,” and tossed the phone on his desk, then headed out for the control room.

  “Gambini’s got another one, skipper,” Scott Court said.

  “Very well,” Phillips said, putting on a headset.

  “Sonar supervisor, Captain, report status of the contact.”

  It took only forty-five seconds for Phillips to plug into the tactical situation. Target One was a submerged Destiny class off the point of Oshikahanto, contact faint on narrowband, bearing nailed down at one nine seven degrees true, with little else known.

  The limiting factor on the attack was the time for the Vortex missile to get ready. Within two minutes from battlestations being called, the missile was away. Phillips took a digital stop watch from his vest pocket. The time of flight of the Vortex through the water was less than five minutes, putting the target some twenty-five nautical miles away.

  The explosion from this Destiny was as spectacular as the first, the noise easily audible to the naked ear. Phillips nodded, returned to his stateroom. Court looking after him.

  The cloud of steam and vaporized iron of the Vortex fireball had once been the Destiny II-class submarine Winter Dragon. The crew of the Piranha would never know that. Piranha sailed on southward, closing on Tokyo Bay.

  SS-810 Winged Serpent Comdr. Toshumi Tanaka sat at the Second Captain console in his stateroom, eyes bleary, dark circles under his eyes. He had stayed awake all through the previous night and on into the day, and was still awake now well after midnight. His consumption of tea had been a record, but nothing next to the amphetamines the Yokosuka doctor had given him. The uppers kept him going after all these hours, letting him stick at the console. He hadn’t eaten, slept or spoken to his crew for almost thirty hours, with the exception of Lieutenant Ito, who had come into the stateroom to give his view of the American forces’ deployment. Tanaka had ripped into him for thinking he could express himself any way he felt to the ship’s commanding officer. It was something that would happen on an American ship, he had said. Ito had never seen discipline before, not from his parents or his teachers or his previous commander, Tanaka told him. The younger generation was soft. Weak.