Thunder in the Deep cjf-2

by Joe Buff

  Beck sensed a change in the pitch of the convoy noise. They'd seen the Shipwrecks. The escorts tried to shoot them down with Sea Sparrows, Mach 3.5 antimissiles of their own. But they were too late, perhaps because of battle damage and human stress.

  Beck looked at his screens. Missile trails crossed every which way. The convoy flagship — the commodore's ship — was changing course, trying to veer away from the inbound Shipwrecks, trying to defend herself. Red tracers arced toward the missiles as men on deck used heavy machine guns. Countermeasure launchers on the flagship loosed off bursts of silvery chaff. Magnesium flares on parachutes began to burn as infrared lures. Aluminized decoy blimps inflated, stiffened, and drifted on the wind.

  The Honeybee picture bloomed featureless white, making Beck's eyes ache. When it cleared, a violet-lavender fireball blossomed off the flagship's starboard side. Her paint burned off in an instant, and blew away in a puff of smoke. Her American flag simply vanished, her machine gunners shriveled to ash. The masts, the superstructure, the hull, all cast stark shadows away from the blinding, sizzling glare. Beck could see the airborne shock wave of the A-bomb begin to spread, like a swelling sphere of ghostly condensation.

  The force of the blast hit the ocean. A tsunami grew. The air-and waterborne shock waves hit the flagship; the vessel broke in half. The aft end still drove forward as her insensate props kept turning, scooping up tons of seawater. The bow section flipped on its side, exposing red bottom paint and green sea-growth fouling.

  The sea growth began to smolder at once, from the heat of the blast. The swirling atomic fireball, now a beautiful orange-yellow, rose higher into the air. Beneath it a pillar of smoke and steam formed rapidly, drawn by the powerful updraft. A zone of fine mist spread from the pillar, dispersing as the mushroom cloud shot even higher. Lightning flashed on its crown, near an ethereal purple glow, the very air fluorescing from the radiation's intensity.

  Other Shipwrecks struck their targets.

  "Convoy not dispersing," Beck shouted. "Frigates heading toward sites of the Shipwreck launches!"

  Eberhard's neat attack had become a disorganized melee. Coomans reported through the copilot that the countermeasures-room flooding was secured, but both launchers would be out of action for at least an hour — an eternity. Three men were dead from the force of seawater influx.

  Beck shuddered: They'd been dashed to pieces by the jet spray at three hundred atmospheres pressure. But that was the least of his concerns.

  "Sea Lion from latest salvo about to reach troopship Cape Fear."

  "Put Cape Fear on a main display screen," Eberhard said. Beck hit the command. There was the container ship, with its stacks of habitation modules. The vessel tried to fight back; launchers fired off antitorpedo snares, voluminous nylon netting laced with explosive detcord. But the snares fell short. Cape Fear was hit. She heaved and snapped in two.

  Cargo containers went flying, and seawater rushed for the heavens with ultimate force. The makeshift troopship was swallowed whole, as the ocean gave birth to another brandnew sun, a too-fast dawn from the wrong direction, west. Cape Fear simply evaporated amidships, steel and soldiers vaporized in a million-degree nuclear furnace. The stubs of her stem and stern were thrown bodily into the air in opposite directions, spinning end over end, spewing flattened containers. It was impossible in this chaos to make out bodies, but thousands of people had just died.

  Other eruptions sounded all around through Deutschland's hull, as technicians called more Sea Lion detonations. More antisubmarine rockets from surviving frigates' launchers went off, too, aimed at invisible tormentors that weren't there — the nonexistent Class 212 wolf pack, Eberhard's sleight of hand.

  Beck knew the frigates wouldn't stay fooled much longer, and then Deutschland would pay. "Shock force from Cape Fear blast will reach the liquid natural gas carrier soon."

  "Show me," Eberhard said.

  The vessel loomed on the screen. The spreading shock fronts overtook her through the sea and through the air. She shuddered as the twinned forces pounded her hull. The airborne shock wave dented the big domes on her deck, the tops of the spherical tanks containing the super-chilled natural gas. They tore open, and insulation flew.

  "That mist," Eberhard said. "The cold gas is condensing moisture in the air…. We should get a nice gas-versus oxygen mix very soon."

  The crew realized it — they were jumping over the side. Several of them staggered, then collapsed on deck.

  "Asphyxiated," Eberhard said; he was transfixed. The freezing mist continued to spread, forming ice slurry on the sea. The men in the water grew still. "Now all we need is a good ignition source. A static spark from all the charged atomic particles up there, a bit of burning debris from the sky…" Whatever did it, the LNG tanker suddenly vanished in a heaving white-hot plasma jet that shot higher than the clouds in a gigantic V. The resulting quasar flare-up was more powerful than the air-burst that had killed the commodore's flagship. The pressure wave expanded in all directions.

  The blast front reached the Honeybee. The Honeybee disintegrated. The detonation's undersea force reached Deutschland. Its impact was unbearably loud. The force knocked the submarine out of control. Light fixtures shattered in their mountings. Crewmen were pounded in their chairs, saved from broken limbs and concussions only by their seat belts. A sonar screen imploded, then caught fire. A hideous roaring reverb went on and on.

  The gravimeter display went blank.

  "Working to reboot," a nav tech shouted.

  "Pilot, decrease depth," Eberhard ordered. "I don't want us hitting terrain…. Make your depth two thousand meters."

  Coomans and the copilot fought their controls. "Crewman trapped in port-side autoloader mechanism," the copilot said.

  "Get him out of there," Eberhard said. "I don't care how! Get that equipment repaired."

  "Convoy aspect change," Haffner said.

  "Confirmed," Beck said. "They're fleeing toward the carrier group. New course is northwest."

  Beck eyed the imagery screen, and gasped. Two dozen mushroom clouds were visible, twisted, distorted, savaged by each other's conflicting blast fronts. The tons of radioactive steam had started to condense, and some of the clouds shed rain like infernal thunderheads. The surface of the ocean was an insane whirlpool of blowing spray and rogue waves, as each rising fireball sucked air toward its base, and each tsunami traced an ever-enlarging circle.

  Everywhere were giant splashes, as smoking wreckage plummeted from the sky. The convoy formation was ruined. The ocean itself seemed to bUm, as huge pools of oil and gasoline marked where fuel tankers had gone down. The pyre of the LNG carrier loomed over everything else.

  Yet still, beneath it all, U.S. and Royal Navy frigates did their work. They were well poised now to wreak a terrible vengeance: Deutschland was almost helpless with her autoloaders damaged and with empty tubes.

  "New ASROC torpedoes in the water," Haffner screamed. "Random spread, six or eight weapons… One is closing on us fast!"

  "New weapons are between us and the convoy," Beck announced. "They're trying to drive us back."

  "Status of autoloader?" Eberhard snapped.

  "Both sides out of action," the copilot said. "Crewman is badly pinned…. Manual loading will take several minutes."

  "Pilot, steer due east." Coomans turned the ship hard. "Incoming torpedo has active lock!"

  High-pitched dings came over the sonar speakers.

  "Pilot, make a knuckle."

  Beck was rocked to port and then to starboard. "No effect."

  "Captain," the copilot said, "torpedo room man-incharge requests avoid all radical maneuvers, to aid repairs."

  If they couldn't make good knuckles, and they couldn't launch any countermeasures, and they had nothing to shoot back with…

  The dings repeated, louder. Deutschland was making flank speed. "That Mark fifty is gaining on us," a fire control technician yelled.

  "Sir," Beck said, "I should go down there."

>   "Einzvo, get a Sea Lion loaded, any way you can."

  Eberhard eyed Beck meaningfully. The weapons officer stood in for Beck. Coomans returned from aft, waterlogged and breathless, blood oozing from a scrape on the side of his head. He joined Beck; both men dashed below.

  When they reached the torpedo room it was a scene of frantic efforts amid the weapons on the holding racks. Crewmembers tried to repair the damaged port and starboard autoloading machinery, while others rushed to rig the chain falls — block and tackle — needed to load by hand. Still others struggled to free the trapped crewman, whose face twisted in grim agony.

  Beck was almost thrown off his feet when Deutschland made another knuckle. He felt the ship begin to fishtail, just as she did on trials when Eberhard pushed the reactor to one hundred ten percent. "Sir," the local phone talker shouted, "the captain indicates incoming torpedo will be in range in ninety seconds tops! You must reload a countershot or we'll be destroyed!" Beck assessed the situation quickly. The culprits were two big Sea Lions themselves, sitting on the jammed reloading guides. They'd been right on the weakest parts of the guides when Deutschland suffered those blast shocks. The eels became harmful dead loads, twisting the guides out of alignment, snapping the bearing pins.

  "The captain orders you fire when ready on local control. He has entered his warhead arming code."

  The starboard gear was hopeless. The chain falls would never be ready soon enough. The port-side gear had just a chance. But the crewman's arm was trapped amid the robotic cams and actuators, and it would take forever to dismantle the equipment enough to pull him free. Beck looked at Coomans, then at the Sea Lion looming over the crewman. They had to get it into the tube, had to launch it at the inbound nuclear Mark 50. But there was no way.

  How? In the name of God, in the name of an end to the war, how?

  "Less than sixty seconds," the phone talker shrieked. Beck could tell the youth was panicking. He eyed the worried faces all around the cramped compartment, and he saw the panic spread.

  Coomans grabbed a sledgehammer and began to drive the autoloader guide back into alignment. With each blow the trapped crewman grunted like a Neanderthal, as Coomans's pounding tortured his mangled arm. Pain didn't matter, ultraquiet didn't matter, nothing mattered but getting that long, thick, oh-so-heavy bastard eel into the gaping hole, the tube. But Coomans couldn't get past the crewman's body to replace the broken bearing pin, and they couldn't run the equipment this way, even assuming it still worked.

  Beck spotted the big red fire ax. He knew he had no choice. God forgive me. He grabbed the ax. The injured crewman saw what was coming. Through clenched teeth he urged Beck to get on with it. But Beck hesitated, appalled at what he meant to do. Again Deutschland fishtailed. Both errant two-metricton Sea Lions shifted more, and metal creaked. Hydraulic fluid oozed to mix with dripping blood. There was so little time.

  Beck remembered what Eberhard said. Any way you can.

  Beck swung the ax with all his strength. The crewman bellowed in animal rage. Beck tried to leave a stump — for a tourniquet — but he missed. The arm came off at the shoulder, the man fell away, and now the smell of blood was very thick.

  Beck reached into the workings, right past the severed arm, and held a replacement bearing pin in position. Again Coomans worked with his hammer, driving the bearing pin home. More precious seconds ticked away; men shouted for Coomans to hurry. At last Coomans grabbed for the power switch and then the port-side activating lever. With a sickening crunch the equipment ran past the jamming sinew and bone. The Sea Lion entered the tube, but the equipment refused to retract — it was broken now beyond repair.

  Coomans leaned in headfirst to connect the arming wires, then slammed the breach door shut. Beck hurled himself at the weapons panel. He pulled his arming key off his neck so hard the lanyard snapped. He shoved it into the slot and turned and typed his password as fast as he could. But there was no time.

  Beck felt everyone's terror mounting; he fought hard not to wet himself in front of the crew. He flooded and equalized and opened the outer door, shouting at each step to give himself courage. He lunged at the tube and worked the emergency firing lever. The eel roared from the tube and into the sea.

  Beck grabbed the phone talker's mike. "Tube six fired on local control." Beck despaired he was too late; he dared not look at his watch. He and Coomans stared at the inner tube door, hearing the shrill hum as the fiber-optic wire played out. There was nothing more they could do. Beck wondered, if he somehow survived and was rescued by the Allies, whether he'd be shot for war crimes.

  Beck saw the status indicator on the weapons panel change. The unit from tube four had detonated, but was it far enough away? Would it stop the much bigger warhead of the 50, or would the next eruption send Deutschland to her grave?

  The concussion, when it came, was smashing… but they were alive. Men laughed and congratulated each other, but Beck knew their little victory was fleeting. Deutschland had been localized, pinned down by the enemy. More torpedoes would be coming at her very soon.

  "Sir," the phone talker said. "Captain requires you in the Zentrale at once."

  Beck nodded wearily. Eberhard, this battle, this war — they were relentless. Beck wiped the injured torpedoman's drying blood off his hands with a piece of cotton rag. The corpsman reported the man was dead, of shock and cardiac arrest. In a real way, Beck had killed him. How many others have I killed today, so far? How much blood is on my hands? What do I do, deny they were human beings?

  Beck forced himself to stay focused. Eberhard worked Deutschland deftly through the latest whiteouts at top quiet speed, to recover lost ground against the convoy. He offered no thank you to Beck for helping save the ship, and no condolences to Beck for his latest crewman who had died.

  Fresh Honeybees showed barely twenty merchant ships still floating — from the original fifty — all steaming northwest, slowly gaining distance from the burgeoning forest of mushroom clouds. The half-dozen surviving frigates still hunted the Axis sub, pinging and launching ASROCs.

  "Sir," the copilot reported several minutes later, "torpedo room reports tubes one through seven reloaded manually by chain falls."

  "Finally," Eberhard said. He and Beck armed the weapons. Beck reminded himself he'd volunteered for submarines — but never dreamed it would lead him to such tormenting madness as this.

  "Copilot," Eberhard said, "deploy a short length of the starboard towed array. I want to hear up and behind us."

  Eberhard seemed unaffected by everything around him, the slaughter, and the crew's fatigue or grief or fear — after all, some of his men were close friends of the four aboard who'd died.

  Coomans returned to the Zentrale, looking disheveled. He snuck Beck a halfhearted wink, and resumed as pilot.

  "Achtung," Eberhard said. "Nuclear Sea Lion salvo, tubes one through six, maximum yield. Target as perimeter bursts against surviving convoy formation."

  Beck, beyond exhaustion, relayed the orders.

  "Tube one, los!" Eberhard ordered. "Tube two, los!" One by one all six weapons were fired. "We'll save the unit in tube seven as insurance."

  "New sonar contact," Haffner said. "Enemy frigate, constant bearing, signal strength increasing."

  "It heard us," Eberhard said.

  "Weapon transients. ASROC motors igniting!"

  That frigate's captain is a brave man, Beck told himself. If we had our normal rate of fire his ship would die for sure.

  "Torpedo in the water!" Haffner screamed. "Second torpedo in the water! Third! Fourth! Four ASROC-launched Mark fifties, inbound, overtaking."

  "Flank speed ahead."

  "All inbound torpedoes on constant bearings, signal strength increasing fast."

  "We can't possibly hit them all with just one nuclear eel. Einzvo! Reload more Sea Lions, now."

  Beck, stung, issued commands.

  "Sea Lions aimed at the convoy have gone to full attack speed…. They're too far ahead to double them back to inter
cept the inbound fifties."

  The frigate pinged on maximum power. One good echo would give Deutschland's depth, too deep to be any German sub but Deutschland.

  Eberhard cursed. "We're losing our stealth." Once the enemy had Deutschland identified, they'd stop at nothing to destroy her. "Achtung, snap shot, tube seven, at the incoming frigate. Los!"

  The frigate launched an antitorpedo ASROC. Beck saw its aim was perfect…. "Unit from tube seven is destroyed." The blast shocked Deutschland hard. Her tubes were empty again, with four enemy nuclear torpedoes closing rapidly.

  Eberhard ordered Coomans back to the torpedo room, and Coomans reported from there — the reloads would never be ready in time for effective countershots against the inbound 50's.

  The nearest frigate pinged again. Beck spotted yet more rocket plumes, from the frigate's stern this time, launched in a fan to port and starboard, over-the-shoulder shots. If he didn't know what they meant, they'd be beautiful. "Six more Mark fifties in the water aimed at Deutschland!" Other frigates joined the chase, closing in as well.

  "They've got us in a vise," Eberhard said.

  Beck thought fast and hard. "Sir, recommend we shelter under the convoy. Conjecture Americans preprogrammed their weapons to not harm friendly forces." ASROC launched Mark 50's weren't wire-guided. Using the convoy for refuge was a gamble, but Deutschland had no choice.

  The frigate pinged again.

  "It's highly likely they know exactly who we are." Eberhard sounded disgusted.

  "I doubt the United States would risk nuking their own ships, sir, even to sink Deutschland." Or would they? Beck watched his screens as the 50's gained on Deutschland, and she gained on the convoy. It was touch and go who'd win. The 50's went to active search.