Seas of Crisis cjf-6

by Joe Buff

  “Sir?” After all that had been discussed on Carter, Bell wondered what Jeffrey could possibly want to go over now.

  “For a while the most immediate threat is blundering into a Russian sub, at random, point blank.”

  Acoustic conditions under the ice were as bad as ever. All active sonars remained secured, except for the covert comms link — no enemy could detect its energy buried in the pack-ice noise.

  “Concur, sir,” Bell answered. “My worst fear would be a Russkie boomer using their favorite under-ice tactic.” Hovering stationary, hugging a thin spot in the cap from below, and masked to the sides by ice keels. “Killing time, nearly dead silent, prepared in the event that a missile launch order comes through.” Low-frequency radio signals traveled well through Arctic ice.

  “We might not hear them on passive sonar until we ran right under one. And he hears us too, from above and in our baffles. Raw survival instincts kick in, he greets us with a snap shot up our ass. Carter returns the favor from behind us in self-defense. World War Three is on, a bit prematurely, by accident.”

  “Not appetizing.”

  “So I want you to establish a special gravimeter watch.”

  “Commodore?”

  “At short range our gravimeter should be able to pick up the density discontinuity of a motionless nuclear sub’s reactor compartment, or compartments.” The thick shielding, the massive containment vessel, the heavy uranium core; some Russian submarine classes had two separate nuclear reactors.

  Bell nodded, seeing what Jeffrey was getting at now. “If the other sub isn’t moving, it’s the only way to get very much advance warning that he’s there…. We can signal Carter and maneuver to avoid, and maybe not lose our stealth.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. Make sense, Captain?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll talk to my XO…. I like that. A special under-ice lookup gravimeter watch.”

  “I’ll be in my office. Don’t hesitate to disturb me.”

  Bell went into Challenger’s control room, to speak with Sessions. Jeffrey went the other way through the corridor, the few steps aft to the XO’s stateroom. He opened out the VIP rack above the one that Sessions used, climbed up and fully dressed except for his shoes, got comfortable, and grabbed some badly overdue sleep. He slept like a rock, dreamlessly and peacefully.

  The sneaky approach toward Siberia took five days and covered almost two thousand nautical miles. They never did encounter another submarine. A message from Commander, U.S. Strategic Command came through, via extremely low-frequency radio that could penetrate deep seawater. The cipher said the mission was confirmed, a definite “go.”

  Jeffrey received the news with no little trepidation. It made him admit to himself that, unconsciously, he’d been hoping the scheme would be canceled and the strike group would be recalled.

  No such luck.

  With this final mental barrier toward the reality of his duty now broken down, he put the remaining transit time to good use. Data disks in his inner orders pouch, opened while on Carter, included scripts to study to prepare for the role it would soon be his burden to play. Since Colonel Kurzin had told Nyurba and his four men to return to Challenger and work with Jeffrey on his Russian language skills and acting ability, he modified those original orders; lone mental rehearsals weren’t his preferred style. Challenger’s crew included a RuLing — a Russian linguist — but that chief wasn’t cleared for crucial portions of the mission.

  Instead, the SERT Seabees and Jeffrey talked through versions of the script out loud. They assumed different parts, ranging from the Russian and American presidents to hypothetical hawkish Kremlin advisors, outraged German diplomats, and the senior person in Siberia whom Jeffrey expected to meet with — his back-channel contact, one Rear Admiral Elmar Meredov. Jeffrey’s orders included an intelligence file devoted just to Meredov — his personal biography, a copy of his service record, and an assessment of his psychology by a CIA profiler.

  By the end of the five days of rigorous practice and no-holds-barred critiques, Jeffrey felt as ready as he’d ever be.

  “It’s time,” Nyurba told him. “We part ways, you and I, until whenever.” Before Jeffrey could say something maudlin or gloopy, Nyurba cut him off. “There’s a serious risk you’ll come across to the Russians as overrehearsed.”

  Jeffrey was taken aback. “You mean, too smooth? Too glib?”

  “You’re supposed to be responding to all these horrible goings-on as if they’re completely new to you.”

  “I love how you put that.”

  Nyurba, who still reminded Jeffrey of a latter-day Genghis Khan, placed one big and powerful hand on Jeffrey’s shoulder.

  “Remember what I told you. Real life doesn’t follow a script. These runthroughs were only to give you a basic idea.”

  “Yup. An idea.”

  “When you’re there, don’t rush your thought processes. Don’t let the other side rush you, either. Set a deliberate, gradual pace from the start. Then stick to it.”

  “Steady, unhurried, not rushed.” Jeffrey repeated the words, mostly to himself, as if they were a mantra.

  A messenger arrived to say the minisub was ready for boarding. Jeffrey wordlessly escorted the Seabees aft to the hangar airlock trunk. He shook hands with Nyurba and his team; he wouldn’t be going with them to Carter. The second, final rendezvous had a very different purpose.

  Chapter 14

  Jeffrey went into Challenger’s control room to oversee the ticklish activity about to begin. The personnel transfer to Carter was the least of it.

  Instead of using his console at the rear of the compartment, he stood in the aisle next to Meltzer at the navigation plot. All the data he needed were easily visible either there or on the various widescreen displays on the bulkheads. And now was not the time to sit with his back to people.

  Challenger and Carter were still under the Arctic ice cap, at the edge of the east Siberian continental shelf, where the water’s depth dropped steeply from very shallow to six thousand feet. The terrain that interested Jeffrey most was a short distance ahead on his intended track, due south. Tiny Genrietty and Zannetty together represented the extreme tip of the Novosibirskie Ostrova — the New Siberian Islands. Both were frozen into the ice cap year round. They were the northernmost dry land in this part of Russia, occupied by military surveillance and communication posts. Jeffrey thought of them as like the outer part of a set of matryoshka dolls, those nested wooden egg-shaped figures, a popular image of Russian culture.

  Penetrating Russian defenses will be a lot like cracking open a locked set of these dolls-within-dolls.

  On Jeffrey’s order, the strike group went to silent battle stations. “Proceed with minisub release for Carter docking.”

  Bell issued the orders, COB worked his console touch screens, Challenger’s hangar doors opened, and the mini began to move. It was being piloted by a chief from Carter’s crew, and co-piloted by another chief, a Navy SEAL by background, from Kurzin’s commando group. Both men, already fully qualified in the American ASDS minisub design, had come over to Challenger at the end of the previous rendezvous. Since then they’d been thoroughly checked out in operating the German mini, by Meltzer and COB. This intense extra preparation was needed, Jeffrey knew, because the German mini, vital to the mission in more ways than one, would never return to Challenger again.

  The mini began to cover the modest distance across to Carter. The two full-size nuclear subs used Jeffrey’s preferred rendezvous formation. Challenger’s heading was north, and Carter’s was south, with neither ship making forward motion; each bow sphere sonar covered the other ship’s baffles, since no towed arrays were deployed. They kept just enough horizontal and vertical separation to avoid any collision hazard, and not block each other’s wide-aperture arrays on the sides where they faced. Jeffrey liked to think of this as circling the wagons.

  In a split second, all calm evaporated.

  “New passive sonar contact on the starboard
wide-aperture array!” Chief O’Hanlon called out. “Broadband contact, submerged, intermittent, contact bearing is… zero-five-zero! Acoustic sea state too high for meaningful ranging!” Noise from the ice cap was interfering with one of the wide-aperture array’s most important functions: instantly finding the range to another submarine. “Contact not close,” O’Hanlon added after a pause to study sound-path data. “I designate the contact Master One.”

  Bell acknowledged, surprised and concerned. “Fire Control, commence a target motion analysis on Master One.”

  Sessions spoke with Torelli. A tracking party got busy. With enough passage of time — and if the contact wasn’t lost — Master One’s range, course, and speed could be estimated by computer analysis based solely on the way in which the bearing to the contact slowly changed.

  “Sir,” Sessions reported, “Carter signals, ‘New sonar contact.’ ” Sessions read off the rest of the acoustic-link message, which made it clear that they’d detected the same vessel, Master One. “Carter asks whether to proceed with minisub docking while contact is held.”

  Bell turned to Jeffrey. “Commodore?”

  Jeffrey was forced to make a very difficult choice. “Anything yet on Master One’s range or speed?”

  “Negative, sir,” O’Hanlon stated. “And no tonals.”

  “Nothing here yet either, sir,” Torelli replied.

  “He’s moving and we’re not,” Jeffrey said. “That gives us a sonar advantage.”

  “Only if we put the docking on hold,” Bell warned. “Master One might pick up mechanical transients otherwise, sir.”

  “If we shift the strike group’s position, and have the minisub follow along, we’ll waste its fuel and we can’t get a refill. We aren’t ready to climb up on the continental shelf, to hide from this guy that way. Deploying off-board probes to scout ahead on the shallow bottom will make mechanical transients too.”

  “Hug the slope at the edge of the shelf, and wait for him to go by?” Bell asked.

  “Sir,” Sessions interrupted Jeffrey’s train of thought, “Carter signals, ‘Minisub requesting clearance to dock. What are your instructions?’ ” The mini’s acoustic-link system was too weak for it to have overheard the very low power messages between Challenger and Carter. Its passive sonars were much too unsophisticated to have detected Master One on their own. The pair of chiefs in its control compartment were unaware that a third, unfriendly, nuclear submarine was so nearby.

  “Master One signal strength increasing slightly,” O’Hanlon said. This suggested it was coming closer.

  “Weps?” Bell asked. “Anything?”

  “Bearing has shifted left, sir. Worst case is that Master One is approaching, will cross in front of our bow.”

  “Can you say when?” Jeffrey asked.

  “Could be twenty minutes, could be two hours.”

  Sessions spoke up again. “Carter has repeated her signal.”

  Jeffrey was in a real bind. None of the tactical alternatives were good.

  “Carter signals, ‘Unknown submerged contact will cross my baffles within one hour.’ ”

  The words were matter-of-fact, but the implied tone was insistent. A serious threat was approaching, and soon would enter the baffles zone in which Carter was totally blind.

  Bell, Sessions, and Torelli kept glancing at Jeffrey, waiting for him to tell them, Harley, and the minisub what to do.

  If you don’t have any good choices, pick the one which seems least bad…. And the sooner the better. That threat gets closer every second.

  “Signal Carter, ‘Designate contact Master One in further messages. Warn minisub of unidentified vessel’s presence, then proceed with caution but make docking smartly. Signal flagship soonest when docking complete.’ ”

  “Yes, Commodore,” Sessions typed. Though the danger hadn’t diminished, the decision to do something made the men around Jeffrey feel better. Harley acknowledged Jeffrey’s message.

  “Sonar,” Jeffrey said to Finch, “monitor the mini docking for transients’ duration and signal strength. I want to know in a heartbeat if Master One could have heard anything.”

  Finch turned to Chief O’Hanlon, and they conferred.

  A sonarman with headphones on, assigned to monitor the minisub, visibly cringed.

  “Thump and scraping,” O’Hanlon reported. “Assess as docking attempt aborted. Detection likelihood by Master One unknown.”

  Jeffrey cursed to himself. The two chiefs on the mini were handling the little craft clumsily.

  “Signal Carter, ‘Put docking on hold. Will match your depth to shield you acoustically from approaching contact.’ ”

  Sessions sent the message; Harley acknowledged.

  “Captain,” Jeffrey told Bell, “rise on autohover, make your depth seven-three-zero feet, smartly.”

  Bell gave the helm order; Patel acknowledged and tapped at his keyboard and touch screen.

  Jeffrey watched Challenger’s depth decrease from eight hundred fifty feet until her bulk stood between the upper part of Carter’s hull and Master One. “Signal Carter, ‘Resume docking.’ ”

  Once more Sessions typed, and Harley acknowledged.

  The sonarman cringed again.

  “Thud and clunks,” O’Hanlon said. “Assess as mating collar lineup, and lockdown clamps engaging.”

  Carter signaled that the docking had succeeded.

  “Detection likelihood by Master One undetermined,” O’Hanlon said. Without knowing what class of submarine Master One was — what quality of passive sonars it carried — plus still lacking any useable data on distance, O’Hanlon and Finch had no way to calculate an enemy detection threshold for the noises just made.

  Jeffrey had another idea. “Could we and Carter somehow triangulate a range to the contact?”

  “Negative, sir,” O’Hanlon said. “We’re too close together. Otherwise I’d’ve suggested it.”

  “Very well, Sonar Supervisor.”

  “Master One still approaching. No further data.”

  “Very well.”

  He’d fallen behind the curve of unfolding events, thrown off guard by Master One’s appearance when his strike group was at its most vulnerable — in the middle of a minisub rendezvous next to unfavorable terrain. He pushed to get back ahead of the curve.

  “Signal Carter, ‘Strike group maintain formation and continue to track Master One. Secure all unnecessary machinery for maximum silencing.’ ”

  Once more Sessions typed, then announced Carter’s acknowledgment. Bell issued orders to COB, including to secure the ventilation fans. O’Hanlon said that Master One continued coming closer. Torelli said his people thought the contact was now about ten miles away, and might come within four miles before passing and going off into the distance. Given the uncertainty in these figures, this was much too close for comfort.

  “Sir,” Sessions called, “Carter signals, ‘My pump jet is exposed to Master One’s probable track near closest point of approach. Will be unable to suppress echo if Master One goes active.’ ” The rotary slats at the back of a pump jet had no effective anechoic protection.

  Jeffrey examined the navigation plot and the gravimeter. He faced the same problem as before. The nearby slope from the continental shelf down into deep water showed clearly on the gravimeter. The strike group was pinned against that slope. The shelf itself was only two hundred feet deep here, and for Carter to rise that high on autohover from her present formation depth of seven hundred fifty feet might cause her steel hull to pop — a dead giveaway to the ever-approaching Master One. And there were unknown dangers up on that shelf, including maybe antisubmarine mines or sensors, or both.

  “Captain,” Jeffrey told Bell, “on auxiliary maneuvering units, translate own-ship sideways one hundred yards due east.”

  Bell gave the new helm order; Patel acknowledged and worked his console to put it into effect.

  “Signal Carter,” Jeffrey said, “ ‘Am increasing separation. Prepare to pivot your ship o
n auxiliary maneuvering units to heading due north.’ ”

  Patel reported when he’d completed the eastward lateral shifting of Challenger. That gave Carter enough room to safely rotate her bow from south to north.

  Jeffrey signaled Harley to pivot his ship. Now both ships’ baffles, and their pump jets, were protected by facing the slope of the shelf. This was the best that Jeffrey could do. If Master One was also hugging the edge of the shelf, bad things would happen quickly. Depending on that other sub’s depth, a collision wasn’t impossible, even if she didn’t open fire. The strike group was in international waters, but not by much. Genrietty Island wasn’t very far away.

  “Your intentions, Commodore?” Bell asked.

  “Sit here and wait.”

  “I’m not sure I can agree with that, sir.”

  “Why not?”

  “The shelf floor seems to be safer than the steep open side of the slope. We know Master One is a submarine, and it’s approaching. We don’t know for sure there are any sensors planted on the shelf. That makes Master One the greater threat, the one to maneuver smartly to avoid.”

  “Negative. The known threat is not the greater threat. The greater threat is the unknown floor of the shelf.”

  Bell frowned. “At least rotate both ships so we’re facing Master One head on, show our smallest profiles, and point our torpedo tubes right at her.”

  “Sorry, but no. I don’t want to lose the contact we hold on the wide-aperture array, then risk not regaining it soon enough on the bow sphere. Turning now would show our largest acoustic profiles at Master One’s closest point of approach instead, which is more dangerous.” A sub typically emitted greater acoustic energy from her sides than in the direction of dead ahead. And twirling both subs in place with their auxiliary maneuvering units, to keep their noses pointing at Master One, was too noisy and too complicated. “We can’t open fire first, our ROEs don’t allow it here. Besides, if we do have to shoot when shot at, I’d rather save the best setup for when Master One is nearest us. Our tubes will be aimed right at her then, with hers aimed away from us…. We stay put.”