by James Rosone
“Give me an update, Klein,” demanded Captain Troy.
“Sir, the enemy torpedoes are now less than six kilometers away and closing quickly,” he explained. “On a good note, one of the torpedoes did go for the Nixie—now it’s just the wake homing torpedoes we need to worry about.”
“That still leaves plenty of worrying left,” Troy mumbled.
The torpedoes had now positioned themselves behind the Vicksburg as they maneuvered in for the kill. The TWS had locked on to the incoming threats and fed that data to the two CATs. A soon as Klein saw he had a positive lock on the enemy torpedoes, he shouted out, “Engaging enemy torpedoes now!”
Captain Troy, along with everyone else in the CIC, watched as the CATs shot out and went right for the enemy torpedoes. The first CAT collided with its target and blew up. Cheers and hoots of joy rang out in the CIC at the first confirmed kill. The second CAT was headed right for its target when all of a sudden, the Russian torpedo made another zigzag in its race to hit the Vicksburg. This unexpected maneuver by the enemy torpedo enabled it to slide right past the CAT before it could hit it.
Klein saw in a fraction of a second what had happened and jabbed the self-destruct button on the CAT. Praying it was still close enough to take the last enemy threat out, Captain Troy watched the explosion and geyser of water spring into the air less than two hundred meters behind them from the rear-mounted CCTV camera mounted on the exhaust tower.
Everyone in the CIC shouted with excitement and joy when they saw the explosion, believing it must have come from the destruction of the torpedo. Captain Troy held his breath as he waited to learn if the torpedo had really been destroyed. Just as he was about to join in the celebration, the enemy torpedo suddenly appeared on Klein’s targeting scope. The torpedo was now less than one hundred meters from the rear of the ship, and he had no more CATs to fire at it.
In that instant, Klein shouted, “Brace for impact!”
The crushing, thunderous boom reverberated throughout the ship as the rear portion of their ship flew upward and then landed back in the water. The lights briefly flickered off and on before they completely went out. The blast had impacted near the engine room and the ship’s power plant.
Seconds later, the emergency generators kicked in and the lights turned back on.
“Damage report!” shouted Captain Troy as he walked over to Klein.
Turning to face the captain, Klein sheepishly said, “I thought we had that last one, sir.” He hung his head low in defeat. It was his responsibility to protect the ship from an underwater threat, and he had failed.
Before the lieutenant commander in charge of the ship’s damage control functions could respond, Captain Troy looked down at Klein, placing a hand on the man’s shoulder. “You did all you could, Klein. You stopped two of those torpedoes from hitting us. This wasn’t your fault.”
Klein nodded, but it was clear he didn’t feel any better.
“Sir, we’re dead in the water,” announced the lieutenant commander. “We’ve lost contact with engineering. The machine shop just phoned in and said the lower decks are taking on water fast. They tried to get over to engineering, but the corridor was flooding fast. They had to seal it off.”
“Get more damage control teams to the rear of the ship. We need to seal off the lower decks and the rear half of the ship or we’re going to go down,” the captain ordered.
“Someone get a message out to the Ford that we’ve been hit by a torpedo. Tell them we sank a Russian Akula, but we’re dead in the water and in need of assistance ASAP,” Troy ordered next. He needed to get some help on the way. He knew his crew wouldn’t last very long in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic in January.
“Sir, I just got a message from the Porter,” announced the lieutenant manning their coms system. “They’re five minutes out from our position and coming to assist. The Laboon wants to know if they should head our way to assist or stay out on ASW patrol.”
Captain Troy thought for a moment; the Vicksburg had a crew of 330 sailors. They wouldn’t all fit on the Porter if it came down to it. He looked back to his coms officer. “Tell the Laboon to make best speed to our position. If we have to abandon ship, I want to make sure our people aren’t stuck in the lifeboats for any longer than is necessary.”
The next five minutes went by in a blur. Everyone did their best to handle the fires that had sprung up on the rear of the ship and seal off the various corridors and decks that were rapidly filling with water.
“Someone, give me a casualty report!” demanded Captain Troy as he looked at the clock mounted on the wall. It was now noticeably slanted at an angle. They were taking on too much water. The rear of the ship was settling lower and lower into the water, pulling the rest of the vessel downward.
Walking over to him with a clipboard, his XO showed him the numbers thus far. Thirty-eight were unaccounted for, another forty-three listed as injured. Shaking his head, Troy looked at the XO. “I want our wounded picked up by the helos and transferred over to the Ford if they have the fuel and ability to do so. We need to start getting them off the ship ASAP, in case we can’t stop the flooding.”
The XO nodded and moved over to the coms section to start getting that going. Meanwhile, the captain walked out of the CIC and made his way to one of the lower decks. He needed to see the flooding firsthand and try to talk with some of the guys stopping it.
As he traveled down a deck, Captain Troy heard a lot of orders being shouted. When he reached the bottom of the deck as he made his way down the next stairwell, he saw there was already at least three inches of water.
Crap! If we have water on this deck, then it’s already overwhelmed the other deck below, Troy realized.
“How bad is it, Chief?” he asked of one of the chief petty officers who had just finished shouting some instructions to one of the damage control parties.
“Not good, sir,” he admitted. “We’re going to have to seal off the deck below. It’s like each time we seal one section off, we discover there’s another leak somewhere else that allows the water to get behind each of the sections of the ship we close off.”
“Did we get everyone out of the lower decks before we had to close them off?” asked Captain Troy.
A look of frightened uncertainty spread across the man’s face before he responded, “I don’t know, sir. We tried our best, but the lower decks flooded so rapidly. We tried to compartmentalize them by sealing up that rear section of the ship from the bottom deck all the way up to here. Somehow, some way, the water found a way around those sealed compartments and flooded the next open section. I think the blast may have ruptured some of the water mains or the HVAC system, and that’s how the water’s moving from section to section.”
Captain Troy shook his head in anger and frustration. If that was the case, then there was little hope they’d be able to save the ship. The only way they could stay afloat was if they could successfully compartmentalize the leaks and seal those sections off. Once they got the ship stabilized, then they could work with some divers to see if they could get some of the outer holes sealed up and begin to pump out the water.
While the captain was contemplating how to handle the situation, an explosion rocked the ship. Captain Troy grabbed for something to keep himself from falling. When he’d steadied himself, he grabbed for the phone near the ladder well and connected to the CIC.
“This is the captain. What the hell just blew up?” he demanded.
The officer manning the damage control section responded. “Sir, the fire on the rear of the ship helicopter hangar bay has spread to the ship’s internal JP5 fuel tank, and that’s what exploded.”
While the damage control officer was explaining the situation, Captain Troy looked down and noticed the water had risen another inch on his legs. It would appear this added catastrophe was speeding up their demise.
“Hold on a moment,” he told the damage control officer. Then he turned to the chief, who was still standing by him
.
“Chief, that explosion we just heard was one of the helo fuel tanks blowing. It would appear the fire in the rear of the ship got to it somehow. Do you think it may have opened another hole in the ship?” he asked.
The chief thought about that for a second. “I think so, sir. Those fuel bladders are placed between the inner and outer hulls of the ship. If one blew, then it probably just ripped another gash in the hull. If we weren’t already taking on so much water, I’d say we could seal off the affected compartments and portions of the ship and sail back to port, but we’re already in trouble as it is. Another large hole in the hull is beyond our ability to salvage.”
I can’t believe my ship’s going to go down before we even fired a shot off at the enemy, Captain Troy thought angrily.
He shifted the telephone handset back to his head. “Tell the XO to order ‘abandon ship.’ We need to get as many people as we can off the ship before we go down. I don’t want our people dying of hypothermia in the water because we waited until the very last minute to make the call. Send a flash message to the Ford that we’re going down and ask the Porter and Laboon to come fetch us out of the water.”
Having just given the worst possible orders a captain could dole out, he turned to face the chief and the damage control party standing near him. The water was still rising; now it reached their knees. “You all did what you could. Now it’s time to save ourselves. Everyone, drop what you’re doing and get to the lifeboats.”
Ten minutes later, Captain Troy sat in one of the lifeboats, bobbing up and down in the five-foot swells as he watched their home, the USS Vicksburg, begin to sink. The rear half of the ship, which was fully engulfed in flames, slowly slipped under the water while the bow of the ship remained raised out of the water, slowly being pulled skyward as the rear of the ship continued to fall deeper into the water. It only took a few more minutes before the rest of the ship followed the stern beneath the waves.
As the USS Porter came near their lifeboat, Captain Troy saw the sailors of the other ship on the deck, ready to help pull them aboard. For the sailors of the USS Vicksburg, their part in this operation was over. Now they’d have to find another way to get back into the action to get their revenge. Captain Troy’s only solace was knowing they’d sent that Akula to the bottom.
Chapter 16
Partisans
January 16, 2021
Near Bolton, Vermont
Camel’s Hump State Park
Tony hid under a winter-colored camouflage blanket as he watched the latest convoy of military vehicles travel down I-89, past the small town of Bolton. He felt a slight shiver pass through his body as he fought against the cold temperatures and the biting wind. Within twelve hours of setting up his little position, he’d realized he was not adequately equipped for this.
They always make sniper operations look so easy in the movies, he thought.
When the invading UN army had captured his state a couple of days ago, Tony knew he had to do something to stop them, but he wasn’t quite sure what. Then, when he’d heard on the news about the naval battle in the North Atlantic and how the ship his older brother Paul had been on had been sunk, he’d been devastated. He had no way of knowing if Paul had survived or died because mail from the rest of the country wasn’t making its way across enemy lines. The occupation authority sure as heck didn’t know, and even if they had, they wouldn’t have cared less. After brooding about the loss for a day, a plan on how to get the enemy back began to form.
Tony was an avid Call of Duty player. It was a way he and his brother had continued to stay in touch and interact—they’d play online together whenever he was in port or had access to his online account. In the game, he’d always been a sniper. Not quite the same as real-life experience, obviously, but in real life he did hunt and sport shoot with his older brother and friends. Even while attending college, he’d still found time to go hunting. Tony had talked to a couple of his college buddies, and they’d decided to take their hunting rifles and do something.
That was twenty-eight hours ago. Now, sitting under his winter camouflage blanket in the freezing cold, he was beginning to have his doubts.
What in the world were we thinking? he wondered.
“Tony, that convoy is getting closer. Are we going to shoot at this one?” asked one of his friends over their walkie-talkie.
They had let the previous two convoys pass without firing a shot. The first convoy had a couple of tanks with it and some other armored vehicles they had never seen before. The second convoy came through several hours before dawn, and they couldn’t properly see the vehicles to really know what they were, so they waited for the sun to come up and figured they’d hit the next one they saw.
Looking through his scope to find the vehicles traveling down the interstate, Tony spotted the new convoy. He grabbed the walkie-talkie, depressing the talk button. “Yeah, this looks like a good one. I don’t see any tanks or other armored vehicles,” he answered. “So, here’s what we’re going to do—I’m going to shoot at the lead vehicle to try and kill the driver. You guys shoot at the drivers in the other vehicles. If we’re lucky, the vehicles will lose control and it’ll hurt or kill some of the soldiers in the back. The ones that do survive, we can snipe at when they get out.” He paused for a second before he depressed the talk button to add one more thing. “Let’s fire off three or four shots and then run back into the woods, OK?”
With their impromptu plan decided on, he returned his gaze to his scope to find the lead vehicle. He sighted in on the driver’s-side front windshield and saw the silhouette of the man he was about to kill.
“This is for you, Paul,” he whispered. He flicked the safety off his rifle, let out a breath and squeezed the trigger.
Bang!
The shot rang out, but Tony stayed focused, waiting to see if his bullet had hit his mark. In the flash of a second, he saw a splash of red appear on the windshield of the vehicle, which swerved into one of the guardrails on the side of the highway. He immediately pulled the bolt back, ejecting the spent round as a new one slammed back in its place. He looked through the scope again—soldiers jumped out the back of the disabled vehicle. They had their rifles raised but seemed to have no idea where the sniper fire had come from.
As Tony was aiming at another soldier, he heard several loud cracks as his two friends also fired at the soldiers. Tony aimed at one soldier who was shooting in their direction; he placed his red dot on the man’s chest and fired.
Bang!
He saw the man drop like a switch had been turned off. Quickly now, he worked the bolt, ejecting the spent round and preparing to fire again. Now the enemy fire was getting closer to their position. He heard some bullets whizzing over his head. A few rounds hit the dirt and rocks in front of him, causing him to flinch a bit. Steeling himself, he took aim at another soldier and fired one more time. His third shot missed.
“Tony! We need to get out of here!” one of his friends shouted in a terrified voice.
Now he heard the rhythmic thumping of a helicopter’s rotor blades approaching. Panicking, Tony jumped up, grabbed his camouflaged blanket, and ran like the wind back into the woods. The sound of the approaching chopper continued to get louder and closer.
Minutes later, chunks of dirt, tree branches, and rocks were kicked up all around him as a gunner from the yet-unseen helicopter shot at him. Diving for cover behind a tree, Tony hoped he’d be able to elude the chopper that had been sent to hunt them down. He turned and saw one of his friends running toward him, panic and fear written all over his face. Then, in the blink of an eye, his friend practically disintegrated before his eyes as he was torn apart by the large-caliber machine gun in the sky.
In anger, Tony aimed his rifle at the helicopter, which had to be no more than five hundred yards away. He fired a round, certain he had hit his target, only to see the flying Grim Reaper turn toward him. Before his mind even had time to register what had happened, he saw something fly out from unde
r the helicopter’s wing pilons toward him. Then everything went black.
*******
Detroit, Michigan
Chief Warrant Officer Trent “Punisher” Lipton of the 1st Battalion, 5th Special Forces Group, had just crawled out of the manhole cover in the center of the now dark and empty street. He looked around him with his weapon at the ready position. The snow was still falling rather steadily, which aided in covering his exit but also made it harder for him to ensure the area was clear of roving patrols. He did a quick three-sixty to make sure the coast was clear, doing his best to look for things out of the ordinary and listen for any voices or sounds that didn’t belong there.
The only thing he heard was the steady stream of truck traffic moving across the bridge not far away. When he saw no visible threats, he looked down into the sewer from which he had just emerged and signaled that it was clear to exit. A few minutes later, the rest of his six-man team emerged and dashed to the now-abandoned Great American Truck Driving building on West Fort Street, roughly twenty feet away.
The team had just spent the last six hours crawling around the city’s sewers, placing an ungodly amount of C-4 near the support structures of the Ambassador Bridge. The busy suspension bridge, which had been a fixture since 1929, was the key link between Canada and the United States across the Detroit River, and it was vital to keeping the UN forces supplied as they continued their advance into Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. They’d managed to accomplish their task despite the roving patrols of enemy soldiers, who were intent on preventing someone from doing exactly what they’d done.
When the 1st Cavalry Division had been forced to withdraw from the city, several Special Forces units had stayed behind to try and wreak as much havoc with the enemy logistics and rearguard forces as possible. Lipton’s team had been assigned the difficult task of trying to drop the critical bridge.