Phoenix Sub Zero

by Michael Dimercurio

  “Agreed, Commander.” Sharef moved closer to the navigation display, checking water depth from the computer memory, the ice-profile generated from a satellite shot loaded into the system just before sailing,

  updated by the Second Captain’s latest predictions. There was no telling the range to the torpedoes, but based on the Second Captain’s detection ranges using the forward hydrophones, they must be distant. And given the fact that the American torpedoes were slow, there was a good chance that the ship would outrun the weapons and remain whole. In fact, he believed, whoever had fired on them had committed a tactical error, firing at a distance from a single bearing. As soon as the Nagasakis were fired down the bearings to the incoming torpedoes, the firing ship was doomed.

  “Tubes ten and twelve ready, track search mode loaded for an immediate turn to the south. Commodore. Request to launch.”

  “Launch ten and twelve.”

  Within twenty seconds two Nagasaki torpedoes left their tubes at the bow of the Hegira, executed rapid 180degree turns to the south and sped to the target.

  As the weapons left the Hegira behind, the Hegira began closing the distance to the American 688class submarine, which was running northwest, the American vessel some thirty clicks slower. Now within ten kilometers, the Second Captain system was still unable to pick her noise out of the sea from the interference of the highly increased own-ship noise of the seawater flow and propulsion machinery … Saturday, 4

  January fort meade, maryland, headquarters, national security agency building 427 secure communications facility When Admiral Donchez had shut his eyes after his phone conversation with General Barczynski, the snow had been two feet deep on the roads, drifting up to four. Now another foot of snow had blanketed the flats. Donchez dreamed of snow falling, snow colored black, of streets lined with bodies buried in the deadly flakes. When he was nudged awake it was a relief.

  “Message for you, sir. Navy Blue.”

  Donchez put the clipboard down on the abandoned console section in front of him. The message was from the Seawolf, and its body was a one-liner: WE ARE NOW ENGAGING THE DESTINY. He waved over the communications tech sergeant.

  “Copy this over to General Barczynski’s personal TS fax machine at Fairfax. You know the code?”

  “Yes sir.”

  labrador sea, northwest OF godthaab, greenland USS phoenix “Right full rudder, all ahead flank! Steady course three five zero. Dive, make your depth 1,000 feet. Sonar, Captain, do you have the torpedoes?”

  Kane felt sweat break out under his arms, in the middle of his chest and

  between his legs. He could feel his respiration rate rise. The deck trembled with the sudden maneuver. He had the definite feeling that the ship would not be able to take another Nagasaki hit. It was, literally, outrun or die.

  “Conn, sonar, yes, on the edge of the port baffles. And one thing, sir. The incoming torpedoes do not have characteristics of the Nagasakis. These are … Mark 50s.”

  Sanderson sounded as if he was angry at Kane himself.

  “Say again, sonar.”

  “Captain, incoming torpedoes are Mark 50 units launched from the south. The attacking submarine is here early.”

  Mcdonne cursed. “Can’t they do anything right?”

  “XO, get on the horn to Schramford aft and tell him to crank up the power again, like he did last time.” Kane keyed his mike. “Sonar, Captain, what’s the status of Target One?”

  “He’s in the baffles, sir. I’m looking for him to emerge on the edge of the starboard baffles. I’m also checking the towed array end-beam, but at this speed the old array is losing signal-to-noise ratio pretty

  quick.”

  “Keep looking.” What else could he say, Kane wondered.

  Again he had done everything the book said he could do to evade a torpedo. With the lighter, slower Mark 50s coming in, he might have a better chance of outpacing them than he would against a Nagasaki.

  Standing on the conn, knuckles white as he gripped the handrail, Kane decided that perhaps a desk job wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  CNFS hegira “I recommend a maneuver. Commander Tawkidi. We should see how close the weapons are getting.” Sublieutenant Rouni’s voice was stressed.

  Tawkidi nodded slowly, uncomfortable himself without knowing what the weapons were doing. With the damage to the aft hydrophone arrays from the previous torpedo hit, there was no way to track the progress of the weapons when they were astern.

  “Very well. Sublieutenant. Ship control, insert a one-point-five g-turn to the right … now.”

  The deck tilted as the ship-control-panel officer inserted the turn. It would take the ship half a minute to do the 360-degree turn, after which

  they would return to the northern evasion course. The thirty seconds seemed to take forever, especially since they were running directly toward the weapons at the halfway point.

  Back on course, Rouni at the panel attempted to analyze the data the system had seen during its look-back.

  “I’m getting twelve weapons still in pursuit. Commander.

  Closest is at fifteen kilometers.”

  “Any active pulses?”

  “No sir. So far the torpedoes are passive.”

  “All of them on course for us, or are they going wide?”

  “They are all vectored directly at us, sir.”

  Tawkidi stepped away from the sensor and weapon consoles and took Sharef’s elbow, guiding him farther from the other officers and Sihoud and Ahmed.

  “Commodore, I know we don’t have a Dash Five to support this, but I’m beginning to think we should insert a delouse.”

  “On what basis, Omar?”

  “We’re under broad ice-covering, sir. Their torpedoes will be listening for propulsion noises. They aren’t pinging, at least not yet, but if they do, the ice will be reflecting the pulses, They will have a velocity filter to discriminate between us, a moving object and the ice.”

  “We have no intelligence on their systems.”

  “We could insert the delouse and go shallow to the bottom of the ice. It’s a risk, but the intruder will keep shooting, keeping us from launching the missile …”

  Sharef tried to keep an open mind but still felt certain that the American weapons were relatively crude. They were probably still on a programmed run to a listening point.

  Running was the best tactic, and inserting a delouse without a Dash Five to throw off the incoming weapon was too risky. Not worth it.

  “Commander, I believe we should continue the run. These weapons will soon run out of fuel, and they will no longer fire them when they realize two of our Nagasakis are on the way. The Nagasakis will destroy

  the launching platform, and when the torpedoes shut down we can return to our mission.”

  And in the thick of it, that was how he thought of it, felt it—the mission.

  Although, just for an instant, he wondered if his motivation for the order came from his aversion to launching the missiles. Whatever, he felt certain it was the correct tactical course, and that was his job. Inserting a delouse and waiting was taking a chance that did not need to be taken. And as he had insisted, there was plenty of time … USS phoenix Sanderson’s report put a rare smile on Kane’s face. “Conn, sonar, I have the Destiny emerging from the starboard baffles, very loud sound signature. He’s going very fast with a left-bearing drift. My estimate is that he’s on a parallel . course heading north, also evading the Mark 50 torpedoes, and is overtaking us.”

  “Sonar, Captain, any sign that he hears us?”

  “Conn, sonar, no. He’s running as scared as we are.”

  Lt. Victor Houser’s expression had begun to change as he heard Sanderson say the words “also evading the Mark 50 torpedoes” and “he’s running as scared as we are.” He could barely keep his voice level as he said to Mcdonne.

  “What the hell are we doing, XO?”

  “Where have you been, Houser?” Mcdonne prepared to launch into one of his classic reprim
ands when Kane held up his hand.

  “Houser, what’s on your mind?”

  “Captain, XO, we’re doing a torpedo evasion based on enemy weapons. But we’re running from Mark 50s. Our own systems. We know these fish. We’re under ice. They were probably launched with a ceiling setting of 200 or 300 feet to avoid running into ice rafts, right? And they’re on a passive snake-search pattern, which will switch to a high-doppler filter active on-target acquisition. That’s the standard under-ice setting for a submerged target. So why are we running? We should stop, hover, and bring ourselves up to the ice. Those things will never hear us—”

  “Helm, all back two thirds!” Kane suddenly said. “Mark speed two knots.”

  The deck trembled violently as the maneuvering-room crew opened the astern turbine throttles and reversed the direction of the screw. Mcdonne stared while Houser kept frowning at the sonar display screen.

  “Two knots. Captain.”

  “Helm, all stop. Diving Officer, prepare to hover.

  Phone talker, to maneuvering, scram the reactor and shut the main steam bulkhead valves.”

  The order to scram the plant went out, surprising even Houser. Kane was going further than stopping and hiding.

  He was after total ship silence.

  “Ready to hover. Captain.”

  “Very well. Dive. Bring us up to the ice cover. Two feet per second.”

  “Two feet per second rise, sir. Depth setting 100 feet.”

  The fans in the room wound down, making the room immediately stuffy.

  “Maybe we should cut off the firecontrol system,” Houser said. “It’s eating power and we don’t have any torpedoes anyway.”

  “Shut it down, O.O.D.”

  Mcdonne’s face had turned blotchy red but he kept his mouth shut.

  “Five hundred feet, sir.”

  “Sir, maneuvering reports reactor scram with the bulkhead steam valves shut.”

  Quickest way to shut down the engineroom, Kane thought.

  The ship would be whisper-quiet now, only the hissing of air into the depth-control tanks making noise.

  “Captain, we’re about out of high-pressure air. I’ll have to hover on the trim pump.”

  Kane bit his lip. The massive pump would eat battery power, but after their emergency blows to get off the bottom they had not had a chance to run the air compressors and refill the banks. There was no choice.

  “Very well, Chief. Hover on the trim pump. Phone talker, to the engineer, report time on the battery.”

  “Conn, sonar, understand we’re hovering to avoid the torpedoes.

  Request we turn the ship to get the torpedoes out of the baffles.”

  “Sonar, Captain, no.”

  “Sir, engineer reports a half-hour on the battery, maybe more if we dump forward loads.”

  Kane understood. Sonar wanted to start the thruster and burn power to monitor the battle. The engineer wanted to shut down sonar and conserve battery juice. “Two hundred feet, sir,” the diving officer reported.

  “Ease the ascent to one foot per second.”

  “One eight zero feet, sir.”

  Kane waited, knowing the torpedoes were still screaming in at him. Two minutes later the deck jumped as the sail collided with the bottom of the icepack overhead. They had stopped.

  “Give us just enough buoyancy to stay here without listing over.”

  “Aye, sir. Trim pump is shut down.” “What now. Captain?” Mcdonne asked.

  “Now we wait,” Kane said. The room was much quieter without the roar of the air handlers. Kane stepped to the door to sonar and looked in on Sanderson. The sonar chief gave him a sour look.

  “Can’t hear anything but this ice,” Sanderson said. “The torpedoes are

  still directly astern in the baffles.”

  “Keep listening. If you hear them in front of us, they went by.”

  “I’ll be sure to let you know, sir.” Sanderson turned back to his console, ignoring Kane.

  Kane stepped back into the room. The faces of the watchstanders, to a man, were hollow, dark circles under their eyes, fatigue and fear sapping their energy. Kane had a feeling the trip was almost over. The only question was how it would end.

  USS seawolf “Check fire,” Pacino ordered. “Sonar, Captain, do you have any bearing separation between own-ship units and Target One? And what’s the status of the Phoenixt’ Pacino was greeted by half-startled looks. He recognized that he was interrupting the execution of his own orders: to shoot the weapons in the room until only one was left. But a thought had crept up on him that he was shooting on old data. The torpedoes had been between their sonar ears and the target and the friendly. Anything could be happening out there. Without data, there were no decisions, only ignorance.

  “Conn, sonar, no bearing separation. Torpedoes are masking Target One and the Phoenix.”

  Pacino stepped toward the chart table on the port side, away from the attack center. The ship was south of a ridge that ran mostly east-west, separating the Labrador Basin from the Davis Strait and the Baffin Bay. The ridge, labeled by the chart as Ungava Ridge, resembled an upside-down smile, concave from Seawolfs perspective. At places the ridge grew shallow, in one point to the west—at Davis Peak—it went all the way up to 100 fathoms. He looked at the chart and bent to examine it more closely. Despite the shallowness of the Ungava Ridge and the proximity of Davis Peak, he decided to drive westward off the line-of-sight to the Destiny. There was still plenty of room, forty miles before the rise of Davis Peak, making the course viable, but even as he ordered the helmsman to put the rudder over and set his course for west-northwest, Pacino realized that this was contrary to his instinct, which, given an arbitrary choice of a course, would be to choose one with more open ocean.

  He shrugged it off but it stuck in his mind.

  “Sonar, Captain, we’re moving off the track heading west to get some parallax on the target. Report anything you have on Target One if and when it comes out of the way of the torpedoes.”

  “Sonar, aye.”

  “Helm, all ahead standard.”

  Pacino waited, again finding himself impatient. He looked up into the overhead at the repeater display for the spherical array’s broadband, watching the waterfall display cascade down, but other than the blotch to the north from the torpedoes, could distinguish nothing.

  “Officer of the Deck, keep an eye on our position. I don’t want to run aground on that ridge.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Before his eyes, a twin trace distinguished itself at the center of the short-time display of the waterfall. Something to the north. The Destiny? Why would it be so loud with a twin trace? Pacino had a bad feeling about it and was about to key his mike to call Holt in sonar to see what the strange noises were when Holt’s voice came over his earphones.

  “Conn, sonar, two torpedoes in the water, bearing zero zero one and three five eight, pump-jet propulsors at what looks like high speed.”

  “All ahead flank,” Pacino ordered, suddenly feeling like he had been there before and made the same order, seen the same double-trace on the waterfall screen. The chart appeared in his mind, the shallows approaching as he continued to drive to the west. Suddenly he knew what

  he was about to do, and realized that the biggest problem with his plan would be getting the crew to understand and obey it.

  Dimly, in the background, he heard Holt declare the incoming torpedoes to be Nagasaki models, as Pacino had known instinctively. He barely paid attention, feeling a sudden nausea.

  “Captain,” Vaughn said, “we’re getting too close to the ridge, we need to turn to the south. Those are Nagasakis—”

  “No, we won’t be turning to the south.” When Pacino looked Vaughn in the eyes, he was startled to see a hardness in his executive officer’s face, as if the XO were examining him to determine if he were fit for command. Pacino chose his next words carefully. “We can’t outrun a Nagasaki torpedo, XO. Much less a pair of them. They go seventy knots. They�
��ll pursue for an hour, maybe more. Even if they were fired from 50,000 yards, they’d catch us well before the hour expired and I’ve got a feeling these were launched from a lot closer, like 25,000 yards. That would put them thirty minutes away if we ran at flank, fifteen minutes if we continue west. That’s fifteen minutes to get off their track, or ten miles, maybe twelve. We might get out of the search cone completely if they have an enable point like our Mark 50s. It’s worth a shot.”

  Vaughn’s expression softened for a moment.

  “Okay, you’re the boss.”

  “Don’t worry, XO,” Pacino said quietly so that only he could hear. “I have every intention of living through this.

  Call maneuvering and tell them to load and launch the slot buoy labeled number two.”

  Vaughn relayed the order, giving a sidelong glance at Pacino as he did.

  Pacino wondered what he’d do with the next order.

  USS phoenix “Conn, sonar,” Sanderson said. “I have four torpedo tracks on the spherical array bearing north to north-northeast. At least those four have gone by us.”

  “Any change in their speed. Senior Chief?” Kane wondered if the weapons would slow down and circle back if they saw no target.

  “No, sir. They’re sill at max speed heading north. I’ve got another one going by, make that two.”

  Mcdonne’s big face filled up with a toothy grin. “You did it, sir. Well done.”

  “Thank Houser,” Kane said. “I think I will. Thanks, Vie.”

  “Conn, sonar, three more past and heading north.”

  Kane almost smiled. They’d finally gotten a break. He actually began studying the chart, planning the track back south. To Norfolk. Home.

  CNFS hegira “Insert another one-point-five g-turn, ship control,” Tawkidi ordered.

  The deck again tilted and trembled as the ship did a rapid high-speed circle. When the ship steadied on its previous northern course the officers studied the Second Captain screens.

  “Commodore, the weapons are shutting down,” Tawkidi announced. “Five of them so far! We only have seven left incoming, and by the analysis they are fading astern. It’s working, sir. We may be restarting the missile countdown in another ten or twenty minutes.”