by Joe Buff
The men relied on the sighting reticle integral to their visor images, based on low-energy laser interferometers that always knew where their weapons were pointed. Jeffrey turned the wheel of the ASDS lock-out hatch until it opened. He let it drop down on its hydraulically dampened hinges.
Below him was the hatch into Texas. On the other side of that hatch, Jeffrey knew, was the air lock of her forward escape trunk. There was another escape trunk—with another air lock—near Texas's stern, for use from the engineering spaces. That part of the boat, Jeffrey knew for sure, was flooded.
The forward compartment might or might not be flooded. The men from Texas might or might not all be dead. There might or might not be Kampfschwimmer waiting on the other side of this hatch, or further into the ship.
Even as an ex-SEAL himself, Jeffrey was frightened by Kampfschwimmer. After all, the Draeger scuba combat re-breather was a German invention. Images came to his mind from old war movies, and captured Nazi documentaries, of relentless, merciless warriors in those ballistically-optimized coal-scuttle helmets. Picturing such men in wetsuits and swim flippers made it even worse.
Jeffrey climbed down into the space enclosed by the docking collar. It was damp and very cold—confirmed by the blue tinge of the image in infrared. Challenger's medical corpsman—who, like the other men, appeared a multicolored aura when Jeffrey viewed him in IR—handed Jeffrey a stethoscope. The corpsman retreated to the transport compartment and dogged the door.
Jeffrey squatted by the hatch—it and Texas's hull were much too thick, and too well insulated, to see through with wearable passive infrared. Jeffrey used his handkerchief to wipe away the slime. The steel hull was freezing, from immersion in seawater at 34°
Fahrenheit. He put the stethoscope to the hull, next to the hatch, and he listened. He heard a disembodied rushing sound: current flow noise transmitted by the hull. He heard occasional creaking, and metallic moaning: Texas's hull as she complained about the outside pressure, or settled more on the uneven
spur. Once he heard a sharp pop, as some item of equipment back aft—or maybe forward—could no longer hold out, and it imploded. He also heard steady clicking, which he guessed was the scrammed reactor as it continued to cool. There were no voices, and no machinery running that he recognized. Jeffrey looked up at Clayton and shook his head. "Can't tell, or all flooded?" Clayton whispered. "Can't tell," Jeffrey mouthed.
"How's the dogging mechanism?"
"Can't tell, without opening it."
Jeffrey saw COB watching through the door into the mini's control compartment—he and Meltzer now wore vision goggles, too. COB disappeared. He came back a minute later.
"Challenger says good luck, sir." In Jeffrey's crisp blackand-white LLTV image mode, COB looked worried, and suddenly seemed very old.
"It's now or never," Jeffrey said.
Clayton and his five SEALs looked at each other and shrugged, carefully expressionless.
"Ready?" Jeffrey whispered.
Clayton cleared his throat. "Will we feel anything?"
"Pressure, heat, wetness. Agony, then blackest death." Jeffrey was immensely satisfied to see that his hands weren't shaking.
With both hands, Jeffrey gripped the special wrench that would open the watertight hatch from outside. Through a fitting in the hatch, the wrench turned the inside locking wheel. Clayton and his men aimed their weapons at the hatch, safeties off. Jeffrey dreaded a firefight—ricochets could kill them all and wreck the minisub.
Jeffrey turned the wheel. He waited for it to explode at him, propelled by a killing water cannon. He wondered if he would feel anything, if his brain would even have time to register before his skull was smashed. He turned the wheel more. The hatch emitted a terrible ssssss—he'd forgotten there might be air before the water, if there was a bubble of it trapped inside Texas's hull. His brain formed the words "poison gas." He tried to crank the hatch shut, but it fought him and did burst open. A blinding light pierced Jeffrey's eyes and bore into his soul—was this death?
"Hande hoch!" a deep voice shouted, German for "put up your hands." Five heavycaliber muzzles stared through the hatch at Jeffrey and the SEALs.
"Drop your weapons!" Clayton bellowed.
There was a pause, then a tentative, "Shajo, is that you?"
"Cripes on a pita with margarine," Clayton answered. "Chief Montgomery, you son of a goat! I could've killed you!"
As Jeffrey's eyes adjusted, the. SEAL chief standing down inside the nine-man Virginiaclass Special Warfare escape trunk looked up at Jeffrey and Clayton and smiled. His men put their weapons on safe.
"Commander Fuller, sir," Montgomery said. "I'm honored." Montgomery was just over six feet tall, and had a very powerful chest. "Welcome to the United States Submarine Texas."
"Permission to come aboard?" Jeffrey said. Montgomery nodded. Then he winked at Clayton. "Nah, LT, I would've killed you first."
ABOARD USS TEXAS
"I'd already told the men not to expect to be home for Christmas," Captain Taylor said.
"I'm sorry there isn't more we can do," Jeffrey said. Texas's captain, a full commander, looked exhausted but determined. He'd shaved recently, but clearly needed a shower—no dice, with the water rationing. One arm was in a sling, and it obviously hurt when Taylor breathed. The air in the disabled sub was cold and damp and stale. There wasn't much smell of sewage or rotting garbage, at least not yet, but this deep Texas couldn't jettison waste or blow sanitary. The freezer was being kept running—they needed the food—so there wasn't a smell from there.
The lighting was very dim, to conserve the battery. The coffee was strong and hot. Near the sleeping spaces there was a smell: like a hospital, of disinfectant, wounds, pain, and of unbathed men, of sweat.
"The Greifswald thing has to come first," Taylor said. "We all know that. I'm just grateful it was you, and not some Germans."
"You didn't trust the recognition codes?"
"Frankly, no," Taylor said. "We've no idea what the Axis has been able to compromise. I decided to lie doggo, and find out. Chief Montgomery concurred." Jeffrey nodded. "Captain Wilson said the same thing to me, before he was wounded. He said remember Ultra, when we read the German Enigma codes in World War Two. He said Lord knows what the Germans are reading now."
"It smarts, doesn't it, when the shoe is on the other foot?" Taylor continued giving Jeffrey a quick tour of the unflooded part of Texas. The hardest thing was walking, with the ship tilted downhill and leaning sharply to the right as they faced forward. The whole place was strangely quiet, without the usual reassuring sound of air circulation fans, and with so little physical activity by the crew, to help save oxygen.
"Morale seems high, all things considered, sir," Jeffrey said. He was impressed that everything was clean. Broken glass had been swept up, blood and vomit mopped, smashed equipment tidied as much as practical, and there was no dust or litter anywhere.
"I'm lucky to have -such a good crew," Taylor said. "The able-bodied men are helping care for the wounded. The ambulatory ones are doing what they can as well—I suppose I'
m in that group myself. I'm grateful for the medical supplies you brought with you, and for the loan of your chief corpsman."
"It's the least I can do," Jeffrey said. "Our doc volunteered to stay until you're rescued. .
. . I'm sorry about the men you lost."
Taylor grew sad. "My XO showed a lot of promise. If we make it back I want to put him in for the Medal of Honor. If he hadn't gone aft, led the others to keep the propulsion plant going . . . And my engineer, my engineer... My father's known his father for fortyfive years; they were at the Naval Academy together." Taylor had to pause to wipe his eyes. "I'm not looking forward to breaking the news about his son."
"Maybe they'll be able to salvage her," Jeffrey said. "At least then the men aft can get decent burial."
"I keep hoping so," Taylor said. "Texas was, is such a fine vessel. . . . Compressed air bladders forced through the aft escape tru
nk, and through the machinery access hatches. Towed to friendly waters without changing her depth, for buoyancy control. . . . Won't be easy. But we need every ship we can get. I just wonder if this war will still be raging by the time she might be refurbished."
"I keep thinking, sir, that from where we are right now, a quick end won't be a happy end for the good guys. From the sound of things, that big convoy suffered horrible losses yesterday."
Jeffrey and Taylor reached Texas's CACC, similar in size and layout to Challenger's. The men on watch turned to greet Jeffrey, and Captain Taylor gave them encouraging words. Just then COB came up a ladder, past the far end of the CACC. He was breathing a little hard and had clear, sticky grease on his hands and his pants.
"Well, sirs," COB said, "I think we can get tube four working, if we could bring some spare parts from Challenger."
"So you concur, Master Chief," Taylor said, "that torpedo tube two is operational?"
"Affirmative, Captain."
"At least we'll be able to defend ourselves," Taylor said. "No melee ranging without a working bow sphere, but the port wide-aperture array has a good field of view, the way we landed, from what you told me."
"And both port-side tubes are clear of debris," Jeffrey said. "We saw that with the LMRS." Jeffrey peered over the sonarmen's shoulders at their screens, out of curiosity and concern..
"Handy little gadgets," Taylor said, "those off-board probes. Ours were damaged, beyond repair."
There was a screeching sound, and everyone tensed. "I forgot to warn you about that," Taylor said with a wry smile. "She doesn't like being so deep."
"It's a miracle the ship held up after such a beating," Jeffrey said.
"What really worried me were all the penetrations for pipes and cables leading aft through the main watertight bulkhead. If just one of those seals or flapper valves gives way, with ambient sea pressure on the other side . . . But General Dynamics and Newport News built Texas good."
Jeffrey glanced at the sonar screens again, but there were no hostile contacts. COB cleared his throat. "I spoke to the Weps and made a list of things, sirs. I'd like to go back to Challenger to get them, in the ASDS with Meltzer."
"I'd appreciate that a lot," Taylor said. "What do you say, Captain Fuller?" Taylor smiled.
"I concur," Jeffrey said. "Just make it quick. We're way behind schedule already." He sensed Taylor was lonely for a peer with whom to unburden himself, and Jeffrey was it. Jeffrey had some idea of how the more senior man must feel. Jeffrey had never felt so lonely as since leaving Cape Verde.
"We better get most of your SEALs and their equipment over to my ship on this trip, too," Jeffrey said. "Otherwise the ASDS'll be overcrowded."
"Lieutenant Clayton and the men were assembling everything by the escape trunk," COB said.
"Let's go talk to them," Jeffrey said.
Ilse sat at a sonar console in Challenger's CACC, busy working on the METOC
oceanographic data. Kathy announced that Meltzer was calling from over by Texas. Ilse brought up the imagery from the LMRS probe. She saw the mini-sub sitting sideways on Texas's back, with the little ASDS's nose pointed down at the muck along the much bigger SSN's starboard side.
The Texas seemed dumb, inanimate. Ilse tried to picture all the people in the hull, Jeffrey and Clayton and more than a hundred others. Then she remembered the corpses, near the stern.
"Put him on the speakers, please," Lieutenant Bell said. He picked up a mike. "ASDS, Challenger, g'head." Bell's voice went through the fiber-optic wire to the probe, then from the probe to the mini by low-power gertrude.
"Sir," Meltzer answered the same way, "am returning now with one load of SEALs and equipment boxes, including the two special items. COB has a list of things to bring back to Texas on our second trip."
Ilse guessed the "special items" were the pair of briefcase atom bombs.
"V'r'well, ASDS. Relay COB's list and I'll have people get them together immediately."
"Switching to digital datalink mode," Meltzer said. "E-mail received," Kathy said. Then Bell warned Meltzer that the LMRS battery level was low. They arranged for him to escort it back to Challenger for a recharge, controlling the probe by autonomous acoustic link from the ASDS—they would cut the miles-long fiber-optic and dump it in deep water.
Meltzer undocked from the Texas. Ilse watched on the probe's laser line-scan camera as the mini rose from the disabled submarine. The mini quickly righted itself—zero bubble, to use the proper term—and got underway. From the viewing angle now, Ilse could tell the probe was following off the minisub's port quarter, tucked in close.
"Acoustic control of LMRS tested and functional," Meltzer said. "Will follow predetermined dog-leg course to Challenger." For stealth. "No hostile contacts held on ASDS sonars. Am commanding LMRS to jettison fiber-optic cable." Now, for a while, because of intervening terrain, Challenger would be out of touch with the minisub and Texas.
Jeffrey was chatting with some of Texas's enlisted men in the mess. They seemed grateful for the company, and gladly stopped their millionth game of cards or checkers. Shajo Clayton and Chief Montgomery came by for another cup of coffee. Overhead, they all heard a hard clunk.
"That wasn't hull popping," one of Texas's senior chiefs said.
"No," Jeffrey said, "it wasn't." Adrenaline poured through his blood. "Somebody's trying to dock."
Clayton and Montgomery tensed.
Jeffrey reached for a growler phone to call the CACC,
but it barked first—Captain Taylor. Taylor confirmed the
ASDS was long gone, well on its way back to Challenger.
Whoever was trying to land on Texas, it wasn't Meltzer. Jeffrey spoke briskly.
"Concur," Taylor answered. "We didn't hear anything on sonar till that docking transient just now. They must have come in through our blind spot, over the stern. Smart bastards .
. . I'm sounding silent battle stations. Prepare to repel boarders." Jeffrey hung up the mike.
"Get everyone and everything out of here," Jeffrey said to the men in the mess. "Some of you, help keep the injured calm in the berthing spaces. The rest, hide as far forward as you can. Lie down, don't move, and don't say a word."
The crewmen disappeared. Clayton and Montgomery listened as Jeffrey thought and talked fast.
"I don't like the scenario we played out before, with rifles in each other's faces. If we'd been German instead of friends, there could've been a dozen dead, and a flooded mini blocking the escape trunk."
Clayton nodded. "We can't afford that."
"We have a mission to run at Greifswald," Montgomery said.
"We need to make this look good," Jeffrey said. He glanced at the overhead. "We better hurry up." Montgomery summoned his men with their weapons,
and they began laying out fields of fire. Jeffrey and Clayton ran the short distance from the mess, past the bottom of the escape trunk, round the bend, to the ship's freezer. Inside were three dead American submariners, in body bags.
Jeffrey and Clayton pulled the corpses out of the bags
and dragged them along the deck to near the escape trunk. "God forgive me for doing this," Clayton said.
"Put a breather mask on one, it'll look more realistic." "I'll leave this other guy faceup, so the Germans know
for sure he's dead."
"Must've had a broken neck," Jeffrey said, looking at the corpse.
"They don't smell bad enough," Clayton said. He used his strength to rearrange one dead man's arms and legs; the limbs were stiff.
"Get some garbage from the compactor room," Jeffrey said. "That and a soiled bedpan, with the lid up, should do the trick. Put them behind that mess booth in the corner."
"Right."
"And have the SEAL team use silvered blankets from the corpsman's cubicle. To suppress our infrared signatures."
Jeffrey put on his battle helmet and lowered the visor. The other SEALs did, too.
"Gas masks," Montgomery said.
Jeffrey lifted his helmet and pulled on his mask.
"Try to breathe real quiet when the time comes," Montgomery said. His voice was muffled.
Jeffrey nodded.
Clayton told the enlisted SEALs to get sacks of flour and oatmeal from the galley, to use as sandbags.
Montgomery handed Jeffrey an ammo clip for a spare electric machine pistol. "Hollow point only," the SEAL chief said. No armor-piercing rounds. "For use in an SSN's hull." Jeffrey raised his eyebrows.
"We made these just in case."
Jeffrey charged his weapon, then used the growler phone. "Captain Taylor," he projected his voice through the gas mask, "cut all power to the mess deck." The bug juice machine stopped gurgling, and the lights went out; the emergency battle lanterns came right on. Montgomery's men went around and smashed the bulbs with their weapon butts. Diodes still glowed to show the lanterns' batteries held charge—this gave the team's image-intensifier visors enough photons to see.
Clayton and Montgomery pointed to where each man should hide.
Jeffrey's heart was beating extraordinarily loud. "Weapons off safe," Clayton whispered.
"Selectors on semiauto."
"When you hear me shoot," Montgomery whispered, "everybody shoot."
"Make every shot count," Jeffrey whispered. "Make sure every bullet gets stopped by a German body." He pointed aft. "The watertight bulkhead's right there. Break the packing for a cable run, we flood the ship."
Jeffrey took his position, huddled on the deck, just inside the galley. He arranged the blanket, silver side in, to cover his body, except for where he needed to see. He hoped that to an enemy IR visor, he'd look like a corpse, still somewhat fresh, cooling. Everyone waited. Soon there was another clunk.
