by Joe Buff
Then Jeffrey heard more noises. The docking collar was being pumped dry... . The upper escape hatch was being opened. . . . Soon he heard the sound of many people coming down the ladder inside the trunk.
Jeffrey badly needed to take a leak. Very badly, all of a sudden. He decided he would, to add to the effect of a submarine full of dead men.
He felt better at once. The urine ran to the forward starboard corner of the galley, and puddled there. Jeffrey's gas mask kept out the smell. Someone undogged the lower escape trunk hatch from inside, and opened it just a crack. There was a long, pregnant silence, then Jeffrey barely made out confident, tough whispering in German. Something small sailed out of the air lock and landed on the deck. There was a brilliant blue-white flash, then a hiss as some kind of gas filled the air. It spread, a fine aerosol, and Jeffrey thought it looked like military tear gas.
Then there was silence. Jeffrey tensed.
Another flash-and-gas grenade. Jeffrey's visor pixel antibloom control kept him from being blinded.
The first Kampfschwimmer dashed silently out of the lock-out trunk. Jeffrey saw him through his visors, on infrared, through the intervening aluminum bulkhead. The man was a giant, easily six foot six. His posture showed he held a short-barrel, two-handed weapon. It traversed as he peered in all directions fast.
Jeffrey had left a dental mirror, a standard Special Warfare item, in the galley doorway, camouflaged with a shriveled banana peel. As the German came closer, Jeffrey could see in low-light high-def TV mode that the man wore flat-screen night-vision goggles himself, outside an evil-looking respirator hood, with a full-body nuclear-biologicalchemical protective suit. The thickness of his machine pistol's barrel showed it was silenced.
The German bent over and checked out the corpses, the real ones. Jeffrey worried he would think they were too cold.
The German turned and gestured to the lock-out trunk. Six more Kampfschwimmer appeared, just as tall and muscular as the first. One of them held something toward the stern, toward the reactor. A Geiger counter? Another held up something else—gas analyzer? Both men nodded to the others. One took out a long, thin wand—to check for trip wires in the dark? They advanced.
The SEALs were outnumbered. Besides Jeffrey and Clayton and Montgomery, only two had stayed behind when the rest went over to Challenger. The odds were seven to five against, and who really owned the element of surprise here?
Jeffrey wanted to move. The death-posture he'd adopted was dramatic, but his right leg had fallen asleep. The left leg, with his old war wound, started to ache horribly. He thought of what Ilse said, that it might be in his mind, from stress. He pushed her out of his thoughts. He wanted to shift his weapon for a better line of fire. He dared not move a muscle.
The first Kampfschwimmer came down the corridor, toward the mess and the galley. The Germans covered each other skillfully. Two of them pulled out large canisters, more gas. As one Kampfschwimmer came to the door of the galley, Jeffrey saw through his goggles that the canister bore a skull-and-bones. What was Montgomery waiting for?
It also bore a large white cross. Jeffrey couldn't remember if that meant mustard gas or chlorine.
Jeffrey realized it wasn't to kill any surviving Texas crew—for that they'd use an odorless, nonpersistent nerve agent. The noxious poison gas was to force anyone still breathing to put on respirators, so they'd have to move, make noise as air valves hissed, be slowed down and partly immobilized.
Of course. The Germans would want to take prisoners, for thorough interrogation. But mustard gas caused terrible burns to bare skin. What the hell was Montgomery waiting for?
Jeffrey heard a silenced weapon cough—his heart raced out of control. He brought his own weapon to bear on the Kampfschwimmer in the galley doorway. The man brought his weapon to bear on Jeffrey. The German fired first, hitting Jeffrey in the chest as Jeffrey tried to stand.
The force of impact against his flak jacket shoved Jeffrey backward. His weapon pointed wildly, and he saw the German's barrel aimed dead center at his face, but the German's neck exploded and blood spattered Jeffrey's visor.
Jeffrey tried to crouch but wobbled—his right leg was badly numb. He heard more weapons coughing, the thud and crunch of bullets hitting flesh and bone. He heard grunts and screams, then a whining ricochet forced him flat on the deck. Two bullets tore through the aluminum curtain wall, and zinged into the wardroom pantry where Clayton was firing steadily.
Two Kampfschwimmer charged the medical corpsman's cubicle and killed the SEAL
who was shooting from there. The intervening bulkhead was structural, steel. They had the SEALs pinned down. The drinking fountain was hit and water sprayed. Jeffrey belly-crawled to the corridor. His aim was blocked by bodies. Jeffrey realized the SEAL who'd saved his life—by shooting that Kampfschwimmer in the back of the neck, between his flak vest and his helmet—had also been killed. His brains were smeared across the wide-screen TV at the front of the mess. The screen was spider-webbed with cracks.
The German minisub! Jeffrey was sure there'd be someone up there, who'd be calling their parent vessel for help.
While the surviving SEALs and Germans sniped at each other viciously, Jeffrey reached into the corridor and pulled dead bodies toward him. A hot bee snapped by his wrist, then another.
Jeffrey used the bodies as a bullet stop. More rounds hit home, making the corpses jump and twitch, as Jeffrey scrambled along the deck. Clayton saw what he was doing and threw a flash grenade of his own. Clayton and Montgomery pumped out rapid covering fire.
Jeffrey used the diversion to lunge into the air lock and slam the hatch. Bullets clanged against it a moment later, but it was pressure-proof high strength steel. Jeffrey started to climb. Someone with a carbine looked down at him and he shot the man in the left eye, through his goggle lens and respirator mask. The mask and helmet held down the gore, but the German fell on top of Jeffrey and almost knocked him from the ladder. The German's helmet slipped off his shattered head, and Jeffrey was drenched in the blood and purple custard of his brain.
Jeffrey climbed as fast as he could, faster than he ever had in Hell Week. He used all his upper body strength to pull himself up—his damn right leg was still half asleep. Now he was inside the German minisub's central hyperbaric sphere.
Someone was forward, in the little control room. He was trying to dog the forward hatch. Jeffrey grabbed the wheel on his side, and tried to force it open. It became a test of will, and Jeffrey instantly realized how vulnerable he was.
If the man on the other side of the door could dog it fully shut, then jam the wheel with a wrench or a rifle, he'd be free to reach the mini's controls. He could flood the collar, and with it the trunk and the sphere, where Jeffrey stood. At this depth, free influx through a half-inch equalizing pipe would be like machine-gun fire. Jeffrey would be pulped before the pressure buildup threatened the German. If Jeffrey let go of the wheel, he might reach the mini's bottom hatch—but it was hydraulic, and if locked open Jeffrey could never get it closed.
Below him more bullets clanged. He remembered that the Virginia-class corpsman's cubicle also held two countermeasures launchers, miniature torpedo tubes. If the Kampfschwimmer rigged them with explosive, they could flood the whole front half of Texas. It was up to Montgomery and Shajo now.
For a moment Jeffrey thought of letting go of the door and retreating into the transport compartment aft. Instead he summoned desperate strength and forced the forward door undogged against the German's efforts.
The door flew open and Jeffrey stumbled through, and spun and landed on his back against the instrument panels. He aimed his machine pistol at the German. The man was a submariner, not a Kampfschwimmer, and unarmed. He put up his hands. Down below, '
more bullets clanged. Then there was silence.
Clayton called from the bottom of the escape trunk. The firefight was over.
"Check the countermeasure tubes!" Jeffrey shouted.
Jeffrey secured his prisone
r hand and foot with duct tape, then threw him into the transport compartment. He clambered down into Texas.
The lights were on, the ones that hadn't been smashed by wild shots or ricochets. Jeffrey could see the air was heavy with gun smoke. The mess space was a scene of carnage. The fans were running, to clear the tear gas and the smoke.
Clayton came over, looking sheepish and very relieved. He held up two German detonators. "They had them rigged to the tubes, with lots of C-four. Set as dead-man switches, with ten more seconds to run." Clayton and Jeffrey looked into each other's eyes for a long moment, not saying anything, both knowing they'd all come that close to being killed. Then both men shrugged it off; they had plenty else to worry about. Jeffrey glanced around. All eight Kampfschwimmer lay motionless in pools of blood, strewn from within the air lock to inside the corpsman's cubicle. Chief Montgomery's two enlisted SEALs were dead. Blood slowly soaked the scattered flour and oatmeal. Montgomery looked okay, physically at least. He went up the ladder into the mini.
"How did you get the Germans in the doe's office?" Jeffrey asked. Clayton smiled. "I switched to armor-piercing and shot them through the wall." Jeffrey saw no spent shell casings; the Kampfschwimmer used caseless ammo, too. He picked up one of their weapons.
Crap. It was an exact copy of the one he'd used, down to the hookup for the special visoraiming reticle. Except, the German model had a more effective flash suppressor, and a better grip.
The SEALs' electric machine pistols were supposed to be top secret. Captain Taylor and the navigator—the acting X0— came aft. Their eyes began to water from everything in the air.
"Judas Priest," Taylor said, looking around and holding his nose. "We'll have to make sure nothing vital got hit." Taylor spotted the bullet holes through the sheet steel of the doe's office. He turned white. "There are sleeping compartments the other side of the medical space!"
"We checked," Clayton said. "A few close calls, but everybody's okay." Taylor gave Clayton a hard look.
"I aimed as carefully as I could, sir."
Taylor shook his head. "You SEALs are absolutely crazy." Then he smiled, briefly. " Thanks for what you did."
Jeffrey noticed curious crewmen gathering in the passageway. Many wore bandages or neck braces, and had arms or even legs in air casts or improvised splints. . Other crewmen arrived and began to load the dead men into body bags. They started with their own three people, waiting to be reinterred, then did the SEALs, working silently, with respect. Someone offered Jeffrey a spare jumpsuit and towel, so he could get cleaned up.
Jeffrey just wiped his face. "We have to get out of here. The Germans may have been alerted. That minisub didn't get here on its own."
Jeffrey heard Montgomery up in the mini, speaking to the prisoner, in fluent German. Montgomery came back down.
"He didn't get off a message."
"Are you sure?" Captain Taylor said.
"I held my K-Bar to his balls. He didn't get off a message. . . . They came in an Amethyste II. It's hiding north of here. That crewman doesn't know its zigzag plan."
"We need to get going," Jeffrey repeated. "They'll suspect something soon." Taylor sent his navigator forward, to take the conn till Taylor returned, and have the weps prepare for battle. The crowd of crewmen dispersed to their stations or racks. Taylor turned to Jeffrey. "How will you get back?"
"We'll use the German mini," Jeffrey said. "It'll be faster than waiting for Meltzer."
"I'm qualified as ASDS pilot," Montgomery said. "I checked, I can read the instruments up there. How hard can it be?"
"That's my man," Clayton said. He clapped Montgomery on the shoulder, but the humor was brittle. Jeffrey sensed they were both upset about the two men killed in action—he certainly was.
"Sorry about the damage, sir," Jeffrey said to Taylor. Jeffrey helped shift the bodies into the freezer. The flameproof linoleum deck was slick with blood and other fluids; the effects of close-quarters battle were truly revolting.
In spite of himself, Jeffrey yawned—in the freezer, he could see his breath. The adrenaline was wearing off, and this made him very sleepy. His chest was sore, where the bullet had hit his flak vest. He was also incredibly thirsty. Montgomery said a few words over the body bags holding his people. Jeffrey glanced at the ones with the Germans. Even in death, they frightened him.
Taylor hustled Jeffrey and the others to the escape trunk. Clayton and Montgomery grabbed samples of Kampfschwimmer gear.
"I wish Challenger could stay to help, Captain," Jeffrey said.
"I know your orders," Taylor said.
"It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do, sir, leaving you like this." Taylor sighed. "We do have one good tube, with a nuclear fish loaded and armed, and plenty more on the holding racks."
"Atlantic Fleet can't just leave you here."
"Home in time for New Year's, then, maybe," Taylor said. He handed Jeffrey the rolledup jumpsuit. "Change in the minisub, Captain. You stink." Everyone wished each other best of luck. Taylor shook Jeffrey's hand, then began to close the door.
"We'll try to trick that Amethyste into the open for you," Jeffrey said. "Somehow."
"We'll be ready," Taylor said. "One way or another, no German's coming close without getting a bloody nose, and with the intel treasure Texas represents, nobody's taking us alive."
ON THE CAPTURED GERMAN MINISUB
Chief Montgomery sat in the left seat, Jeffrey in the right. Shajo Clayton stood behind Jeffrey. Their prisoner was nicely trussed up in the transport compartment. The bottom hatch was dogged.
"Collar is flooded and equalized," Montgomery said. "We're ready to separate."
"Do it," Jeffrey said. The German mini got underway.
A little later a red light started blinking. Clayton jumped. "What's this?" Neither he nor Jeffrey knew German.
"Uh-oh," Montgomery said. "Incoming message on voice."
"Don't answer it."
"What if we force our prisoner to feed them a story?" Clayton said.
"No. They've got world-class signal processors. Even if he hates the regime, and plays along, they'll see the micro-tremors in his voice. . . . Monty, can you get this thing to work on digital datalink?"
"If you help me, Captain. We better work fast." .
With Montgomery as the on-board German language
interpreter, and Jeffrey as a passable expert on undersea comms, they got the switches and computer commands lined up.
"Tell them our voice link is down, we took some damage during our melee with the SEAL armed guard."
Montgomery typed on the keyboard with one hand and steered the mini with the other. He hit enter. His e-mail text in German on the screen meant nothing to Jeffrey, except for the acronym SEAL.
A message came back, at once. "They want the recognition code."
"Stall them."
"Leave this to me. Captain, please take the conn. Here's your depth, here's your gyrocompass. Just hold us steady." Jeffrey took the controls. Instruments and data screens responded.
Montgomery grabbed a box with a green cross: European-style markings for a first-aid kit. He rushed aft and closed the transport compartment door behind him.
"I'm glad I don't have to watch," Clayton said.
"Me, too," Jeffrey said. As he held the control joystick he realized his left wrist was sore. Damn, the crystal of his old Rofex was smashed, and the hour hand was gone. A German bullet must have done it. That was close.
Montgomery came back. "Got it." He sat, and typed on the keyboard.
"How do we know he didn't give you some kind of panic coder-Clayton said.
"I said if he did, I'd cut his dick and testicles off, then clamp the arteries with hemostats, and I'd hold his head between his legs and let him think about it till he died."
"Monty," Clayton said, "I'm very glad you're on our side." Jeffrey just shook his head.
"Hey," Montgomery said, "I didn't actually do it." Another German message came back.
"Bingo. They
bought it. They want a status report. They say they heard a lot of bullet impacts on their sonar."
"Okay," Jeffrey said. "Okay . . . tell them the enemy submarine is secured, all the American SEALs are killed. Tell them the ship is identified as the USS Texas, SSN 775. Her captain is alive. The Kampfschwimmer are collecting the highest-value prisoners and crypto gear right now."
Montgomery typed.
"They want us to confirm Captain Taylor's laser buoy message, that the ASDS was jettisoned and lost in combat."
Jeffrey blanched. "They broke the code?"
"Yup." Montgomery sounded disgusted.
"Okay, tell them, Confirmed."
"They say their remote-control probe detected flow noise a few minutes ago, heading south. . . . What probe?"
Jeffrey blanched again. "They must have some kind of LMRS snooping around. . . . Uh, tell them it was probably a whale or a giant squid or something." Jeffrey wished Ilse was here. She was always good at this.
Montgomery smiled, and typed.
This is insane, Jeffrey told himself. We're busy holding a chat room with some enemy submarine captain, amid three warring SSNs all armed with nuclear torpedoes. A response came on the screen. "They want us to investigate thoroughly. They're afraid an American sub may be in the area by now. Maybe what they heard was an LMRS or an ASDS."
"Tell them we'll investigate to the south. Ask them to rendezvous with us north of the spur for pickup in two hours. That should draw the Amethyste II into the open—we'll have to leave the rest to Captain Taylor. Let's get out of here. We need to catch up with Meltzer, and convince him it's us."
Montgomery resumed the conn. He followed the course he knew the ASDS would take. Jeffrey looked around the German mini's cockpit more thoroughly. It was sophisticated, more futuristic than the ASDS. It was faster and had much longer cruising, range, too, thanks to hydrogen peroxide power; Jeffrey saw a fuel gauge labeled "H202."
"What's this thing's crush depth, Chief?" Montgomery called up a document labeled " Hilfe." Help. "Seven hundred meters."
