Thunder In The Deep (02)

by Joe Buff

Jeffrey whistled. "Twenty-three hundred feet . . . Good, we can use that. Dip down behind the spur and make flank speed. It'll take some juggling, but I want to jettison our ASDS and keep the German mini instead."

  TWO HOURS LATER,

  ON CHALLENGER.

  Ilse was glad that Jeffrey and the others had made it back okay. The ASDS was abandoned, lodged under a big outcropping of a different seamount. The German minisub was safely stowed in Challenger's conformal hangar now.

  Ilse felt Challenger rock.

  "Loud explosion bearing three two five!" Kathy shouted. 'Range sixty thousand yards!"

  "That matches Seamount 458," Jeffrey said. "Whose weapon was it?"

  "A one-tenth-KT warhead, sir. Can't tell whose side." "Torpedo screw-count?"

  "None detectable at this range, Captain."

  Ilse heard another blast on the sonar speakers, not as loud and different in character.

  "Hull implosion!" Kathy shouted. "Same range and bearing! Full-size steel sub hull implosion!"

  "What class vessel?"

  "Impossible to tell in this acoustic sea state, sir."

  "It was either the Amethyste II," Bell said, "or the Texas."

  "Or both," Jeffrey said. He hesitated. "There's no more we can do." Ilse felt the awkward, worried silence in the CACC.

  Then she had a terrible thought.

  "Captain, what if there were two German submarines near Seamount 458? That guy you captured might not even know."

  Jeffrey turned. "Your point, Miss Reebeck?"

  "What if the other German sub sent its mini to Texas, with more German commandos, and captured everyone and everything for real? What if they blew up the spur, to cover their tracks and keep the Allies from salvaging Texas? What if they tortured Captain Taylor till he talked? What if the Germans know all about the Greifswald raid?" Jeffrey made a face and looked away. "Navigator, plot a course for the English Channel."

  "Sir?" Lieutenant Sessions said. "Our orders are to transit north of Britain."

  "They just say to do what Texas was supposed to do. We don't have time for that, and we've lost strategic stealth."

  "But, Captain," Sessions said, "part of the Channel is barely a hundred feet deep. On a clear day you can see the Dover cliffs from the French beach at Calais!"

  "Exactly," Jeffrey said. "Squeezing through there is the last thing the Axis would expect." Ilse saw Jeffrey look around the CACC. He avoided eye contact with her, and she chided herself for feeling miffed. Besides, she thought he looked pretty silly, with the bulge of a chemical cold-pack under his shirt. What'd Jeffrey do, bruise himself on a stanchion?

  "Think of it as a dress rehearsal, people," Jeffrey said. "For when we try to penetrate the Skagerrak and Kattegat."

  Ilse heard crewmen inhale sharply. She saw one man grin, as if he'd won a bet, about where Challenger was headed. He didn't smile for long.

  Sessions walked to the navigation table, and spoke with his senior chief. They studied the digital charts and ran some calculations.

  "Captain," Sessions said. "Advise that from out present position, the distance to the mouth of the Skagerrak

  is two and a quarter times as great if we take the northern route through the Iceland-U.K. gap, compared to running the Channel.".

  "Exactly," Jeffrey said.

  "But the southern route, through the Channel, sir, would require a much slower speed, because of the shallows and the intensity of antisubmarine measures. . . . We won't save any time, and may actually lose time."

  "Ladies and gentlemen," Jeffrey said. "This ship has an appointment in the Baltic Sea. We need to get there before the upcoming magnetic storm dies down, and for another reason that some of you know, that I can only say is classified. From right now we've barely four days to get in position, and Lord knows if that's soon enough. We are go-ing through the Channel, to regain strategic surprise, and we are going to make up lost time, because we have to."

  Ilse thought of ARBOR, the mole. Was she already dangling from a gallows?

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER

  Ilse knocked on Lieutenant Bell's door.

  "Come in."She entered.

  "Shut it behind you."

  Ilse felt her gut tighten. Bell looked at her as if she were a total stranger.

  "The messenger said you wanted to see me." She reached for the guest chair.

  "Don't," Bell said. "I'll keep this short and sweet." "Sir?"

  "You were completely out of line in the CACC." Ilse bristled. "How so?"

  "Your remark about a second German submarine." "But it could be true, couldn't it?"

  "Yes, it could be true. That long silence you felt so

  compelled to fill? Everyone in the compartment was thinking that already. Do you have some kind of a patent on undersea tactics? What could you possibly accomplish by giving voice to everyone's fears?"

  "I, er ..."

  "Exactly. You didn't even think of that, did you? The submariner community's very tight. Half the people on Challenger have, or had, friends on Texas. You didn't even think of the effect you'd have on your shipmates' morale."

  Whew "Did Jeffrey put you up to this?"

  "That's Captain Fuller to you," Bell snapped. "And no, he did not. Discipline is my job."

  "I, look, I, I want to make a contribution here." Ilse knew she was stammering, and felt angry with herself.

  "Don't you have any common sense on when to keep your mouth shut?"

  "No, Lieutenant, I'm sorry, that's just too harsh. I'm here for a reason. Lieutenant Sessions talked back to the Captain, just before, in front of everyone."

  "First of all, Miss Reebeck, you address me as Mister Bell, or preferably as XO."

  "Well, I didn't know that."

  "Second of all, Lieutenant Sessions has been in the Navy ten years. It's his job as navigator to devil's-advocate the Captain. Your job is to concentrate on your specific scientific tasks, under the direction of the sonar officer. Consider her your boss. Do nothing without her prior consent."

  "No one told me that."

  "Captain Fuller told you that. He said to work with Lieutenant Milgrom. Right?" Ilse nodded.

  "When the captain of a naval ship says something, it's

  not a request or a suggestion. It's an order, dammit." "Yes, sir." Ilse moved to the door. " May I go now?" "No. I'll tell you when you're dismissed. You realize, don't you, that you completely violated security back there?" "Excuse me?"

  "The crew is not supposed to know exactly where we're going. The same thing that happened to Texas could happen to us. RECURVE is highly classified. You just blurted it out. Greifswald. How careless can you be?"

  Ilse hesitated. It all sank in at once. Celebrity syndrome; prima donna. She'd been warned by the chief of the boat, and just ignored it.

  "Oh, God."

  "Your wardroom privileges are revoked."

  "Excuse me?"

  "From now on you eat in the enlisted mess. That's all. Get out of here." Ilse closed the door behind her, in shock. Two crewmen wriggled by. They read her face and looked away. She covered up as best she could and hurried to her stateroom. THE NEXT DAY,

  ON DEUTSCHLAND.

  "Still no contact on Challenger, Captain," Ernst Beck said. As ordered, Deutschland lurked at the Celtic Shelf, just west of the U.K.

  "We can't afford to take the chance they snuck right past us," Eberhard said. "We'll have to try an end-around, to cut Fuller off. Einzvo, have the navigator plot a course for the English Channel."

  NIGHT OF D DAY MINUS 4,

  ON CHALLENGER.

  Ilse changed to pajamas, exhausted from work and her seesaw emotions. Visions of false-color 3-D bathythermograms danced in her head, colliding with probability isobars of early winter pack-ice drift.

  She felt Challenger speed up.

  "Fast, then slow, then fast again, over and over and over." Kathy, reading a novel in her rack, grunted. "Sprint and drift tactics. It's the only way to get where we're going by the deadline, and have a pra
yer of not getting killed."

  "But isn't it dangerous, going so fast for most of the time? Noisy?"

  "Yes. That's why we stop to listen."

  "But—"

  "Don't say it," Kathy said. "Just don't."

  Ilse climbed into her rack, then tried to adjust the covers without banging her elbows or her head. She awkwardly pulled the little curtain closed, then groped and turned off her reading light.

  Oh, God, it felt good to just lie down and shut out the world.

  •

  "G'night, Kathy."

  "I missed you at dinner," Kathy said from inside her bunk, with an interrogatory tone. Her light stayed on. Ilse sighed. "It's a long story"

  "I see; please go on."

  Ilse realized she couldn't keep it from Kathy forever. What if Kathy already knew?

  "The XO put me in hack. For shooting my mouth off

  in Control. He said I have to eat in the enlisted mess."

  "I heard, and shame on you for being such a bad girl." "Are you mocking me?" Ilse said. Kathy changed her tone. "I was trying to cheer you up." "Sorry"

  "The food's the same as in the wardroom, Ilse, and the atmosphere in the enlisted mess is more relaxed."

  "I know. It's a mob scene. Teenagers, family men, it's fun to sit with them all. Still, it stings to get yelled at, after everything I've been through with this ship. . . . It seems so childish. 'Go to your room.' `No TV for you tonight.' "

  "The XO is teaching you to do your job. Part of your problem is you spend too much of your time with the senior officers."

  Ilse hesitated, then almost blushed when comprehension dawned. "This way I get to know the chiefs and other ranks."

  "Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Adapt and learn. Fast as you can, is my advice. I said so once before."

  "I'm trying. The more I try, the worse it seems to get. I mean, not fitting in. The honeymoon is definitely over." "Poor baby."

  "Ouch."

  "What's the worst part of your punishment? Paper napkins instead of cloth when you eat?

  Give me a break!"

  "I guess you're right." Kathy's tone had been sarcastic—was she pulling rank? "I feel just awful about that security goof."

  "Good. You ought to. You could have gotten people killed. People who relied on you." Ilse stayed silent.

  "Well," Kathy said, "it's not all bad, as it turned out. At least not yet."

  "How so?"

  "The crew felt simply horrible about leaving the Texas behind."

  "The XO said that."

  "At least, now they understand why."

  "The mission?"

  "The captain and COB put the word out, after your gaffe. About the missile lab. Crew morale has skyrocketed. Didn't you notice? . . . No, I don't suppose you would. . . . People need to feel needed. They also need to know that fleet commanders do things for good reason."

  "Um, so everybody isn't totally mad at me?"

  "Now who's being childish? We need all the morale boost we can get, where we're going." Ilse settled into her rack, mentally numb. She fought with herself, then decided to ask. Kathy was the closest thing to a friend she had on the ship.

  "Were you ever disciplined, Kathy?"

  "I got my share of bollockings when I was starting out. It's hard to avoid. I told you once already, remember how little training you have for this. Learn from the experience, and put the ship always first, and move on."

  "I'll try"

  "Try harder. The timeline of personal growth speeds up terribly during war. I sense we're covering the same ground as two days ago."

  "That did sting."

  "Success is not guaranteed," Kathy said. "You have to feel the calling. It's not for everyone."

  Yeah, Ilse thought, it's not for everyone. Let's see how far I get, one of a hundred twenty ants in a naval anthill, where I'm censured for breaking rules no one even mentioned.

  "First thing after breakfast," Kathy said officiously, "we go over halocline-induced horizontal signal loss in the surface wave-mixed isothermal zone. With the shallow bottom and so many wrecks coming up, and the chin-mounted sonar unserviceable, you and I have our work cut out for us."

  "Yes, ma'am." Ilse felt the ship slow down again, then bank to port, so the on-watch sonar techs could listen for hostile contacts yet again.

  It all just never ends. . . .

  Kathy turned off her reading light, plunging Ilse into total darkness. Ilse waited, hesitated, then said, "G'night, Kathy."

  But the only response was snoring. Ilse felt utterly alone, and cold beneath her blankets. PREDAWN, D DAY MINUS 3.

  By 0415 local time Ilse was back in the CACC, as Challenger snuck into the English Channel. Ilse was busy integrating her updated version of the METOC data with the ship'

  s latest readings of water temperature and salinity.

  She glanced at the nay chart. Her modeling work was falling behind. While she slept, Challenger had climbed onto the European continental shelf. Already they were inside the western, widest part of the Channel proper.

  Challenger favored the northern, English side, on Ilse's advice. In winter, the prevailing currents here ran east, helping gain precious minutes on the clock. Near the southern, French side of the Channel, because of the jutting Cotentin Peninsula, a gyre formed, and currents ran west.

  Ilse saw Kathy watching as she studied once again an overlay of Commander, Submarines, Atlantic's latest data: friendly and enemy minefields in the Channel, Royal Navy safe corridors, and both sides' coastal antisubmarine obstructions. These were constraints that Ilse, as well as Challenger, would simply have to respect.

  "Remember," Kathy said, "this is all several days old." Ilse nodded. Submerged without trailing the floating wire antenna, they didn't have the baud rate to get a meaningful update through all the static and jamming, and they didn't have time to linger till they did get one. At least, Ilse told herself, the seawater blocking radio also shielded Challenger from most effects of solar storm disruption. The ship's magnetometers showed the storm was already starting: strength rating G2 on NASA's space-weather scale. "Moderate." G2 might or might not affect radar satellites and lowaltitude magnetic anomaly detection sensor probes. The surface wave-action showed the wind was from the west. This was good; warm air over cold water made fog. The fog would help hide Challenger's surface hump and Kelvin wake—both giveaways at the surface of her passage through shallow water—

  especially during the mid portion of her Channel run, which had to take place in daylight. Ilse ran more calculations. The sea was noisy, but not in the way she expected. The biologics were strangely quiet, even though this area should be good for mackerel, shrimp, and cod. The heavy peacetime shipping traffic had ceased. Instead, besides wind noise and rain and breaking whitecaps, the sonar sounds came mostly from the land, from coastal heavy industry, transmitted through the ground and into the water. England and occupied France, economies fully mobilized—of necessity or by force—were competing hard: to generate power, to dig in and harden surviving resources, and to make and transport materiel of war.

  For now, the sounds of battle in the Channel were muted. For Ilse's conceivable future, Challenger had no friends. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, if the sub began to draw fire; a trigger-happy Allied vessel or plane might be the first to shoot. Ilse reminded herself what Jeffrey had said, that he counted on luck and surprise. That was all the crew could count on, besides each other and their training and the ship. Ilse began to understand what teamwork really meant.

  She glanced around. The CACC was busy. Fire control technicians worked hard to update the tactical plot. A new passive bow sphere contact was announced, Sierra sixteen: a Russian trawler, exercising freedom-of-navigation rights in these international waters, no doubt eagerly spying on both sides. The trawler was noisy on purpose, and would be well lit, to broadcast its neutrality. Ilse called up the data. The trawler's closest point of approach to Challenger would be inside five thousand yards.

  "
Sonar, Oceanographer," Lieutenant Bell said, "give me best course to evade Sierra sixteen." He had the conn.

  "Recommend course one eight zero," Ilse said. Due south, away from charted mines. " That would bring us closer to the center of the current gyre. Eddies there make density cells, and chaotic Doppler."

  "Concur," Kathy said.

  Bell gave helm orders. Meltzer acknowledged and complied. Challenger turned. Ilse listened to Bell confer with Sessions.

  "We're losing ground," Bell said. "We have to go faster or we'll miss the tide. . . . Helm, make turns for twenty knots."

  "Sir," Kathy said, "if we maintain that speed, as we get shallower we risk the propulsor cavitating."

  Just then Jeffrey came into the CACC, looking tired. Ilse realized he'd sensed the change in course and speed—assuming he'd actually been asleep.

  Bell gave him a quick update.

  "Cavitating, surface wake, and thermal scarring," Jeffrey said, "we have to chance it. Sometimes you just play the percentages, and pray."

  SIMULTANEOUSLY, ON DEUTSCHLAND.

  Ernst Beck glanced at the navigation plot, as Deutschland snuck through the shallow waters ten sea miles due north of lie d'Ouessant, off the coast of occupied France. The ship was entering the English Channel.

  It felt strange to be this close to home, and yet have home so far beyond Beck's reach. He pictured the base at Bordeaux, where his family now lived, and the industries of Munich, near his father's farm. Both would be high on the list of Allied targeting priorities, if the A-bombs or even H-bombs started to fly—the high-explosive cruise missiles and bomber raids were bad enough.

  It was a very delicate gamble the Putsch leaders tried to play out now, confining atomic war to the high seas, or purely military targets on land in isolated areas, hoping to wear down the enemy's will to resist, hoping to force them to ask for an armistice. The Allies hadn't wrought direct revenge for nuking Warsaw and Tripoli, at least not yet—they'd been too shocked by such Axis blows that opened the war, and too squeamish since then to set off a nuclear warhead of their own in the middle of Europe. Perhaps the Allied leaders quietly agreed, as Kurt Eberhard once cynically put it to Beck, that Warsaw and Tripoli had been the two most expendable cities in the world.