Dragon Fire (The Battle for the Falklands Book 2)

by Bleichert, Peter von

  Designed to snake back and forth within the vee presented by the wake of an enemy ship, the ‘53s would approach a target, and when proximate, explode. San Luis II’s ‘53s hunted as designed, running straight and true toward the hunk of steel they were programmed to hunt and kill: HMS Dragon. They fell in behind the destroyer and began their meander up her wake.

  In the pitch black beneath the ruckus of missile and torpedo launches, San Luis II was pointed down in a crash dive. She had released a second noisemaker and would soon pass 180 meters, the depth at which San Luis II had released her wake-homing torpedoes.

  “Enemy torpedo at three-zero-zero degrees. Bearing: one-zero-three degrees. Weapon is diving. Rapid change in bearing and depth indicative of a helical search pattern,” San Luis II’s sonar technician reported. “Screw pitch suggests it’s a Stingray acoustic homing light-weight torpedo.”

  “Hotel 1,” Ledesma added. “The Merlin…”

  “Bow planes at 20 degrees,” a voice came from the shadows of the Control Center.

  “Two hundred fifty meters. I am headed for 300 meters,” another added.

  “Sir, batteries now at nine percent.”

  “Mierda,” Captain Matias mumbled. Three decks down, in the confines of the battery deck, Raton scurried about on his sled. Using the hull’s down angle, he slid along over the tops of the battery cells, braked over the bank that had been soaked by salt water, and locked his sled in place. The last of the water had drained into the bilge and then into one of the boat’s starboard tanks. He made his way to the shunt and, swallowing hard, snapped the disconnect switch.

  “Sir, batteries back at 17 percent” shouted a voice from above.

  “Bravo, Raton,” Ledesma stated, with a pump of his fist.

  BANG, San Luis II complained.

  “Approaching three hundred meters.”

  “Planes to five degrees.”

  “Aye, sir, my planes are at five degrees down,” the planesman reported.

  THUNK. CRACK. Everyone except Ledesma and Matias squirmed as San Luis II’s high-tensile steel shell adjusted to the squeeze of the ocean.

  “A deadly hug,” Matias quipped with a crooked smile.

  “Three hundred.”

  “Planes to zero. All stop, both turbines,” The captain ordered. Ledesma echoed the words.

  “Answers all stop, sir,” said the helmsman.

  Captain Matias looked around the confines of San Luis II’s Control Center. Our tomb. He studied the red-lit tangle of wires, pipes, dials, and lights. Matias cursed the narcissism of those who believed they had all the answers. He swore at the sociopathic tendencies of his leaders—the leaders that had ordered him to engage in this folly—and he cursed those who had sent his son to death. As these thoughts played out in his mind, his outward appearance remained one of steadfastness and professionalism. San Luis II’s forward momentum stalled, and the boat hung in the pitch-black stillness. The sound of trickling water confirmed that ballast was pumped into a stern trim tank. Matias glanced at the bubble: The boat stayed level in both pitch and yaw.

  “Sonar?” he asked.

  “Sir, Delta 1 is at zero-two-zero. Bearing: two-zero-zero and turning. Range: 500 meters. Delta 1 has reduced speed, making turns for about seven knots. Enemy torpedo is approaching our noisemaker.” A muffled thump sounded somewhere over their heads. “Enemy torpedo has detonated.”

  “Yes,” was hissed by several of the submariners.

  At and below the surface, the sub’s weapons approached the British guided-missile destroyer.

  ◊◊◊◊

  The Klubs darted in low and fast, skimming just above the water. Kingfisher 21’s pilot had spotted their tail-fire on the rippled water. Seamus contacted Dragon, reporting his own position lest he, too, be engaged by the destroyer. The helicopter was ordered to gain altitude and hold, so Seamus brought his aircraft up high and banked off to a designated block of airspace. In the meantime, Dragon’s air defense radar had already detected the Klubs’ cylindrical bodies. The AWO reacted.

  “Radar contact. Probable targets,” the Op Room had announced over the bridge’s Voice User Unit. “Fast movers at two-zero-zero degrees. Bearing: zero-two-zero.” Lieutenant Commander Williams sounded an alarm bell and, with a nod from Captain Fryatt, ordered the wheel hard over so Dragon’s bow pointed down the missiles’ flight-path, presenting minimum aspect. Dragon slowed as well, reducing the turn of her shafts, and thus reduced her self-generated noise.

  The captain ordered up the Surface Ship Torpedo Defense System, “Deploy SSTDS.” From Dragon’s transom, a drum winch paid out a towed array.

  Captain Fryatt closed his eyes for a moment, and in the blackness felt the heat and burning smoke from that terrible day aboard Sheffield. He remembered the wind in the dark passageway as the fire sucked air, gobbling the air as the fire grew in intensity, choking men with fumes, smoke and oxygen starvation. Fryatt opened his eyes again, but still saw the big round eyes of the sailor in the respirator who had saved him from asphyxiation. He blinked the images away and focused again on the here and now.

  Two cell covers popped open among Dragon’s forward vertical launching system.

  “T-mark for function,” Williams spoke to the Op Room by VUU.

  “Electric firing selected,” Op Room responded.

  “Firing granted,” Fryatt authorized and Williams repeated.

  “Standby.”

  A deafening bang and a plume of efflux exited the chimney. An Aster 15 leapt from its launcher cell. The dart-shaped missile rose on a fountain of fire that bathed the bridge in an eerie orange glow.

  “Good away, one” Williams said as the bridge crew watched the missile climb out.

  BANG. WHOOSH.

  A second Aster departed.

  “Good away, two.”

  Both missiles climbed briefly, turned over, shaped their trajectory, discarded the booster stage, and dove toward the water.

  Nearly simultaneous with the first shot, Dragon’s Seagnat Control System had scrutinized wind direction and speed, threat direction, threat range, threat type and the ship’s direction and change of heading. It then selected launcher two, and sent three Mark 214 seduction chaff canisters skyward. Pushed away by a low-g rocket, the canisters burst and dispersed clouds of metallized plastic strips.

  In Dragon’s Op Room, a red light blinked on the sonar station console. The SSTDS’s passive towed array had sniffed something and presented it to a midshipman’s screen in the Op Room.

  Dragon’s sonar technician leaned in and scrutinized his display. The midshipman donned his earphones and heard a hiss like steaks just turned on a hot grill.

  “Bloody hell,” he bounced in his seat, and, turned to the director, proclaiming: “Torpedo, torpedo, torpedo.” As those around him shifted their focus from the radar’s plan position indicator to sonar readouts, the sonar technician began the classification and identification routine.

  Within seconds, he had weapon types to help the director and captain defend the ship: “VA-111 Shkval super-cavitators. Two inbound, bearing zero-two-five degrees.” Two more frequency lines appeared on the sonar display. The midshipman squirmed in his seat again and began to analyze bearing, frequency, and range of the threats.

  The Asters dove on the anti-ship missiles. One Aster detonated above a Klub and sprayed it with steel cubes. The damaged Argentine sea-skimmer wobbled and then tore itself apart by dynamic pressure. The second Aster detonated proximate to the second Klub anti-ship missile, but its warhead’s shotgun effect missed the target. This second Klub accelerated and broke the sound barrier with a crack as it carried on toward Dragon.

  “ASM inside outer fence,” Williams noted. “Phalanx online. Then the lieutenant commander reiterated: “All weapons free.”

  Fryatt’s only response was a clenching of his teeth that made his cheeks poke out. He looked to the clouds of chaff that floated down toward the sea.

  The anti-ship missile screamed over the water and fle
w at the shape its nose radar said was an enemy target. However, Dragon’s chaff made this shape larger than her true mass represented, and the missile’s computerized brain continued to adjust its path at what it believed to be the enemy’s center of mass. This center, however, was now off to the starboard of the British guided-missile destroyer.

  Mounted to its sponson was Dragon’s close-in weapons system. With its distinctive radome—nicknamed ‘Dalek’ after the aliens in Doctor Who—the Phalanx scanned the sea with its search subsystem. When it had found a target and provided altitude, bearing, heading, range, and velocity information to its computer, the computer analyzed the target’s range, speed and direction. A millisecond later, the Phalanx swiveled on its mount and raised its Vulcan six-barreled Gatling cannon. Its track antenna and subsystem scrutinized the target, observing it until it determined the probability of a hit was worth firing. On automatic, the computer pressed the trigger, and with a ripping sound the Phalanx spat 75 tungsten bullets per second, walking them into the radar return it had deemed threatening.

  Too close for comfort, the remaining Klub anti-ship missile blew up in a flash of orange, black, and red. Its turbojet engine, the most robust part of its structure, splashed in and cartwheeled for a moment before it stopped with a slam and then abruptly sank.

  Fryatt sighed and exhaled a breath he had held for minutes. His blued air-deprived face turned pink again, and he turned his attention to the report of underwater contacts. The enemy had reached up to assault them from the air, and now stabbed from beneath the waves. His enemy would try to stick the knife in, twist it, and look into his very eyes as he spilled Fryatt’s guts. Fryatt, in that moment and without knowing him by name, respected Argentine Navy Captain Matias. He was, after all, just a patriot doing everything within his power to win. Fryatt nodded. As he acknowledged the existence and purpose of his foe, Fryatt decided he would win, and that he would damn his enemy’s shadow to a deep, cold, black grave. But he would do so with a salute and a memory he would hold as long as he lived.

  If my life is to be a long one, Fryatt pondered as he looked around at the young people manning his ship’s bridge. He loved every one of them. He would never tell them this directly, but had anyone been looking, his usually cold blue eyes would have betrayed the feeling. Fryatt refocused.

  “Williams. Squall.”

  “Sir,” Williams turned and as though in a trance, robotically rattled off all he knew about the Russian fish: “VA-111. High-speed. Straight runner. GOLIS navigation system. Preset target information.” This last bit was enough for Captain Fryatt to relax.

  “Come to heading one-eight-zero. Increase speed: 20 knots,” he ordered.

  Though the Squall was a fearsomely fast weapon, it ran in a line and was therefore a mere distraction to a highly maneuverable vessel like Dragon.

  Distraction from what?

  “Torpedo, torpedo, torpedo,” was the Op Room’s answer to his query.

  Fryatt raised his binoculars to watch the lines of surface bubbles as the Squalls sped along. When certain they would come nowhere near, he shifted his attention.

  “What have you got, Charlie?” Fryatt asked over the bridge phone.

  The Op Room sonar technician had localized the other slower torpedoes, and matched their acoustic signature to Type 53-65 heavies. More Goddamn Russian fish. He reported to the director, who in turn answered the captain.

  Williams’ big eyes asked the question as Fryatt hung up.

  “Wake homers,” the captain said. Everyone on the bridge turned and peered astern as if they could look through steel bulkheads.

  Part of Dragon’s Surface Ship Torpedo Defense System, a stern-mounted reel, paid out a float and line. The float created a second wake behind the destroyer and began to emit sounds like those generated by an 8,000-ton ship powered by loud engines.

  San Luis II’s heavy torpedoes had already turned into the vee of Dragon’s foamed wake, and had begun to snake back and forth within it. Dragon increased speed and started a turn. As she did so, the towed float slowed. This allowed one of the torpedoes to catch up. The weapon armed its 700-pound warhead. Just a few more feet of travel and the torpedo exploded. A geyser of white water rose from the ocean, and the explosion’s pressure wave smacked the ship on the ass. The second torpedo continued its advance.

  The weapon nibbled at the edge of Dragon’s wake, and no longer swimming side-to-side, accelerated. In the Op Room, the technician heard the insect-like buzz of its high-speed propellers drawing nearer. He informed the director leaning over his station. The director rang the bridge.

  “Increase to flank. Hard right rudder,” Fryatt ordered.

  Dragon’s bow rose as she hastened and leaned hard in the turn. Fryatt watched as the bow swung around and pointed back at the ship’s wake.

  “Meet her,” the captain ordered.

  “Very well,” answered the conning officer as he used opposite rudder angle to stop the turn.

  “And, rudder amidships.”

  The ship cut across the wake’s consecutive waves and frothy center, slicing through without so much as a bounce. As soon as Dragon had cut through the calm lather, Fryatt yapped another command: “Hard left rudder.”

  The bow swung again, and the hull leaned hard. Sailors grabbed hold of bulkheads and consoles to steady their stance. With a smacking, the ship crossed the wake again and finished the last loop of a large figure-eight she had drawn upon the sea. The torpedo had done its best to turn with the wake. It pierced the outer wave created during the ship’s last turn and its nose sensor scanned the area ahead, finding nothing but open, featureless ocean. It would run until its kerosene and hydrogen peroxide were expended. As Dragon became a fleeting black shape on the star-lit horizon, the torpedo sank into the abyss.

  Fryatt leaned toward Williams.

  “How’s the Merlin’s fuel state?”

  “At least another hour.”

  “Load out?”

  “One Stingray and two Mark-11s.”

  “Excellent. Get me a sonar fix on this bastard.”

  “With pleasure, sir,” Williams responded and powered up Dragon’s active sonar.

  8: CALOR

  “Death makes men precious and pathetic. They are moving because of their phantom condition; every act they execute may be their last; there is not a face that is not on the verge of dissolving like a face in a dream.”—Jorge Luis Borges

  WHOMP.

  The lash of sonar meant one thing: the British destroyer was alive and well.

  “Here we go,” Ledesma muttered.

  WHOMP.

  San Luis II shivered. Matias felt her tremor as he leaned against a pipe. He wondered if it was he or the boat that was full of fear. He let go of the pipe, felt the vibration again through his rubber-soled shoes, and looked at his trembling hand. It’s both of us.

  WHOMP.

  “Splash,” the sonarman stated. “High-pitched screws. Torpedo in the water. It just went active.”

  “Mierda,” Matias muttered to himself. One submariner made the sign of the cross as high-pitched pings reverberated through the water. The sonarman squeezed his headphones tight against his ears, and added: “High rpm turbine.”

  “Hotel 1. The British helicopter,” Ledesma breathed contemptuously.

  Matias grunted acknowledgment, and rattled off: “Planes up five degrees. Make your depth 250 meters, increase speed to five knots. Ready noisemaker.” The captain’s voice had become gravelly, betraying his fatigue. Ledesma wondered about the last time the captain had slept, or for that matter, eaten. Ledesma rubbed his own growling belly. He thought about a steak or a nice piece of fish. When he remembered the canned and frozen slop that came out of Numero Dos’ galley, Ledesma refocused.

  “Five knots. Coming up on two-five-zero,” he announced to the Control Center.

  Matias nodded. “Planes to zero.” San Luis II leveled again. The submarine’s casing creaked with the change in pressure. “Power?”

 
; Seeking an answer for his captain, Ledesma went to the electricians mate. The electricians mate read his station’s gauges. He then looked at Ledesma, shrugged, and frowned. Ledesma checked the battery read-out for himself, sighed, and returned to the captain.

  “Sir, batteries are down to nine percent.” Ledesma paused and exhaled with worry. “We are going to have to--”

  Raton heard the protests from the hull. He thought he even saw the secondary inner hull flex for a moment. He, too, lacked sleep and food, and began to doubt his own senses. Raton had nursed the batteries as best he could; shifting leads from terminals, whiffing ozone as they sparked, and topping-off cells with distilled water. Despite such efforts, the available charge was finite and fleeting. Like life. The boat answered his thoughts with a sickening groan.

  San Luis II had been pushed to her limits. The submarine’s steel had been compacted, flexed and stretched. Her energy was nearly expended. Her oxygen generators and carbon dioxide scrubbers were near empty. Raton’s thoughts became clouded and his vision, wavy.

  Raton knew the poisons emitted by machinery and the crew’s breaths were generally heavier than most gases, and tended to settle within his part of the boat. Raton was, in effect, San Luis II’s canary in a coal mine, and the troubles he began to experience confirmed that they had all been underwater for too long. Raton’s sled had a growler that could plug in at multiple points along the battery compartment’s track. He considered using it.

  Raton would beg whomever answered to come to their senses and get to the surface for air, for the opportunity to run the diesels and feed his batteries. His hand trembled as he felt the growler’s box. He tugged at its coiled umbilical, fondled its plug, and considered the words he would have for the idiots ‘upstairs.’ Then he remembered his training and his reverence for Capitán Matias and Teniente de Fragata Ledesma; his superiors. Are they superior? Raton wondered, and then shook his head to clear it. He realized his heart was racing. His studies and training flashed into his mind: