Come and Take Them-eARC
Page 62
Onboard the escort ship Hengshui a sonar operator puzzled and concentrated on his screen. “Damn pistol shrimp!” he cursed. Weary from constant false-alarms by the torpedo alert function of the sonar system, the copy of a stolen Gaul design, he touched a button and used his track-ball to mark an area on the screen.
SSK Megalodon, Mar Furioso, Bahia de Balboa, eighty kiloyards north of the Isla Real, Terra Nova
“Aquisition on two!” reported the operator. “Hand off two, cut wire on two, set up number four on the carrier!”
Chu looked expectantly on the operator on console one. “Aquisition on one!” “Hand off, cut wire, set up three!”—“Ready four!” “Ready three!”
CIC, Hengshui, Imperial New Middle Kingdom Navy, Bahia de Balboa, Mar Furioso, Terra Nova
The sonar operator on the Hengshui put his hands on his earphones. His face rapidly lost all color. “Chief! I’ve got a torpedo on bearing 172!”
“Nǐ de lǎo mǔ,” muttered the senior chief. It was a Mandarin expression ripe with meaning. In this case, though, while “Your old mother” was a literal translation, “What the fuck?” would have been a fairly good idiomatic translation. The antisubmarine warfare chief looked at the principal warfare officer. Both were also wearied by how the torpedo alert algorithm reacted to the noise signature of the Bay of Balboa’s pistol shrimp colonies. He inserted the plug of his earphones into the supervisor slot on the sonar console. When the PWO saw him abruptly straighten in obvious shock he frantically pushed the talk buttons on both the ship and the task force circuits “Torpedo! Torpedo! Torpedo! Torpedo on bearing Tango Three Uniform 165!
“Sir, I hear two torpedoes! I have got to get the urgent attack out!”
An “urgent attack” was a counterattack designed and intended to disrupt an incoming attack. At the very least, it’s hoped to force an attacking sub to cut its guidance wires.
The PWO with one hand hurriedly turned a dial on the lightweight torpedo weapon console while placing an icon on his screen display using the other and his trackball. He pushed a button, announcing, “Viper away. Dogbox established. Dogbox expires minute four.”
SSK Megalodon, Mar Furioso, Bahia de Balboa, eighty kiloyards north of the Isla Real, Terra Nova
“Fire three! Fire four! Hand off and cut wire as soon as the fishes have left the safety zone!” “Three cut! Four Cut!”
“Nav, dive. Let the ammonia chill and flood tanks. Do not release noisemaker. Increase speed to nine knots with glide. Cut jet pump speed when we have enough forward movement to glide. We’ll glide to the side; drop under the layer, turn, rise, and engage again, if necessary.”
Anshan, Imperial New Middle Kingdom Navy, Bahia de Balboa, Mar Furioso, Terra Nova
“Torpedo! Torpedo! Torpedo! Torpedo in bearing Tango Tango 165!”
Also saying, “What the fuck?” the CIC watch officer nevertheless reflexively pushed the ship’s circuit’s talk button “Step aside port! Launch torpedo countermeasures!”
Admiral Yee had been on deck, greeting new arrivals, when the announcement came and the deck began to tilt as the carrier sped up with the rudder hard over. “What the fuck?” he asked of the universe, as he began to trot across the flight deck, heading for the CIC. “What the fuck?” Yee repeated, as he entered CIC after hurrying through his ship as it heeled over sharply into a tight turn. The CIC watch officer however was listening to the Hengshui’s PWO’s latest announcement on the task force circuit and picked up the microphone for the 1MC. “All hands! All hands! Brace for torpedo impact. I repeat…”
The Anshan lurched as nearly seven hundred pounds of high explosive went off under her keel.
“What the fuck?” Yee repeated, rising unsteadily to his feet from the deck where the blast had thrown him. He repeated, as he entered CIC. “What the fuck? We weren’t attacking anybody? Why this?”
CIC, Hengshui, Imperial New Middle Kingdom Navy, Bahia de Balboa, Mar Furioso, Terra Nova
“The second torpedo is homing on Sierra Five Romeo!” “Shit, that bucket of an oiler won’t survive a hit! We have no helicopter in readiness for ASW. I have to form a ship search attack unit.”
“Loud torpedo noise in bearing 169!”
“Damn! They are going for the kill on the Anshan! So much for the urgent attack.”
Hengshui’s captain announced, “I am forming Golf Romeo Two and Uniform Echo One into a SAU with us for a line of bearing search. Handing the rest over to Delta Six Echo; he needs to take over On Scene Command for the rescue operations.”
SSK Megalodon, Mar Furioso, Bahia de Balboa, eighty kiloyards north of the Isla Real, Terra Nova
“Sir, I’ve got a lightweight torpedo sonar on intercept. It’s weak. Probably above the layer and off bearing.”
“Keep below the layer and on course,” ordered Chu. “We need to further separate from our attack bearing!”
CIC, Anshan, Imperial New Middle Kingdom Navy, Bahia de Balboa, Mar Furioso, Terra Nova
The Anshan had taken damage, leaking damage, to one side. To compensate for what the pumps couldn’t handle, a minimal amount of counterflooding had been ordered. This kept the ship aright. There was even minimal propulsion power available on number three shaft.
The pattern of jammers ejected by the Anshan shortly before the first hit transmitted boadband noise and random active sonar pulses in the presumed torpedo frequency. Meg’s torpedo four, however, passed right between two of the jammers—just damned bad luck, really—then acquired solid lock on the Anshan. It exploded in almost the same spot under the ship’s keel as had its predecessor.
“Damage report!” The ship’s XO called in. “Captain, I can’t tell you what’s holding her together. But I’m looking at her keel and she’s never going to make port on her own. One more hit, sir—two at most—and we’re going down. And, sir, power will be out in a few minutes. There’s a damaged cable and water…”
Torpedo three had been confused by the jammers and passed the Anshan on her starboard side. Its electronic brain noticed that its original impact time had passed and switched to reattack mode, turning sharply.
CIC, Hengshui, Imperial New Middle Kingdom Navy, Bahia de Balboa, Mar Furioso, Terra Nova
The Hengshui and her two co-escorts had shaken down into a line-abreast formation and continued searching down the initially reported torpedo bearing while the rest of the ships tried to rapidly close with the stricken Anshan and the oil-slick under a towering column of smoke that was all that remained visible of the replenishment ship.
SSK Megalodon, Mar Furioso, Bahia de Balboa, eighty kiloyards north of the Isla Real, Terra Nova
With the time for the fourth explosion having passed and still eager to sink the carrier Chu ordered a tight turn—forty degrees—and neutralization of buoyancy. The sub slowed as it lost the ability to glide on its outsized fore and aft diving planes. In effect, it stalled.
Chu let the sub continue under its engine power for a mile and a half, ordering the ballast tanks to be slowly and silently warmed. With the ammonia in its condoms beginning to boil, the Meg rose slowly.
“Come to periscope depth.”
The XO looked doubtfully at Chu. “What about the Earthpigs?” he asked.
“Fuck ’em,” answered Chu. “I want that carrier. And the sonar picture is too confused. Set up five and six for snapshot on wake-homer!”
“But…”
“Look, Exec, the Earthpigs were dangerous when the task force had the carrier to hunt us, if they’d told the carrier about us. They can tell all they want now, that whore’s not launching anything anytime soon. So they can see us if they want.
“Now do it!”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
CIC, Hengshui, Imperial New Middle Kingdom Navy, Bahia de Balboa, Mar Furioso, Terra Nova
Chu’s periscope had been picked up by radar.
“Riser! Riser on bearing zero-eight-six, eight kiloyards!” The PWO cried out in frutstration. “Damn, we’ve passed him by and he is out of
our lightweight torpedo range. Golf Romeo Two! Attack Riser with ASROC!”
SSK Megalodon, Mar Furioso, Bahia de Balboa, eighty kiloyards north of the Isla Real, Terra Nova
Chu took a quick look with the periscope. If the target had been less enveloped in smoke, he might have seen some indicator that it was a neutral ship. All he saw in his quick glance was the top of the superstructure and a fragment of flight deck.
“There is the carrier! Bearing Three-One-Three! Mark! Snapshot five down Three-One-Three!” He swiveled on to the left. “Damn! There are three escorts searching for us! Bearing Two-Six-Six! Mark! Snapshot six down Two-Six-Six!”
Chu saw the smoke column of a vertically launched antisubmarinerocket rising above one of the escorts. “Nav! Emergency dive, hard starboard rudder come to course Zero-Two-Five! Launch type two noisemaker now!” Chu bit his lips and quietly damned his own eagerness.
CIC, Anshan, Imperial New Middle Kingdom Navy, Bahia de Balboa, Mar Furioso, Terra Nova
“Close the goddamned seacocks, for Heaven’s sake!” screamed the captain into the intercom.
The answer came back. “Too late, Captain. We can’t get at the ’cocks.”
I have to abandon ship, Yee thought. With the seacocks jammed open we will go down in a few hours. It will be a nightmare but we should at least get the majority of the civilians onto the escorts or into lifeboats and life rafts.
Torpedo three’s wake detector detected a faint trace of a ship’s wake above it. The torpedo corrected its course to starboard…
A young Zhong wife shivered almost uncontrollably on the stern end of the flight deck. It wasn’t the temperature; the woman was terrified for herself and her children. She had a baby clutched in her arms and a young son holding onto a sash at her waist. Her two other children—a boy, nine, and a girl, seven—sat on the deck nearby. The woman was simply a wreck. Between the fighting, the dimly sensed disaster, worst of all no word from her husband, and all this something her own government had had nothing to do with…
Then the hurried evacuation to this passing strange environment. She shivered.
“Mommy. what’s that?” asked the boy, too young to see this as more than a really great ride.
The woman looked to where her son pointed. A faint trace of bubbles, though not so faint as the carrier’s weak wake, were coming straight for her and her children.
SSK Megalodon, Mar Furioso, Bahia de Balboa, eighty kiloyards north of the Isla Real, Terra Nova
Chu’s sonar operator turned white as he turned his eyes toward the skipper. “Captain Chu, we have a splash within half a kiloyard of our position. It is a lightweight…It’s spooling up…It’s pinging, it has turned on us. Captain! Skipper, it’s homing!”
The Hengshui’s—also known as Golf Romeo Two’s—missile-launched torpedo turned immediately on the noise and bubbles of the noisemaker. What might not fool a ship-borne sonar could still fool the much less sophisticated and capable guidance package of a missile-launched torpedo.
Or it might not; once the torpedo passed the noisemaker by, its small electronic brain began the search anew.
* * *
Chu sat strapped in his command chair. His fists were clenched and his eyes were closed. He tried to visualize the positions of all the targets and dangers around him. The sub was nose down in a straight dive, moving far faster than her own power would allow. Sonar continued to report that the Tauran’s torpedo was following.
The captain thought, Damn, we should have gone with that expensive Zion “poison” decoy. That Volgan shit didn’t work!
“Level up over the sea bottom,” Chu ordered. “Ahead at flank speed.”
* * *
The Zhong torpedo sensed a faint shadow of a sonar reflection. The self-guiding torpedo began to ping rapidly. She nosed over and dove for what her tiny brain thought might be a target. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
* * *
“Captain!” Auletti announced, “that whore of a torpedo is on our tail.”
Chu decided to try something desperate. “Chill the rear tanks, superheat the nose tanks. Release another noisemaker! Pull out of the dive. Ahead full!” His guts, and those of his crew, lurched as the Meg’s stern continued to fall while her bow stopped and turned upward.
“She’s still on us,” screamed Auletti, followed by a softer. “Hail Mary, full of grace…”
“Brace for explosion,” screamed the XO.
* * *
One hundred thirteen meters below the surface, the lightweight torpedo punched through a cloud of bubbles, then, with a solid return signal from the ocean floor, she sped on ahead, impacted on the sea bottom, and blew up.
* * *
“We’re fuckin’ lucky to be alive,” said Auletti.
“No, Chief, you’re wrong,” Chu countered. “They are. And their luck is out.”
Auletti nodded, then reported, “Captain, huge explosion on bearing Three-Zero-Five! Bigger than anything I have heard today, That cannot be anything but the carrier!”
The XO sharply looked at Chu. “You are a prophet!”
Chu shook his head and answered, “Must have been fish number three, five has still too much time on its clock.
CIC, Hengshui, Imperial New Middle Kingdom Navy, Bahia de Balboa, Mar Furioso, Terra Nova
“Underwater explosion on Zero-Eight-Two…” The short report barely cut into the grief felt by the PWO on the destruction of Anshan. Nevertheless, “Release the SAU, we need to support Delta Six Echo in the Rescue operations.”
The PWO didn’t dream that the horrors for the day were not yet over.
“Sir, a wake-homing torpedo has just overrun our towed array!”
“That is eight-hundred yards back! Flank speed ahead”
The PWO knew that at this stage evasive action was futile and he had less than eighty seconds to live. He, unknowingly, echoed his admiral’s earlier sentiment. Why? We were on a mission of mercy. Why?
The petty officer working the surface picture had trained the electro-optical sensor platform on the gigantic smoke column rising above the Anshan’s position since the last torpedo hit had turned it ablaze in burning fuel and secondary explosions. This allowed the PWO to view this transient monument to his failure. Then the waterjet of Meg’s torpedo six’s explosion tore through Hengshui’s CIC, killing the ops crew instantly
CIC, Siping, Imperial New Middle Kingdom Navy, Bahia de Balboa, Mar Furioso, Terra Nova
“Bore in, Goddamit! There may be survivors.” The captain nearly wept.
The crew, some of them, did as well. Three and a half sea miles away the Anshan, with over a thousand sailors and an uncounted—now probably uncountable—number of noncombatants aboard burned like an oil well gone out of control. Thick smoke billowed up into the sky. At the smoke’s base, there was an inferno of flame.
When the third torpedo had hit Anshan, the aviation gasoline had been set off; then the stored munitions. These made a hash of sonar, sound waves thrumming the water.
“Captain…there are no survivors we can help. But she is burning fiercely and the main air ordnance magazine might blow any second,” said Siping’s XO.
“But we’ve got to try,” answered the captain.
SSK Megalodon, Mar Furioso, Bahia de Balboa, eighty kiloyards north of the Isla Real, Terra Nova
“Head for base,” an exhausted Chu ordered. “We’ve stopped their carrier, the Tauran shits. That’s enough for one day.” And I don’t want to fight anyone else. I feel like my luck is all used up.
Twelve sea miles from the Meg its torpedo number five exhausted its fuel after finding no target on its bearing and slowly sank to the bottom of the Bay of Balboa.
Via Hispanica, Ciudad Balboa, Balboa, Terra Nova
Pipes playing “The Men of the West,” Fifth Mountain Tercio moved into and through the city. The Twenty-second, the Volgans, were already engaged against elements of the ad hoc Tauran Mountain Brigade. Intelligence reports were fragmentary, at best, b
ut local citizens braved the random fire to update the tercios. The two tercios orders were clear: “Find and destroy or capture any and all Tauran forces in the City.”
The Mountain Brigade would last until sometime after midnight, but no longer.
The Tunnel, Cerro Mina, Balboa Transitway Area, Balboa, Terra Nova
Moncey sat unmoving by his desk. For the first time in his life a disaster had left him stunned. Then, too, it was the first disaster of his life. All communications with the outside had long since been lost. De Villepin brought Moncey a cup of coffee and sat down beside him.
“It’s all over,” the chief of staff said, then repeated, “It’s all over.”
“Yes, sir. We tried though. What should we do now?”
Moncey answered distantly, “Surrender the men. See if you can get contact with the legion and offer surrender.”
“Yes, sir,” said de Villepin, “I’ll see to it now.”
As de Villepin turned the corner a few paces from Moncey’s office he heard a single pistol shot. It echoed from the concrete walls. De Villepin shook his head sadly but did not bother going to investigate.