BOHAI HAIXIA STRAIT
Aircraft Commander Chu HuaFeng watched as the Silex missile impacted the water, the splash still phosphorescent in the bay. He flew around in a circular pattern, waiting for orders to finish off the submarine, waiting for the Silex missile’s depth charge to explode.
He watched the spot of foam for signs that the depth charge had succeeded. In a way he hoped it would fail and give him the chance to put the submarine on the bottom. He glanced at his fuel gages, saw how little fuel he had left. As he looked back down to the bay he saw a black shape coming out of the dark water. For a moment he could not believe his eyes. Half a kilometer east of the depth-charge detonation, the American submarine had surfaced, either surrendering or damaged beyond the ability to stay submerged, he decided. As the water of the depth charge explosion rained back down into the bay and its spot of foam calmed, Chu flew his Yak toward the submarine, which now bobbed in the water, no longer underway, as if it had lost its engines.
USS SEAWOLF
The deck jumped with the explosion. The bank of fluorescent lights in the overhead flickered and went out. The firecontrol displays and sonar repeater monitor winked out, then the lights came back on, illuminating the room in a red glow.
“Weps, get your firecontrol back and hurry,” Pacino said.
“Conn, Sonar, loss of sonar. We’re reinitializing.”
“Get it back up. Chief,” Pacino ordered. Two firecontrol technicians scrambled to the outboard side of the attack center consoles and began typing into a console hidden from the conn platform. The screens of the firecontrol system came back for a moment, then winked out.
“We’re doing a cold start. Captain,” Feyley reported, frowning over the technicians.
“Chief of the Watch, any damage aft?”
“No, Captain, all nominal. We’re checking aux machinery now.” He held up a finger.
“Sir, some leakage in the auxiliary seawater piping to the diesel. Otherwise, we seem okay.”
The deck rocked gently in the waves of the bay.
The depth indicator showed the ship on the surface.
The speed indicator read zero.
“Turner, get to the bridge and open the clamshells,” Pacino ordered.
“We’ll send up a white sheet for you to wave and a walkie-talkie to transmit that we surrender—”
“Sir, are you really going to do this?”
Morris stepped close to Pacino as he raised the number-two periscope and looked out toward the east, centering the periscope on the approaching Udaloy and Luda destroyers.
“Pacino, submerge this ship and get us out of here,” Morris said, removing his Beretta from its holster. “If you actually surrender I swear I’ll put a bullet in your head.”
Pacino pulled his face from the periscope and looked at Turner.
“Get the hell up to the bridge and follow my orders,” he barked, and Turner went to the upper level carrying the white sheet and walkie-talkie the phone talker had handed him.
Pacino then looked over at Morris, put his face as close to Morris’ as he could with his hand still on the grips of the periscope.
“Morris, I still have one torpedo and two main engines. Are you reading me?”
Jack Morris stared at Pacino for a moment, then holstered the pistol.
“Attention in the firecontrol team,” Pacino called from the periscope.
“We have the Udaloy destroyer, Target fourteen, and the Luda destroyer. Target fifteen, closing in on our position. I’m betting these guys are going to try to take us alive. Status of firecontrol?”
Feyley turned to Pacino.
“Firecontrol is nominal, cold start complete. I’m configuring the positions now and I’ll be ready in a minute.”
“Sonar, Captain, status of sonar?”
“Still working on it, sir.”
“Hurry up. XO, looks like we’ll be launching by periscope observation. You ready? Observation Target fourteen. Bearing mark, range mark, four divisions in high power. Observation Target fifteen, bearing mark, range mark, three-and-a-half divisions in high power.”
Pacino lowered the scope, waited for a minute, then raised the periscope again. This time the destroyers were very close. He called out another observation, then lowered the scope.
“Sir, we have a firing solution to both targets,” Keebes said.
“Stand by for torpedo attack. Target fourteen, tube eight,” Pacino said.
“Set the Mark 50 torpedo for shallow, low speed, direct-contact mode, active snake. Disable ACR and ASH interlocks. We will fire the unit as Target fourteen approaches, then submerge and head out of the bay.”
“Sir,” Keebes said slowly, “we only have one torpedo and there are two destroyers.”
“I know,” Pacino said.
“Standby. And Chief of the Watch, get a man up to the bridge and tell Turner that as soon as we accelerate to shut the hatch and get below, fast. We’ll be submerging immediately. Prepare to dive.”
On the bridge Lieutenant Tim Turner stood beside the open hatch of the bridge trunk, being careful not to fall the twenty-five feet down to the deck. The clamshells were open, allowing him to stand up and look out. Turner looked around at the moonlit bay, sniffing the salty air that smelled oddly bad after being submerged with their canned stink for so long. The evening was pleasant, the sea and the moon beautiful. But Turner had no thoughts of beauty, no ability to sense anything other than the urgency of the coming battle.
He looked to the east at the approaching destroyers and began to wave the white flag, even though he knew the ships were still too far away to see him.
“Approaching Chinese destroyers, this is U.S. Navy submarine Seawolf. I say again, approaching Chinese destroyers, this is U.S. Navy submarine Seawolf. We surrender. We are standing by for you to come alongside. I say again, we are standing by for you to come alongside, over.”
The ships were headed directly for them, picking up speed. Turner waved the white sheet and made the surrender call again, continuing to transmit and wave the flag for the next ten minutes, all the while expecting to see more missiles or torpedoes or aircraft with depth charges. But all he saw were the surface ships approaching the ship, the destroyers purposeful and steady. Finally his VHF ship-to-ship radio crackled with a Chinese accent:
“AMERICAN SUB SEAWOLF STANDBY FOR US TO COME ALONGSIDE AND BOARD YOUR VESSEL.”
Turner had no idea what Captain Pacino was planning. It was time for blind faith.
WASHINGTON, D.C. WHITE HOUSE
Secretary of Defense Ferguson leaned over the table, his face intense and flushed.
“Mr. President, I want an order to launch aircraft to rescue the Tampa and I want that order now. I’m sorry to be blunt but—”
A Marine colonel came in at that moment.
“Sorry to interrupt, sir, but we just got a message from CINCPAC aboard the Reagan. The Seawolf has surfaced in the Bohai Haixia Strait, and she’s transmitting a message to the Chinese fleet that she’s surrendering …”
Ferguson reacted first.
“What’s the Chinese fleet doing?”
“CINCPAC says they’re approaching to take her alive. They’re coming alongside.”
Ferguson looked to President Dawson.
“Sir, that’s it. Now we’ll lose the Seawolf, the most advanced submarine in the world. And her crew can enjoy Chinese hospitality, until they’re dead—”
“Ferguson, enough,” Dawson snapped. “Launch the damned aircraft. You have twelve hours and unlimited weapons release authorized. You get that submarine back, understand?”
“Yes,” Ferguson said, hurrying to the radio console, where he hoisted the handset to his ear, waiting for Donchez’s voice to come through the connection.
BOHAI HAIXIA STRAIT
Chu felt like spitting into his oxygen mask.
“I don’t believe it,” he said to Lo. The commander of the Udaloy destroyer Zunyi had ordered all aircraft to stay outside of a one-kilome
ter radius of the American submarine, declaring that the sub had surrendered and that they were going to take it captive.
“Don’t they see it’s a trick?”
“Maybe it isn’t.”
“Just keep us armed and your eyes on that submarine.”
USS SEAWOLF
Pacino looked out the periscope at the approaching destroyers. The closest was the Udaloy, now at six hundred yards bearing zero nine five. The Luda was at bearing one zero five, only eight hundred yards away. That was about as close as he intended them to get.
“Chief, tell Turner to get ready to come down, but tell him to keep waving that white flag until the torpedo detonates.”
“Yes sir.”
“Firing point procedures, tube eight. Target fourteen,” Pacino called, his periscope crosshairs on the approaching Udaloy.
“Ship ready, solution ready,” Keebes said.
“Weapon ready,” Feyley said.
“Shoot!”
“Fire!” Feyley said, pulling the trigger.
The tube fired, the pressure slamming Pacino’s ears.
He watched the Udaloy, waiting.
Finally a brilliant orange-and-white-and-black fireball bloomed from the port side of the destroyer’s superstructure. Pacino turned the crosshairs to the Luda, seeing its bearing, now one zero six degrees, then lowering the scope.
“All ahead flank, steer course one zero six!”
Only then did the sound of the explosion reverberate through the hull, the violent sound of a warship dying.
“Ahead flank aye, one zero six, maneuvering answers all ahead flank, steering course one zero six, sir,” the helmsman replied.
“Sir, you’re headed straight for the Luda—”
“Chief of the Watch, tell Turner to get below! Diving Officer, submerge the ship to nine zero feet!”
The Chief of the Watch shouted into his headset and reached to the ballast-control panel to open the main ballast tank vents at the same time. The diving officer ordered the bow planes to twenty degrees dive, the stern planes to five degrees. The deck began to take on an angle. The Chief of the Watch, still following the rig for ultra quiet called “Dive, Dive!” into his headset rather than on the Circuit One PA. system.
The deck began to incline as the ship drove deep, then flattened as the Diving Officer pulled out.
On the bridge Tim Turner felt the deck beneath his feet tremble as the ship began to move. He dropped the white sheet and bent to snap up the heavy clamshell on the port side. When he stood to fold up the central clamshell he saw the Luda destroyer directly ahead. The bow wave was gone, the hull already under. His eyes were level with the shoes of the men running on the main deck of the destroyer, men running away from him … Turner stood half-frozen as the hull of the destroyer grew closer. The captain was going to ram it, he thought dimly, the thought breaking his inertia. He dropped the walkie-talkie down the bridge hatch and jumped down after it. He had reached up for the hatch when the ship hit the destroyer, the force of the collision throwing him down the tunnel.
The sail of the Seawolf hit the hull of the Luda destroyer Kaifing at a speed of twenty-eight knots, forty seven-feet-per-second. The sail’s top five feet still protruded above the water as it hit the hull of the Kaifing, but the destroyer had a draft of about fifteen feet, reaching deep enough that only a few feet separated the top of Seawolf’s cylindrical hull from the bottom of Kaifing’s keel. The leading edge of the sail crumpled, the hardened steel yielding but not rupturing, the sail designed to impact submerged icebergs under the polar icecap without giving, the designers knowing that a six-foot-thick chunk of polar ice was equivalent to a half-inch plate of steel, at least when approached at two-feet-per-second. But now Seawolf had hit the Kaifing’s hull at twenty times that velocity, and the target’s hull was not just a single plate of steel but a matrix of steel plates stretched over structural-shaped frames. As the sail slammed into the port-side hull, the steel dented, then gave way, finally tearing open into a gash large enough to allow the sail to pass through. The sail continued inward, slicing through a fuel tank, through a berthing compartment and shower room, through a passageway into a row of engineering maintenance offices and through the plate steel of the starboard side.
By the time the Seawolfs sail emerged from the far side of the Kaifing, the submarine had slowed to two knots, her kinetic energy almost expended in ripping open the hull of the Kaifing. The Seawolfs screw continued to turn, eventually accelerating her back to flank speed, but Kaifing’s screw would never turn again. The destroyer settled in the water, her lower compartments flooding as she sank to the silty bottom of the strait.
BOHAI HAIXIA STRAIT
“I told you it was a damned trick,” Chu said into Lo’s intercom.
Below them the Udaloy destroyer was in flames and dead in the water, starting to sink by the bow while listing to port, crippled and near death. A half-kilometer to the southeast the Luda destroyer was closing the position of the submarine, but the sub was developing a bow wave and sinking into the water. Chu had to believe his eyes. The American submarine was not hurt at all but speeding eastward, not toward open water but directly toward the Luda-class destroyer. As he watched, the submarine’s hull vanished, leaving only its conning tower behind. The Luda’s stern boiled in foam as the ship tried to accelerate out of the way-too late.
The conning tower of the American submarine hit the Luda destroyer’s hull amidships, slicing into it.
Smoke rose from the collision, and Chu brought his jet closer to observe. The conning tower of the sub had vanished, not emerging from the other side. The Luda destroyer began to slow down, coasting to a halt, the hole in her hull now invisible as the ship settled into the water and began to list starboard, now completely stopped. Chu no longer wanted to wait to see what would happen to the second destroyer. A glance over his shoulder revealed that the Udaloy was gone, sunk, nothing left but a foamy oil slick, a few boats, and men floating in the water.
“It’s up to us, now,” he told Lo. “I’m flying over the continuation of the submarine’s course. Do you have a detection?”
“Yes, four hundred meters ahead. Depth shallow but getting deeper.”
“Drop the Type-12 on my mark.”
Chu cut in the lift-jets and throttled back on the cruise engine, finally matching the submerged submarine’s speed.
“Call it,” Chu said.
“Directly overhead now.”
“Drop!”
“Type-12 away, clear the area.”
Chu throttled up the cruise engine and sped away, waiting for the results of the depth charge.
CHAPTER 32
MONDAY, 13 MAY
1204 GREENWICH MEAN TIME
BOHAI HAIXIA STRAIT
USS SEAWOLF
2004 BEIJING TIME
Lieutenant Tim Turner was able to grab a rung of the ladder on the way down, preventing himself from falling the distance down to the deck below, but breaking his fall sprained an ankle and dislocated his shoulder.
The pain shot through his body and he winced, certain he had broken something. He reached for the next rung up in the tunnel ladder, and as he looked up he could see water beginning to trickle down the hatchway.
Below him the hatch to the upper level of the forward compartment shut as the petty officer sent to warn him to come down shut the lower hatch.
Which left Turner alone in the sealed-off trunk with an open hatch overhead, the water ready to drown him. With all his remaining strength he moved up the ladder to the hatch and reached for the hatch ring, feeling the gusher of water in his face as he tried to reach to the hatch and pull it down.
He was only able to pull it a few inches, the roar of water down the hatch threatening to wash him down the tunnel, but the water flow beat against the closing hatch and slammed it into the hatch seat. The flooding stopped, but left Turner hanging over a fifteen-foot-deep hole by one hand. He reached up with his right hand, engaged the hatch dogs, and felt fo
r the ladder rung with his foot, then lowered himself down the tunnel to the deck and found himself in water up to his waist.
He banged on the hull with his flashlight, and after a moment the water began to drain slowly out of the tunnel as the man below opened a drain valve. After another few minutes the hatch opened and Turner could climb down the ladder to the deck. He dogged the lower hatch over his head, and had turned to the petty officer who had abandoned him, ready to say something, when he was thrown to the deck by a violent force, barely conscious as he slid over the wet deck to the door of the galley. The deck tilted, and looking aft, it seemed the hundred-foot-long passageway was a stairwell, a ramp, inclined toward him, the lights no longer illuminating it, just some automatically activated battle lanterns. Turner wondered if it was his head injury that caused the illusion, but then a flashlight loosened from its cradle fell to the deck and rolled down to his position at the galley door. No illusion, he realized, the ship was diving. And with no lights.
* * *
The detonation of the depth charge made the deck jump more than Pacino would ever have expected for a ship of nine thousand tons, and he was thrown into the periscope pole, banging his forehead. The lights went out, the room lit only by battle lanterns. The firecontrol console displays went blank for a second time. The sonar repeater stayed blank, never having come back up from its initial injury.
A dim voice came over the emergency communications network:
“Flooding in auxiliary machinery, flooding in—”
Pacino shouted over the announcement: “Chief, make the phone announcement and send the casualty assistance team to the torpedo room.”
Before the chief could do it a speaker in the overhead “REACTOR SCRAM, REACTOR SCRAM,” Engineer Linden reported.
Pacino turned to the ship control console and the Diving Officer.
“Flood depth-control tanks and put her on the bottom.” He reached for a phone to the aft compartment.
“Maneuvering, Captain, report cause of scram.”
Attack of the Seawolf mp-2 Page 33
