Quantum Storms - Aaron Seven

by Dennis Chamberland

  While the rest of the crew began to sweat for real, Legend seemed totally relaxed. This is the precise worst-case scenario that he had spent so much of his time designing the Phoenix to meet, and he had little doubt that his remarkable vessel would be up to the task. If the Phoenix could not pass this test, then he felt that they did not deserve to survive. In war, it was the best, the most prepared and the most intelligent that endured. Striker Legend knew this, accepted it and was prepared to challenge and be challenged on the field of battle.

  Legend’s eyes watched as the submarine drew ever closer, but he did not flinch. In this battle onboard the Phoenix , flinching was not even possible. If the Chicom submarine decided to launch its torpedo, they would have less than five seconds to make their peace. The nuclear tipped Shkvals that traveled within their own super-cavitation bubbles had no homing devices because they traveled much faster than sonar. They were set to detonate before launching, and God help whatever lay in their path at ground zero. Hence, the little SROVs could not draw them away because the Shkval, while mighty, was dumb as a rock.

  “We have two advantages here,” Legend mused in a hushed voice.

  “We’re listening,” Travis whispered.

  “One: the sub can’t see us.”

  “How do you know that?” Travis replied.

  “Because my system works flawlessly,” Baker retorted with confidence.

  “And two: they don’t know we can submerge,” Legend continued.

  “Correct,” Baker acknowledged. “Every search ping has been centered at our surface floating mid-section – way above 100 feet.”

  “Then why are they approaching us so directly? If they can’t see us then how are they homing in on us like that?” Travis responded, his own voice now strained.

  “Because the homing device gave them a hard target and their computers are centered on that position. Because we can’t move in the stream, we’re being tracked by dead reckoning.”

  “But I thought the ROV was leading them away…”

  Legend’s eyes widened. “Baker, stop the ROV and hover, immediately! Thank-you Travis, thank-you!” Legend said, his eyes glued to the screen.

  “What? What’d I say?”

  “ROV-8 is stopped,” Baker responded.

  “Good. What’s its position?”

  “Ah, it’s out at 215 meters, ah, it’s at… it’s at 226 degrees on the relative plot,” Baker said.

  “Good. Now, dive it slowly, then pick up the rate of dive on a non-linear plot. Make it look like it is sinking straight down.”

  “Well, I can try...”

  “Baker, we don’t have time for try – we just have time for little Bot number 8 to save our butts!”

  “It’s diving, it’s diving now…”

  Legend propped his hand on his chin and waited.

  gh

  Onboard the Jiang Zemin, Captain Luan paced the bridge with passion and intensity. His narrow, black eyes darted in the unseen void. His ears heard the reports about him, they eagerly digested the words as his eyes occasionally focused on the myriad status plots all about him.

  “All stop,” he finally spat in frustration.

  “All stop!” the helmsman responded.

  Luan’s mind could not piece together a logical picture of all that he was absorbing. This phantom sound that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere had clearly resolved itself into a homing beacon of Chinese origin. But then, it had stopped and later reappeared in a different location than the original target. Luan’s first impression had been that it was ARA52, the preposterous American floating platform that had disappeared and was presumed sunk. He first reasoned that it was Agent Adams onboard the ARA52 that had somehow managed to elude him and that he had initiated the homing beacon in some kind of suicidal desperation. But now it appeared that the homing beacon had been dropped into the abyssal depths and was sinking. Luan’s mind finely divided the possibilities – of which a surprise resurrection of ARA52 was way down on his list.

  But now the dead reckoning plot he had been following was apparently a dead end. All his sonar searches had turned up nothing. The only data point he had was the clear beacon of the homing device settling deeper and deeper into the black void.

  “Navigator, give me a plot of the last stable position of the beacon,” Luan ordered.

  “Aye, sir.”

  Luan impatiently waited.

  “Kang – line up tubes three and five with YU-4’s,” Luan commanded. He was loading the tubes with the relatively low-tech, inexpensive torpedo that carried a single, deadly 45 kilogram warhead with homing capability.

  “Grid: 45 delta, 16 bravo, 34 sierra.”

  “That is impossible!” Luan exploded. “None of this fits any profile! This cannot be! Nothing we know about in these waters fits a depth profile of 34 meters!” His mind raced ahead. Perhaps it was another American submarine with a stealth capability. But how did it capture and release a Chinese acoustic homing device? Perhaps it was another Chinese submarine signaling in extremis?

  “Navigator, what is the level of confidence in your plot?”

  “Very high, sir,” he responded.

  “Very well,” Luan replied. “Sonar, search the new coordinate with the highest energy you have.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  gh

  Striker Legend smiled. His ploy was apparently working. The Phoenix now drifted slowly away from the Chicom submarine that had turned to face the diving ROV number eight carrying with it the homing beacon into the depths, safely away from the defenseless Phoenix . Striker knew that the Chinese sub could not see them, acoustically cloaked as they were by his SROVs. If the submarine had detected them, they would have been dead long minutes ago. And now, they had apparently taken the bait.

  “I hear torpedo tube doors opening,” Baker said in a whisper.

  “Good!” Legend responded. “Be ready to identify it after they launch.” Baker’s acoustic library was not vast nor did he have the classified signatures of all torpedoes, but he could very clearly differentiate between a standard torpedo and the raucous hammering signature of a Shkval in its underwater flight.

  “Torpedo away!” Baker announced. “It’s not a rocket torpedo – it looks like a standard fish.”

  “Okay, good,” Legend responded. “Prepare the closest ROV to broadcast hull crushing acoustics and bulkhead collapse.” Seconds later they could feel the loud concussion of an underwater explosion. Its vibrations rattled the control consoles. Legend could see the concentric ripples of the vibration in his cup of coffee.

  “ROV eight is still reporting back! It wasn’t damaged!” Baker replied. “ROV nine is now broadcasting acoustic noise,” he said signaling to the Chinese submarine the noise of a sinking ship.

  “Maintain its dive!” Legend responded instantly. “If they think it’s an ROV we’re dead! They fired at the position where it began its dive thinking it was thrown overboard from the boat when it was discovered.”

  “But they can’t see anything. How will they justify not getting an echo from a vessel?” Baker asked.

  “They’ve got the noise. They’ve got everything but an echo. And even that’ll be pointless since we hope they think whatever it was is now gone and sinking. It’s difficult to resolve tiny sinking pieces!”

  “Oh my God,” Baker said abruptly. “Oh my God…”

  “What?” Legend responded, staring at his brother whose face was suddenly painted with fear.

  “I never considered the torpedo acoustics! They can paint the forward environment with the energy from the explosion!”

  “What?” Legend asked.

  “They can use the energy from the explosion to enhance the resolution of the sonar reflection. It’s like shining an intensely bright light with a whole lot of energy at an object. The brighter the light – or the more energy you pour into it - the clearer the image. The ROVs can’t come anywhere near that kind of energy, even working together, so it cancels out their cloaking effect. T
hey can see right through their energy!”

  “You mean they can see us?” Travis asked.

  “Not unless their bow is pointed directly at us,” Baker responded. “This time we got lucky, they were pointed away from us.”

  “But they were able to see some of the ROVs?” Legend asked evenly.

  “Yes, bot nine was right in the center of their beam.”

  “Order number nine to begin a slow descent from its current position, just in case they track her. Spin it and feather its descent. Make it look like wreckage. Disable its cloaking,” Legend commanded, then sighed deeply and reclined in his seat. Perhaps the game was not yet over after all.

  gh

  “Captian, we have resolved a piece of wreckage,” the sonarman aboard the Jiang Zemin reported with a strong and confident voice. “And we are receiving noise of the breakup.”

  The crew on the bridge of the submarine began to cheer loudly.

  “Silence!” Luan responded harshly. “Display!” he commanded.

  In seconds the image of an oddly shaped object appeared on the large display before him. Luan turned his head quizzically as he stared at its form.

  “Sonarman, paint the contact again and display it,” Luan commanded.

  A loud ping was followed by another image of the object. But its image was much less distinct as it was painted by the sonar’s energy, not the intense power of the torpedo’s warhead. It was a relatively small object, obviously sinking and twisting in the water column, but much slower than a steel box filled with seawater. And, oddly to Captain Luan, there were no other contacts. Luan placed his fingers on his chin and thought deeply. All of this was not exactly adding up to a textbook exercise in submarine naval warfare. But then, in his experience, none of them ever were.

  “Helmsman, what is our heading?” Luan asked crisply.

  “300 true, Captain.”

  “All engines ahead one third, come right to 120 degrees,” Luan commanded. He had an odd, unresolved sense that he was being watched and now he wanted to see what was behind him. He felt in the deepest part of his gut that something here was not quite right.

  gh

  “The sub’s turning!” Baker said.

  Legend needed no announcements of the fact; he could clearly see the submarine displayed on the acoustic board before him. It was not only turning but rapidly accelerating away from its previous position.

  “Where’s it goin’? Is it goin’ away from us?” Travis asked, his own eyes scanning the display.

  “We’ll know in a few seconds,” Legend responded in a whisper.

  Those seconds passed with an agonizing, deliberate anguish. Finally, the submarine’s path steadied.

  “They’re headed straight for us!” Travis cried.

  “Yes, they are, indeed…” Legend responded.

  “What now?” Baker hissed in fear. “They’ll be inside our acoustic shield in less than nine minutes, then we’re dead! They’ll see us like we were lit with a nichrome candle.”

  Legend just stared at the approaching submarine displayed on his screen. The Phoenix was truly defenseless. They had no weaponry and they could not run. It was becoming obvious that they had somehow either been seen by the Chicom submarine or her skipper had blindly stumbled on a path that would inevitably reveal their presence.

  “Gentlemen, make your peace,” Legend said abruptly as he sat back in his seat and relaxed. The game was up and there was literally nothing they could do.

  Two minutes later, the submarine was steadily continuing to approach on a collision course with the Phoenix. It was obvious that it was either going to fire on them at close range or ram them. It was equally obvious that their little ROV system had failed and that they were somehow actually visible to the submarine’s captain. Then, just outside the ROV field, the sub began to slow.

  “Sub is now stopping,” Baker said.

  “Get ready for the kill,” Legend whispered. “Brace yourselves. They could miss, after all,” he said, more as whistling-in-the-dark than from any real hope.

  “Torpedo tube door is opening,” Baker said in a voice that hinted at all the confidence of a bunny rabbit in the sights of an elephant gun. There was no need to feign silence at this point, standing in the crosshairs of the hunter.

  “Is it going to hit us?” Travis asked with a clear sense of fatal acceptance.

  “Yep,” Baker replied. “Dead center.”

  “Wait!” Legend said, sitting bolt upright in his seat. “Maybe he can’t see us! Maybe that’s the whole point!”

  “Then he has an uncanny capacity to hit the bull’s eye of an unseen target in total darkness…” Baker drolly replied. “Get used to it, Bro; he’s seen us and we’re dead meat.”

  “No! He may be using the torpedo as illumination, just like you said before! He can’t see us but he’s suspicious, so he’s using the maximum energy he has available to light up his world!”

  Baker sat upright as all eyes scanned the stationary sub sitting still just before them. “Then we’re still dead. If that torpedo goes off anywhere near us, it’ll saturate our cloaking capacity and they’ll see us no matter what we do.”

  “Can you saturate their systems before they get a return echo?” Legend asked out of desperation.

  “Torpedo away!” Baker said. “It’s headed straight for us.”

  “Baker!’ Legend snapped. “Can you saturate their system before they can read a return echo?” he shouted. “Maybe their system can’t recycle before the torpedo’s acoustic wave is intercepted!”

  “Listen, Bro,” Baker replied, his fingers racing over his keyboard, “I can’t chat with you and do this at the same time, okay? Besides, if they actually see us, this is all a waste of time. And if they’re using the fish as an illuminating device, then we’d better all pray it’s outside our damage control radius!”

  All eyes in the control room watched as the torpedo raced closer and closer. In less than a minute it sped past the Phoenix and into the ROV barrier. Then it exploded some 2000 meters from them.

  Baker paused a split second, as if by instinct, then his finger mashed a button on the panel before him. He had triggered all his ROVs to transmit at maximum energy toward the submarine’s sonar dome. “They’re saturated. All they’re gonna see is a blank page.”

  At that moment, the shock wave struck the ungainly Phoenix and slammed them hard. Legend could feel his legs telescoping as the Phoenix rattled with the pulse. His eyes widened as he stared at his displays. They were obviously living on the razor thin edge of life spans now measured in milliseconds. He was no fool; he knew full well he was but a Harley Davidson motorcycle salesman attempting to outguess a master submariner in a game of certain life and death. If he had miscalculated even a rat’s eyelash, the very next minute would surely be their last.

  gh

  “No return!” the Jiang Zemin’s sonarman reported.

  “Define!” Captain Luan responded. “Define, ‘no return’.”

  “No data.”

  “Define ‘no data’!” Luan responded heatedly. He had been a Captain long enough to interpret nonsense disguised to conceal.

  “I have a white screen, Captain,” the sonarman responded tensely.

  Captain Luan turned on his heel and stepped quickly to the sonarman’s station. There on the normally orange tinted screen before him was an image that was totally white. Captain Luan knew that when the waters before them were empty, the screen should have been totally black, not totally white.

  “I want a status of this system immediately!” Luan barked.

  “Saturated. The receiving elements are totally saturated,” the Officer on Deck responded looking over his shoulder.

  “I know that!” Luan spat. “Give me a reason!”

  “Faulty settings, more than likely,” the Officer on Deck replied. “The ambient energy returned from the torpedo overloaded the sensors and…”

  “Stop!” Luan said. “I don’t need a lesson on elementary sonar. H
ow did you set your system?”

  “I didn’t!” the sonarman replied defensively, his reddened face painted with fear. “It was set mechanically by the system’s automated controls. It is the standard operating procedure!”

  “Run a system analysis,” Luan commanded.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How long will it take?” the Officer on Deck asked.

  “Forty five minutes, sir.”

  “Shall we load another torpedo and try it again?” the Officer on Deck asked.

  “No, you fool! I do not intend to waste another torpedo on this exercise in futility with a poorly prepared crew and malfunctioning instruments.”

  Silence penetrated the bridge. No one dared interrupt Luan as he pondered their strategy. Finally, he spoke.

  “All engines ahead one third. Maintain your heading at 120.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  In seconds, the nuclear engines of the great submarine spun its propeller and the underwater ship began its forward motion again.

  gh

  “She’s headed straight at us!” Travis reported, pointing to the display as the submarine’s great mass moved toward them on the status screen.

  “Is she trying to ram us?” Baker asked.

  “No,” Legend replied. “She can’t see us or we’d already be lying on the bottom. It looks like your little exercise in saturation worked beautifully.”

  “It’s not going to help us if we get rammed. She’ll sink us for sure, no matter where she hits us.”

  Legend’s eyes focused on the oncoming submarine. It did not appear there would be any way to avoid being struck and it was only five minutes until impact.

  “Shall I blow tanks and surface?” Sam asked frantically.

  “No, they’ll hear that,” Legend responded.

  “So loud, it’ll blow their ears off,” Baker agreed. “But how about flooding? How about sinking below them?”