Deep Sound Channel (01)

by Joe Buff

  "They haven't turned to follow," Jeffrey said. "I think they've lost us, Sonar, and we're both too close to other

  Axis forces for them to go for area effect with an atomic warhead."

  "Concur, sir," Sessions said. "Doppler indicates the range is opening. No sign of weapon launch or loading transients on Master 27's bearing."

  Commodore Morse came back to the CACC. "It looks like Captain Wilson doesn't have a broken skull, just a bad concussion. They say he's completely out of action for at least two days."

  "Understood," Jeffrey said, then he glanced at Monaghan again.

  "They put him in your rack," Morse continued. "They're stitching up his scalp now."

  "Why not the CO's state-room?" Jeffrey said distractedly.

  "You need the data repeaters in his cabin, when you turn in for some rest. . . . You know you're acting captain now."

  "I got a heartbeat," the corpsman called.

  "Can you keep him going?" Jeffrey said. Then he tried to stand. He could barely put weight on his leg now.

  "I don't know," the corpsman said. He inserted a plastic airway down the navigator's throat and started squeezing rhythmically on a breather bag. "It's a nasty translation injury, like you'd expect from a torpedo hit. Neck vertebrae are crushed, his spinal cord's been damaged, maybe severed altogether. He needs to be on a life support respirator and we don't have one aboard."

  "Come on, Chief," Jeffrey said. "We've got a boatload of fancy pumps and spark-proof motors, a lifetime supply of pure 02, and some of the best engineers in the world. We'll make a respirator."

  "Sir," the corpsman said, pressing down on Monaghan's chest to get him to exhale, "that could take us hours."

  "Then we give him artificial respiration for hours. . . . Phone Talker," Jeffrey ordered, "

  SEAL medic to the

  CACC stat. . . . They'll go in the hyperbaric chamber in the ASDS together, on oxygen, and the SEAL'Il breathe for Monaghan, however long it takes. When the respirator's done, we lock it into the chamber with them."

  Jeffrey eyed his weapons screen. Tubes one and three were loaded now with ADCAPs.

  Turn and rise and fire on Master 27? Get set to use one of the precious Mark 88s, a deep-capable nuclear torpedo, since Challenger's ADCAPs were conventional?

  Jeffrey turned to Sessions. "Sonar, can you tell me Master 27's depth?"

  "Sir, passive contact lost as reverb dwindled. Doppler showed her moving but less fast than us." Sessions worked his keyboard and conferred with Ilse. She worked her keyboard too. Sessions looked up. "Sir, last elevation angle datum applied to local ray trace path shows Master 27 passing through three thousand feet."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Sir, the calculations check."

  "Any sounds of hull distress? A bad equipment casualty, maybe, or hit by friendly CAPTOR fire?"

  Jeffrey waited as Sessions scanned his tapes.

  "No inrushing water or hatches popping, sir, no escaping bubbles or collapsing frames. .

  . . No high-speed dive flow noise or groaning steel . . . and no impact with the bottom."

  Jeffrey made eye contact with Ilse.

  "It's Jan's boat," Ilse said. "This far down it has to be." "Yeah," Jeffrey said. "The Axis doesn't use titanium hulls."

  "Deutschland's in the North Atlantic," Morse said, "busy devastating the convoys from America."

  Jeffrey looked around the crowded CACC, silently cursing the typically overoptimistic battle damage assessment. "Voortrekker survived, people, and now she's after us. Our battle isn't over, it's just begun."

  "Number One," ter Horst said, "launch another message buoy, Flash Double Zed priority again. Message reads: Am in contact with USS Challenger. Am best platform to prosecute, all units stand clear my chase, ter Horst sends. . . . Add our position, depth and course and speed, and get it off immediately."

  "Aye aye, sir," Van Gelder said.

  "Load tube six with a nuclear 65. Prepare to fire a salvo of three."

  "Sir, this close to shore?"

  "I'm not going to detonate them here, Gunther. I'll run them twenty thousand meters further out, use a nice wide spread, since we don't have the target localized. That'll put the bursts a comfy forty klicks from land."

  "Sonar," Van Gelder said, "what's the wind?"

  "Still backing, sir," the sonar chief said, "from west around to south. Wind's coming out of roughly two four zero now. I'd say speed's down to maybe twenty knots."

  "The dangerous semicircle must have passed," ter Horst said, "and the storm's recurving northward, but the wind's still blowing nicely out to sea."

  "Yield setting on the warheads, Captain?" Van Gelder said.

  "Maximum yield. Twenty thousand meters is a touch

  more distance than Wilson could have covered running at top quiet speed. So wherever he actually is, Challenger should be inside lethal range of one of the blasts."

  Van Gelder read his tactical display. "Sir, there are friendly units on the arc you plan to sanitize."

  "We just warned them," ter Horst said, "with that message buoy. . . . Don't use active search—our fish might just pick up a wreck."

  "Captain," Van Gelder said, "with respect, messages take time to relay, ships need time to clear the area, and these two Navors-class coastal minesweepers are much too small to stand the shock and tsunami."

  Ter Horst eyed the screen. "Gunther, Gunther, Gunther. You know as well as I do all target-motion analysis is notional. This just shows who we think perhaps might be at these positions, approximately speaking, based on estimates and projections, subject to judgmental guesses and any sensor error. This data isn't real. Those minesweepers might well be somewhere else, or they might not be there at all."

  "Captain . . ."

  "For all we know," ter Horst said, "there could be other hostile units we might eliminate, support for Challenger we haven't yet detected. So it's a wash, as far as I'm concerned."

  "Very well, sir," Van Gelder said reluctantly. He worked his weapons menu screen. "

  Tubes six, seven, and eight now loaded, all nuclear torpedo gyros spooling up to speed."

  Ter Horst eyed him piercingly. "Your compassion is misplaced. This is war."

  "Helm," Jeffrey said, "all stop."

  "All stop, aye," Meltzer said. "Maneuvering acknowledges all stop."

  "Ilse," Jeffrey said. "You know Jan ter Horst. What's he gonna do next?"

  "Kill us all," Ilse said. "Any way he can, the sooner the better."

  "You think he'll launch nuclear torpedoes this close to shore?"

  "Yes."

  "This close to friendly units?"

  "He'll convince himself it's his duty. They'd be martyrs. Friendly losses definitely won't stop him."

  "And if we fire a weapon now ourselves, it'll let him and half the Axis navy get us localized," Jeffrey said. A nearby searching surface unit pinged again as if for emphasis.

  "What's the bottom here?" Jeffrey said.

  "Hard sand," Ilse said.

  "Very well, Oceanographer," Jeffrey said. "Chief of the Watch, bottom the boat."

  "Put her on the bottom, aye." COB did the evolution so smoothly Jeffrey hardly felt or heard a thing. The only indication was a minor down-angle, three degrees.

  "At least this way we won't be smashed against the seafloor," Jeffrey said, "we'll be sitting there already, and the sand just might help cushion the concussion." Jeffrey turned to Commodore Morse. "He'll probably fire onto zero nine zero true. That's presumably his last known course for us, and it's also the mean bearing away from land."

  "Makes sense," Morse said. "Let me give you some advice, though, while we're waiting to find out."

  "Sure," Jeffrey said, now bracing himself for a criticism.

  "You're trying to do too much. Get Lieutenant Bell up here as acting executive officer."

  Jeffrey grabbed his phone-set mike. "Weps, come up to the CACC, assume the right seat at the command

  console. Have the senior weapons chief r
elieve you at the special weapons console."

  Bell acknowledged.

  "And take off that sound-powered phone," Morse said. "That's what the phone talker's for. Your job's to delegate."

  "Direct hit, Commodore," Jeffrey said. He removed the bulky unit. He took a deep breath. "Phone Talker, repeat to all hands. Rig for depth charge, prepare for a close-in nuclear detonation."

  "Set all three units for straight runs," ter Horst said. "Gyro angles thirty right, zero, and thirty left."

  "Straight runs, thirty-degree triple fan spread, aye," Van Gelder said. "Torpedo room acknowledges gyro angles set."

  "Set detonation depth one thousand meters."

  "One thousand meters, aye. Torpedo room acknowledges one thousand meters set."

  "Detonation yield one kiloton."

  "One kiloton, aye. Torpedo room acknowledges one kiloton."

  "Program all fish for maximum attack speed after a quiet runout of four kilometers on nonconflicting random starting doglegs," ter Horst said, "to disguise our own location."

  "Twenty knots four thousand meters random doglegs, aye," Van Gelder said, "then seventy-five knots thereafter, aye."

  "That just might make Wilson panic," ter Horst said, "when he hears one of those 65s come at him like a freight train. If he gives us a datum, we'll control the units through the fiber-optic wires, send all three in his direction."

  "Understood," Van Gelder said. "Sir, for that matter why not shoot the weapons one by one? When they hear the first go off atomic, if they're still alive, waiting for the second and the third would be slow torture."

  "I like your thinking, Gunther, but two problems. Wilson's not the type to buckle from slow torture."

  "You know him, sir?"

  "Not well, but we've met, at a Naval Submarine League banquet in Washington once.

  Didn't hit it off. Lack of chemistry, as the Americans would put it. From what I saw I wouldn't want to face him in a waiting game. Sudden shock, that's the thing, though slim chance enough that that would work. But more importantly, the first warhead would ruin sonar in this sector for a while, and would help Challenger guess what range from launch we're detonating at, so it's best to flush them everywhere at once."

  "Understood, sir," Van Gelder said. He glanced ruefully at the TMA plot.

  "Turn your key now, Number One."

  Van Gelder took out his enabler, pushed it into the slot, and twisted. This is murder, he told himself. Those minesweepers have wooden hulls, each crew has forty men.

  "Captain is enabling," ter Horst said. He turned his key.

  "Torpedo room is ready," Van Gelder said. "Tubes six, seven, and eight prepared to shoot."

  "Fire six," ter Horst said.

  "Tube six fired," Van Gelder said.

  "Fire seven."

  "Tube seven fired."

  "Fire eight."

  "Tube eight fired."

  "All units operating properly," the sonar chief said. "Time to detonations?" ter Horst said.

  "Nine minutes, Captain," Van Gelder said, "unless the weapons find the target sooner."

  "Torpedo in the water," Sessions said. "Another 65, Captain, bearing three four five, range about twelve thousand yards."

  "Torpedo course?" Jeffrey said.

  "Zero six zero," Sessions said.

  "Well away from us," Jeffrey said.

  "Second torpedo in the water! Also a series-65. . . . Torpedo course is zero nine zero, sir."

  "A spread?" Jeffrey said. "He's using conventional warheads then, fanning them out with a passive sonar search."

  "We'll see," Morse said. "If I were him, I'd make them go active at ten thousand yards."

  "Third torpedo in the water," Sessions said. "This one's heading one two zero!"

  "Coming toward us," Jeffrey said. "Phone Talker, relay to all hands. Repeat for emphasis, incoming torpedo, rig for ultraquiet, rig for depth charge."

  "Aye aye, sir," the phone talker said.

  "Sir," Sessions said, "most hostile contacts on our tactical plot appear to be changing course and heading Out to sea."

  Jeffrey glanced at the TMA. "Good," he said, "we have them foxed. They must think we'

  re further offshore than we really are."

  "Time to detonations?" ter Horst said.

  "Four minutes, sir," Van Gelder said.

  "Signs of our quarry?"

  "Nothing, Captain."

  "Wilson isn't stupid. If he runs or launches countermeasures too soon, he'll just draw more fire and make our own job easier."

  "Yes, sir," Van Gelder said. He looked again at the tactical display. Every surface unit was fleeing for open water, heading away from the area where all the mines and torpedoes had been going off.

  Obviously someone in higher headquarters who knew ter Horst took his "Stand Clear"

  very literally. But even at their maximum speed of sixteen knots, the little minesweepers were doomed.

  "Watch carefully for a hole-in-ocean contact just before the sonar whiteout hits," ter Horst said.

  "Acknowledged, Captain," Van Gelder said. He spoke with the sonar chief.

  "If we localize Challenger as we destroy her," ter Horst said, "it'll speed up the salvage operations. Crypto gear and other good intel are time sensitive, you know."

  "Yes, Captain," Van Gelder said.

  "While we're waiting," ter Horst said, "reload tubes six through eight with nuclear torpedoes. Use deep-capable units now."

  "Third torpedo closing," Sessions said. "This one will pass us close to port."

  "Torpedo status?" Jeffrey said.

  "Still in passive search mode, sir, still straight running."

  "Lying doggo was a good idea," Morse said, almost whispering. "They might not go active till they're past us."

  "Good," Jeffrey said. "On this sandy bottom we'd stand out like a billboard at close range, our sail and control surfaces especially, our active out-of-phase masking notwithstanding. We're deep enough the pressure's squashed our anechoic tiles to the point of uselessness."

  "Torpedo at closest point of approach now," Sessions said. "Range nine hundred yards.

  "One minute to detonations," Van Gelder said. "Still no fresh datum on Challenger."

  "Very well, Number One," ter Horst said.

  "They've run for over fifteen thousand yards already," Jeffrey said. "What are they waiting for?"

  "They may have overestimated how much ground we'd cover at top quiet speed," Morse said. "That's bad. It suggests Voortrekker's faster."

  "The torpedoes might be programmed for circular searches," Jeffrey said. "They'd loop back this way on active after a dash ahead to cut us off."

  "We'll see," Morse said. "If so, we'll be right in the search cone of the fish on one two zero."

  Jeffrey nodded. "I—"

  A dreadful concussion jarred the boat and a doomsday cacophony washed over Challenger.

  "First torpedo had a nuclear warhead!" Sessions shouted as the deep bass roar went on and on.

  The bubble pulses caught the sail, tilting Challenger to starboard. She stayed that way against the sand, listing six degrees.

  A second volcanic boom went off, much closer, shaking Jeffrey to his bones. He tasted copper in his mouth—the gum at one capped tooth had started bleeding. More hard blows struck the ship, dwindling as the fireball throbbed and plummeted for the surface.

  Challenger listed ten degrees to starboard now.

  "Both of those were one-KT explosions!" Sessions yelled.

  "Third time's lucky," Morse said.

  "I told you," Ilse said.

  The third torpedo blew, pounding Jeffrey's core. Challenger slammed sideways, grinding across the bottom. All the nerves in Jeffrey's teeth felt on fire, and his left leg twisted painfully. Relentless reverb banged and banged, the ship listing more and more—fifteen degrees, twenty degrees, thirty degrees and rising. Jeffrey's eardrums hurt again, like at Umhlanga Rocks but worse, his tortured hearing assaulted by endless unearthly rumbling.
<
br />   "Third torpedo has detonated!" Sessions shouted, sticking to procedure when it was barely possible to speak again. "The range from us was seven thousand yards!"

  Jeffrey shook his head to clear his brain. He noticed Ilse and the crewmen in the CACC

  did the same, looking at each other wide-eyed, amazed to be alive. Jeffrey studied the automated damage control reports. Minor problems only. "Hah! This boat's incredible!"

  "There's a reason we named ours Dreadnought," Morse yelled in Jeffrey's ear.

  "You always use that for your first of types," Jeffrey shouted, smiling, pitching his voice above the constant roaring from outside.

  "At least we're consistent!" Morse yelled back.

  "Chief of the Watch," Jeffrey said as the decibel level and ugly vibrations diminished, "

  lift us off the bottom." Jeffrey turned to Lieutenant Bell. "XO, have the engineer blow water through the sea pipes, clear out any sand we just picked up. And tell him not to worry about the noise."

  "Aye aye, Captain," Bell said. He spoke to the phone talker, relaying Jeffrey's instructions.

  "Sonar," Jeffrey said, "how's our bow cap?"

  "Still there, Captain," Sessions said.

  "Wide-aperture arrays?"

  "Minor dropouts in the complex, sir."

  "Can you compensate?"

  "Affirmative, no substantial degradation, but our chin-mounted HF system is destroyed."

  "Projector and receiver both wiped off ?" Jeffrey said. "Not surprising. Chief of the Watch and Helmsman, how's the boat handling?"

  "Normal in all respects," COB said, studying his screens.

  "Concur," Meltzer said, testing his control wheel.

  "That's the spirit," Morse said to Jeffrey. "You're their CO now in every way that matters. Let the crew just do their jobs."

  "Helm," Jeffrey said, "make your course one zero zero. Ahead two thirds, make turns for twenty-six knots."

  "Make my course one zero zero, aye," Meltzer said. "Ahead two thirds, make turns for twenty-six knots, aye. . . . Maneuvering acknowledges turns for twenty-six knots, sir."

  "Time for us to do a disappearing act," Jeffrey said, "and sneak out past the Boer SOSUS." He listened to the ocean's rumbling, burbling whoosh. "We'll head right through the blast area, cloak ourselves in the aftermath of all the steam and bubbles.