by Joe Buff
"Understood," Van Gelder said. "Sir, recommend we let the last fish go till end of run. It'
ll blow then automatically and might lock on a target sooner."
"Concur, a very good idea, and preset it to go active if it makes a passive contact but then loses it. What's time to interception of the incoming torpedoes?"
"Ninety seconds, Captain," Van Gelder said. He worked his console. "All weapons ready."
"Very well," ter Horst said. "Tubes three through eight, shoot."
"Tube three fired," Van Gelder said. "Tube four fired. Tube five. Tube six. Tube seven.
Tube eight fired. Reloading all tubes now with nuclear torpedoes."
Again the ting-ting sounded.
"There'll be a lot of shadow masking at our depth," ter Horst said, "and I wouldn't want to go any shallower now, but since Challenger's obviously found us, let's try for a proper firing solution on her. Sonar, using maximum power on the bow sphere, ping."
"Torpedoes in the water!" Sessions shouted. "Six, seven, eight torpedoes in the water!"
"This has to be a record," Morse said.
"Two are on divergent bearings," Sessions said. "Assess as countershots against our units. Six more on constant bearings, signal strength increasing—assess as snap shots aimed at Challenger. Sir, we're inside their effective range."
"Steady," Jeffrey said, "steady. Fire Control, pass control of the units to me and keep updating the TMA. I'll work one weapon with my joy stick and the other with my trackmarble."
"Sir," Bell said, "urgently recommend we move away. At this depth a one-KT warhead has a lethal radius of at least five thousand yards, and Voortrekker's close enough to get us through the vent field."
"Sir," Sessions shouted, "datum on acoustic intercept! Voortrekker just pinged, strong enough to get an echo off us!"
"So now they'll know exactly where we are," Jeffrey said, "but it's too soon to pull back.
We might lose the weapon wires."
"No target returns yet off our ping," Van Gelder said. "In thirty seconds we should get some kind of echo off the vent field plumes."
"What's depth of the incoming torpedoes?" ter Horst said.
"Unchanged," Van Gelder said, "both still three thousand meters. Range declining to six thousand meters now. Intercept by our units in one minute."
Again both incoming weapons pinged, the silvery bell tones coming faster as they range-gated on Voortrekker's hull. Suddenly the pinging ceased and both torpedoes' propulsor whine got slightly sharper.
Van Gelder stared at his displays, the attack geometry. He did a hasty calculation on his console—since height-to-range was one to four, at this distance an aggregate delta-T of 40°C would—Oh my God. "Captain," Van Gelder shouted, "plane up! Recommend emergency blow while we still can!"
"What?"
"Sir, incoming torpedo depth! They've fooled us. We won't be able to intercept in time!
If we boost our units' yield, they'll just take us with them instead!"
"What the hell are you talking about?" ter Horst said. "Have you lost your mind?"
"Don't you see, Captain?" Van Gelder said. "The Americans, they're going for undersea nuclear Mach stems, like an airburst, only much worse! A hammer and anvil strike, two shock waves hitting us simultaneously from opposite sides, after they both redouble when each
merges through the heated water with its own bottom bounce!"
Ter Horst's face went white. "Plane up, do an EMBT blow!"
Voortrekker's nose bucked and hydrazine began to roar. Then both U.S. torpedoes detonated.
"Units from tubes one and five have detonated!" Bell shouted. It would be precious seconds till Jeffrey knew what effect they'd had on Voortrekker, if any.
"Six torpedoes still incoming at high speed," Sessions said.
"And this deep they'll all camouflet," Jeffrey said. "The fireballs won't break the surface."
"Concur, sir," Sessions said.
"It's high time to get our backsides out of here," Jeffrey said. "Helm, ahead flank smartly.
Hard left rudder, make a knuckle, make your course two nine zero, back toward Durban.
"
"Ahead flank smartly, aye," Meltzer said. "Hard left rudder, aye."
"That'll take us off the track of those torpedoes," Jeffrey said, "and help make sure we outrun their fuel supplies." He glanced at a depth gauge to double-check: still 12,000
feet. "Helm, fifteen degrees down bubble smartly. Chief of the Watch, don't compensate till we reach fifteen thousand. Let us dive with negative buoyancy to pick up extra speed."
"Fifteen degrees down bubble smartly, aye," Meltzer said. He pushed on his control wheel—the deck nosed downward quickly.
"Transient bearing one two zero!" Sessions shouted. "Sierra 1 is doing a main ballast blow!"
"They figured out my trick," Jeffrey said.
"Sir?" Bell said.
"Mach stems from opposite directions dead abeam," Jeffrey said.
"Clever lad," Morse said. "A nutcracker suite, and with the seawater preventing neutron warhead fratricide."
"Sonar," Jeffrey said, "shut down your equipment before the enemy torpedoes start to detonate. I don't want to take a chance our gear's overloaded when the blast fronts get here through the lensing."
"Understood," Sessions said. "Our own units' shock waves will reach us momentarily."
The rumbling and shaking weren't as bad as Jeffrey expected, but those detonations had been tens of kilo-yards away.
"All six enemy torpedoes still incoming, sir," Sessions said.
"Will we be able to outrun?" Jeffrey said.
"If we stay at flank speed," Bell said, "and don't have a propulsion casualty, it's still touch and go, sir."
Jeffrey picked up the mike for the 7MC. "Maneuvering, this is the captain. Push the reactor to one hundred ten percent." Challenger began to vibrate like a subway car.
Five atomic blasts went off at progressively shorter distances from Challenger, the last of them on the nearer side of the vent field.
"Sonar," Jeffrey said, "reactivate your hydrophones. We need the data to evade that final fish." "Acknowledged," Sessions said.
"Last incoming torpedo still narrowing the range," Bell said. "Twenty thousand yards now, sir."
"What's its overtaking speed?" Jeffrey said. "Twenty-five knots."
"What's its depth?"
"Fifteen thousand feet."
"Same as us," Jeffrey said, "and that's as deep as I want to push it." The hydraulic-ram main compensating pumps felt asthmatic as it was.
"Captain," Bell said, "should we head up toward the surface where our countermeasures work?"
"They didn't work against that 212's fish at Diego Garcia," Jeffrey said.
"There aren't any terrain features we can hide behind either," Ilse said. "We're over the Agulhas Basin at this point, nineteen thousand feet."
"Uh-oh," Jeffrey said, "I'm not thinking. Helm, right full rudder, make your course zero zero zero."
"Sir?" Bell said. "That fish will cut the corner on us."
"Yes," Jeffrey said, "it's a gamble. But we have to reach shallower ground."
"What's incoming torpedo's depth now?" Jeffrey said.
"Thirteen thousand five hundred feet," Bell said.
"Good," Jeffrey said, "and we're still at fifteen thousand, hugging the bottom. Looks like that fish is set to track five hundred meters above the floor but not below its crush depth, about what I suspected. . . . Fire Control, the range?"
"Ten thousand yards," Bell said, "and on an interception course."
"But we got its height-to-distance down to one to twenty," Jeffrey said, "so it's too close to the bottom for an effective Mach stem."
"Concur," Bell said. "That was smart, sir, veering north." "It can still kill us the old-fashioned way very nicely," Jeffrey said.
"If it was a high-explosives warhead," Morse said, "it would impact in twelve minutes.
One KT's in lethal range in half that tim
e."
"It's obviously got passive lock on all our noise,"
Jeffrey said, "but if we slow down any, we just help it more, and making knuckles slows us down."
"It may be programmed to go active if it loses passive lock," Morse said. "I doubt then that we'd fool it with a knuckle."
"No," Jeffrey said, "but it might be using a passive-only proximity fuze. If we can somehow make it think it's overtaken and it's passing us, it may blow prematurely. . . .
Helm, hard right rudder!"
"Hard right rudder, aye," Meltzer said. The boat banked hard to starboard.
"Helm, hard left rudder!"
The boat banked hard to port.
"A pair of knuckles just might do it," Jeffrey said, "make our self-noise seem to fade."
"Sir," Sessions said, "incoming torpedo has started pinging, ultrasonic at thirty-two kilohertz."
"That's cute," Jeffrey said. "Rudder amidships." "Rudder amidships, aye," Meltzer said.
Challenger steadied up on zero three five true.
"Torpedo is course-correcting," Sessions said, "once more on a constant bearing off our stern."
"It didn't work," Jeffrey said. He glanced at a chronometer. "That torpedo should have exhausted all its fuel already, even with not pinging till just now. The Axis must have an improved mod in the field. Useful Intel if we live to share it."
"What's range to the torpedo?" Jeffrey said.
"Eight thousand yards," Bell said.
"Sonar," Jeffrey said, "put your broadband on the speakers."
A harsh screaming filled the CACC, gradually getting louder, the last incoming torpedo.
Mad hissing and rumbling filled the background, the warheads that had already gone off.
There was a steady sharp hiss also,
Challenger's own flow noise. The Axis fish's pinging was too high-pitched for the human ear.
"Sonar," Jeffrey said, "can you clean that up and say what else is happening out there?"
Sessions tapped his keyboard and spoke to his senior chief. "Sir, we're getting intermittent passive contact on something on the surface, assess it as Sierra 1. Best guess it's all their bilge and fire-fighting pumps."
"Sounds like we really hurt them, Captain," Bell said.
"But we didn't sink them," Jeffrey said. "Is Sierra 1 in motion?"
"Hard to be sure with all the reverb," Sessions said, "but we have enough slant separation over the camoufletted blast zones to drive a TMA."
"Good," Jeffrey said. "Fire Control, what's the dot stack tell you?"
"Sierra 1 is stationary, Captain," Bell said.
"Well done!" Morse said. "A mobility kill and fire and flooding damage too."
"Let's just see how we make out," Jeffrey said as he glanced at a sonar speaker, then tried to ignore the constant swelling screaming from outside. "What's torpedo range?"
"Seven thousand yards," Bell said.
"It's almost surely set for active-sonar proximity fuzing," Jeffrey said. "We can't suppress our echo signature this close, our back end's too complex a profile."
"If I were them, Captain," Bell said, "I'd program it to blow four thousand meters from us. Forty-four hundred yards."
Jeffrey nodded. "If it doesn't drain its fuel tanks soon, we've had it." He grabbed the 7MC. "Maneuvering, more speed. Push it to a hundred twelve percent."
"Range six thousand yards!" Bell said. "It's turning into our baffles!"
"Helm," Jeffrey said, "left standard rudder, no course specified."
"Left standard rudder, no course specified, aye," Meltzer said.
"At least this way we'll take a glancing blow off our port quarter," Jeffrey said.
"The floor drops off in that direction," Ilse said.
"Good," Jeffrey said. "Helm, ten degrees down bubble smartly, head for sixteen thousand feet. We'll get more counterpressure against the warhead and more speed as our hull compresses."
"Ten degrees down bubble smartly, sixteen thousand feet, aye."
"Range still closing," Bell shouted. "Any second now!"
"Phone Talker," Jeffrey said, "collision alarm and rig for depth charge. Sonar, deactivate the hydrophones again.'
The CACC grew quieter but the torpedo could be heard outside the hull. Its screaming stopped.
The weapon detonated with a stupendous crack and several console screens went dead.
Challenger's stern dipped as COB and Meltzer struggled for control. Newly replaced fluorescent light bulbs shattered and the fixture covers failed, scattering broken glass.
Insulation fell from the overhead and another freshwater pipe exploded. Smoke came out of one of the sonar workstations, flames crackled in the forward passageway, and high-voltage circuits arced and popped. The air took on a stinking bite as fire fighters struggled with CO, and foam.
Jeffrey tried to read his damage control display, but the vibrations were so bad he couldn'
t focus. He realized he'd been deafened—there was a painful throbbing in his head amid an eerie silence. The black smoke made him cough; it wasn't clearing. The CACC crew began to don their emergency breathing masks, plugging the tubes into the air lines in the overhead.
The insane shaking died down enough for Jeffrey to make out his screens, but incoming reports were fragmentary. Challenger's reactor had done an autoscram from the shock. It would take a couple of minutes for Willey's people to safely restart, assuming there wasn'
t other, fatal damage. Meanwhile the boat was drifting, getting by on batteries. COB had to try maintaining depth by pumping variable ballast alone, an excruciatingly slow process against a head of 16,000 feet of water.
Jeffrey's hearing came back gradually. "Fire Control," he shouted, "status of the torpedo room?"
"More misting round the tube eight door," Bell said. "Tubes three and seven appear to be operational."
"Reload tubes one and five with Mark 48s!" Jeffrey said. "Navigating, get our gyros reset! Sonar, reactivate the hydrophone arrays!"
Morse put his hand on Jeffrey's shoulder. "Don't," Morse yelled. "You don't know what shape Voortrekker's in, how many nuclear torpedoes she has left."
"We'll have four ADCAPs in the tubes," Jeffrey said.
Morse ducked to keep his head below the thickening smoke. "Unless we scored a firepower kill, we'll be defenseless against more A-bombs once we show ourselves."
"She's dead in the water up there," Jeffrey yelled. "So are we right now."
"We'll do a stationary rise and get in range on emergency diesel if we have to."
Morse shook his head firmly. "If their AT rockets are still functional, the chance of our success isn't worth a damn. It isn't worth the risk to this ship and her crew and intel payload!"
"Sir," Sessions shouted, "Sierra 1 has started active pinging!"
"Any torpedoes in the water?" Jeffrey said. "Impossible to tell yet."
"And remember Axis air support from the Prince
Edward Islands," Ilse said, pointing to Meltzer's nav display for emphasis.
"Enemy Mach 2 nuclear-capable fighter-bombers are only minutes away," Bell said.
"Captain," Sessions yelled, "I'm getting acoustic coupling through the air/ocean interface, sonic booms. Assess many inbound aircraft bearing one three zero true!"
"You mean just let him go?" Jeffrey said.
"Captain Fuller," Morse said, "don't get emotionally involved now. We've more than accomplished what we came for, Umhlanga Rocks and everything else."
"Sir," the phone talker said, "Lieutenant Willey reports pump-jet turned over well on the battery, full propulsion restart in one minute."
Way to go, Engineering.
"Sir," Bell said, "you turned a standoff here from a loss into a win. You cleared the pathway home." Jeffrey glanced at Ilse. She nodded ruefully.
"But . . . ," Jeffrey said.
"Jeffrey," Morse said. "To lay Voortrekker up for even a month or two at this point in the war is a vital achievement for the Allied cause."
Jeffrey s
ighed. He ran his hand over his face and looked at Ilse again. Again she nodded, giving him a crooked smile.
"There'll be other chances," Ilse said. "Jan will wait."
"Remember Jutland was a draw, Captain," Bell said, "but a strategic victory for the Allies in World War I."
Jeffrey hesitated. "Very well, Commodore. Very well, XO." He glanced down at his console screens. Power had come back already and Challenger's speed was building. The smoke began to dissipate.
Jeffrey cleared his throat. "Helm, maintain flank speed. Left full rudder, make your course one five three. We'll turn around, jink randomly, and use the extended sonar whiteout to disappear inside the Fracture Zone."
Van Gelder and ter Horst glanced up at the sky. Waves slapped and sloshed against the hull. Friendly aircraft flew overhead in escort as Voortrekker chugged along on her emergency diesel. Occasionally other aircraft dropped more parachute-retarded nuclear depth bombs at a safe distance, all camouflets in the abyss, hoping to hit Challenger. But it was obvious they were shooting blind, just as Voortrekker had been when she fired another salvo at the enemy sub once stabilized on the surface. That last torpedo in the first bunch had been the clue, blowing when its fuel would've run out but on a divergent course, as if chasing a sonar contact that got away. A bottom search would tell for sure—they knew exactly where to look for wreckage—but ter Horst said he wasn't optimistic.
"Things are falling into place now, Gunther," ter Horst said.
"Captain?" Van Gelder said.
"You were right, you see, about there being just the one blast at Durban. It's all too neat.
It wasn't a coinci-
dence.,,
"I don't quite follow you, sir."
"Challenger," ter Horst said, "and an A-bomb. . . . The bomb was designed to get our boats to sortie in a hurry, and it worked. That's why Challenger was laying mines just there and then. They found a way past all the armor in the bluff, and a way around our hostage strategy, by clever indirection."
"Except their timing was off, sir," Van Gelder said. "The explosion came a bit too soon, or Challenger too late."
