Threat vector

by Michael Dimercurio

  ship painted gray and converted to a troop transport. While McKee watched, the amphib transport began to roll, the side closest to the periscope dipping into the sea, taking the rows of lifeboats— oddly still attached to the upper decks, the covers lashed on—into the water. The ship slowly capsized, rolling into the sea with a massive splash of white foam. The two large stacks for the diesel engines went under, then the deck, until only the rusty, featureless hull remained, the brass screws pointing forlornly toward the rainy sky.

  McKee increased the visual power to search for survivors. With his right periscope grip he hit the doubler trigger so that the scope went to forty-eight power, the magnification making the image jump. He saw no one. No floating corpses, no swimmers, just a few empty life jackets and some floating debris. There should have been twenty thousand men on the transport, maybe more, but the lifeboats had all gone under when the vessel rolled. There was an ocean of flotsam scattered over the sea, but not a single human face.

  He turned the periscope back to the carrier. The entire deck was engulfed in flames, the angle growing steeper as the bow sank. The image focused on the huge island. The upper decks of it emitted rolling clouds of orange flames and black billowing smoke. The lower decks' windows were broken open but empty. The sea around the carrier was dirty with debris and patches of oil fires, and still no sign of life.

  To the left the cruiser departed the surface, the stern vanishing below a wave, a field of foam and

  bubbles on the waves the sign of its passing. A mournful groaning creak sounded loudly through the hull, filling the control room.

  "Conn, sonar, the cruiser's bulkheads are collapsing."

  Something made McKee look back at the carrier. From behind the island emerged an antisubmarine attack helicopter.

  "Aircraft! Chopper, bearing mark!" he shouted.

  "Mark 80 panel armed in auto, Captain, outer doors coming open, Mark 80s ready in all respects." Dietz had immediately armed the Mark 80 sub-launched antiair missiles in the sail, the automatic response to the appearance of a hostile air contact.

  "SLAAM 80," McKee said, a little too loud for his own liking, while he punched a red button on the left grip. High over his head a small missile— eight feet tall and eight inches in diameter—was launched from a vertical tube in the sail. McKee kept his crosshairs on the chopper as it banked around the carrier. The flame trail of the missile was ruler-straight as it flashed past the chopper, seeming to keep going a few hundred feet beyond while the helicopter exploded in a huge ball of flames.

  "Air search," McKee called, scouring the skies for another helicopter or antisub aircraft, but the sky was empty. He felt his heart rate decline to normal, his breathing slowing as if he'd run a mile. He pulled a hand from the right grip and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

  In the periscope view, there was nothing left of the fleet except for the carrier, which stubbornly

  remained on the surface, bow slightly down, the fires on her deck calming now, the flames from the island just black heavy smoke.

  "Attention in the fire-control team," McKee announced with his face still pressed up to the periscope. "I'm going to drive us in closer to observe the carrier. All other contacts have sunk. Pilot, left fifteen degrees rudder, steady course two six zero, turns for eight knots."

  After twenty minutes, the ship had closed range to two thousand yards, a mere mile from the carrier, which now lay trimmed bow down with the flight deck forward edge just under the waves. The fires had gone out, the huge vessel's paint, once gray, now streaked in black. The ship sat there silently, floating. This was not allowed by Admiral Phillip's op order, McKee thought. Leaving the carrier floating would broadcast to the world that no natural disaster had befallen the Ukrainians but foul play. Their position would be marked, and salvage ships would easily find the torpedoed hulls on the ocean floor. Once the carrier went down, only a few people would know that the convoy had happened to be in this particular location.

  "Attention in the fire-control team. I intend to shoot a Mark 58 at the carrier, target one, in direct contact mode, shallow transit, immediate enable."

  Four minutes later, explosions rose from the carrier hull. Renewed orange flames and black smoke rose from the hulk for all of ten minutes as she finished dying. The ship finally plunged into the waves, bow first, the island splashing into the sea, then the stern. Bubbles and foam and oil fires

  marked her passage. At eight hundred feet depth the hull shrieked as the main deck and central compartments imploded. The acoustic daylight imaging of the sonar system tracked the hull until it smashed into the rocky bottom three miles down, then broke in two and become lost in the bottom clutter.

  The fleet was gone, and with it McKee's enthusiasm for the mission. What had the good doctor said—twenty thousand men, maybe more, killed from the day's shooting. McKee's stomach hurt. He blinked in disgust, as if trying to banish the sickening images of the fleet's sinking.

  "Officer of the Deck, secure battlestations. You have the conn." He snapped up the periscope grips and lowered it into the well. "Take her down and orbit Point Zulu at five knots. I'll be writing the situation report. Keep a max scan enabled for the Severodvinsk submarine. If she shows up, prepare for an immediate quick-reaction Mark 58 shot."

  Without another word, McKee stepped down from the conn and walked to his stateroom, preoccupied. He shut the door of his cabin behind him and sank into his command chair. The thought nagged at him that he hadn't seen a single body or survivor. How could that be? It had to be the killing force of the Mark 58s slamming into each hull, causing massive shock to the crewmen, dropping the sailors where they stood, so that the hulls of their ships took them down. But the troop transport—what about it? Surely a vessel loaded with thousands of marines would have dozens standing

  topside getting fresh air or smoking, despite the rain?

  McKee's thoughts were interrupted by the clicking of the Circuit One PA system, The voice of Bryan Dietz was inexplicably an octave too high as he shouted, "Snapshot tube one!" Dietz had just ordered the ship to prepare to fire an emergency quick-reaction torpedo at an enemy submarine.

  One moment McKee had been sitting with his head in his hands. In the next he was hurtling into the brightly lit control room. He snatched up a headset and whipped it on. He ducked into virtual-reality station 4, the eggshell rolling down in annoyingly slow motion, the computer display lighting up.

  He shouted at the computer to display Dietz's face on his eggshell canopy surface. Dietz looked pale, with eyes larger than hard-boiled eggs. Dietz began stammering his report even before McKee demanded it.

  "The Severodvinsk, Captain, bearing two seven five. He got close in, within his weapons range, came in from the north, from the other side of the sinking site. Acoustic daylight sonar didn't pick him up because the bubbles from the sunken hulls were interfering with the noise on that bearing and—"

  "How do we hold him now?"

  "Acoustic daylight imaging. Nothing on frequency analysis or broadband noise—"

  "Status of battlestations?" McKee barked, trying to keep Dietz's panic in check. The previous command "Snapshot tube one" automatically notified the crew to man battlestations.

  "Wait one, sir. Chief of the Watch?"

  Another voice: "Battlestations manned, sir."

  McKee called out to Petri, "XO?" He muttered to the computer to display her face on the canopy next to Dietz's.

  "Here, Captain," she said. Her face was dark, her brows curving into a frown.

  "Target designation?" he asked.

  "Target twenty-six," she snapped.

  McKee looked out at the display field in front of him. Once again he was surrounded by a grid of range marks, bearing lines, and depth planes. On the far side of the virtual pool slightly above him was a pulsing object, appearing as if it were forty feet away, a Zeppelin shape about three feet long. It oddly seemed to vibrate slowly, closer, then farther. The sliding back and forth was the computer's wa
y of showing that the exact distance to the target was uncertain. At its closest it was twenty miles out, at its farthest some thirty-five. But at either of the possible distances, the Severodvinsk attack submarine was much too close for McKee's liking. The question was how to shoot him without him knowing about it, since the loudness of weapons could potentially give them away.

  If McKee lived by the book, he would launch a Mark 58 Alert/Acute torpedo in ultraquiet swimout mode, the propulsion drive of the torpedo at its quietest, but also at its slowest. The weapon would take up to an hour to traverse the distance to the Severodvinsk. In that time the enemy submarine could pump out two dozen weapons, McKee thought. The Mark 58 tactic would not fit. McKee

  realized he might be accused of impatience or even fear, but he didn't care. This situation demanded that he strike quickly.

  "Navigator, program Vortex Mod Delta units eleven and twelve in submerged target mode."

  The navigator's voice was surprised but obedient. "Units eleven and twelve set up in antisub mode, Captain," he said after twenty long seconds of dancing with the Cyclops computer's weapons control module.

  "Attention in the fire-control team," McKee said. His voice was level and deep, he noticed. A part of him was glad, but another realized the tone of voice was a he. He was far from confident. The tight feeling in his throat and the coppery taste of his tongue attested to that, but if the crew knew that, this attack would derail in its first minute. "I'm putting two Deltas down the Severodvinsk bearing line. At submerged weapon transit speed of three hundred knots, we'll have ordnance on target in five to eight minutes. However, with the noise of the solid rocket propulsion, the Severodvinsk will very likely fire back at us. I don't think he's heard us yet, but when he hears the missiles, he'll shoot down the bearing line. Our plan is to shoot and then drive off track. We'll remain in-theater long enough to observe the Severodvinsk sinking." McKee took a breath. "Firing point procedures, vertical launch tubes eleven and twelve, Delta missiles in antisub mode, target twenty-six."

  "Eleven and twelve on Cyclops control, Cyclops in autosequence, sir," Judison said.

  "Very well." McKee waited, his heart pounding.

  A few seconds later the forward vertical launch tubes barked. Blue streaks extended from McKee's position, slowly swimming toward the Severodvinsk. McKee waited for the rocket motors to ignite, and within a minute both rocket motors had lit off, the sound of their ignitions loud in the room, then fading away. The Cyclops virtual display showed the blue streaks speeding up dramatically and dashing toward the target. McKee watched the target for signs of it detecting the incoming missiles. The Deltas were within a half mile of the target, and still no sign of the Severodvinsk fighting back. McKee smiled to himself. Perhaps this battle would be over soon. He watched the first missile connecting with the target, then the second, and the target disappeared in a pulsing bright cloud.

  "Conn, Sonar, target twenty-six going down."

  "Conn, aye," Dietz replied, the men in the control room erupted in a cheer.

  "Keep it down, people." Petri's voice said in McKee's earphone circuit, but he was too preoccupied to notice. He squinted at the position to the target, waiting. If it had put a weapon in the water, it would be coming now.

  "Conn, Sonar, torpedo in the water, bearing to the position of the Severodvinsk."

  Goddammit, McKee cursed to himself. The Severodvinsk had gotten off a counterfire, and now the Devilfish was under attack.

  "Sonar, Captain, classify the torpedo," he said, intentionally injecting venom into his voice to keep the crew moving. "I have the conn," he said. He considered leaving the eggshell so he could pace

  the control room floor as he had during the surface attack, but he needed the three-dimensional data from Cyclops inside the canopy. He compensated by displaying the key officers in front of him. They also had an image of him in their views, from the tiny camera embedded in his canopy. "Pilot, all ahead flank, cavitate the propulsor, right ten degrees rudder, steady course east!"

  "Cavitate flank, my rudder's right ten, course east, aye."

  Dietz's Circuit One PA announcement rang out in the room and throughout the ship: "Torpedo in the water! Torpedo in the water!"

  "Turns for flank, sir," said the pilot at the ship-control panel.

  "Take her down to test depth, fifteen hundred feet," McKee ordered. The ship might be just a hair faster deep. With the water a degree cooler, it would be less likely to boil into vapor from the low-pressure side of each propulsor blade, making the thrust greater. Also, the torpedo might not be designed to go so deep.

  "Pilot, emergency flank, two hundred percent power," McKee called. At that speed the ship might gain another five knots, but McKee had just committed the ship to three months in the drydock, replacing fuel modules after overpowering the core. Plus, the entire aft two thirds of the submarine would become a high-radiation area. Small potatoes when an incoming torpedo was chasing them.

  "Sonar, Captain, classify the goddamn torpedo!" They still hadn't said a word about it. Was it a Severomorsk 52-centimeter? Chinese-designed Cul-

  tural Revolution 52-centimeter? Or, God help them, a Russian-designed 100-centimeter Magnum with a plasma warhead?

  "Captain, Sonar, the torpedo is putting out the frequency spectrum of a Russian Magnum," Senior Chief Henry's voice said on McKee's headset.

  We're dead, McKee couldn't help thinking.

  "But it has the propulsor low frequencies of an American Mark 48 Adcap torpedo, sir."

  McKee swallowed. His sonarmen had either lost their minds or this was some sort of variant on the Russian Magnum. But the Ukrainians could have grabbed an old Mark 48 Adcap "advanced capability" from twenty years ago and inserted some kind of new motor in the weapon casing. It was bad news if this were a retreaded Adcap. The Adcap could go fifty-five knots, faster than their emergency flank speed of—McKee craned his neck to see the speed indicator—fifty-two knots, not good enough. The torpedo would catch up to them. Even if it took an hour, it would catch up and it would detonate.

  But if it were an Adcap, there was also some good news. The Adcap had a "floor" of 1,850 feet. Below that it would implode from the pressure of all the tons of water above it. That depth had been verified dozens of times in tests. There was only one problem. Devilfish's own crush depth was 1,800 feet.

  "Torpedo closing, Captain," the sonar chief reported.

  McKee looked out at the virtual landscape. Under him was a submarine shape indicating own-ship. In the far distance was a blurry cloud where

  the Severodvinsk had exploded when the two Deltas had blown it apart. In between the Severodvinsk wreckage and Devilfish was an incoming blood-red shape about the size of a banana, now about ten feet away in the make-believe pool.

  "Conn, Sonar, torpedo range three thousand yards, torpedo becoming active."

  "Sonar, Captain, the torpedo noise—any change in classification?"

  "Cap'n, Sonar . . . we, uh . . ."

  Silence.

  "Sonar, Captain, report!" McKee's fury suddenly overcame his fear.

  "Sir, definite Mark 48 Adcap."

  "Pilot, take us down slowly to depth nineteen hundred feet, very shallow angle, no more than ten feet per second, flat angle."

  "Say again, sir?" the pilot stammered. Most orders were followed instinctively, but this order could crush the ship.

  "Goddammit! Take her the hell down! Flat angle, ten feet per second, nineteen hundred feet."

  Petri chimed in. "Mr. Phelps, you heard the captain. Take her the fuck down!"

  Perhaps it was McKee's voice, or the unexpected sound of the female officer cursing, but in any case he put his control stick down.

  The hull angled downward sharply, the pressure causing a groaning sound. Usually McKee paid the creaks no mind—the ship was fabricated of the finest high-yield HY-120 steel, the entire ship a giant pressure vessel with steel almost two inches thick. But now he would be taking the whole ship,

  with 133 souls on
board, down into a depth where the warranty was off. DynaCorp's Electric Boat Division, headquartered in Groton, Connecticut, stated that test depth was fifteen hundred feet. Design failure depth with a safety factor of 1.0—with no margin—was calculated, assumed to be, eighteen hundred feet. But no one could really say. Crush depth might be nineteen hundred or even two thousand feet. Or a main seawater cooling pipe, two feet in diameter, could fail at seventeen hundred and fifty feet and fill the hull with water within a minute, a flooding accident from which they couldn't recover. And they were going faster now than any DynaCorp engineer had envisioned when the crush depth calculations were made. A gram of incorrect pressure on the control stick could take them instantly down hundreds of feet as the bowplanes and sternplanes screamed through the water flow.

  Hell with it, McKee thought. Taking her below calculated crush depth would either lose the torpedo or kill every man onboard.

  Just then a piercing shriek sounded through the hull, the sound of the torpedo sonar. A shiver crawled up McKee's spine. *

  "Depth seventeen hundred feet, sir, proceeding deeper," the pilot said uncertainly, as if hoping the order would be rescinded.

  "Take her down," McKee said, his voice hard as steel, but his heart beating like a jackhammer.

  The torpedo sonar shrieked again, a high-pitched whistle sounding for five long, ear-splitting seconds.

  "Depth seventeen fifty."

  McKee waited, then decided to leave the virtual reality eggshell canopy. If the ship went below crush depth, he didn't want to be stuck inside a computer game. He'd stand on the conn and command his crew and his ship. When he emerged, he found that Petri and Dietz had already left their canopies and were standing at the starboard plot table, the one displaying the computer-generated plot of the battlespace. Neither one looked at him.