Sea of Death

by Richard P. Henrick

  Stanley Roth was at the alternator, doing his best to squeeze as much battery power as possible from their already vastly depleted store, when the call arrived from the control room, ordering him to engage the bubbler mechanism. He wasted no time in implementing this request.

  “Hey, Orlovick!” he shouted.

  “Start up that bubbler on the double. And pray it works, son, because we’ve still got two fish on our tail that don’t know the word quit.”

  From his vantage point on the catwalk, Roth could see the young reactor specialist acknowledge this order with a wave and rush over to the bubbler’s compressor. This was the heart of the device, where the millions of sizzling bubbles would be created and then projected out into the surrounding waters, from the thousands of pin prick-sized holes that completely encircled the vessel’s pressure hull.

  Orlovick had to get on the tip of his toes to reach the metal box in which the power switch was located. Yet when he did so, he couldn’t seem to get it started. He jiggled the switch up and down for several frustrating seconds before taking a step back and smacking the side of the switch box with the open palm of his hand. Instantly, the compressor coughed to life, and Stanley Roth smiled.

  “That’s my boy,” he said to himself with a satisfied sigh ashe turned back to the alternator, to get on with the task of pulling the very last bit of power out of their badly depleted batteries.

  The sounds made by the bubbler device caught Jaffers by surprise. Hissing, sizzling bubbles filled his headphones with an alien commotion that all but overshadowed any other audible signatures. For a moment, he completely forgot about the torpedoes he had been closely monitoring, and then he realized that their nerve-racking race with death was finally over.

  “They’re gone!” he joyously observed.

  “We lost the damn torpedoes!”

  Inside the Nadashio, a celebration of a much more low-key nature was taking place. Osami Nagano appeared smugly confident ashe peered up at the elevated display screen and watched the four torpedoes the lead Romeo had shot at them head to the northeast, hot on the trail of the flashing decoy.

  “If we can penetrate a US Navy carrier task force and outrun one of its Sturgeon-class subs, escaping this feeble attack is nothing for the Nadashio,” he bragged.

  “Yet now we must turn our attention back to our prey. What is the exact progress of our attack?”

  There was a momentary pause as the technicians addressed their keyboards. Nagano impatiently looked to his right.

  “Well, Toshiki, how soon until our torpedoes hit?”

  The senior technician scanned the data visible on the screen and hesitantly replied.

  “I don’t understand it, Captain. Both Romeos seem to have disappeared.”

  “But that’s impossible!” exclaimed Osami Nagano.

  He looked at the screen to confirm this report.

  The red arrows corresponding to the two Romeos were nowhere to be seen, and for the first time Nagano’s expression displayed a hint of uncertainty.

  “Could our torpedoes have hit their targets?” he offered.

  “Unless there’s been a major malfunction in the firecontrol feedback loop, that’s highly unlikely, sir,” answered the senior technician.

  “Because I still show no indication that any of the warheads have yet detonated.”

  “Then where are the two Romeos?” asked the Nadashio’s captain.

  His senior technician’s only response to this was a confused shake of the head ashe furiously queried the sub’s computer in an attempt to find an answer to this perplexing situation.

  A solemn, funereal atmosphere prevailed inside the Katana’s control room, where Satsugai Okura stood behind the sonar console, looking grim and dispirited.

  “The torpedo continues to close, Captain,” reported Saigo heavily.

  “We just can’t seem to shake it.”

  “And the vessel that launched it?” quizzed Okura.

  The sonarman checked his display before answering.

  “It remains directly above us, sir, on the other side of the thermocline.”

  Okura thoughtfully looked up to the pipe-lined ceiling and softly whispered, “If in his mind the warrior doesn’t forget one thing, that being death, he’ll never find himself caught short.”

  “Excuse me, sir?” said the sonarman, who thought these barely audible remarks were meant for him.

  “It was nothing that concerns you, Saigo,” responded Okura, directing his attention to the sonar console.

  “How much longer until impact?”

  “Two minutes at the most. Captain,” answered Saigo.

  Okura squared his shoulders and inhaled deeply before speaking out loudly for all to hear.

  “If it is indeed our time, we shall go as true samurai warriors.

  Take us straight up, Chief Mikio! For the glory of the Emperor!”

  Spiraling out of the black depths, the persistent torpedo close behind, the Katana shot upward, its V-shaped bow headed straight for the rounded underbelly of the unsuspecting Nadashio. As the Romeoclass vessel penetrated the thick layer of coldwater that had masked it from its attacker’s sensors, the torpedo attained capture. And at the exact moment its contact warhead detonated, the Katana sliced into the Nadashio’s reinforced hull, causing both vessels to instantly implode in a white-hot mass of swirling seawater.

  Twenty-two

  Dawn was just breaking as the Bokken safely reached the sea’s surface. Quick to make their way up onto the sub’s sail were Chris Slaughter, Bill Brown, Pete Frystak, Stanley Roth and Miriam Kromer. As this group squeezed onto the crowded bridge, they were met by a spectacular sunrise and a warm, gently gusting breeze richly scented with the clean smell of the sea.

  “Oh, this fresh air smells divine!” observed Miriam Kromer as she gratefully stretched her arms over her head.

  Chris Slaughter pointed north, where the sky was still aglow from the burning remains of Ishii Industries.

  “It appears our explosives took out much more than that BW lab,” he reflected.

  “I wonder if we’ll ever know the identity of the sub that took a potshot at us?” Bill Brown said.

  “Right now, all we can assume is the other Romeo took it out, sacrificing itself in the process,” offered Pete Frystak.

  Stanley Roth looked over at Chris Slaughter and grinned.

  “You sure gave us a hell of a rollercoaster ride, Commander.”

  Slaughter turned away from his inspection of the glowing northern horizon to scan the faces of those assembled before him.

  “Though we left a bloody trail in our wake, our mission was accomplished, and that’s the bottom line in this business.

  We’ll beheading back to Alpha Base now, and I’ll never be able to thank you all enough for your assistance. I imagine you’re quite anxious to get back to your lives.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Pete Frystak.

  “Speaking for myself, I’m going to miss all this action, though I’ve got plenty of work waiting for me back in Florida. By the way, you’re all welcome to visit us down on Big Pine Key. And don’t even think about paying for your rooms.”

  “It looks like I’ll be shipping back to New London,” said Stanley Roth.

  “I’ve got anew class of potential bubbleheads waiting for me there, and I sure wouldn’t want to disappoint them.”

  “What are your plans, Bill?” asked Slaughter.

  Brown was pulling his corncob from his pants pocket ashe answered.

  “I’ve got a date with a very special lady back on Sarasota Bay.”

  Traveler suddenly appeared on the sail behind them, having just climbed up the forward access trunk. He ran the Stars and Stripes up the sail’s flagpole.

  “This one’s for you. Doc, compliments of the men of SEAL Team Three!”

  Five-thousand feet above them, from the cramped cockpit of his Mitsubishi Zero Dr. Yukio Ishii peered through a pair of binoculars to the sea below. A single subm
arine lay motionless on the surface, and Ishii did his best to identify the faces of those assembled on the vessel’s open sail.

  Though he was still too far away to make them out, he couldn’t miss the red, white, and blue flag that fluttered in the wind at the rear of the bridge.

  “So, it was the Western barbarians all the time!” he exclaimed, his voice filled with rage.

  “They may have won yet another battle, but the struggle to free Nippon shall continue — for all eternity if necessary!”

  Ishii angrily lowered the binoculars and readjusted the fit of his hachimaki headband. It was only too obvious that the clever Americans had somehow stolen the Bokken, and had then used it to penetrate Takara Bay and put an end to his great dream. It was thus only fitting that he answered this cowardly act of treachery in the traditional way of the warrior.

  “Banzai!” he screamed ashe pointed the nose of the Zero downward and began a steep, kamikaze dive straight for the exposed sail of the surfaced submarine.

  “Air contact. Captain!” the amplified voice of Ray Morales broke through on the sail’s intercom.

  “Bearing zero-nine-zero and rapidly closing!”

  This report caught the sail’s occupants by complete surprise, and all eyes went to the cast, where the sun was already climbing in the morning sky.

  Oblivious to the blinding glare, Pete Frystak scanned the heavens with his binoculars and excitedly pointed high into the heavens.

  “I see it!” he exclaimed.

  “Shouldn’t we dive?”

  “We can’t!” answered Stanley Roth.

  “We’re in the midst of a battery recharge.”

  Chris Slaughter swept the eastern sky with his own binoculars, and did a double take upon spotting the red Rising Sun decals visible on the propdriven plane’s fuselage.

  “Either I’m seeing things, or we’ve got a Jap Kamikaze headed straight for us. Clear the bridge!”

  he firmly ordered.

  This sent the group scrambling for the hatch that was set into the sail’s floor. Stanley Roth was the first to reach it, and when it failed to budge, Pete Frysak bent down to give him a hand.

  “I’m afraid it’s jammed shut.” Stanley vainly continued to attempt to pull it open.

  “It must have gotten damaged during that depthcharge attack,” offered the veteran weapons officer.

  Miriam Kromer overheard them.

  “Do you mean that we’re stuck up here?” she asked.

  Traveler briefly met her worried gaze. Then he looked to the open, aft access trunk. It invitingly beckoned on the sub’s foredeck. Doubting that they’d have the time to make it to shelter here, the SEAL reached out instead for the intercom. His voice was strained ashe instructed the quartermaster to patch him directly into the forward torpedo room. Once this connection was made, he firmly addressed the handset’s transmitter.

  “Cajun, sixty-second drill! We’ve got an airborne bandit coming down at us out of the sun, and if you ever want to see that beloved bayou of yours again, you’re going to have to bethe one to take it out!”

  Warlock acknowledged receipt of this frantic message, and then Traveler turned his glance back to the eastern sky. He could clearly see the approaching plane now, could hear the distant roar of its engine.

  “What was that call all about. Traveler?” Miriam stood right beside the commando, her eyes also locked on the diving Zero.

  The SEAL replied as calmly as possible.

  “When I left Cajun, he was in the process of field-stripping his weapon. I instructed him to reassemble it, and with a little good luck, that plane up there will soon be history.”

  “But how in the world can you take out a plane with a mere rifle?” she asked.

  Traveler coolly grinned.

  “Hey, Doc, have you already forgotten who you’re dealin’ with here?”

  Standing at Traveler’s other side. Bill Brown peered up into the eastern sky in utter disbelief.

  “That son of a bitch is really coming straight for us! What kind of fool would even think of doing such a thing?”

  “Have a look and see for yourself,” suggested Chris Slaughter ashe handed the veteran his binoculars.

  Bill Brown had to readjust the focus before he could get the fuselage of the Zero into clear view.

  Seated beneath its canopy was a single, elderly pilot with long, shoulder-length silver hair and a tapering, Fu Manchu-style mustache. Brown’s thoughts flashed back to the photograph Henry Walker had shown him, and he knew without a doubt that the kamikaze was none other than Dr. Yukio Ishii.

  Just as this startling realization dawned in Bill Brown’s consciousness, Cajun popped out of the forward access trunk. The Louisiana-bred SEAL was the perfect picture of coolness ashe sighted his target and then balanced the long barrel of his rifle against the lip of the open hatch, calmly peering into the scope.

  The Zero was less than six hundred yards away from the Bokken when a single 7.62mm shell exploded from the. Heckler and Koch’s black barrel.

  With an car-shattering crack, this armor-piercing round instantly went supersonic. As it tore into the Zero’s 14-cylinder radial engine, the fuel pump shattered into a shower of red-hot fragments that immediately ignited the volatile petroleum fumes, and the entire engine subsequently blew apart, tearing open the wing-mounted fuel tanks and causing the aircraft to disintegrate in a blinding ball of fire.

  The great heat created by this explosion could be felt even on the sub’s sail, and its occupants were forced to duck for cover to escape the shower of smoking debris that rained from the sky. The bulk of this wreckage fell harmlessly into the sea, and as the last torn piece of metal clattered onto the deck, Traveler rose and called out, “Way to go, Cajun! SEAL Team Three strikes again!”

  Yet before the rest of the sail’s occupants could join in the celebration, the intercom crackled to life.

  “Captain, radar shows another airborne contact approaching on bearing one-eight-zero.” It was the voice of Ray Morales.

  “Now what?” asked Miriam as she looked disgustedly into the southern sky.

  “Relax, Doc,” advised Bill Brown, who scanned the sky with his binoculars.

  “This is one of ours.”

  The veteran’s observation proved true as alone Sikorsky Seahawk helicopter came into view. The shiny white chopper swooped in low from the south and completely circled the Bokken before hovering directly above it. The chopping roar of its twin turboshaft engines reached an almost deafening pitch as the Seahawk descended to a mere 100 feet above the sub’s sail.

  “Dr. Miriam Kromer?” The powerfully amplified voice came from the chopper’s open fuselage door.

  The toxicologist appeared genuinely puzzled as she spotted the helmeted individual responsible for this query. She waved a hand overhead to identify herself, then listened carefully as the Seahawk’s air tactical officer once more spoke into his megaphone.

  “Dr. Kromer, we’ve been ordered to transfer you back to the Enterprise at once. There’s been an explosion at a pharmaceutical plant in Vladivostok, and the Russians have asked for your help in containing the damage. Air transport to the mainland awaits you on the carrier.”

  Speechless, Miriam Kromer watched as the chopper began dropping a cable-mounted transfer sling.

  “You certainly earn that paycheck of yours,” remarked Bill Brown ashe caught the harness and then began securing it around her.

  “We’re sure gonna miss that pretty face of yours,” said Stanley Roth. He checked to be sure the harness fit tightly beneath Miriam’s shoulders.

  Chris Slaughter also double-checked the harness’s fit before giving the chopper’s ATO a thumbs-up.

  “Thanks again. Doctor,” he said.

  As the cable tightened, the stunned toxicologist struggled to find words to express her feelings.

  “It was areal pleasure working with each one of you,” she got out. Then her goodbye was cut short as the chopper’s winch began lifting her skyward. She w
as soon dangling high above the sail, and as she peered downward. Traveler issued her a crisp salute and loudly shouted.

  “Don’t forget to keep your cool, Doc. See ya’ round!”

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