Crush Depth cjf-3

by Joe Buff

  Satisfied enough, and annoyed by Van Gelder's caution, ter Horst ordered top quiet speed — thirty knots. His course was east, parallel to and halfway between the SOSUS and the diesel subs. For now, he'd hide as much as possible in gentle folds in the rolling bottom terrain.

  All eight torpedo tubes held weapons with tactical atomic warheads. Ter Horst and Van Gelder entered their secret arming codes. They turned their special keys. On Van Gelder's weapons status display, eight warheads showed PRE-ENABLED.

  Simultaneously, on Challenger

  Jeffrey watched on his displays as Challenger snuck bebind the first sea mount.

  "Ordered way point reached, sir:' Sessions said from the navigation plot.

  "Very well, Navigator." The huge bulk of the sea mount ought to screen Challenger from Voortrekker, wherever ter Horst might be, and also block the sounds of Challenger's hull popping on the way down.

  Now comes the fun part.

  "Chief of the Watch, retract the towed array."

  "Retract the towed array, aye," COB said.

  Full retraction of the long array took several minutes. As crucial as the time factor was, Jeffrey made himself be patient. From here, given his next intended maneuvers, dangling a towed array bebind the ship would be a handicap.

  "Chief of the Watch, rig for deep submergence." COB acknowledged again. "Helm, rig for nap-of-sea-floor cruise mode."

  "Nap of sea floor, aye:' Meltzer said. He flipped switches and typed on keys, and some of his displays showed the outside world in a different, more visual and intimate way.

  "Helm, ahead one-third, make turns for six knots. Take us to the bottom, thirty degrees down bubble:' Again Meltzer acknowledged. Challenger's bow nosed steeply down.

  Everyone held on tight. No matter which way you sat, or what you gripped while standing, a thirty-degree down bubble was extreme. The crew became more reserved, as they thought of the test that Jeffrey would subject them to in the next few minutes. The test for them was staying focused and calm, as Jeffrey put Challenger through the ultimate test — a dive past official crush depth.

  As they approached ten thousand feet, the hull began to protest. Kathy's people reported the hull pops each time. Eventually, the hull was so compressed from all sides that the deck in the control room started to warp. The crew grew even more quiet and cautious in their movements. This warping — this close, hard contact of structural members — was a danger sign that some of the ship's sound-isolation gear was no longer effective.

  Jeffrey kept an eye glued to a depth gauge. He ordered Meltzer to come ro a milder five-degree down bubble, to reduce the rate of descent now that they'd exceeded Challenger's test depth. He also had Meltzer cut ship's speed to three knots.

  Minute by minute, gradually, the ship went even deeper. Crewmen held their breaths.

  COB kept one hand poised by the emergency blow handles, just in case. Jeffrey pretended not to notice. Silently he urged his ship to hold together. He. fought down his own concerns, but they fought back psychosomatically. He felt a stabbing ache in his thigh, and his forehead was sore despite the corpsman's shot.

  Jeffrey studied the topography around him on the gravimeter display, to judge his progress through the terrain. The imagery was vivid and three-dimensional and sharp.

  The sea-mount slopes, above him now, were jagged and very steep. Their peaks loomed high over Challenger like mountains six thousand feet tall. The deep-sea-basin floor, just beneath Challenger; was mostly flat and smooth and fell off at a shallower angle.

  Jeffrey had Meltzer turn south and hug the bottom — it was here that a towed array would tangle and drag. With Meltzer at the controls, his broad chest puffed out confidently, Challenger moved slowly toward the hollow in the ocean floor, the sinkhole.

  On the way down to fifteen thousand feet, as the hull compressed even more, bits of heat insulation and paint chips crumbled and fell from the overhead. Crewmen squirmed.

  Jeffrey, with a blitheness he didn't feel inside, brushed the dust — Ilke dandruff — off the shoulders of his khaki uniform shirt.

  At sixteen thousand feet, water suddenly sprayed from a ruptured pipe in a forward corridor.

  Crewmen gasped, but Jeffrey calmed them. He knew at once it was only internal cooling water, not the sea at outside pressure — a pipe joint failed from the flexing as components within the ship were squashed.

  The sea itself wouldn't spray. It would roar in with a force past human comprehension, like being fired at pointblank by artillery howitzers.

  COB quickly bypassed the broken section of pipe.

  Through all this Wilson didn't say a thing. He didn't move a muscle, or even blink. He knew as well as Jeffrey did that — caught badly off-balance by Voortrekker's sudden appearance this far north — Challenger very much needed both stealth and surprise. Jeffrey had convinced Wilson that this sinkhole sniper's nest was the ideal, the necessary point to lay an ambush.

  Jeffrey dearly hoped now he was right in trying this. If he was wrong, death by hull implosion would be painful but swift, with little time for remonstrance.

  Jeffrey made brief eye contact with Wilson, then had to look away. He was as concerned that he might disappoint his commodore as he was that he might sink his ship through such aggressive risk taking. Wilson had that effect on Jeffrey. His disapproval sometimes seemed more fearsome than death itself.

  But Challenger held up. Jeffrey gave a silent cheer for the design engineers, the contractors, the skilled workmen and — women, everybody who" built the ship and helped repair her. The control-room crew glanced at each other and nodded and grinned. They were proud of their ship, and she hadn't let them down once yet. They were also proud of their captain, however far out on the envelope he so often made them go. Jeffrey smiled to himself. This was exactly the attitude he wanted them to have right now.

  It's time to put in place the sonar search plan.

  Jeffrey ordered Meltzer to turn the ship due west and hover motionless. Challenger's powerful bow sphere was aimed directly down Voortrekker's route of advance. Using the side-mounted wide-aperture arrays, Kathy's people would do other passive sonar scans as well. The wide arrays looked out and up toward either flank of the ship, to the approach slopes and the near side of the first sea mount to the north, and the second to Challenger's south.

  The sonarmen would listen for Voortrekker's flow noise, and for tonals from her machinery and electrical power supplies. They would also listen on ambient sonar, for echoes off Voortrekker's hull from crashing surface waves and other ocean sounds. They would watch for a hole in the ocean too, a moving spot in the water that was too quiet — something large, blocking background noises from farther away, something that down here could only be the Boer ceramic-hulled sub.

  Deep-capable nuclear torpedoes were loaded in all four working tubes. Jeffrey and Bell armed the warheads.

  Now there was nothing to do but wait. Wait for Voortrekker to come and give herself away. Wait for Jan ter Horst to make a mistake.

  Forty minutes later on Challenger

  Jeffrey sat at the command console. He finished chomping a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to give himself energy. He washed it down with coffee to keep himself alert.

  His eyes roamed over his console displays. On the gravimeter, the two sea-mounr pinnacles towered, several miles away on either side of Challenger. On the tactical plot, the Australian diesel subs stretched in a line toward now-distant Chatham Island. Their pings were clearly detected by Challenger's sonar signal processors — but at this long range, on the speakers, only the closest one was barely audible even to Jeffrey's trained ears. Antisubmarine aircraft continued patrolling, but none came in the neighborhood of Jeffrey's ship. Voortrekker's location Jeffrey could only guess at.

  Jeffrey settled in for a long wait. This was a part of undersea combat he always found difficult — the waiting — even in the New London attack simulator, or in training exercises at sea before the war. The adversary could show up in the next f
ive seconds, or he might not be detected for hours. It called for all of Jeffrey's self-control, self-discipline, and patience.

  Jeffrey did not especially like the present situation. The sudden appearance of Voortrekker on the wrong side of two SOSUS lines disrupted the whole strategic picture.

  The Collins boats were supposed to be vectored toward Voortrekker by the SOSUS, with plenty of notice in advance. They were supposed to form a scouting line, and act as bait, while Challenger secretly lurked in the deep to make the actual kill against ter Horst.

  Now, caught out of position, the diesels could do little but form a conspicuous barrier — though granted a very potent one, with two dozen working torpedo tubes between them, all armed with nuclear fish. Instead, Challenger herself was the bait, the lure for Voortrekker, now that ter Horst had learned — through Van Gelder's spotting Ilse — that lenger was somewhere in the area, not in dry dock.

  The outcome of this surprise encounter battle hinged on rer Horst not guessing where Jeffrey was hiding, down in this sea-floor sinkhole. The existence of the sinkhole was an accident of local geology. Jeffrey wondered what he — and Wilson-would have done if the sinkhole weren't here. Jeffrey planned, once conract with Voortrekker was made, to let ter Horst go by. Then he'd fire a pair of nuclear fish straight up the bastard's ass.

  Wilson returned from using the head.

  "Anything, Caprain?"

  "Nothing, Commodore."

  Wilson grunted.

  A distant blast rocked the ship.

  "Loud explosion bearing three iwo zero," Kathy reported. Northwest "Range eighty thousand yards." Forty miles.

  "What was it?" Jeffrey demanded. He had a terrible feeling in his gut.

  "Noise spectrum matches Axis atomic torpedo warhead, Captain?'

  "Sir," Bell said, very worried, "that blast coincides with the easternmost Collins-class boat." The intercom light from the communications room blinked. Bell answered, listened, hung up, then turned to Jeffrey. "Confirmed, Captain. Acoustic message fragment received, saying they were under attack, then nothing?'

  Damn. Ter Horst outsmarted me after all.

  "Any counferfire, XO?" The Collins should've had time to shoot back.

  There were three more sharp eruptions, same bearing and range. Kathy said they were Axis warheads set on highest yield, one kiloton. Their reverb thundered and roared.

  So there was counterfire, but it was all ter Horst's, to smash the Australian torpedoes aimed his way.

  "He found the seam in our forces," Wilson stated. "Between us and the closest diesel boat?'

  "You mean he realized we were here, in the sinkhole?'

  Wilson nodded. He looked disgusted. "He'll charge northeast now, after the Stennis. He's opened himself the shortest possible route:'

  "We have to go after him, Commodore?'

  "Concur."

  Jeffrey told Meltzer to, make flank speed, on. a course northeast. Jeffrey decided to stay near the bottom, because that's what Jan ter Horst would do.

  "Get off a warning: " Wilson ordered. "Voortrekker has supersonic antiship cruise missiles?'

  Bell handled the details for Jeffrey. A small autonomous radio buoy, with preprogrammed text in code, was released toward the surface.

  Wilson looked at the tactical plot. Challenger kept accelerating, then began to vibrate as she neared flank speed. "Good," Wilson said. "With Stennis alerted, and us on his tail, we have Voortrekker in a pincers?'

  Jeffrey studied the plot. He wished Ilse was here, to help him read Jan ter Horst's mind.

  Jeffrey ran through what he knew of ter Horst, the way he'd fought last time they'd met.

  "Helm, all stop!"

  Meltzer acknowledged. He sounded startled by the order.

  "Just what are you doing?" Wilson said to Jeffrey. He shot him another of those piercing looks over the top of his glasses.

  "I'm not sure yet," Jeffrey stated. "But I am sure what I'm not doing. I'm not going to do what ter Horst expects?' "Explain yourself?'

  "You said it already, Commodore. Sir, the pincers. We're his greatest threat, and his highest-value target. Challenger; not Stennis. He can't afford to leave us in his rear… So he's not running after the carrier. He just wants us to think he is. He's hem." Jeffrey pointed at the plot. "Hiding bebind the first sea mount, on the opposite side from us.

  Waiting for us to come rushing past, preoccupied and practically sonar blind at flank speed."

  "You mean it's a trap?"

  "I believe so. He's a devious bugger." Jeffrey ordered Meltzer to head due north, right at the first sea mount, at twenty-six knots — half as fast as flank speed, but infinitely quieter.

  "You realize if you're wrong," Wilson said, "you're giving Voortrekker such a head start that we'll never catch up. If he can sink the Stennis, and he leaves us in the dust.

  "I know, Commodore. I know. I don't think I'm wrong."

  "Captain," Bell interrupted, "if we meet Voortrekker head-on, coming around the sea mount at short range, we'll be outgunned two to one. We can't possibly win the engagement?'

  "I know, XO. I know?'

  Simultaneously on Chatham Island

  Ilse sat in the Osprey, working her communications gear. She finished processing the latest round of oceanographic data from the sensors attached to the microphone line strung out into deep water. She started using that data to reoptimize the relay of reports from Sydney down into the sea, for use by Challenger and the Collins boats.

  Meanwhile, in the bunker in the rock outcropping, the tritium-boosted bomb's timer was winding down. Shajo Clayton still carefully used his gamma ray spectrometer, taking readings from every angle and side, to try to gain some insight into the powerful weapon' s design.

  The weapon's very existence was deeply troubling to Ilse. The Axis had publicly sworn off building hydrogen bombs, to shrewdly pull the teeth from the Allies' thermonuclear arsenal: The Germans and Boers were sticking to tactical atomic weapons only, used almost exclusively at sea. The Allies thus dared not launch their H-bombs against the Axis, for fear of slaughtering millions of innocents in Europe and Africa — which would also outrage the world and risk catastrophic responses from Russia and China.

  But now, the use of a tritium boost to a fission weapon on land was a worrisome step toward escalation. The bomb on Chatham Island fell in the gray area between a straightforward uranium or plutonium warhead, coaxing out at two dozen kilotons, and a true sustained-fusion hydrogen bomb, which could yield many megatons.

  The danger, the implications, were almost too large to contemplate. The blast would make the Axis look reckless and ruthless, but Ilse suspected this was the Axis regime's whole idea. How neutral countries reacted still had to be seen — they might well be impressed or intimidated. The mushroom cloud here would make the U.S. seem weak, lacking both in military initiative and adequate global resources to ever beat the Axis back from their already-huge territorial gains. In some ways it was like World War II, except with no Allied successes to boast of at a Midway or an El Alamein or a Stalingrad.

  The explosion on Chatham Island would surely be destabilizing — and further instability favored the enemy side.

  Ilse forced her mind back to little things she might control. To think too much, right now, was a sure route to panic or insanity.

  In a window on her screen, she displayed the raw data coming from the SOSUS line.

  Suddenly the signal went wild. From working with Kathy Milgrom on Challenger in battle, Ilse knew the signature of a distant underwater atomic blast. It looked like a big one too, so it had to be Axis — Allied torpedoes used smaller maximum yields.

  The Sydney SOSUS center immediately confirmed her take. She typed fast, to send a report to the Australian subs, who'd surely detected the blast on their sonars already. It took some time to- hear back. Their response had to be repeated, then pieced together from fragments, because of distorting re-verb from the blast and then three others which followed.

  The answer
ing message said contact had been lost with the farthest Collins boat in the line, after it barely had a chance to say it was being attacked.

  A vital section of the chain — the acoustic link between Chatham Island and Challenger — was severed.

  Sydney was extracting useful data from the SOSUS. They heard enemy torpedo-engine noises and fleeting whiffs of Voortrekker at flank speed. They gave an estimate of ter Horst's course before he disappeared into the bubble clouds of the undersea nuclear blasts. Voortrekker was last heard heading northeast, past the first sea mount and toward the distant Stennis.

  But Ilse had no way to warn Challenger now. The gap between the third Australian sub, the last in the line that survived, and Challenger was too large for the acoustic link to function, even if the roiling bubble clouds didn't intervene. And the Collins boats were much too slow and too far away to help.

  Jeffrey and his crew were on their own.

  Ilse looked at her wristwatch. She badly wanted to leave the island now. The Osprey pilot queried via satellite.

  Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet told them to stay exactly where they were and keep working. Another Osprey came over from the airstrip. It landed next to Ilse's, then just sat there.

  On Challenger

  Jeffrey stared at the gravimeter. The first sea mount was very close. Its vast bulk reared almost a mile above him as Challenger followed the ocean floor at twenty-six knots. The mood in the control room was concerned and apprehensive.

  "Either stop, or change course:' Wilson said. "You can't drive through the mountain:'

  Jeffrey almost wished he could, or could at least see through solid rock. The gravimeter could do precisely that, since matter was transparent to. gravity. But as long as an enemy sub kept moving at all, the mass of its hull and reactor shielding would go undetected by the gravimeter's computer methodology.

  There was no positive proof, and Jeffrey could be horribly wrong, but he simply had to play his hunch: he was firmly convinced ter Horst was somewhere right on the other side of this undersea extinct volcano, waiting for him.