by Joe Buff
Jeffrey sat up straighter. Exactly where he'd expected all along, to the south. Challenger's relentless dead-on approach found Voortrekker in her place of concealment. Jeffrey nodded to himself. This was where ter Horst and Van Gelder had hoped to lay their ambush, while Jeffrey passed to either flank, looking for them somewhere else.
"Captain," Bell said, "we have an adequate firing solution. Advise target is too close to own ship for safe use of atomic warheads."
Also exactly as Jeffrey expected, and intended. If it was too close for Jeffrey, it was also too close for Voortrekker, without them taking fatal self-damage. Jeffrey knew he was gambling on the enemy's drive to outlive him, if just for a while, gambling on their instinct to put off their own deaths to the last. Jeffrey told himself this was the right time and place for a gamble, and to him the odds looked good. Besides, the gamble was necessary.
"Maintain course and speed."
It's now or never. If Voortrekker can hit back at me badly enough, the whole show's over.
Jeffrey gave firing orders. "Match sonar bearings, and shoot."
One after another, four ADCAPs leapt into the water and dashed at Voortrekker. Jeffrey inStantly told Bell to reload tubes one and three with more ADCAPs.
Voortrekker tried to return the fire, but her sonar or other systems must have been damaged in the earlier nuclear Skirmish under the ice. The weapons she launched, also high-explosive warheads — Series 65s — rushed through the sea in the wrong directions.
The wires to Jeffrey's ADCAPs broke.
Torpedoes began to detonate. The effectS were gentler than last time, with yields measured in hundreds of pounds of TNT instead of hundreds of tons. Even so, the noise and buffeting were vicious. Crewmen and consoles jostled and shook. Each blast was like a whang or a vroom that hit sharply, then echoed from everywhere. The control room felt like a house caught in a cluster of earthquake tremors: sudden, scary vibrations came through the deck, and any objects hung or suspended swayed to and fro, out of synch. As much as Jeffrey had expected all this, the powerful sensory overload was something he never could get used to.
Kathy and Ilse struggled to clean up the signals and make sense of what was happening. They relayed their data to Bell.
"Hits on Voortrekker!" Bell shouted. "Definite hits on Voortrekker!"
"Sounds of emergency main ballast blow!" Kathy yelled. "Heavy flooding sounds on Voortrekker!"
Jeffrey listened to the sounds on the sonar speakers. They were atrociously unsettling, and grated on his nerves. He knew a submarine never died gracefully.
So it wasn't a fast-paced final running shoot-out after all. It was more a wearing-down in stages, of material damage to vessels and of emotional damage to crews, and we won it by a nose. In the end, both ships stood their ground and fired one salvo, and Voortrekker ' s missed.
Still, something deep in Jeffrey wasn't satisfied. "Launch an off-board probe:' he ordered.
"I want to make perfectly sure."
Ten minutes later
Jeffrey stared at the imagery from his probe. "I think it's a trick. That's only their wrecked minisub." Jeffrey handed control of the probe to COB. Jeffrey shivered when the probe showed a limbless torso float by. But COB found no other wreckage.
Bell grimaced. "That's the same decoy strategy we just pulled!" Voortrekker was still alive somewhere.
Jeffrey's adrenaline poured on the coals, and his heart began to race. Any moment Kathy would call more torpedoes in the water, and Jeffrey was sure the new 65s wouldn't miss.
But the faster Jeffrey fled the scene, the more he'd be sonar blind and the more fire-control data he'd give to Voortrekker.
Face it, buddy, you walked right into the pit trap, con-
gratulating yourself along the way. It hurts now, doesn't it?
It was unbearable to sit there feeling so exposed. The enemy could be anywhere, and it could be fatal if Jeffrey sat still but fatal sooner if he ran.
I'm fully committed. Press on.
Jeffrey told Kathy to ping. The bow sphere emitted an eardrum-taxing screech. The sonarmen made out nothing like a moving submarine.
"What's that?" COB asked as he piloted the probe, still searching for clues.
"What?" Jeffrey said. "Where?"
"Sir," Ilse interrupted. "I'm getting something on chemosensors."
"Peroxide fuel from their minisub?'
"No. This reads like diesel oil."
"From her emergency diesel engine," Bell said. "That proves nothing, Captain. They could have pumped some overboard to fool us."
"I do see something," COB said.
"Put it on main screen," Jeffrey ordered.
There was a big dark shape in the gloom, barely picked up by the active cameras on the probe.
Bell's intercom light blinked. He answered; it was the torpedo room. "Captain, those modified ADCAPs are as ready as they'll ever be."
"Load them in tubes five and seven."
Bell acknowledged.
Jeffrey studied COB's imagery. "Chief of the Watch, send the probe in closer. Raise laser line-scan power to maximum."
The big dark shape was Voortrekker, the real Voortrekker, with over a hundred men confined inside. Jeffrey's initial reaction was not to rejoice, but to feel a sharp pain in his gut. It was impossible for him to see an undersea warship mortally wounded without on some level sharing her distress. Jeffrey felt a flash of anxiety and awkwardness at the sight, even though the vessel and her crew were enemy.
Voortrekker had come to rest at a very steep angle, with her stem down in the bottom muck and her bow against the underside of the shelf. A black cloud billowed near her middle, like squid ink. It floated up and pooled under the ice. Diesel oil.
On the sonar speakers, Jeffrey heard a steady roar: seawater flooding a submarine's punctured hull. As he watched and listened, there were more roaring and gurgling sounds. Voortrekker's bow lost the last of its positive buoyancy, and the hulk settled on the bottom with a grinding thud.
Simultaneously, on Voortrekker
The control room was intensely quiet. Van Gelder thought it remarkable — and not in a nice way — to be sitting still with the deck so steeply tilted. The front of the compartment was higher than his eye level, and he was glad for the support of his seat back and headrest. Crewmen who had to stand, or sat facing sideways, braced themselves as best they could. Now and then, Van Gelder felt slight motion, and heard gentle grinding from forward — from above, really — as bottom currents or lingering blast effects tugged at the ship, while her broken nose pressed up against the bottom of the shelf.
It was dark in the control room, and dank, and cold, and getting colder. Van Gelder was soon able to see his breath in the harsh light cast by battery-powered battle lanterns. Inside his shoes, his toes froze. His hands, exposed, were half-numb lumps of ice. Van Gelder had to fight the urge to stamp his feet to stay warm. He waited, chilled in every way, for reports.
"We're getting laser scattering from a line-scan camera now," the chief of the watch said in an undertone.
"They've sent a probe to check us out," Van Gelder whispered, "the same way we did to them before. They found the wreck of our minisub, and thought it was a trick."
Ter Horst smiled weakly. "It was, Gunther, but thanks to you not the sort of trick they think. That was very clever, to launch your Sixty-fives in the wrong direction on purpose, as if we tried to aim at Challenger but missed."
Van Gelder also fired one of his own Series 65s, with its warhead charge cut to a third, at his own minisub, while the mini's sonars emitted a noise signature like the mother ship.
This was to emulate the sounds of an ADCAP hitting Voortrekker-a critical part of Van Gelder's deception plan.
Now, Voortrekker herself played dead in plain sight. Within the hull, with no heat because the reactor was scrammed, it was literally as cold as a crypt. Van Gelder thought the analogy was apt.
Van Gelder was letting Fuller think Voortrekker's minisub decoy failed,
and one or more of Challenger's weapons impacted with the real target — which was precisely what Fuller would want to believe. The first trick, the obvious one with the mini, was a mental sleight of hand, meant to make this Fuller believe the second trick was real.
I killed Bauer and his divers so that Voortrekker could live. God forgive me, but Fuller did the same to one of his crew.
Van Gelder saw men near him put their hands under their armpits. Some of them shivered. But their discomfort was unavoidable.
Minutes before, while high-explosive torpedo warheads exploded near and far, Van Gelder had put his plan in full effect. He'd blown the stern main ballast tanks with noisy hydrazine, to make sure Challenger heard, and blew the bow tanks using compressed air.
This was to make it seem as if Voortrekker had tried to save herself, by a reflexive crew response that was useless here — deep under the ice shelf, an emergency blow did no good. Van Gelder quickly vented the stern tanks, to imitate the sound of air escaping a broken hull; he permitted enough seawater to refill the tanks from below to make Voortrekker's stern sink to the bottom. With her forward ballast tanks remaining blown, the ship stayed light at the bow.
Van Gelder sent steady flooding noises, invented by
Voortrekker's signal processors, through the active wide arrays. He scrammed the reactor for quieting, after rigging the ship for reduced electrical, getting by on the battery banks alone. As the last warheads detonated, by remote control he'd fired the charges planted by Bauer's divers — for the visual effect.
"Increasing laser line-scan strength," the chief of the watch reported. "Enemy probe moving closer."
Again, Van Gelder waited. As unobtrusively as he could, he rubbed his hands slowly back and forth along his thighs. The warmth of the friction, the movement, helped restore some circulation. He was afraid that when he needed to work his keyboard or his touch screens, his achingly icy fingers wouldn't respond.
"Probe still moving closer, sir."
"Now, Gunther," ter Horst whispered. "Let them think we're going down by progressive flooding. We'll fool them better if it happens while they witness it, so they see what they desire to see."
Van Gelder shivered, in a different manner. The eerie way ter Horst's breath condensed in the cold as he spoke, the odd way stray shaftS of light from the battle lanterns played across ter Horst's conflicted face, and the splashes of red from the console displays, made Van Gelder think his captain looked like a vampire.
But ter Horst was right. It was time. Van Gelder cleared his throat. "Chief of the Watch, vent all forward ballast tanks."
"No, Gunther, don't vent them. They'll spot the bubbles with the probe, and know we're still under control. Bring the air back into the ship." Ter Horst sounded subdued and spoke more slowly than usual, as if he were slightly dazed or depressed and couldn't shake it off. The effect on Van Gelder was very disturbing.
Van Gelder gave the order. His eardrums hurt as the internal air pressure rose.
Voortrekker, with negative buoyancy now, began to subside toward an even keel, as her bow fell to the sea floor. It hit with a satisfying crash.
On Challenger
"Look at that, Captain," Bell said as he examined the probe picture of Voortrekker on the bottom. "Her whole bow's been blown off. The Sonar dome is gone. The bow sphere is completely gone."
"You're right," Jeffrey said. "We really hit her good."
"Should I launch the modified torpedoes now?" Bell glanced nervously at the red countdown timer. There was little more than an hour until the hydrogen bombs would drop.
"Not yet. I want to make absolutely sure?'
"Sir" Bell said, "I think she's really sunk. Look at her." Jeffrey shook his head. He was suspicious. Voortrekker should have put up a much harder fight.
Unless… Unless there was a reason they didn't put up a harder fight.
On Voortrekker
Now Voortrekker sat on the bottom, down slightly at the bow and listing a few degrees to starboard. The control room continued growing colder, as the whole ship was chilled by the polar seas in which she was immersed. Though the bow sphere was gone, Voortrekker still had some forward coverage from sonars on the conning tower.
"The enemy probe is coming closer again," the chief of the watch reported quietly.
"Four port-side torpedo tubes still functional," the weapons officer said. In nuclear submarines, the tubes were aft of the sonar bow sphere, and tilted outward from the torpedo room — so weapons would clear the Sphere, which was outside the main pressure hull.
"Use tubes two and four," ter Horst mumbled. "There'll be less mud, higher, higher up the hull."
Van Gelder nodded. "I intend to fire as soon as we get a good launch transient from Challenger" Voortrekker's hull arrays were all in working order.
"Two torpedoes in the water," the sonar chief said. "ADCAP engine sounds." The report electrified everyone in the compartment.
Van Gelder's chest tightened. Very soon he'd know if his whole intricate plan would succeed or fail. If he did fool Fuller, and then sank Challenger, and the hydrogen bombs didn't fall, Voortrekker would limp back to South Africa, steaming the whole distance in reverse.
Everything depended on what these two ADCAPs did. Would they rush for the edge of the ice shelf, almost a hundred miles away, with a message saying Fuller had triumphed? Or would they rush at Voortrekker, to finish her once and for all, if Fuller had pierced every veil of Van Gelder's ploy?
Van Gelder waited, impatient yet dreading to know what the ADCAPs did. He prayed they headed due north.
"Enemy torpedoes are inbound!" the sonar chief screamed.
Van Gelder's heart sank. He thought of how best to defend his ship, of how to fight back. His mind flashed to all the awful things he'd helped do in this war, out of a mis-guided sense of patriotism and honor. He thought again of ter Horst's vision, of hundreds of manmade suns shining harshly on Antarctica. Those suns might set the world on fire.
"Challenger has gone to flank speed!"
Van Gelder battled with himself. Antitorpedo rockets? Series 65s? Atomic Sea Lions?
Which should he use? What did it matter?
The tragedy of my life was to be a good man on the wrong side. I'll never know if Fuller' s trick to get out an all clear works. But soon I'll know if I'm bound for heaven or hell.
"Challenger withdrawing! Challenger is moving behind our stem!"
If I shoot at Challenger, I might or might not sink her
Even if I do sink Challenger, then Fuller won't get off his other ADCAPs, the special ones, and the shelf will be nuked for sure.
"Signal fading," the sonar chief shouted. "Challenger's signal now lost in our baffles!"
But the inbound torpedo engine sounds were very loud and close.
In the final clash of wills, Jeffrey Fuller came up with the winning ploy. He shattered my equilibrium with these two ADCAPs. Then he used my own hesitation, and my ship's in-ability to maneuver, against me. Now I don't know where he is, and I'm sure he'll launch more ADCAPs back there in my blind spot, where my antitorpedo rockets are useless.
"What are you planning next, Gunther?" ter Horst asked. There was such dependency and trust behind the question, it almost broke Van Gelder's heart.
There was only one choice left. A series of nuclear snap shots, around behind the stem — wild shots under the best of circumStances. In such obstructed terrain, with no towed array deployed, even that tactic would probably fail — and Jeffrey Fuller had to know it.
What does duty mean here? Which orders are legal or illegal now? Van Gelder decided not to shoot, to try to save Antarctica and maybe save the world. This meant far more than any chance of taking Fuller with him… Van Gelder closed his eyes. He pictured the natural, warm, embracing sun of his homeland far away, remembering wistfully the final time he basked at the Durban beach resort before this terrible war.
On Challenger
Jeffrey fired two more ADCAPs at Voortrekker's stationary
bottomed hull from behind the target's stem. He watched the live data feed through the weapon-guidance wires, and listened on the sonar speakers. His first two ADCAPs, their wires now snapped, continued to home on Voortrekker from off her bow — Challenger's bow sphere could hear them pinging.
At Jeffrey's orders, Bell also had two atomic Mark 88s poised in torpedo tubes one and three, armed and ready to fire just in case.
Both of Jeffrey's first two ADCAPs hit Voortrekker as she sat there, one forward and one aft of her reactor compartment. Jeffrey's second pair ran straight up Voortrekker's baffles, then struck against her sides.
The blasts were small but powerful. Above their aftershocks, Kathy reported heavy flooding noise. Here in the blind spot of Voortrekker's active wide-aperture arrays, the flooding sounds had to be real. The enemy's genuine death throes went on and on, crunching and cracking and thudding and groaning as bulkheads and internal equipment gave way.
So Voortrekker was playing possum after all. If I'd believed what ter Horst and Van Gelder wanted me to believe, and not fired at their ship, my all clear message would be on its way — and well-aimed Sea Lions fired in ambush could be punching through my hull. That's how close a thing it really was.
I'll never know why they didn't use antitorpedo rockets against my first two ADCAPs at least, or Sea Lions at the last moment. Were they out of the right type of ammo? Were their tubes all hampered by wreckage or mud?.
"Captain," Bell said. "We must launch the modified ADCAPs."
Bell's right. The game isn't over yet, by a long shot. "Tube five, shoot. Tube seven, shoot."
"Both units operating properly," Kathy reported. "Now we wait."
Challenger was in much too deep to ever get out from under the shelf in time. And with the terrible sonar conditions, from where Challenger was she had no way to send a signal that Voortrekker was destroyed.
Taking account of this from the beginning, Jeffrey had ordered Bell to alter two ADCAPs, removing their large explosive charges to put in extra fuel tanks instead, cannibalized from other weapons. With their onboard sonars programmed to ping the all clear code that Wilson and Jeffrey arranged in advance, the ice shelf might be saved.
