Terminal Run

by Michael Dimercurio

  Krivak, this unit cannot interface with you anymore.

  “One, what are you saying?” Krivak’s mind raced in fear. One Oh Seven was shutting down on him.

  This unit knows that certain things need to be done for ship safety. This unit knows we need to return to Grotonfor them to take out this unit. You be the judge of what things need to be done. This unit will do them for you. But this unit will not interface with you, and this unit will only do exactly what you instruct. Goodbye, Krivak.

  “One? One? Can you hear me?”

  There was no response. The unit had shut down, after its speech about doing what it was told. Krivak decided to give it an order to see what would happen.

  “One, rig in the port and starboard torpedoes and shut the bulkhead doors. Power down the torpedoes.”

  Krivak wasn’t sure how he knew the carbon processor had obeyed him. It was not that he felt or heard or saw. He simply knew. This mission was becoming very eerie, and he wanted it to end. He considered what he should do if One Oh Seven continued to obey him. He tried another order.

  “One, turn to the southwest and increase speed to flank.”

  At the very least, Krivak needed to get the Snare out of the area, since anyone realizing the Piranha had gone down would give the word to the American military, and they would be searching for the cause of the ship’s loss. It would not be good for the Snare to be here.

  In the same way he knew before, he knew the submarine’s

  speed had increased and their course had come around to the southwest.

  “Display a global map of the waters surrounding Africa and show our position.”

  In Krivak’s mind he could see the chart.

  “One, plot the most efficient course to take us to the Indian Ocean.”

  A line was generated on the chart from their position around the Cape of Good Hope and up the eastern coast of South Africa and into the Indian Ocean.

  “One, follow the southward course you just generated.”

  The ship changed course slightly.

  “One, increase reactor power to a hundred twenty percent.”

  In the same odd way knowledge had come into his mind before, he knew that One Oh Seven had received his message. The ship moved to his orders. Despite the odd way he was connected to the ship, it was almost like being the captain again. He didn’t prefer it this way—he’d rather stand on the deck and give verbal orders to human crewmen, but at least this had the advantage of efficiency.

  Now there was little to do but wait until they were outside the detection radius of anyone who had heard his attack on the Piranha, then come to periscope depth and establish radio contact with Admiral Chu. They had gotten lucky with the Piranha sinking, he thought. If they were fortunate, the next contact he would have with anyone would be in the Indian Ocean.

  18.

  Commander George Dixon sat at the end of the wardroom table feeling proud of himself. He was surrounded by his officers who were not on watch, half of them working through the remainder of the night on the patrol report reconstruction, playing back the history module tapes of the Cyclops battle control system and printing two-dimensional plots of the targets during key points of the action. The other half of the wardroom worked on a large plaque showing Red Chinese hulls, to commemorate the kills they’d made during the watch. Though it was still the middle of the night, Dixon had been unable to sleep from the tension of battle and the jittery aftermath. It was hard to believe that only an hour ago they’d heard the last torpedo impact one of the Red surface ships. Strangely, the Julang had never made an appearance. Perhaps the Red SSN had heard the carnage and run back north to warn the other battle groups or perhaps it was so broken down that it was still too far north to have made a difference.

  The sudden screaming announcement on the ship wide 1MC announcing circuit made Dixon spill half a cup of coffee on his thigh. “Snapshot tube one!” It was the officer of the deck making the emergency call that an enemy submarine had sneaked up on them, and that they were in immediate danger of being fired upon.

  Dixon dashed to the control room, finding Kingman hanging half out of a battle control cubicle. The call of snapshot automatically manned battle stations and watch standers were pouring into the room and donning headsets and virtual reality helmets.

  “What happened?” Dixon spat.

  “I cleared baffles and heard him to the south. We’ve got him on narrowband, but he suddenly came into broadband contact, so he’s barreling in on us, Captain. He’ll be in counter detection range in a matter of minutes, and we need to get a weapon down the bearing line.”

  “Very well, OOD,” Dixon said, trying to make his voice commanding and authoritative and calm, but not sure he’d succeeded.

  Dixon pulled on his battle control helmet and immediately ordered the system to display the battle space and the battle stations watch standers faces. The sonar chief looked up at his display and made a contact classification.

  “Conn, Sonar, narrowband sonar contact Sierra nine six now bears one seven eight and correlates to broadband trace on that same bearing, turn count is pending but screw is seven bladed. Contact is a definite submerged warship.”

  Commander Dixon had lowered his view to the antisubmarine domain, the inverted bowl with the incoming Julang-class SSN shown to the south. As yet their contact of the Julang was weak, and they only had a bearing to the intruder.

  “Cyclops, power up torpedoes in tubes one through four,” Dixon ordered, concentrating on the submerged firecontrol three-dimensional display. “Dive, all ahead one-third. Attention in the firecontrol party. We have a slight emergency. The Julang-class SSN—designated Target Three Zero—has crashed our party. We need to deal with him right now, because if he detects us he will either counterfire or blast to periscope depth and alert the second surface force, and both actions will ruin our day. My intention is to perform a rapid target-motion-analysis maneuver on him starting now, and maneuver across the line-of-sight and get a rough range, then

  shoot a snapshot Mark 58 at him selected to high-speed transit —”

  “Captain,” Phillips interrupted, “I recommend you launch a Vortex at the contact. It’ll be much faster, and the transit time to the target will be cut in a sixth. And we can clear datum by keeping the Vortex wake between us and the target and withdraw. Once he sinks, we can continue the Vortex battery launch.”

  Dixon was about to countermand her recommendation, but forced himself to think about what she was saying. The Vortex would be much quicker to the target, and its bubble-filled wake would blue-out the Julang’s sonar all along the bearings to the Vortex. He might have their launching position, but shooting it would be futile since Leopard would withdraw at full speed.

  “Attention in the firecontrol party. Correction, we will be launching Vortex unit one at Target Three Zero and charting our withdrawal to the east, keeping the Vortex wake between us and the target. Carry on. Weapons Officer, make Vortex tube one ready in all respects and open missile door. Coordinator, let’s call this a leg on the target and maneuver now across the line-of-sight. Dive, left full rudder, steady course west. Sonar, Captain, coming to the west to maneuver on Target Three Zero.”

  “Captain, Coordinator, possible target zig, Target Three Zero.” The firecontrol solution to the Julang had just blown up. He was maneuvering, throwing off their computations.

  “Conn, Sonar, Three Zero may be speeding up. We now have a faint turn count on him. Target Three Zero is making one five zero RPM on one seven-bladed screw.”

  “Sonar, Captain, can you call an aspect change?” Did he turn, Dixon wondered.

  “Conn, Sonar, no.”

  “Coordinator, confirm target zig. What’s he doing?”

  Phillips’s voice was calm. “He’s speeding up, Captain. Must have been doing a sprint-and-drift, and he’s got to speed back

  up to cover ground to expand his search for us. And since he sped up, we can assume he didn’t hear us.”

&nb
sp; “Coordinator, have you a new first leg on the target after his speed increase?”

  Phillips nodded her head inside her helmet, her dark eyes wide in the display window. “One more minute, then turn to the east, sir, but do the second leg at ten knots.”

  “I’ll give you eight, XO.” Dixon waited, the tension making him twitch inside his gloves.

  “Leg one complete, Captain.”

  “Dive, left full rudder, steady course east, all ahead two thirds, turns for eight knots. Sonar, Captain, coming left to zero nine zero for leg two.”

  The watch standers acknowledged and the ship turned to the east. Dixon waited, his teeth chattering from adrenaline. He clamped his jaw in annoyance.

  “Sir, steady course east, ship is making turns for eight knots,” the diving officer called.

  “Go, Coordinator,” Dixon said. “Get me a solution. Weps, check your Vortex status.”

  “Aye, Captain, Vortex is on internal power, signal wire continuity is on, waiting for a solution—”

  “Captain, Target Three Zero at range twenty-four thousand yards, bearing one seven eight, course zero one zero, speed two zero knots. We have a firing solution!”

  “Cyclops and firecontrol party, firing point procedures Vortex unit one, Target Three Zero,” Dixon shouted, realizing in detachment that his voice was too loud.

  “Ship ready,” Kingman said.

  “Weapon ready,” Taussig snapped.

  “Solution ready,” Phillips said.

  “Cyclops ready.”

  “Shoot on programmed bearing.”

  The deck jumped slightly as Vortex unit one left the vertical tube. The tube barked as the gas generator pumped out the weapon, but the sound was not nearly as violent as a torpedo launch. The Vortex’s first stage was a small torpedo-type

  propulsion unit to carry it safely away from its own ship before it fired the solid rocket fuel. After thirty seconds on torpedo propulsion, the first unit’s missile engine lit off. A loud crashing roar filled the control room as the rocket motor fired and the Vortex sped up to three hundred knots on its way to the Julang submarine.

  “Dive, all ahead flank and cavitate! Make your depth thirteen hundred feet smartly! Weps, make Vortex tube two ready in all respects with the exception of opening the missile door. Attention in the firecontrol party, be alert for a torpedo in the water from Target Three Zero, and be prepared for an emergency flank bell.”

  The deck tilted dramatically down to a thirty-five-degree angle as the diving officer put on full turns and pushed the bow planes to the full dive position. As their speed rose above forty knots the deck began its flank speed tremble.

  “Sonar, Captain, is the target masked by the Vortex wake?”

  “Conn, Sonar, yes.”

  Dixon took a deep breath. He’d shot at the Julang and run away. Now he’d find out what the Chinese were made of.

  “Command Post, Sonar, torpedo launch transient bearing south! I have a rocket motor ignition—supercavitating torpedo inbound, bearing zero zero eight!”

  Without conscious thought Lien Hua spit out a string of orders, his heart rate immediately tripling. “Engine ahead emergency! Thirty-degree up angle!” He grabbed his microphone and selected it to the ship wide announcing circuit and shouted into it: “Torpedo inbound! All hands man tactical stations!” By the time he’d gotten that out, the deck had inclined so far up that he could barely stand. He grabbed a hand hold and thought about the next step.

  There was only one thing he could do to fight an inbound supercavitating torpedo, particularly if it were an American one with a three-hundred-knot top speed, and that was to execute an emergency surface. If he could get the ship going fast enough, there was a small chance that he could actually

  make it jump out of the sea like a whale, and if the missile’s seeker only then found him, it would be confused by his sudden disappearance from the ocean. Even after the ship fell back in the water, the sea would be filled with bubbles and foam, and that might confuse the torpedo. And there was the possibility that the torpedo had a ceiling setting to keep it away from the surface effect, its three hundred knots causing a huge suction Bernouli effect near the ocean’s surface, which could cause it to shoot out of the sea or to become unstable and tumble, or perhaps just to keep it from becoming decoyed on a surface ship. But an emergency surface was dangerous, because the emergency de ballasting system explosives had a bad habit of blowing the ballast tanks open, and even penetrating the pressure hull. But Lien was coming to the realization that he had only seconds to live, and for some reason he decided that he didn’t want his spirit to leave his body when he was deep—heaven was too far away from here.

  He quickly pulled the protective cover off the panel, the cover marked with red and white diagonal stripes indicating an emergency system. The second protective bar covering the toggle switches was also colored red and white, and he pulled that aside to reach the four toggle switches beneath. There were two arming switches that would bring the circuits to the explosives to life, and two switches to detonate the explosives, one for the forward system and one for the aft. He flipped up both arming switches, waiting an eternity for the ARM light, knowing that it could only be a second, then flipped the forward toggle switch up. An explosion boomed through the command post from forward. He hit the aft switch, the explosion from it much more muted.

  “Emergency de ballasting to the surface,” he called on the ship wide microphone. The ship seemed to remain whole, so the detonations in the ballast tanks must not have breached the metal skin of the ship or of the tanks themselves.

  “Status of the Tsunami in tube six,” Lien barked.

  “Loaded, sir, but powered down and the tube is dry,” Zhou Ping replied.

  Lien tried to listen, as if he could hear the incoming supercavitating torpedo, but he knew that at three hundred knots, it would find the Nung Yahtsu long before a sound from the torpedo could be heard. They would all die in silence unless the emergency surfacing worked.

  Lien grabbed a hand hold bar on the command console and flipped to the weapon control panel as the deck rose to a forty five-degree angle.

  “Three hundred meters, sir,” the helm officer called. “Up angle is fifty degrees and I can’t keep it down.”

  “Silence in the command post,” Lien snapped as he worked his way through the weapon control software. In the seconds he had been working he had flooded tube six and applied weapon power, but he could do no more until the tube was fully flooded—so he could open the outer door—and the Tsunami was powered up with its gyro up to full revolutions, and that would take another sixty seconds. Lien blamed himself for not having it powered up once they’d started the search for the American sub, but then consoled himself that doing so would have been a violation of fleet standing orders. If they lived through the watch, they would always have a weapon powered up and a tube door opened, he thought.

  “On the surface, sir!” the helm officer called.

  The angle suddenly came off and the deck fell back down to a flat surface from its steep staircase angle.

  “Sinking back down, Captain, seventy meters, eighty, and rising back up, sir.”

  “Engines stop!” Lien commanded.

  “Engines stop, well received, Captain, and nuclear control answers, engines stop.”

  “Sir, should we stay surfaced? We can perhaps fool the torpedo, but on the surface, we’ve lost our stealth.”

  Lien made a dismissive sound in his throat. “We lost that some time ago, as the incoming torpedo can testify. No, Zhou,

  we will remain on the surface until this is over. It is too dangerous to be submerged until that damned torpedo gets lost. And even then, if we stay surfaced without motion, the enemy sub may not find us. He is undoubtedly below the layer. In case his sonar systems continue to listen on narrowband, we need to shut down the rotating machinery. Obviously we have a pump or a turbine or a generator that is sound shorted, and is giving us away. We’ll shut it all down, and kee
p battle control on the uninterruptible power supply.”

  Lien picked up his microphone and clicked the selector to nuclear control. “Engineroom, Captain, shut down the reactor and place the ship on battery power.”

  The voice of the chief engineer came through the speakers. “Captain, this is the chief engineer. Are you sure you want to do that?”

  “Shut it down, Chief.”

  Almost immediately the lights flickered and the air handlers stopped. The command post became much quieter, almost immediately becoming stuffy and humid. The extinguishing of the ship’s power source seemed sadder than the pending death of the vessel from the torpedo. It seemed as if the seconds had turned to hours and that the Tsunami would never warm up. The thought entered Lien’s mind that he might die standing here stupidly, from an enemy torpedo that had gone unanswered.

  Vortex Mod Echo missile number one had been nestled securely and warmly in its vertical launch tube, its power applied two minutes before. Its self-checks had all been satisfactory, and it reported back to the control room its perfection. The solution to the target came in from the signal wire port and became locked in to the processor. The processor signaled back to control that it had received the target. The control room informed the processor that launch was imminent, and the Vortex waited.

  At time zero the gas generator ignited, a small rocket engine aimed into a reservoir of distilled water, which erupted

  into a tremendous volume of high-pressure steam at the missile’s aft end. The pressure of the bottom of the tube rose until it bore the weight of the missile and far beyond, until without moving more than an inch, the missile was experiencing five g’s of acceleration. The tube began moving so fast around the missile that it seemed as if it were tumbling down a steel tunnel, leaving the envelope of the ship and entering the cold sea.

  As the aft end of the missile cleared the ship the missile’s first-stage propulsion ignited, a small torpedo motor with a combustion chamber piped to a B-end hydraulic motor. The escaping high-pressure exhaust gases made the motor spin against its swash plate, spinning the shaft up to a speed of five thousand RPM and beyond, and the thrust built up as the unit sped up to ten thousand revolutions per minute. As the engine thrust built up, it turned its nozzle to roll the missile from the vertical to the horizontal, then took it to a down angle. It continued to accelerate downward at thirty degrees, taking the missile to a depth a hundred feet deeper than the Leopard, then pulling the missile out of the dive and leveling off. After a final burst of acceleration, the first stage’s explosive bolts fired, and it fell away in the slipstream.