“Conn, Sonar, loss of contact! Target One has shut down, last bearing zero one eight.”
“Dammit,” Phillips mumbled. “What the hell happened?”
Phillips’s executive officer hurried into the room. Lt. Comdr. Roger Whatney, Royal Navy, was on exchange while an American was second-in-command of a Trafalgarclass sub, all part of a pilot program to bring the two English-speaking nuclear submarine navies into a closer cultural alignment, one of Pacino’s innovations since taking over the reorganized fleet. Whatney was short and slight enough to make Phillips look a giant. He was quick to smile, easy going, his enthusiasm a trademark.
Today, however, he looked deflated, haggard. He stood next to Phillips.
“Where the hell did he go. Coordinator?”
During battlestations Whatney would become the firecontrol coordinator, responsible to Phillips for the target’s firecontrol solution. For the duration of the battle Whatney would cease to be called “XO”—shorthand for executive officer and would be simply “Coordinator.”
“We lost the target, sir? Looks like he pulled the plug and went silent.”
“Here’s your headset. You look like crap.”
“Thanks, Captain. A close encounter with pneumonia.”
Phillips bent over the officer at the firecontrol console and spun the knobs set into the horizontal skirt of the panel. The lines on the display rotated and wiggled. “Coordinator, I’m thinking of putting a torpedo down the bearing line to his old position.”
“Sir, loss of contact was two minutes ago. At his range, he could drive off-track before the torpedo got there even if he didn’t hear it. And if he did, we’re done for.”
“Yeah, you’re right. Sonar, any detect?”
“Captain, Sonar, no.”
The room waited for the outbound Japanese sub to come closer, for him to get louder. Pacino watched the chronometer, thinking that he was probably going thirty-five knots at a range of sixty miles, with a detection range to the Destiny pessimistically at five miles, meaning it could be well over an hour before he got this far out. What would he do if he were in command. Drive in closer, he thought.
“Helm, left ten degrees rudder, steady course zero one eight, all ahead standard. Attention in the firecontrol team. We’ve lost Target One when he submerged. Present intentions are to get closer to him, get a quick detect, then drive off the bearing line to get a one-minute range, then fire a Mark 50 selected to immediate enable. After weapon launch we will clear datum to the south at flank and monitor the situation on the caboose array and the towed array endbeam. Carry on.”
Gutsy, Pacino thought. This would be interesting. The time on the chronometer unwound for ten minutes until sonar called on the headsets.
“Conn, Sonar, reacquisition Target One, bearing zero one one.”
“Helm, left three degrees rudder, steady course three zero zero. Commencing leg one when steady. Coordinator. You’ve got thirty seconds.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Sir, steady course three zero zero,” the helmsman called from the ship-control panel.
“Mark leg one, Coordinator.” Phillips tapped the soggy-ended cigar against his leg. Thirty seconds later the bearings were coming into the firecontrol screen and forming a rough line down the display.
“Got a curve, sir, recommend maneuver,” Whatney said.
“Helm, right ten degrees rudder, steady course east.”
Pacino waited, wondering how long it would be before the outbound Destiny heard them, wondering how long it would take a Japanese commander to put a torpedo in the water.
“Come on. Coordinator, you’ve got thirty seconds when steady.”
“Steady course east, sir.”
“Very well. Helm.” Phillips’s face seemed to be relaxing, lost in the situation, now seemingly unaware of Pacino’s observation.
“Weps, confirm torpedo settings tube one.” The weapons officer sat at the far right console, the panel replete with function keys and a large silver lever.
“Tube one, outer door open, weapon warm, immediate enable set, medium speed active snake—”
Whatney interrupted. “Gotta curve, Captain, and a firing solution, range seven thousand yards, target speed thirty knots, target course one nine zero. Recommend immediate launch.”
“Firing point procedures, tube one,” Phillips called.
“Ship ready,” the lieutenant next to Phillips reported.
“Weapon ready,” the weapons officer said.
“Solution ready,” from Whatney.
“Shoot on generated bearing,” Phillips commanded, shoving the cigar into his mouth.
“Set,” the officer at the middle firecontrol panel called, sending the target solution to the torpedo.
“Standby,” the weapons officer said from the weapons console, taking the large silver trigger all the way to the left.
“Shoot,” Phillips ordered.
“Fire!” the weapons officer said, his voice excited as he pulled the trigger to the far right.
Nothing happened. Pacino now realized what had been wrong when he had first walked into the room.
The crew around him seemed not to notice.
“Tube one fired electrically. Captain,” the weapons officer said.
“Unit one, normal launch,” sonar reported. “Unit is active.”
“Let’s get out of here, Coordinator. Sonar, prepare to monitor the caboose array, we’re putting the target in the baffles. Helm, all ahead flank, right ten degrees rudder, steady course south.”
Pacino waited for the deck to tremble from the power of the main engines running at flank speed, but the deck was whisper-quiet.
“Sonar, Captain, what have you got on the caboose array?”
“Captain, own ship’s unit is still in search mode. We no longer hold Target One on the caboose array. He’s also dipping below threshold on the towed array endbeam. Loss of contact. Target One.”
Phillips and Whatney shared a dour look. There was nothing now for them to do but get away from the Destiny and hope the torpedo hit him before he realized what had happened.
“Conn, Sonar, torpedo in the water! Rough bearing one two zero.”
Pacino felt the acid hit his stomach. The Destiny had just fired a torpedo, a large-bore Nagasaki Mod Alpha.
They had almost no chance of evading the torpedo. It would be easier to outrun a bullet aimed at your head from a foot away. Pacino concentrated on Phillips to see if he would continue to function.
Phillips reached up to the sonar-repeater monitor and repeatedly stabbed a fixed function key, the monitor view changing with each button press until the caboose-array display flashed up. The caboose array was a recent innovation designed to allow the sub to hear contacts directly behind, since the machinery and screw made too much noise for the spherical sonar array in the nose cone to listen astern. The towed array, a long cable towing a rope-like set of sonar sensors designed to pick up narrow-frequency sound energy, was some help but was not intended to hear broadband irregular noises such as the screw vortex from a torpedo running due astern. The caboose array was installed to fill the gap. The teardrop-shaped sonar hydrophone assembly was about a half-meter across, big enough to detect some noises but not accurate in bearing because of the wiggling it did at the end of the towed array cable. And pulling the caboose caused drag on the ship, slowing her down.
Phillips would now need to make a decision — to continue to “drag the onion,” as pulling the caboose array during a flank run was called, or get rid of the unit and go deaf, unable to know if the torpedo was still on his tail but at least speeding up the ship.
“Sonar, Captain, jettison the caboose and retract the towed array. Maneuvering, all ahead emergency flank at one four zero percent reactor power. Weapons officer, shut the outer doors to tubes one and two.”