“We’ll have to cut the wire. Captain. We won’t know if the torpedo detonated on Target One.”
Phillips made a sour face. “Cut the god damned wire.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Conn, Maneuvering,” a new voice said on the headphones! “making emergency flank turns now and one three seven percent reactor power, limited by overheating port and starboard main engine forward bearing temperatures.”
“Cut in more aux seawater to the lube oil cooler,” Phillips ordered.
“Sir, the valves are wide open, we’re at max cooling.”
“You got electrical loads running on the battery?”
“Motor generators are at max. Captain, we can’t pick up any more kilowatts.”
“Attention in the firecontrol team,” Phillips said, his forehead beading up with sweat. His armpits were stained now, the cigar gone, a rivulet of sweat gathering liquid as it ran down his brow to his nose. “The Destiny has counterfired a torpedo. We’ve done everything we can to run from it at max speed. There is nothing more we can do except hope the Japanese torpedo runs out of fuel. Meanwhile, at least we have the pleasure of knowing our own Mark 50 is chasing the Destiny just as his weapon is chasing us. Even if he gets us, he’s going down.” Phillips stared at the room, the watchstanders staring at him, waiting for him to say the words that there was some way out of this.
“That is all. Carry on.”
Pacino looked down. The ride was still whisper quiet.
Quiet until the sound of the incoming torpedo sonar beeped into the room. The enemy torpedo sonar was a high-frequency screamer, the pulses pounding into the skull of every crew member, the sound a terrifying screech. Suddenly the pulses changed to a siren tone, wailing upland down in frequency, getting louder.
Soon there was another sound — of the torpedo’s screw whooshing through the water, the torpedo incredibly close to be able to hear that. There were perhaps only ten seconds to detonation.
“Conn, Sonar, torpedo is close, detonation any minute.”
A loud, resounding boom roared through the room.
Bright fluorescent lights flashed, clicked and held, the light flooding into the control room. The firecontrol consoles, sonar repeater, chronometer and ship control instruments all went out. A huge voice spoke from the overhead.
“TORPEDO IMPACT. OWN SHIP DESTROYED. END SIMULATION. COMMANDER, WE’RE READY FOR YOU IN THE DEBRIEF THEATER.”
CHAPTER 3
Phillips was soaked in sweat, blinking in the light, the sudden fracturing of his reality confusing even though he knew it had been an exercise. Slowly, as if emerging from a darkened movie theater to bright daylight, the watchstanders left the room through the aft door, down a cinder block corridor to a small projection room. As they left it finally came to Pacino what had been wrong with the control room during the exercise — the noise was wrong. It just hadn’t sounded like a real submarine. And the deck had never shaken during the high-speed maneuvers when it should have been trembling violently. He would have that changed later. The new attack simulator was another of his projects. Before, there had been attack trainers but they were just firecontrol consoles in a dark room. This simulator had the cramped arrangements of all the panels, the pipes and valves and feel of the real thing, but until he could pipe in the sound of a real control room and install vibration cells under the deck it would still just be another attack trainer.
When the men were seated, Pacino standing in front of the screen, the lights went out and the screen flashed up the view of Tokyo Bay. A blue dot appeared at the bottom southwest of the traffic entrance, a blue line trailing behind it showing where it had been. “The blue dot is own ship,” Pacino said, standing at the screen with an electronic pointer arrow indicating the dot. “While you were waiting here the orange dot makes its way southwest out of the bay. As you suspected, it was a Destiny II class. Nice work in sonar, by the way. Commander Phillips was correct to attempt to get a shot out at the outbound unit when it was on the surface, since Destiny would have been deaf to an incoming torpedo, but I had her pull the plug early. As you can see, once Destiny is at sea submerged she is very quiet.”
“I should have gotten the shot off earlier,” Phillips said.
“Maybe,” Pacino said, “but that wasn’t the purpose of the exercise. I wanted you to see what you’re up against when that unit goes under. It’s quiet as a ghost. Anyway, you reacquired the Destiny here. Freeze frame, Chief.” Pacino’s arrow pointed to the orange dot, much closer, its history track longer now. “Give me an elapsed time. Chief, and pipe in the control-room conversations.” The view froze and an elapsed time came up on the screen, showing 00:00:00. “Okay, let’s watch and then analyze it when it’s over.” Pacino stepped back, watching the subs maneuver, the orange Japanese Destiny continuing southwest in a line, the blue US sub going west, Phillips’s voice commencing leg one when steady. Coordinator you’ve got thirty seconds.
The blue sub turned to the east, taking some time to come around, while the Japanese sub got closer and closer. Shoot on generated bearing… set… standby… shoot… fire! Tube one fired electrically. A new black track emerged from the blue dot, the fired torpedo, heading north to the Japanese orange dot. Almost immediately a red track came from the orange dot and pointed to the blue dot — the Nagasaki torpedo. The blue dot turned to run while the orange dot began to drive due east. Pacino watched, seeing that the red Japanese torpedo was dramatically faster than the black American one. The red track rapidly caught up with the blue dot until the blue dot flashed, pulsed and vanished. “Own ship sank at time 6:41,” Pacino deadpanned. The screen view continued as the orange sub kept going east, the black American Mark 50 torpedo going north to where the Japanese sub once had been. The two tracks made a cross as the black trace kept going north, the Japanese sub now miles to the east.
“The Destiny drove off the track of the Mark 50 and has lived to tell the tale,” Pacino commented.
“Dammit,” Phillips muttered, “we should have shot quicker.”
“Let’s spin it back to the initial detection. Chief. As you can see at the elapsed time of 00:50, the first leg is done and you’re steady on the second leg. Nobody in this trainer has ever done that in less than one minute thirty.” Pacino didn’t mention the previous record was his own.
“You did a great job on speed. Commander Phillips, going just fast enough to get the boat through a maneuver but not so fast that own ship noise would eliminate the signal from the target. Here at time 01:14 you’re ready to fire. Torpedo is fired at time 01:27. That’s thirteen seconds. Commander, if you had been in snapshot mode you could have launched in three seconds, which would have saved you ten seconds. Getting formal reports of ‘ship ready,’ ‘weapon ready’ eats time you don’t have. Just command ’snapshot tube one’ and the weapon’s away.”
“You’re right,” Phillips acknowledged.
“Chief, show us what happens if one ship fires ten seconds earlier,” Pacino called out. The image reversed to time 01:14, and the torpedo emerged at time 01:17. The men watched the scenario as the same thing happened. The Japanese sub escaped, the American sub sank.
Phillips sat up in his seat.
“You’d have died anyway,” Pacino said. “And those are my only comments. Well done, men.”