Current position — thirty kilometers west of island Onaharajima, forty kilometers south of the mouth of Tokyo Bay. This unit is at mast-broach depth observing the American aircraft carrier hull number CVN-76, as it steams southwest on a pace pattern.
Episode elapsed time is plus three minutes. All torpedoes are away. This unit is watching to see what the target will do. It looks as if target is turning toward the south, which would correlate with target understanding it is under attack since torpedoes are chasing it that way. But carrier steadies up on what looks like a course of due south, and if it knew the torpedoes were coming it would run to the southeast. Sonar bearings to the torpedoes indicate they are tracking the target in passive mode, following the carrier as it maneuvers based on the noise it is putting out into the water.
Episode elapsed time four minutes. First of twelve Nagasaki torpedoes detonates under carrier’s stern. The explosion, viewed at night, is spectacular, the ball of flame rises in large mushroom cloud above deck of the ship. Second torpedo hits twelve seconds later impact on starboard forward quarter. This explosion darker cloud, more water flying up. Third torpedo hits under ship’s control island on port side. Destroyer steaming with carrier erupts into flames, one of other unit’s torpedoes hitting it, or this unit’s with a torpedo drawn off course. This unit will count to confirm all twelve torpedoes hit carrier.
Pacino and White could only grab handholds after the first explosion rocked the ship, tossing White to the deck and Pacino into the radar console. After that they stayed away from the windows and held onto the handhold near the helmsman’s console.
“Have you still got power?” Pacino asked the officer of the deck.
“We’re slowing down.” He reached for a phone. Before it got to his ear the second torpedo exploded, forward and starboard. The ship lurched to starboard and rolled back to port. One of the bridge wing windows shattered, glass scattering onto the deck.
“We need to get to radio and see if we can get a message out to Warner—”
“Sir, it’s being taken care of,” the officer of the deck said.
The next torpedo exploded much closer, this detonation right under Pacino’s feet. He saw the aft bulkhead of the bridge coming at him in slow motion, tried to lift his hands to shield his face but wasn’t fast enough. The wall hit him in the nose, the room got dark, the sounds faded. For a fraction of a second, as Pacino sank into a dark place, he could hear alarms and shouting and glass shattering and the next explosion, but then he was slipping deeper down into a place of liquid warmth. It was almost peaceful and pleasant as the world vanished.
The ship was now under the icepack, the groaning and creaking of the ice above, the knowledge that if they needed to come up in an emergency it would be impossible, the possibility of getting stuck between a shallow ocean bottom below and a deep raft of ice above. Navigation under the ice got steadily worse. The inertial nav systems had bugs that crept into the electronics, the system getting progressively more corrupt the longer it went without a fix from the navigation positioning satellite overhead. But there was no way to come to the surface to get the nav fix; the ice overhead was almost 200 feet thick. The charts here were spotty; only a few submarines had ever tried to make the passage from Atlantic to Pacific during the winter, and those that did were not in a hurry. From what Bruce Phillips had been able to read, the four ships that had made the passage all the way had had to turn around for several dead ends. The passage would consume time, and Phillips did not have time.
The BSY-2’s SHARKTOOTH under-ice sonar bleeped eerily in the corner of the room, the forward and upward-looking unit augmented by a sail-mounted camera to scan the icepack ahead in addition to a bow-mounted video unit. The ice was close here, within forty feet of the top of the sail. And the bottom was a mere fifteen fathoms under the keel. It would only take a small inverted ridge to catch the ship.
And without the ability to go to the surface above, Phillips had no idea what was going on with Operation Enlightened Curtain. For all he knew the operation was over. Or maybe Pacino needed him now, right now, and that thought sent a pulse of adrenaline into him.
“Offsa’deck, increase speed to standard.”
Joe Katoris, the main propulsion assistant, looked up from the forward-looking under-ice sonar, a scared look on his skinny face.
“But sir, we could overrun our sonar and visual. We can’t—”
“You’ll do fine, Katoris, now just increase speed. There are no state troopers down here.”
“Aye, aye, sir. Helm, all ahead standard.”
Phillips stood at the console behind Katoris, staring over his shoulder at the video displays, scanning the SHARKTOOTH sonar for ice rafts ahead. The ridge that came down ahead blocked the way. The sonar showed it just before the bow-mounted video camera picked it up. Katoris’s eyes were wide as he froze.
“Helm, back full!” Phillips shouted, feeling the deck tremble beneath his feet, the ridge ahead still looming in the sonar and video screens.
Current position — thirty kilometers west of island Onaharajima, forty kilometers south of the mouth of Tokyo Bay. This unit is at mast-broach depth observing the American aircraft carrier, hull number CVN-76, as it takes the last of the twelve torpedoes launched against it. Ship is taking on water, continues to settle, torpedoes pounding into it. Carrier was a survivable ship, this unit thinks, because it took hit after hit and remained afloat. For a moment this unit thinks even with twelve Nagasakis hitting it carrier will remain afloat. But hull starts listing more, center settling further into the sea. Helicopters lift off deck. Large boats lowered into water.
This unit trains periscope to bearings to destroyer and cruiser to see if sinking from their hits. Cruiser is bow down, sunk to the aft superstructure, screw pointing up to sky, ship sinking lower. Only tip of destroyer’s bow above water.
Periscope trained back on carrier. More helicopters leave, then return. This unit not certain regarding reason for this action. They are hovering over deck of carrier, listing now to forty-five degrees. Picking up survivors? Carrier capsizes, forward and aft hulls roll to port, only keel sticking up, bow and stern sinking into water.
This unit turns periscope to find destroyer. It is gone. This unit sees cruiser sink.
Periscope trained back to carrier. It is almost gone. A man stands on hull near fracture. Jagged line traverses keel, cuts ship in half. Man stands on hull shaking fist. He must not know that the suction of a hundred and five thousand tons of ship sinking will drag him to the depths with the vessel. Hull goes under water, man going with ship. In ultrahigh optic power, no sign of man shaking fist. Surface of ocean quiet, oil fires going out, sounds from under water violent.
This unit listens to sounds on sonar, finally single crash as hulk of carrier hits rocky sea bottom two kilometers deep. Even now, some compartments must have stayed intact, air trapped aboard, men inside trapped. Could explain banging noises that continued for next four hours, banging growing faint, less frequent.
Sun rises over Pacific, sea quiet again.