“I’ve got it, get the hell out of here. I relieve you, sir,” Court said to Meritson.
“I stand relieved, sir. Helm, Quartermaster, Commander Court has the deck and the conn.”
“This is Lieutenant Commander Court, I have the deck and the conn,” Court announced to the room, his voice quiet.
Meritson slipped into the seat at position two in the center of the attack center. He had already configured the display for dot-stack mode on Target One. He leaned back in the leather seat, looking at the upper and lower display, his fingers resting on the two circular knobs and the fixed function keys, feeling the fit of his function. He was a biological link in the submarine’s machine, the best man for this job. He was plugged into the tactical situation, the pos-two battle stations operator one of the most prestigious positions on the ship. He and the BSY computer were a two-brain team charged with finding the target, predicting exactly what he would do in five minutes’ time in the face of uncertain and conflicting data. Without his work, the captain would be helpless.
Meritson smiled to himself, his mind becoming one with the BSY system, his senses reaching out into the sea with the sonar gear, the target in the palm of his hand.
Roger Whatney, the Royal Navy lieutenant commander and executive officer, walked quickly into control, strapped on a one-eared headset and tested the phone circuit with his south-of-England accent. Whatney was the firecontrol coordinator, the owner of the “solution” to the target, the output of Meritson’s pos-two console meshed with the manual plot’s backup solution.
Whatney would function as the captain’s auxiliary brain, a sounding board, fully empowered to disagree with the commanding officer where the target’s motion was concerned although the captain could override him with a gesture.
Next to Meritson, on the console further forward, position one, Joe Katoris seated himself and put on a headset.
Katoris would back up Meritson, doing his own dance with the computer, trying to outdo Meritson’s solution, and in place to track the secondary target should another Destiny or other hostile target appear on the scene. His other function was to return the console to geographic mode so Phillips could see a God’s-eye view of the battle zone, then toggle back to his dot-stacker mode when Phillips no longer needed the geo plot.
On the console next to Meritson aft, position three, was Ensign Braxton, his display a hybrid, able to stack dots or do a line of sight mode on friendly contacts, if Piranha had had a wolfpack partner or surface action group to be careful of. He was the safety man, there to remind Whatney and Phillips of friendly ships and keep the torpedoes away from them. And if a hostile ship surprised them he would track it for a quick reaction shot.
Aft of Braxton in the fourth console Lt. Tom McKilley, the weapons officer, was at that weapons-control console, a larger version of the first three units, this one with a full computer keyboard on the lower section on the right. The upper display was filled with colored windows that displayed weapon status, one window for the torpedoes, another for the Vortex units. The lower part of the console to the left of the keyboard was dominated by a large stainless steel gleaming lever with a suicide knob on it, a semicircle engraved onto the surface of the console, the word standby written at the nine o’clock position, the letters spelling fire at three o’clock. The lever was the firing trigger for the torpedoes and missiles. At one point Dynacorp had experimented with a simple covered square soft-feel function key for the firing mechanism, but the submarine captains had complained bitterly, the firing trigger dear to them, the wimply fixed function key an insult to John Wayne macho submariners who tested it. They demanded their World War II trigger back and soon got it.
McKilley brought up the Vortex window and monitored the gyro spinup and data readback for unit number two, the forward upper missile on the port side. He jettisoned the missile cap forward and the blast cover aft of the missile tube, the tube now open to the sea fore and aft. He went through the software screens, testing the missile, finally satisfied.
On the conn Scott Court in his starched and creased coveralls turned to scruffy Bruce Phillips in his cowboy boots, still wearing the flat-brimmed leather hat with a headset crammed underneath it, his dingy poncho covering his chest, the revolver handles protruding from the hip openings. “Sir, battlestations are manned.”
Phillips leaned over the conn rail, squinted his eyes, put out the cigar. He looked down on the watchsection. “Attention in the firecontrol team. We got ourselves a bad guy at bearing two one zero and we’re going to kick him in the tail. You cowpokes got all that? Firing point procedures. Target One, Destiny II class. Vortex unit two.”
“Ship ready, Captain,” Court said. “Weapon pending, sir,” McKilley said. “Solution pending, sir,” Whatney said. “Recommend maneuver to course three zero zero to get a range to the target.”
“Status of the weapon, Weps? Why are you pending?”
“Sir, I need the solution range.”
“Why?”
“If he’s too close the detonation takes us out with it. Remember the icepack, sir? This thing has a kill radius of about two miles.”
“Oh, hell, Weps, he’s way the hell out there, and besides, that’s my problem. Solution status, Coordinator?”
“Sir,” Whatney said, “I’ve got a bearing, but that’s it. It’s not a firing solution.”
“Okay,” Phillips said, loud enough to stop all talking in the room, “listen the hell up. The next man in this watchsection who tells me we need the range to Target One gets a spur in his ass. Straight up the hole. Goddamnit, men, this isn’t like shooting a ridge, this is a fucking… Japanese… submarine. Okay? You got that? Now, dammit, firing point fucking procedures. Vortex two. Target Goddamned One. What’s the status?”
“Ship ready, sir,” Court said. “Weapon ready, sir,” McKilley snapped. “Solution ready. Skipper,” Whatney said. “Shoot on generated bearing!”
“Standby,” McKilley announced, pulling the trigger to the left. “Fire!” Phillips called.
The noise of the missile launch was deafening, but this time Phillips had his fingers clamped into his ears for the thirty seconds it took the unit to clear the immediate vicinity. He looked up at the sonar screen watching the track of the missile, wondering if he were about to go up in smoke himself. Even if he were too close, inside the blast zone of the missile, there was something satisfying knowing that he would at least go down scoring a major hit on one of the Destinys, but then he thought of Abby O’Neal and regretted the thought. He wanted to live through this, and knew only his ship, his crew and his instincts could hope to win this fight.
He waited, one second running into the next, the noise of the Vortex missile long gone. As the silence lingered he wondered if it had been a dud, a dud that had provoked a Nagasaki counterlaunch. Even if it did, he decided, he would not run. He would stand his ground and keep firing Vortex missiles until one hit the target. Hell, a Vortex missile might even target an incoming Nagasaki — wouldn’t that be a trick, a weapon that homed in on and destroyed the enemy’s weapon. Still he waited, and still he heard nothing.