“Say again. Master Chief?” Phillips said.
“We’ve got distant noises that I’m classifying as torpedoes, all concentrated on a bearing set to the south. I am not, repeat, not, calling torpedo in the water.”
“I’m confused. What’s the deal?”
“Sir, the torpedoes appear to be… Mark 50s. This may be a battle with another US unit and the Japanese. All I can detect are the torpedoes, they’re the loudest, but there must be something going on to the south.”
“Attention in the firecontrol team. After we launch this Vortex at Target Five we’ll clear datum to the south at emergency flank. There may be someone down there who needs our help. Firing point procedures. Target Five, Vortex tube six.”
The launching litany continued for the sixth time since the first Destiny was shot. With the missile that Phillips had launched at the arctic ice ridge, after this one was gone, he was six missiles down, four to go. The launch sequence went as the previous five had, ending in a deafening roar of the Vortex rocket motor ignition, the noise easing as the missile flew underwater downrange, then the second deafening transient as the missile hit the fifth Destiny and exploded.
“Helm, left five degrees rudder, steady course south, all ahead emergency flank,” Phillips ordered.
Piranha came up to emergency flank turns, almost sixty-one knots, her deck shaking hard as the main engines shrieked aft, the steam flow-rate twice the maximum allowable.
“Sir, may I remind you that we still have eight incoming torpedoes and we have not evaded them? Shouldn’t we turn the ship and run?”
Tanaka glared at Mazdai. “Don’t ever again advocate turning and running from the enemy. I’ll kill you.” He bent back down over the console and bit his lip, the filters for the Seawolf class now entered into the Second Captain’s processors. All there was to do was wait to collect the data. The American was out there and he was dangerous. He had the acoustic advantage, he hadn’t shown up on the Second Captain system with the Los Angeles-class filters set up, so he had to be a Seawolf.
Yet how did he get by the Galaxy satellites? It didn’t make sense but the proof was in front of them, the Second Captain beginning to show data coming through the filters. The screen annunciator went off, confirming the sounds of the Seawolf-class submarine. Perhaps they didn’t have the acoustic advantage after all, Tanaka thought, perhaps it was just that the Second Captain was looking for the wrong sounds.
This battle might yet be turned around.
“Sir, what are you going to do about the eight torpedoes?”
“I’m going to let the Second Captain take care of it as soon as the two Nagasakis are away. Now let’s maneuver the ship to get a range on the Seawolf out there. And then we can launch.”
“Still nothing from the target, Captain,” Omeada’s voice said in Kane’s headset. The Destiny hadn’t counterfired, hadn’t maneuvered, just kept going as if he didn’t care that he’d been shot at, or didn’t know. But it was one thing not to hear the Barracuda. It was another not to hear eight loud Mark 50s.
“That’s a fact. Captain,” executive officer Leo Dobrowski reported from the attack center. “Contact has maintained course and speed. He doesn’t know we’re here, or our torpedoes.”
“Very well, then, we’ll keep waiting.”
Pacino glanced at Paully White, an uneasiness filling him.
Bruce Phillips stood over the chart, his pointer shaking over its surface with the vibrations of the deck. The speed indicator showed a velocity of sixty-two knots now, since all but four of the Vortex tubes were gone.
At this rate, assuming the noises they had heard were at the limits of sonar detection, fifty miles, the ship would be in the vicinity of the battle in another forty-five minutes.
Phillips looked up at the overhead, wondering if that would be enough.
“Finally,” Tanaka said as the first leg of data was in on the American Seawolf. Now he could turn the ship to get a parallax range. “Left minimum rudder, ship-control officer, come to course north.”
Tanaka watched the data fall into the Second Captain, waiting tensely, biding his time. All the while the incoming eight American torpedoes were soaring in at them, arrival time could be as soon as five minutes. The thought occurred to him then that the SCM, the sonar countermeasures feature of the Second Captain, might malfunction and he would have to eat his words about being able to take torpedo hits and survive. Of course, if that should happen, he would not long be embarrassed. He would be on the sea floor, dead.
“Tube status?”
“Ready to open the outer doors. Tubes eleven and twelve are flooded, weapons warm. The enemy location and velocity are locked in, gas generators ready to arm an outer-door opening.”
“Good, open the outer doors.”
“He’s maneuvering,” Kane said quietly to Pacino, his hand covering his boom microphone. “He knows we’re here.”
“Getting a range on you,” Pacino said. “He’ll be opening his outer doors soon and then we’ll have company, Nagasaki torpedoes. Have you got the ship positioned so we can hear the target without our torpedoes masking him?”
“We’re going north at full speed. I don’t dare flank it or our noise signature will double.”
“Just keep your bearing separation in mind—”
“Conn, Sonar,” Omeada’s voice called on the battle circuit, “we have transients coming from Target One. I’m calling torpedo tube doors coming open.”
“Very well, Sonar,” Kane replied into his headset, looking at Pacino. “Helm, all ahead flank.”
“Ahead flank, aye, sir, maneuvering answers, all ahead flank.”
“Helm, right one degree rudder, steady course zero two zero.”
“Rudder right one degree, sir, passing zero one zero to the right, ten degrees from ordered course… steady course zero two zero.”
The deck trembled slightly as the ship accelerated, the reactor circulation pumps aft — huge pumps, each the size of a compact car — started up, their 1500 horsepower motors spinning the rotors, pumping the coolant water through the core so the reactor power could double from 50 to 100 percent.
“Any minute now, sir,” Paully said to Pacino.
“Shoot,” Tanaka commanded. The torpedo in tube eleven left the ship under the force of the gas generator’s steam pressure, the torpedo’s engine starting and spinning the pumpjet propulsor of the Nagasaki torpedo to full revolutions. The Nagasaki dived to 400 meters and sailed on toward the target.
Tanaka remembered what he had been thinking about using only one torpedo per American submarine, but this was a special circumstance. The Seawolf-class ship would be a threat on an even playing field with the Destiny II class, and a single Nagasaki could not be completely trusted to tear it apart. A second torpedo launch was the safe thing to do.
“Tube twelve,” Tanaka said. “Shoot!”
The twelfth Nagasaki launched by the Winged Serpent departed the bow of the ship, starting its engine and accelerating toward the target. “That should take care of the Seawolf,” Tanaka said, his mood improving. “Now for the incoming eight American torpedoes.” He concentrated on the Second Captain console, switching it to the ship-control and weaponevasion screens. He found what he was looking for, the function that would turn control of the vessel over to the Second Captain and allow it to use the massive computing power to ping out with the ventriloquist SCM sonar system.