"It's a pain when some other stealthy bastard turns the tables, isn't it," Hiro remarked with grim humor.
"Tell me about it," she replied, lifting herself into the captain's chair to take advantage of the couple of extra inches of vision height it gave her. Almost at once, just off the bow she caught a paler flash against the gray of the sea.
"Watch it! Ice to starboard! Come left to two four oh!"
A bergy bit the size of an automobile swept slowly past the destroyer's flank, drifting away aft.
"Return to previous heading. Damn, Ken, if we angle south much more, we're going to start having some real ice problems."
"I agree, Captain. Helm! Steady as she goes! Watch your course line!"
"Ship's fighting the helm, sir. I'm having trouble holding the heading."
The hydrojets were low-powered units, not designed for fighting a sea like this, and the Duke was beginning to wallow sluggishly in the growing force of the storm.
Amanda could feel the snowball starting to build. A number of different tactical factors were converging to produce the potential for disaster. Swiftly, she called up the Global Positioning Unit display on her chair-arm screen and confirmed another fear.
"Ken, this is no good. Bucking this weather, we're barely making any way over ground at all. We're just hanging in this guy's sights."
"Captain, may I make a suggestion?"
"Of course."
"What about turning away to the east and running with the weather for a while, then circling north?"
She considered her exec's counsel for a moment, then shook her head.
"It's a temptation, but if we start running in front of this storm, we could get blown clear out into the South Atlantic before we could come about again. I am not going to be driven off station, Ken, by either the weather or the Argentines.
"Lee helm, bring up your power rooms," Amanda said, lifting her voice to key the overhead microphones. "Sonar and CIC, look alive. I'm going to try and pull us out of here."
"Aye, aye."
"Lee helm, maintain one hundred percent power on the hydrojets. Main engines ahead slow. Make turns for ten knots. Trim screws for minimum cavitation."
The Duke shuddered and then steadied as she began to drive cleanly against the sea again. Amanda accessed the hydrophone output again, now dominated by the swishing rumble of the destroyer's own accelerating propeller beats. Two minutes passed. Three.
Then, from somewhere out in the wet dark, there came a single, piercing tone.
"Ranging ping! Bearing zero six zero relative off the bow!"
Amanda lunged forward out of the captain's chair to the tactical displays as the sonar operator continued to call off the situation.
"Transitories on the bearing! Possible outer door opening… Possible fish swim-out! Torpedo in the water!"
"Sonar, initiate active sweep!"
The time for stealth was over. The Cunningham's sonar transducers began slamming their own sound waves out into the water, lifting echoes off the hunting sub. In moments a target hack and a bearing line appeared on the tactical display, a torpedo track sliding along it toward the Duke's position.
Amanda's hands flew across the display keyboards again, calling up the data annex of the torpedo recognition and alertment processor.
*WEAPON INDENT: (SWED) TYPE 613 533MM SURF-SUB 60 KTS
MULTI-MODE GUIDANCE; WIRE — PASSIVE-ACTIVE
Only a single shot in the water. They must be using the wire guidance. A spinneret aboard the racing torpedo would be unreeling a hair-thin metallic filament in its wake, back-linking to the fire-control systems of the submarine itself. The sub's weapons officer would literally steer the fish into the belly of its target with a joystick controller.
* RANGE TO PRIMARY TARGET: 8500 YDS +
* PROJECTED TIME TO INCOMING WEAPON IMPACT: 3:41
"Lee helm, all engines ahead full!"
"Engines answering all ahead full, Captain!"
The Duke lunged forward with a palpable surge of acceleration. A steam turbine warship might take twenty minutes to work up to flank speed; a gas turbine vessel like the Cunningham could do it in four.
"CIC, prepare to drop LEAD decoys."
"LEADs prepped to drop."
The big destroyer struck a seventh wave and bucked through it in an explosion of spray, gaining way with each turn of her screws. Up on the bridge, Amanda tightened her grip on the grab rail and continued to stare down into the flatscreens with a fierce and total concentration.
Come on, friend. Listen to all that beautiful noise my props are making. You don't need to switch that torpedo over to active pinging, not yet.
"We have a firing fix on the sub," Dix Beltrain declared over the squawk box. "Ready to launch V-ROC."
"Time in flight to target?"
"Projected forty-five seconds."
"Right. Set LEAD decoys for… ninety-second activation delay."
"Decoys set, Captain."
"Drop LEADs."
Back aft, a pair of Launched Expendable Acoustic Devices slid down their deployment chute and into the Cunningham's boiling wake.
"LEADs deployed."
"Launch V-ROC."
There was a muffled thump up forward and a white cylinder shot up and out of its cell in the number-three Vertical Launch System. It seemed to hover for an instant over the deck, then its booster spewed flame, kicking it up into the sky and away toward the enemy.
*PROJECTED TIME OF INCOMING WEAPON IMPACT: 2:50
*LEAD SET 1 ACTIVATION: 0:65
Amanda tracked the V-ROC's flight path both on the tactical display and in her mind: the long curving trajectory, the separation of the payload from the booster and the deployment of its drogue parachute, its dolphinlike dive into the sea, the shedding of its nose and tail shrouds, and the power-up of the deadly little Mark 50 Barracuda torpedo.
"Our round is in the water," Beltrain announced over the circuit. "It has gone active and is circling to acquire target."
Okay, out there. Now it's your turn to do some ducking and dodging. Break that wire! Cut that fish loose!
"Sonar is now getting prop cavitation and warble from the Argy. He's increasing speed and turning."
Yes!
Forcing the Argentine sub to maneuver would force it to break its control link with the torpedo. The human aspect would be cut out of the loop, leaving the weapon operating on its own resources. That shifted the odds, for so-called smart weapons were frequently stupid enough to be decoyed.
God grant enough time and sea room.
*PROJECTED TIME TO INCOMING WEAPON IMPACT: 2:15
*LEAD SET 1 ACTIVATION: 0.20
"Losing sonar discrimination due to flow noise."
"Secure transponders, Mr. Beltrain. Cease active pinging."
*LEAD SET 1 ACTIVATION: 0.10
"Stop all engines! Power down!"
*LEAD SET 1 ACTIVE
The trick had been to try to catch the incoming torpedo in its moment of confusion between the breaking of its control wire and its independent reacquisition of its target. The LEAD decoys, now well astern of the Duke, were producing an acoustical clamor in the same range as a ship's propellers. With the Cunningham's own engines still, the torpedo should veer off after the new sound source.
At least that was the theory. With their sonar deafened by the turbulence of their own passage through the water, they would know for certain when the explosion came.
Ignoring the savage bite of the wind through her work khakis, Amanda stepped out onto the starboard bridge wing and looked aft. Hiro followed her out, coming to stand at her shoulder as she keyed her interphone.