"Roger. Zero One to TACCO, do you copy?"
Dix Beltrain toggled his own headset. "I'm here, Retainer. Whatcha all got, old buddy?"
"The reason we've been having such a tough time tracking this damn Argy sub. He's ice-picked to the bottom of a big free-floating ice pan out here. We can't get him on the passive arrays because he can power down completely, and we can't get him by active pinging because we lose his return against the floe."
Beltrain could readily visualize the setup. "Yeah, acknowledged. And whenever he wants to take a shot at us, all he has to do is to drop straight down out of the surface duct, take his bearing, and throw his fish."
"You got it, Gray Lady," Arkady replied. "I just spooked him back up into his hidey-hole again a few minutes ago. The problem is, our ASW torps won't work in this tactical situation. We can't acquire a targeting lock. We have to try something different."
"You have any ideas, Retainer?"
"Yeah, I want to go after this guy with a Sea SLAM."
Beltrain exchanged glances with some of the CIC team who had been listening in. The Sea SLAM was a marvelously versatile precision-guided munition, but no one present had ever heard of it being used for antisubmarine warfare.
"Please repeat that, Retainer?"
"Listen." Arkady's radio voice sounded aggravated. "I have this guy's position exactly fixed with my MAD gear. I'm hovering about fifty feet over him right now. I figure that this ice is about two or three feet thick and that he has the top of his conning tower butted right up against the bottom of the floe. If we can drop a SLAM in on him close enough, we should be able to give him a headache, or at least flush him out into open water."
Beltrain grinned as the concept came clear, and he snapped his fingers and pointed to the SLAM control station. A weapons technician dropped into the seat in front of the panel and began heating up the system.
"I got it now, Retainer. How do you want to work this?"
"We'll need the Captain's clearance to radiate with the fire-control radars for a few seconds—"
"Bridge to CIC, you've got it," Amanda Garrett cut in, the intentness of her voice indicating the way she had been following the exchange.
"— then I'll activate my IFF transponder and you get a lock on me for your initial targeting datum point. Once you've acquired that, I'll drop a smoke float onto the ice and get out of the way. You launch and bring your round in on the thermal flare of the float."
"We copy, Retainer! Captain, did you get all that?"
"Yes, Dix. You are authorized to proceed with the strike."
"Aye, aye. Aegis operator, energize your starboard arrays, prepare to scan the northern sector."
"Standing by to energize, sir."
"Retainer Zero One, we're ready for your transponder."
"Roger, Dix. Transponder is up for a ten count. Ten… nine… eight…"
"Aegis systems, execute your sweep and acquire locks on the helo."
"Aye, aye, sir. We have acquired locks and we have established the datum point."
"Right. Cease radiating and shut down."
Beltrain keyed back into the radio circuit. "Retainer, we've got the fix. Pop smoke and get the hell out of Dodge."
"Roger D, Roger D, smoke is down and we are outa here."
Beltrain took two fast steps across the deck of the CIC and peered over the shoulder of the SLAM operator.
"System is up, sir," the gunner's mate reported, her hand poised on her joystick controller. "Missile selected. Passive targeting interfaced with Aegis control and active guidance is ready to acquire. The launch cell is open and visually verified. Final-phase safeties are off and all pre-checks are green."
"Shoot."
From up forward came the thud-rumble of a cold-fire launch.
The SLAM (Standoff Land Attack Missile) had been one of those off-the-shelf improvisations that had turned out more successful than even its designers could have imagined. Intended to provide naval aviation with an interim, standoff PGM for striking at heavily defended targets, it was a bastard mating of two different missiles: the airframe, engine, and warhead of the Navy's antiship Harpoon, and the infrared guidance system of the Air Force's air-to-surface Maverick.
So effective did the air-launched weapon prove that the design turned full circle and a surface-to-surface variant was produced. Armed with the Sea SLAM, a destroyer or frigate could deliver the firepower of a battleship with the precision of a sniper's rifle.
As the missile came over the top of its booster arc, the thermographic television camera in its nose activated, scanning the sea below it, picking up the ice pan almost at one. On the targeting screen back in the Duke's C1C, it appeared as a dark, irregular mass of no-heat afloat on the slightly lighter backdrop of the sea. A single bright star blazed near the center of the floe, the thermal energy radiating from the burning smoke float.
The systems operator deftly centered the targeting reticle of the guidance system on the flare and squeezed the actuator trigger, committing the missile.
To the north, the SLAM blazed down out of the sky and the smoking star fixed in the crosshairs grew until it filled the screen. Abruptly, the television image broke up and went to static as the transmitter ceased to exist.
"Now, that looked about right," Beltrain said with some satisfaction.
From their position, station keeping just east of the floe, Arkady and Grestovitch couldn't see the spray of shattered ice lift into the sky, just a flash of blue light through the mist.
"Down dome, Gus. Set depth three-fifty."
The transducer hit the waves and Grestovitch watched his depth gauge as the tether paid out. Setting the reel lock, he listened intently for results.
The local acoustic environment was still reverberating from the explosion, and it took a couple of minutes before he could hear past the echoes: the slamming and creaking of metal, the bubbling of air, and the sush-sush-sush of a fast-turning screw, all suddenly undercut by an urgent, throbbing hum.
"I got him. Propellers bearing three five zero true and opening the range. Numerous metallic transitories, and he's just cut in a bilge pump. We hurt him, Lieutenant! We hurt him and he's running!"
"Yeah!" Arkady exclaimed fiercely. "Mark one up for the home team. Good work, my man!"
The aviator thumbed the transmit button on the end of the collective controller.
"Gray Lady, Gray Lady, this is Retainer Zero One. The strike was effective. We confirm that the Argy has been damaged and is attempting to disengage to the northwest. Do you wish us to continue to prosecute the target?"
Amanda Garrett's answer crackled back almost instantly. "Negative, Retainer! I repeat, negative! Return to the ship for immediate recovery. Expedite!"
The Lady was sounding worried.
31
Under way again, the Cunningham was cutting into the outermost fringe of the cold front, and a fine, hard snow was hissing across the facing of her windscreen to fuse with the droplets of freezing spume being whipped off the wave tops.
"Ken, you keep the con," Amanda called back over her shoulder as she pulled an issue parka out of a gear locker. "I'm going aft to monitor the recovery. I'll feed you bell and steering commands as needed. For now, steer three zero zero and keep us quartering into the sea. That'll both put the wind across the helipad and get us some sea room away from the pack."
"Will do," the exec replied, assuming the command chair.
"And kill the Black Hole Systems. That'll give Arkady a thermal plume to follow home."
"Will do again. You watch yourself out there on deck, Skipper. It's getting nasty."