“Central command, sonar,” Albanese’s voice said from the overhead speaker. “Vermont is shooting. Double torpedo shot, looks like from a bearing east-southeast of us. I have broadband contact on Vermont from her main coolant pumps going to fast speed. She’s increasing speed.”
“Sonar, any more incoming torpedoes from the Yasen?”
“Central, Sonar, no.”
“Maybe we scared him,” Dankleff said.
“Torpedo room, central,” Pacino ordered on his microphone, “report status of the next two tubes.” He dialed in the speaker to sonar. “Sonar, central, do you have a bearing to the firing submarine?”
“Central, sonar, no, just the original firing point.”
Pacino looked at Dankleff. “U-Boat, the minute we get a hint of where the firing submarine is, we’re going to hit him with both Shkval supercavitating torpedoes.”
“You could launch them now, Patch.”
“All that would do is make more noise — Ahmadi says we need at least a hint of a solution — or at least a rough position, before we launch. They don’t do much course-correcting on their way out, they’re going too fast for that. They would just sail out past the guy.”
Dankleff nodded. “Still, even if it looks like we need more evasive effects, be ready to hit the trigger.”
Pacino nodded, hitting the intercom mike’s button. “Whale, status of incoming torpedo?”
“Still inbound,” Albanese said. “It’s getting closer.”
Pacino looked at Dankleff and pointed to the surface. Dankleff nodded. Pacino grabbed Ahmadi. “We need to emergency blow to the surface,” Pacino said. “It’s possible the torpedo has a ceiling setting.”
Ahmadi shook his head sadly. “That would do you no good. A Futlyar torpedo will follow you to the end of the earth, Mr. Patch. I’m afraid it’s over. Your mission. The voyage of the Panther. And our time on this earth.”
Lieutenant Commander Mario Elvis Lewinsky’s grip on the handhold of the command console was so intense that his knuckles had gone white, as had the color of his face.
Captain Timothy Seagraves looked over at Executive Officer Jeremiah Quinnivan at the attack center. The deck trembled from the vibrations of the flank speed run, the submarine having dived to test depth in the seconds after the detection of the incoming torpedo. Within thirty seconds, Lewinsky had prepared a “snapshot” torpedo for firing, a lined-up weapon with little to no data on the target other than the bearing, the launch to be used more for effect than for success. Only in ten percent of snapshots did a weapon home in and hit something, but to fail to fire would be a tactical disaster. The enemy out there shooting at them had to be notified in the strongest possible terms that the Vermont was fighting back. Even if that meant she’d be firing blind.
Lieutenant Commander Rachel Romanov arrived at the command console to relieve Lewinsky so he could go to his battlestation aft, in maneuvering. “I relieve you, Eng,” she said, still breathing heavily from her sprint to the control room. Lewinsky muttered that he stood relieved and took off aft. Romanov looked at the display on the attack center.
“Captain, Coordinator, if we snapshot two Mark 48s in CMT mode at the bearing to the launch, we can slow down and nail the shooter with active sonar. The countermeasure mode of the Mark 48s will take down the incoming torpedoes, we’ll have a solution to — let’s call him Master One — and we can hit him with a horizontal salvo.”
“Good work, Nav,” Seagraves said. “Attention in the firecontrol party,” he said in the pin-drop quiet room, “snapshot tubes one and two, CMT mode, at the bearing of the incoming torpedoes.”
With a snapshot, there was no long, involved checklist or detailed pre-firing reports. There was just the officer of the deck announcing “set” when the presets were correct, and “fire” as the trigger button was pushed. Romanov checked the two displays, both now set up in snapshot mode. The screen showed a dumb display of what looked like two rowboats, one at the bottom representing Vermont herself, the rowboat pointing to the seven o’clock direction. A vertical line extended upward from Vermont’s rowboat to the other rowboat, the line labeled “151” for the bearing to the target. The upper rowboat, representing the incoming torpedo, was also pointed to the seven o’clock position, it’s motion intending to catch up to and impact Vermont.
Romanov looked at Quinnivan and Seagraves. “I have to assume a range,” she said. “Even though we’re using immediate enable.”
Quinnivan spoke. “Put in six thousand yards, lassie. No way those bastards were distant. They had to get a sniff of us as we went by close.”
Romanov looked at Seagraves, who nodded solemnly. Romanov put in three nautical miles, six thousand yards, on both displays.
“Snapshot, tubes one and two, Master One, countermeasure torpedo mode, medium speed, immediate enable,” Romanov announced, looking over the back side of the seat of pos two, where Lomax sat, and pos one, where Eisenhart sat, then to the weapons control console, where Spichovich was seated. “Set,” Romanov said, leaning over Lomax and pressing his fixed function key, then doing the same to Eisenhart’s panel, then saying to Spichovich, “shoot!”
“Tube one, fire,” Spichovich said, hitting a central, larger fixed function key — the trigger — with a lit up bright green color. “Tube two, fire,” he said, jamming the trigger function key a second time.
The deck jumped violently, and Romanov’s ears were slammed by the power of the inboard venting of the water-round-torpedo tank, then jumping again, her eardrums slammed a second time, a headache blooming behind her ears with the torpedo launches.
She looked across the room to Petty Officer Mercer at the BQQ-10 stack. “Sonar,” Romanov called, “own ship’s units fired electrically.” Mercer turned in his seat to look back at her.
“Officer of the Deck, own ship’s units, normal launch,” Mercer said.
“Now, Captain?” Romanov said. “Can we go active?” If Seagraves agreed, Mercer could blast the sea with an active sonar pulse that would nail down the position and movement of Master One, allowing an offensive torpedo shot. They would risk nothing — Master One already knew they were present and an idea of their position and had fired at them. Stealth was long gone.
Pacino’s instincts were screaming in his mind despite Captain Ahmadi’s warning. “Help me emergency blow anyway,” he said. “Let’s get the ballast tank vents shut.” Pacino and Ahmadi reached into The Million Valve Manifold to find the valves that would shut the corroded and sticking ballast tank vents.
“Central, torpedo room, tubes three and four are reloaded with UGST torpedoes and are ready in all respects.”
“U-Boat, launch three and four,” Pacino shouted from The Million Man Manifold. He grabbed the forward valve handles for the ballast tank blow. It was then they could hear the torpedo sonar blasting into the ship from the sea.
Dankleff shouted back from central command. “Lipstick, hurry up! Emergency blow!”
Pacino rotated the two valve handles for the forward blow. He waited five seconds, but with his heart pounding and the adrenaline pouring through his system, it may have only been one second, and then he operated the after main ballast tank blow valves. The room roared with the flow noise and a dense cloud of condensation filled the space, reducing visibility to half a foot. Pacino listened for the sound of the air flow decreasing as the deck began to tilt up dramatically. He could hear Dankleff shouting at Grip Aquatong to take the boat up to the surface with a steep angle. Pacino reached for the piping nestled in the rats’ nest of The Million Valve Manifold to keep his footing. He made his way back into the central command post as the angle abruptly came off the ship, the deck suddenly settling flat.