“All stop!” Dankleff ordered.
The deck began rocking in the swells of the sea state.
“U-Boat, get the scope up! We might be about to get run over by a merchant!”
Dankleff raised the number one scope, twisted it in a fast circle and gasped, “Oh shit! Grip, right full rudder! All ahead flank!”
On the bridge of the very large crude carrier Eva Maru, an off-watch officer looking out the forward windows and recording a video for his video blog about life at sea suddenly saw a huge burst of foam almost immediately forward of them, just a few hundred yards off the port bow, his phone recording as the bow of a submarine burst out of the sea, then came level in an explosion of waves and bubbles, the sub turning just before it hit them in a glancing blow, the flank of the submarine grinding and scraping against the tanker’s port side. After the collision, the submarine continued moving southward on the surface, picking up speed, apparently not caring that there had just been a maritime collision. While the officer tried to come to grips with the sight of a submarine suddenly emergency surfacing right beside them in the middle of the ocean, then hitting them and scraping against them, then running away from the scene of the accident, the next thing that happened was much, much stranger.
The explosion at the bow of the tanker blew everyone in the bridge to the aft wall. The eruption of water and spray ignited an orange fireball half a shiplength wide as the bow of the tanker exploded from the impact of what much later would be reported to be a Russian Futlyar torpedo.
35
Commander Timothy Seagraves narrowed his eyes at Commander Quinnivan and Lieutenant Commander Romanov. “Wait on going active until we know the status of our countermeasure torpedoes and what’s going on with the six we heard launched from Panther.”
Petty Officer Mercer turned from his seat at the BQQ-10 sonar console. “I have a detonation of one of our units, edge of the starboard baffles, and there’s one less torpedo in the water. I have the second torpedo at fast speed and pinging. I think it’s homing.”
Romanov looked at Mercer. “Do you have bearing separation between Panther and that second torpedo?”
“I only hold both on the rudder rear-facing hydrophone and the onion array, so bearings are sloppy and merged.”
Two seconds later, from aft, an explosion could be heard, then a secondary explosion, this one much louder than the first.
“Explosions were from the last bearing to the Panther,” Mercer reported, his voice flat.
Romanov took a breath, about to say something to the captain, when the second explosion rocked the ship, this one ten times the power of the first explosion. “What the hell was that, Mercer?” she asked.
“Ma’am, no way to tell without turning around to put it in the spherical array’s field of view. Or we could pop up to periscope depth and take a look.”
“All you’ll see is smoke and flames,” Quinnivan said. “Plus, we’d have to slow down.”
“Mercer, at the last bearing of Panther, do we have steam flow noise, steam turbines? Tonals?” Romanov leaned over Mercer’s seatback. “Anything?”
Mercer turned to look at the navigator. “Nothing held on the towed array or rudder array, but it would help if we slowed down and turned south.”
“We don’t need to be running anymore,” Romanov said to Seagraves. “The torpedoes fired at us are gone and we need to see what’s going on with the Panther.”
“What we need to do is fire at Master One,” Quinnivan said. “And to do that, we have to get his position. Captain, recommend we employ active sonar.”
“Captain, OOD,” Mercer said, his hand on his right headset’s earphone, “I have torpedoes in the water, multiple torpedoes, edge of the starboard baffles.”
“Just what we need,” Quinnivan said.
Romanov looked at the executive officer. “We don’t know that they came from Master One. Maybe they’re from Panther.”
“No way,” Quinnivan said. “Those lads could never figure out how to launch their weapons on a strange foreign submarine, much less multiple torpedo shots.”
“Dammit,” Seagraves said to the XO and navigator. “There’s nothing but confusion.”
“Fog o’ war, Captain,” Quinnivan said.
“We can’t just keep running from goddamned torpedoes. We can’t fire blind because we might hit Panther if she’s still alive,” Seagraves said. “We need to know what the hell is going on. Nav, slow to five knots and turn south. Once you’re on course, go active.”
“Pilot,” Romanov shouted, “all stop! Left full rudder, steady course south, mark speed five knots!”
The lights went out throughout the ship the moment the explosion’s shock wave hit them and bounced them in the sea. The hum of ventilation stopped, making the upper level immediately stuffy and hot. Pacino felt his way forward from The Million Valve Manifold to the central command post, where OIC Dankleff had found a battle lantern and illuminated the forward bulkhead of central command, shining it on the gauges of the first position and the ship control station. The engine order telegraph on the ship control console make a jangling, ringing noise as the arrow from the engineroom went from “flank” to “stop.” The intercom began barking immediately over the still-loud sound of the explosion outside the hull.
“Central command, this is nuclear control, the reactor has tripped!” Abakumov called. “Switching ship’s loads to the battery. Switching propulsion to the battery.”
Pacino lunged for the microphone. “Nuclear control, central, is the reactor okay? Can you restart?” The lights in the control room flickered, then came on. Farther aft, the lights switched back on.
“All control systems went black, Mr. Patch. I have to restart the distributed control system. I do not know how long that will take.”
“Start it now, and call if you need help.”
Abakumov clicked his intercom twice by way of acknowledgement. The ventilation fans restarted, blowing air throughout the submarine.
“Central command, torpedo room,” Varney said, an undertone of barely controlled fear in his voice, “torpedo tube six on the port side is glowing red hot and we have—”