“I would think, with that knowledge, they would turn away.”
A chuckle came from Admiral Holman. “Those Captains must be feeling their sphincters tightening about now.”
“If they feel that way, Admiral, why aren’t they either heading away…”
“… or firing torpedoes at us? They must have different orders.”
“Orders that tell them to hold their position and be prepared…”
“To sink us, or fire another warning shot,” Holman interrupted.
“You could be right, Admiral. Warning shots could be what those torpedoes were, or they could have run out of fuel from thirty-five nautical miles away.”
“I think they knew they were too far away for a torpedo to reach us. Maybe they want us to know how far away they are from us.”
“What do you think we should do, Admiral? Have any suggestions?”
“Glad you asked, Hank. We need to make sure they know we know exactly where they’re located.”
Garcia nodded. “I don’t want to drop a torpedo or change the speed of the UUV so it replicates an inbound Mark-45. I am concerned…”
“No, that’s not what I’m thinking. What do we do with our LAMPS helicopters right before we launch a torpedo from them?” Holman continued, referring to the SH-36 by its cover term. “We take a ping to make sure we have the location pinpointed. In this instance, we are only going to do one ping. One ping that bounces off the submarine and gives us the range and bearing from the dipping sonar of the helicopter.” Garcia smiled even as he realized he should have thought of that instead of having Holman tell him.
“He's smiling again.”
“If I was those submarines, I’d get out of Dodge now.”
“The unarmed LAMPS has its dipping sonar in the water. We have sonobuoy barriers between Sea Base and each of the submarines. If we pinged them, Admiral, and they decided it was hostile, the sonobuoys would be the first to detect any torpedoes fired. The UUVs have proven effective in taking out torpedoes.”
“Unfortunately, they can fire as many as 32 torpedoes simultaneously if they thought they were under attack.”
“Admiral, they wouldn’t if we did one ping, stopped, and waited. They’d be waiting for the splash of the torpedo hitting the water and the next sound of high-speed revolutions caused by the small propeller as the torpedo headed toward it. As long as they didn’t hear the splash, they would interpret it as a warning from us much like the one they sent our way.” “Hank, you are one smart fellow.”
“I think I had help heading in that direction,” he laughed.
“I’ll never tell.”
“I don’t think you’ll have to.”
“He's laughing,” the petty officer whispered to the second class.
The second class turned away.
“Where you going?”
“To put on that fresh pot of coffee that I should have last time and find my life vest.”
“Senior Chief,” Bernardo said. “No change in the speed and bearing of the four contacts. I am showing the last of our four UUVs has cleared the baffles of the Bellatrix.”
“Surface ships have baffles?”
“Be quiet, Seaman Calvins,” Bernardo said.
Agazzi scratched his head. “What’s going on?”
“Senior Chief,” Calvins called, “Combat says they’re going to ping the contacts in two minutes.”
“All right!” Bernardo exclaimed. “We’re going to sink the motherfuckers.”
“Combat says they want to ensure they have the right location.”
This isn’t good, Agazzi thought. If the SH-36s are pinging, then that means we are preparing to launch torpedoes. If we launch torpedoes, even simultaneously, most if not all of the Chinese submarines would get theirs in the water before ours locked on and hit. We might sink them, but their torpedoes would still be heading our way.
“Petty Officer MacPherson, how far away are the UUVs?” “UUV one and two are about fifteen miles from the contacts bearing 010 and 240. UUV three is about twenty-four nautical miles from the contact bearing 225, and the UUV four has just entered the open water, so it is easily thirty-five nautical miles from the fourth contact bearing 080.”
“What are our options if they fire an eight-torpedo salvo from each contact?”
It was several seconds before MacPherson answered. The petty officer looked at Gentron for a couple of seconds before turning to Agazzi. “Not a lot that we didn’t do in the Sea of Japan, Senior Chief. If the Chinese know what we did there, they will have a snapshot of our UUV tactics. I can mimic any type of ship you want and may draw some of them away.” “What if they’re wire-guided?” Keyland asked from the upper level.
MacPherson frowned. “Then the torpedoes follow the guidance of the operator until the wire breaks.”
“Which means the operator won’t be guiding it long,” Bernardo interjected, “because the submarine is going to be heading down. Heading down to the dark Pacific.”
“But while it’s wire-guided, we have to fool the operator.” “The wire guides are only good for about fifteen nautical miles,” Agazzi said. “Then they’ll break, and the torpedoes are on their own.”
“Maybe we ought to keep our UUVs twenty nautical miles from the submarines,” Keyland offered. “It would give us more time to react. If we get too close and they fire, then we will be inside the envelope where we can employ all the toys of the UUV.”
Agazzi nodded. “Petty Officer MacPherson, let’s stop UUVs one and two at the fifteen-mile range and put them in orbit.”
A couple of minutes later, MacPherson reported, “UUV one is in a racetrack orbit. Gentron, your status?”
“Same with UUV two. Doing an oval circle.”
“Let’s speed up UUV three and four until they’re twenty miles from their contacts and do the same. Seaman Calvins, relay the information to Combat,” Agazzi ordered.
Agazzi stepped over to his desk and grabbed a plastic bottle of springwater from his desk, taking a deep drink before hurrying back to the safety rail that encircled the lower level of the ASW operations center.
Keyland slid down the handrails of the ladder to the lower level. Bernardo was slouched in his chair, right leg cradled beneath his left knee. Keyland stopped behind the AN/SQR-25 operator, standing ramrod straight, his slight stomach touching the back of Bernardo’s chair.
Agazzi grabbed the top safety rail, his eyes going from console to console as he tried to figure out what else they could do.
MacPherson’s face was the epitome of concentration, the tip of his tongue caught between his teeth, while his right hand spun the ball that guided two UUVs. Sweat rolled down Gentron’s cheek as the young wizard guided his pair of UUVs. Complicating both sailors’ job was the knowledge that both of their UUVs were operating independently, so they had to switch back and forth between each UUV as they maneuvered them to position.
Agazzi looked behind him at Seaman Calvins, who grinned back at him. Calvins’s fingers opened and closed on the mouthpiece, ready to push the talk button if told.
“How is Taylor doing?”
“I have him on the line,” MacPherson said without looking up. “He is maneuvering a fifth torpedo into launch position.” “Tell him to let us know when it is ready.”
“Senior Chief, we can’t handle five UUVs,” MacPherson said, almost apologetic in the admission. “I know they say we can handle up to four at a time, but Gentron and I are doing everything we can to keep these four moving in the right direction.”
“You can preprogram them,” Keyland said. “We can preprogram them prior to launch to do a preset series of maneuvers as well as tactics.”