I must say that Cooky sure turns out some awfully tasty chow, although it can’t begin to compare with my mom’s cooking.”
After carefully soaking up the remaining maple syrup with his last sausage. Lefty gobbled it down.
Only then did he push his plate away and issue a satisfied burp of approval.
“That should hold me until lunch,” said the senior seaman, whose glance went to the wallmounted clock. Suddenly aware of the time, he bolted upright.
“Jesus, Seth, we’d better get moving! We’ve got exactly one minute to relieve the chief before we get our butts kicked.”
Following close on his coworker’s heels, the gangly Texan stood and proceeded to make his way hastily out of the galley. Fortunately, they didn’t have to go far. Less than a dozen steps separated the mess hall from the sonar room. The narrow, dimly lit compartment was located off the central corridor, immediately across from the crew’s bunk area.
Senior Seaman Jackman was the first one to make his way inside. Waiting for his arrival there, from the seat of an elevated stool, was Chief Petty Officer Lawrence Desiante. The moustached New Yorker greeted him anxiously.
“Christ, Jackman, I thought you were gonna stand us up.”
Calmly checking his watch, Lefty responded, “What do you mean, Chief? We’re a whole fifteen seconds early.”
Not about to dignify this remark with a response, the khaki-clad chief removed the headphones that he had hanging from his neck and stood.
“The Captain’s got us on active at the moment. He’s interested in knowing if that debris field has shifted any.”
With this revelation, Lefty’s gut instinctively tightened.
An active sonar search meant unnecessary noise, something that an attack sub wanted no part of. Powerless to voice his objections, he stood aside as the chief and his assistant prepared to vacate the room.
“Our passive hydrophone arrays are a bit screwed up with the racket that DSRV is creating strapped to our hull like it is,” added the chief with a yawn.
“So concentrate your attention on that missile wreckage.
And for Christ’s sake, don’t screw up! I’ve been going for eighteen hours now, and I hear my bunk calling. I’m counting on you guys for me to get some decent shut-eye. So please, don’t let me down, ca 0? pisce’ Signaling that he understood. Lefty watched as the chief and his assistant exited into the hallway. Relieved to be on his own, he turned toward his coworker.
“What was I just telling you about Command?” emphasized the senior seaman disgustedly.
“We’ve got no business shooting off our active sonar like this.
Why they can hear us all the way back to Vladivostok!
If you don’t mind, I’ll monitor passive for the time being. I don’t think that I could take hearing all those pings wasted.”
“That’s fine with me,” returned Seth Burke calmly.
Still not certain what had gotten into his high strung coworker, the Texan seated himself on the same stool that the chief had been utilizing. As he adjusted the headphones over his ears, he noticed that Jackman was settling in before the passive console.
With high hopes that Lefty would soon calm down, the seaman second class focused his own attention on the loud, wavering blast of sound energy that was continually pulsating from their bow.
Beside him, Lefty Jackman was in the process of adjusting his own headphones. Unlike his coworker’s set, his were attached to a series of sensitive microphones placed strategically throughout the Razorback’s hull. Designed to pick up the sounds of an enemy vessel before they were tagged themselves, the passive arrays were of enormous value.
With a familiar ease, honed by hundreds of hours of practice. Lefty swept the surrounding seas. It didn’t take him long to pick up the strange racket that the chief had warned about.
The streamlined nature of the Razorback’s hull was designed to create a minimum of noisy, free-flowing holes for water to be forced through. This was one of the unique features that allowed them almost silent operations. But because they were currently carrying a DSRV piggyback on their stern, this feature was completely negated.
For the Marlin to be carried, a special cradle had to be bolted onto the Razorback’s deck. The temporary nature of this bulky structure created a great deal of drag. Not only was their top speed reduced, but the sub’s sound signature was drastically altered. Far from being silent, their forward progress was all too audible.
Lefty took in the resonant surge of this noise and silently cursed. Until the DSRV was released, the stern hydrophones would be practically useless. A quick check of the bow array found these sensors in much better condition. Though he had to turn up their volume a bit more than usual, he was soon able to begin an accurate scan of the sea before them.
Ten minutes later, he was in the process of penetrating the waters off their port bow when a barely audible hiss sounded beyond the normal clicks and moans of the sea creatures themselves. Quickly he reversed the scan and, after isolating the noise’s precise location, amplified the signature fivefold.
Since it emanated from a portion of the ocean located at the extreme limit of their sensors, Lefty closed his eyes to concentrate more fully. Gradually this noise took on a fuller definition.
Unlike the modern nuclear subs that had a variety of computerized equipment to interpret such signals, the Razorback’s passive sensors relied solely on the ears and the memory of their human operator. Lefty Jackman prided himself on his hearing ability. Three years before, he had even heard the sound of a miniature screw as it broke loose from his mother’s glasses and dropped to the kitchen floor. This feat was even more unforgettable considering the fact that the radio was blasting a Cardinal baseball game at the very same time. Able to pick out the merest bit of distortion on a record or tape, Lefty had trouble appreciating most modern music because of its generally poor musicianship and engineering. Rather, his tastes ran more to the classical. Violins were his very favorite. In the hands of a master, there could be no more pleasing sound for him.
What he was hearing presently grated his nerves like the loudest, crudest heavy-metal rock and roll.
Twice in the previous couple of weeks a similar distant chugging surge had been picked up by their hydrophones. Only when he was certain that he had not dropped off into a dream did he turn to inform his coworker.
“Sweet Mother Mary, Tex, I hope I’m not going bonkers, but take a listen to this signature that I’m picking up off our port bow. It sounds too damn familiar!”
After removing his headphones and replacing them with an auxiliary set connected directly into the passive console, Seaman Second Class Seth Burke attempted to determine just what his partner was getting so excited about. At first, he could hear nothing unusual. It took a full thirty seconds for him to pick out the barely audible, distant surging sound. It took him another half minute to identify it.
“You’ve got to be kidding?” observed the shocked Texan.
“It can’t be!”
Nodding his head that it was. Lefty rechecked the signature’s bearing.
“She’s coming in on a course of two-two-zero. Now do you believe what I’ve been trying to get into that thick skull of yours? I don’t know why, but one of the Soviet Union’s most sophisticated attack subs seems to pop up wherever the Razorback is sent. Not even the Secretary of the Navy is going to be able to keep the old man from giving them a chase this time. Captain Exeter just won’t believe it!”
Seth Burke was having trouble believing it himself as Lefty’s hand shot out to activate the comm line.
Seconds later, the boat’s XO was receiving a detailed description of just what they had chanced upon.