“That’s got to be it, Admiral!” Lab Rat shouted. “By God, we’ve got him now!”
Batman studied the interlocking areas of probability generated by the S-3 Viking and the submarine. Not a lot to go on, but it was all they had at this point.
“It’s only one submarine,” Batman said. He pounded on the plotting table with frustration. “And a little one, at that. Why the hell is one submarine driving the whole course of this battle?”
Lieutenant Green spoke up. “Submarines always have, sir. Ever since their widespread use in naval warfare. A recent example, in the battle of the Falklands, the mere rumor of a British Swiftsure class attack submarine was enough to force the Argentineans into some rather desperate ploys. And when the Brits thought that an Argentinean diesel was deployed, they expended darn near half of the world’s sonobuoy resources trying to find it. Killed a lot of whales along the way, too.”
Batman shook his head in frustration. “I know that. It’s just not fair, dammit! I’m sitting here on the most powerful aircraft carrier in the world, and there’s a little bit of metal cobbled together in the water, keeping me out of the action.” He looked up at the two of them, rage in his eyes. “How certain are you of this?”
Lab Rat fielded the ball. “I won’t say it’s a certainty, Admiral,” he said slowly, tracing the two areas of probability with his finger lightly. “And the position report from the submarine is none too certain. Both of them are holding contact on something that they think — just think, mind you — might be a submarine. The problem for both of them is that their contacts are located in the immediate vicinity of the Arizona, which could account for both detections. It could be a submarine — or it could be a lot of jittery aircrew desperate to find a contact.”
“Any shot they took, Admiral,” Green chimed in, “would probably result in substantial damage to the memorial itself. And if it’s not a submarine, all that will do is blast pieces of the Arizona all over the seabed floor, thus further complicating the ASW problem.” She shook her head, not discouragingly, just figuring the odds. “If we were having a tough time telling known anomalies from submarines before, we’ll have an impossible time after that, not to mention the difficulty of doing any minesweeping without a clean chart.”
“Goddammit,” Batman said. “At some point, you gotta go with your gut. Both that submarine crew and that S- 3 crew know about the Arizona, and they still think that they’re holding a submarine. But you’re right about one thing — even if we do kill this one, you’ll have a hell of a mine problem after that. So what do we do?”
The three fell silent for a moment, then Green spoke, her voice hesitant. “I have an idea, sir. But I’m not sure how practical it is.”
“Flight quarters, flight quarters, all hands to flight quarters,” the 1MC blared.
“Spit it out, Lieutenant. I’ve got an air strike launching in about two minutes, and this aircraft carrier isn’t going to have time to worry about one submarine. I want it dead, and I want it dead now.”
Green leaned over the chart table, the edge of the table butting up against the hard, flat expanse of her abdomen. She started to talk, slowly and quietly at first, but gaining confidence as she spoke. When she finished, Lab Rat turned to Batman.
“The sub skipper’s going to hate you for this,” he said.
Batman nodded. “I know. But that old girl down there has been blasted too many times already. She deserves a chance to fight back. This time.”
TWENTY
“What you got?” Jacobs asked as he stumbled into the sonar shack. His eyes were still bleary around the edges, his face slack with exhaustion. “The messenger said you needed me.”
Pencehaven shook his head. “Need isn’t exactly the right word. Oh, hell, it is.” He jerked his thumb at the junior sonarman sitting next to him. “Take a hike, Jack.” The sonarman slid out of his seat, and Jacobs took his place.
Pencehaven took a deep breath. “We haven’t always been on the best of terms, Renny. I know that. But let me show you what you’ve got. Your ears — your ears are better than mine on something like this. The skipper doesn’t believe me because of what happened last time. But I’ve got something this time; I want you to take a look at it and back me up. They’ll listen to you. And somebody’s got to listen before this little bitch gets away.”
Pencehaven sketched in the last fifteen minutes, then passed his headset over to Jacobs. “Here — I can still hear it.”
Jacobs leaned back in his chair and his face assumed that oddly peaceful and serene expression that Pencehaven had come to associate with his nemesis. His eyes were shut, his mouth barely open, his breathing slow and regular. For all appearances, he might have been taking a nap in the sonar shack. Suddenly, Jacobs popped upright in the chair. He reached out for the communications switch, then hesitated. He turned to Pencehaven. “You’re right on this, you know. You didn’t need me to tell you that.”
Pencehaven heaved a sigh of relief. “You heard it?”
“Of course I heard it,” Jacobs said dismissively. “You’d have to be deaf not to hear it. And you’re right, it’s probably a bilge pump of some sort. The one thing we know is it isn’t ours. So call the captain, tell him you know you have a contact. It’s your contact, you lead the targeting on it. I’ll back you up.”
“They might take it better coming from you,” Pencehaven said.
Jacobs shook his head. “No. The captain will make his decision based on how confident you sound. That was the problem last time — you didn’t trust your instincts. But you’ve nailed it hard and true this time. Now, go for it — do what you’re supposed to do.” Jacobs’s eyes glittered with something that in someone else would be taken for fanaticism.
Pencehaven took a deep breath, his gut suddenly shaky. The safety of the submarine — indeed, the entire battle group — rested on his shoulders, now. He had to do it right, had to make them believe. “Conn, sonar,” he began, consciously forcing his voice to sound a little louder, a little surer. “Captain, I have a subsurface contact. Probability high.” He reeled off the current range and bearing information, now refined from their own submarine’s movement through the water and the angle to the anomaly. “He’s hiding behind the memorial, sir. I’m sure of it.”
“Sure?” the captain came back. “Sure like you were last time?”
“No, sir. That was a mistake. But this time I’m sure.”
“Get Petty Officer Jacobs in there,” the skipper said. “Pencehaven, you have to learn that this isn’t a solo game. We live and die by teamwork.”
Pencehaven glanced over at Jacobs, his eyes grateful. “He’s here with me now, sir. And Petty Officer Jacobs concurs.”
“Then why the hell didn’t you say so?” the captain snapped. “Good call, Pencehaven. Your aw shit status is rescinded effective this moment.”
“Thanks, Renny,” Pencehaven said awkwardly. “I owe you one.”
Jacobs shook his head. “No. I owe you one. Because if you hadn’t gone with your gut on this one, you would have ignored the contact. And the next sound I heard might’ve been a torpedo heading for my bunk.”
“Okay, let’s run the targeting problem,” Pencehaven said, and began punching in figures. “Snapshot protocol — you on it?”
Jacobs’s hands were flying over his keyboard. “Couldn’t get rid of me now to save your life,” he murmured. Finally, his targeting solution solid, he looked back up at Pencehaven. “This time, we do it right.”