Ford stood over his victim, a few yards to Whitt’s left. The VDV troops skiied on, unaware. Whitt and Ford pushed off again, another two would go down tonight. The lead VDV man pulled up, raised his hand. The whole troop, now eight men, stopped.
Whitt dived for the ground and pulled his M4 from his back and held it at the ready. Ford did the same. The leader scanned the horizon, he could hear him speaking in Russian to a man. The leader turned to scan his rear left quarter.
Shit, thought Whitt. If he notices some of his men missing, then we could find ourselves in a firefight with eight of them. Whitt tried to pull as much snow over himself as possible, tried all he could to disappear into the icy ground. Ford had done the same.
The Russian leader scanned slowly in an arc from his left rear quarter to his right rear quarter. Surely, he must notice some men were missing. Whitt’s grip on the M4 tightened, and he started to plan who he’d take out first.
The Russian let his binoculars down and called to a man to his rear, and the man skiied up to him. They consulted an instrument. He held it aloft and did a 360 with it. What was it? A sound amplifier detector?
Come on, Whitt thought, move on.
The man returned to face forward and pushed off. Whitt breathed again, then looked over to Ford who mimicked wiping sweat from his brow. The Russians were moving on, thank goodness.
“I think we evened up the numbers a bit; let’s see what we can borrow from them.”
The two SEALs made their way back to the second two of their victims. Whitt looked at their weapons. He picked up the assault rifle.
“Shit, it’s an AK15. No ammo for us, they’re 7.62.”
“Odd choice for up here. Maybe they’re shit scared of polar bears.”
Whitt knew their M4’s 5.56 would stop a Polar Bear, might take more of them, but the Bear would go down all the same.
He rummaged through the belt kit. There were personal items, pictures of girlfriends and the like. He opened a pouch with a medical kit; it was similar to theirs. Both men took the kits — you never know. There were grenades, RGD-5 with a smooth body, spherical ends and an actuating cylinder. They both took several of them.
“Right, let’s get some more shit from the first two. The blowing snow will cover these bodies. Ford, I don’t like it. I guess you noticed that they’re VDV Airborne troops, standard deployment. Means there’ll be another section of them out here, we’re still grossly outnumbered.”
Ford nodded.
The two men set off for the camp, skis pushing on through the blowing Arctic snow. They’d get some sleep and then move on.
Whitt didn’t settle, he knew they were still deep in it up here. Reinforcements wouldn’t be along; they’d a big task keeping their charges safe in this desolate, dark, icy wasteland.
The boat hung in darkness, under the Arctic ice, at the floor of its upside-down valley.
“Sir, he’s still there. The Yasen is waiting below us. I can detect a few faint pump sounds but he’s in quiet state. I’ve heard nothing out of the ordinary since he flooded a tube.”
Nathan knew it was a ‘hide and be quiet’ contest. Could he hear them, or was he unaware of their presence? He was a threat, that was certain; a Yasen with a Type 53 in a flooded tube just below them. If that didn’t make you nervous, then you’d no business crewing a USN submarine.
“Ok, keep me informed. If a Russian A ganger sneaks off for a sly tug of his wire, I want to know.”
“Sir.” Benson smiled.
His XO Nikki Kaminski walked, no slinked in that way she had, over to him. She had her tablet with her and a frown on her face.
“It’s the Carbon Dioxide level, sir. The O2 generator and CO scrubbers are working, but will cause a problem in a few hours. The main problem is the L-ion batteries, they’re at 17 % and we need to think about charging them.”
“Right, Nikki.”
Nathan knew that was just what they didn’t need down here under the ice. They did need to raise the snorkel from time to time, run the diesels and charge the batteries. That was life for a diesel-electric boat, and had been since before World War 2. They had increased endurance, but it wasn’t unlimited. Down here under the ice, it meant finding an ice lead, a clear gap or thin ice that the sail could break through.
He knew that you normally used nuclear boats under the icecap, but they’d been called on because they had long duration lithium-ion or L-ion batteries.
Also, it wasn’t said aloud, but to Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Kamov and others, they were the dirty tricks boat. When you had an underhand job that needed doing, you called on a secretive, dirty boat. If shit happened or was about to, you called on Old Stonewall. Aggressive when needed, but quiet and patient. Their job was to stalk out the prey, wait, and then strike suddenly. She would then disappear into the inky depths, unseen, unheard.
Her crew used her for what she was: USS Stonewall Jackson was a death shark. They were the submarine service’s SEAL team six.
“Ok Nikki, how far to the ice lead? I know we can make it; you’d have told me before now if we couldn’t. But what margin do we have, how long can we stay here like a frozen prawn?”
Nikki tapped on her tablet several times. “We’re just under 10 miles; at a speed of 6 knots, that’s about 1.4 hours, 85 minutes sir. Leaving a margin for possible action manoeuvring, we can hang around here for one and a half hours.”
Nathan looked at his wrist and the Seamaster. He squeezed his lips. Not that long. Would Ivan stay where he was? Possible. They may need a distraction.
“Weaps, load Scooby tube six.”
The Weapons Officer looked at the boat’s war load. “Sir, we have a Harpoon in six. Tube five’s free.”
“Ok, tube five.”
Weaps called the torpedo room and waited. “We have the Pointer in five, sir. Scooby’s ready.”
Nathan looked over to the hot blonde at her station, Nikki’s ponytail bobbing as she worked.
“XO, let’s do the boat’s rounds.”
“Sir.” The two of them left the control room and headed aft. They started in engineering.
“How’s it looking, Chief?”
“Ok, sir. Some battery interface issues, but no big problem, we have the necessary spares.”
Nathan looked out of the corner of his eye; the XO was talking with the senior A ganger. Nikki was popular with the A gangers; no big surprise there. He’d use that, it’d help keeping them happy. Last call was the galley.
“Hot in here, Chief,” said Nikki.
“It’s tough, but you’re all greedy, sir.”
“Well, you have the engineers and the torpedo room to feed, what do you expect?”
“The worst are the female crew.”
Nikki raised her eyebrow.
“You’re all fussy, sir. Pains in the a…”
“Keeping you on your toes, that’s all.”
“We’ll have two coffees,” said Nathan, “with double milk for the XO.”
The two walked forward. Nathan stopped Nikki in the companionway.
“How long will he stay: Ivan?”
She frowned. “Hard to say, sir. He has the advantage: he’s a nuke so he can stay indefinitely; we can’t. But then again, if he knows or suspects he’s got company, he’ll assume that we’re a nuke too. He won’t think he can just wait for us to make a move.”
He nodded. He couldn’t outstay the Yasen; it was wait until the last moment in the hope that the Russian would go first or take the initiative. He’d no choice in truth.
“Nikki, we’re here to get our men up there where they can do their job and kick Ivan’s ass doing it. Stonewall Jackson said, “Armies are not called out to dig trenches, to throw up breastworks, and live in camps. But to find the enemy and strike him.” That’s just what we’ll do.”