Kane almost smiled. They’d finally gotten a break. He actually began studying the chart, planning the track back south. To Norfolk. Home.
“Insert another one-point-five g-turn, ship control,” Tawkidi ordered.
The deck again tilted and trembled as the ship did a rapid high-speed circle. When the ship steadied on its previous northern course the officers studied the Second Captain screens.
“Commodore, the weapons are shutting down,” Tawkidi announced. “Five of them so far! We only have seven left incoming, and by the analysis they are fading astern. It’s working, sir. We may be restarting the missile countdown in another ten or twenty minutes.”
Sharef did not smile. He kept looking at the panel where Sublieutenant Rouni worked, analyzing the data that had come in. Rouni’s face clouded but he said nothing.
“What is it. Sublieutenant?”
“There was something to the southwest as we went through the turn. I’m not certain, but the analysis is very strange.”
“Go on.”
“Sir, I’d swear this noise interception is from machinery, specifically steam-propulsion machinery, but it changed as we picked it up. We should have held it through a third of the maneuver, but right here, the noise level dropped to nothing, down to ambient levels, it went invisible. I don’t understand it.”
Tawkidi frowned as he looked at the data.
“Commodore, it’s not the proper bearing of the launch platform for the twelve torpedoes.”
“Maybe it is a second sub,” Quzwini, the mechanical officer, said from the reactor-control console, his face still white from his efforts in the ballast tank installing the Scorpion warhead. “Perhaps an observation sub that tracked us and gave our position away to the firing ship. At that bearing it would have been in the path of the torpedoes just as we were. And maybe it did what you recommended, Commander Tawkidi, and shut down to hide under the ice.”
“It makes no sense,” Sharef said. “A second sub would have fired on us himself. It is not like the Americans to get caught in the line of their own fire, not when they can avoid it. Nor would an American risk a torpedo volley knowing another of his subs was in the way.”
“Maybe it’s a British sub, or a Canadian diesel boat. By reputation they are very quiet,” Quzwini said. “And they have been known to go deep into the marginal ice zone. He might have been securing snorting operations with his diesel and gone on battery power.”
Tawkidi appeared to reach a decision. “Sir, we need to put a Nagasaki down his bearing, just in case. We can have no further threats to our missile launch. We can set the presets for a slow-speed approach down the bearing line, tuned to hear the slightest manmade noise. If it is another sub, the Nagasaki will neutralize it. If it’s a phantom reflection or an ice noise, we have lost nothing.”
Sharef knew Tawkidi was making sense. “Very good, Commander. Launch the Nagasaki at the phantom noise. We’ll see what comes of it.”
Four minutes later the Nagasaki torpedo left the tube, driving at a slow twenty-five clicks, its sonar straining for noises of machinery or metal against metal. By the time the torpedo had completed its turn to the southwest, another four of the incoming American torpedoes had run out of fuel and shut down, hitting nothing.
Chapter 33
Saturday, 4 January
The last 1.5-g turn revealed that the final incoming American torpedoes had shut down, all of them out of fuel, impotent.
“The American torpedoes have all shut down, sir.”
Sharef could no longer avoid it. “Bring the ship around to the south and slow to missile-launch speed Commander, and come shallow.”
“Yes, Commodore. Ship control, set your course south, speed four clicks, depth 100 meters.” Tawkidi climbed onto the control seat at the periscope station and raised the scope.
The optic module came out of its well. Tawkidi put his eyes to the instrument. He looked out for a moment, saw nothing, reached up to the control section and energized the searchlights mounted on the top of the fin. The view immediately lit up with a vista of the underside of a large ice floe.
Tawkidi keyed the right grip, causing his seat to rotate slowly in a circle, occasionally hitting a function key that sent a beam of blue laser light upward to the ice, measuring its thickness and density, the information superimposing itself on his periscope vision.
“Sir, we have ice overhead. We won’t be able to launch here, but I think we should be close to the edge of this iceberg. A kilometer south.”
“Drive the ship south with the periscope up. Commander. You’ll find open water quicker that way. Suggest fifteen clicks to hurry the trip.”
“Yes sir,” Tawkidi’s voice was muffled by the periscope module as he made the orders.
Sharef waited, occasionally glancing at the Second Captain’s sensor displays, prodding Rouni to report the status of the Nagasakis. All three weapons were still in transit.
“Sir, we have open water,” Tawkidi announced. “Ship control, dead slow ahead, four clicks. Weapon control, flood tube one and power up the Hiroshima missile. Do the Scorpion self-check and report.”
“Very good, Commander,” General Sihoud said from the forward door of the room. “I am well pleased with the mission, Commodore Sharef. You and your crew have done great things. Allah is with you.”
Sharef nodded, wanting to tell him to keep his speeches to himself. He just wanted to be done with this thing.
“Commander,” Tawkidi reported, “we are getting a speed increase from the third-launched Nagasaki. I think it has heard a target.”
Sihoud was clearly pleased. Even Colonel Ahmed nodded in satisfaction. Sharef’s expression did not change. More death ahead, but at least perhaps a threat would soon be neutralized.
Ten minutes earlier the word had come from maneuvering that the battery was low, very low, due to keeping sonar at full capability. Sonar, with its auxiliary seawater pumps to cool its massive computers, was a power hog. They were reaching a point of no return. Starting the reactor would take 100 amp-hours, and there were only 105 left. Kane had given the order with deep reluctance restart the reactor.
The restart was now into its tenth minute, with power on the grid from the ship’s turbine generators promised in another ten minutes. Kane paced control, his thoughts escaping to a trip home, a hot meal, a hot shower and a full night’s sleep.
“Conn, sonar, all the Mark 50s have shut down. The Destiny must have outrun them.”
“Any sign of the firing submarine?” Kane asked. There was no answer. Kane repeated the call. Still no answer. Kane had taken two step off the conn in the direction of the door to sonar when Sanderson’s voice came over the circuit.
“Conn, sonar, torpedo in the water bearing zero four five. It looks like a Nagasaki and it’s increasing speed even as I’m making this report.”
Kane ran back to the conn and grabbed the Circuit Seven microphone hanging from the overhead.
“Engineer, Captain, get the reactor and main engines up fast. We have a torpedo in the water.”
“GOING TO EMERGENCY HEATUP RATES NOW, CAPTAIN. BUT I CAN’T DELIVER IN LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES EVEN WITH EVERYTHING SHE’S GOT,” Schramford reported.
If there were a medal for most time spent on the wrong end of warshot torpedoes, Kane thought, Phoenix would win it hands down. He looked at Mcdonne. For the first time in the entire run Mcdonne’s face was a study in unconcealed fear. Kane wondered how his own warface was holding up.
In the end, he thought, it wouldn’t matter. The Nagasaki torpedo would get them, there was no evading it. Trying to get the reactor restarted to evade was almost just something to do to occupy the crew’s time while they waited for the end. Well, it had been a good run, they had almost made it.