“I understand your selfless concern,” Renard said. “But you have a ruse to uphold. You must behave as if the Kim doesn’t exist, lest you attract attention in its vicinity. The North Koreans have you on radar, and you must first attack ships that appear a threat to you.”
“I don’t like that logic, mate. It doesn’t sit right. But I don’t see a way to refute it.”
“Based upon your prior attacks on engine rooms, I recommend four splintering rounds into the five closest ships. I’ve tagged them for you in the tactical data feed.”
Cahill glanced at his display and saw pulsating red flags atop the icons of speeding enemy warships.
“You heard him, Liam. Four splintering rounds into each. Keep the cannons firing until you’ve sent out twenty rounds at the five targets Pierre flagged.”
“I’ve set the cannons to continue firing,” Walker said.
A new voice filled the bridge.
“This is Specter,” Jake said.
“What the bloody hell are you doing shallow?”
“Helping you out,” Jake said. “The hostile torpedo is out of fuel. You should stop running now.”
“Thanks, mate. Slowing to five knots.”
The undulations under Cahill’s feet waned, but the rough waves signaled an approaching storm as they tossed the Goliath.
“I’m sending a tactical feed to you, Pierre,” Jake said. “You’ll have a history of what we just went through.”
“I’ll incorporate it into my ongoing feed to you and Terry,” Renard said. “Terry’s first rounds just downed a maritime aircraft. His subsequent rounds failed to stop the other aircraft, however.”
Cahill’s screen showed the removal of Bogey Five while Bogey Six flew towards him.”
“Prepare four splintering rounds for Bogey Six,” he said.
“Four splintering rounds are ready,” Walker said. “Rounds eighty-nine through ninety-two.”
“Very well,” Cahill said. “Continue firing through round ninety-two.”
“Your rounds are proving well-placed against the warships,” Renard said. “Three of them have slowed already and appear to have suffered damage to their main engines. Fires have broken out on the other ships, and I expect they will soon slow.”
Moments of silence slipped by during which a microphone clicked but nobody spoke. An icy suspicion crawled up Cahill’s spine. A submarine commanding officer’s conditioned reaction overcame him.
“Take the bridge, Liam.”
He darted down the stairs, through the door, and into the tactical control room. His sonar supervisor stooped over an operator who stared wide-eyed at his monitor.
The supervisor looked at his captain.
“Just confirmed, sir. Torpedo in the water.”
Cahill bent towards the sonar display and noted the bearing of the new torpedo’s sound. The Goliath’s towed array hydrophones heard the weapon, but the ship’s self-noise prevented the conformal array from providing data.
He grabbed the nearest microphone.
“All ahead flank,” he said. “Come right to course three-four-one.”
A loudspeaker announced Walker’s response.
“Coming to ahead flank, course three-four-one. What the hell’s going on, Terry?”
“Torpedo in the water. I’m taking us to flank to outrun it. I’m turning us sixty degrees to resolve ambiguity on the towed array.”
The deck plates lurched under Cahill, and he steadied himself against a sonar console. He watched his sonar operator scrunch his eyelids to listen to the torpedo while wishing it away. Then the operator’s tight throat spat out the words Cahill needed.
“The bearings to the torpedo are walking forward up the array. We just turned towards the torpedo.”
“The torpedo bears zero-zero-nine,” Cahill said. “Snapshot, tube two, bearing zero-zero-nine.”
As the sonar supervisor acknowledged the order to send a retaliatory torpedo down the bearing of the incoming weapon, Cahill grabbed the microphone.
“Continue right to course one-five-nine for evasion.”
“Continuing right to one-five-nine,” Walker said.
“Snapshot ready,” the supervisor said.
“Shoot tube two.”
“Tube two, normal launch,” the supervisor said.
The nothingness of the Goliath’s weapon launch struck Cahill as alien. With his port-side torpedo tubes in a different hull, his senses lacked tangible feedback of his counter-strike. But he trusted his sensors and his team.
“Very well. Is there any sign of the launch platform?”
“No, sir.”
“Any sign of a second incoming weapon?”
“No, sir.”
“Damn. That means the shooter had confidence in his single shot. And why wouldn’t he? We were making flank speed, tons of noise, and gifting him a high bearing rate. We sprinted right into this.”
“But we can sprint right out, too, can’t we? We have the speed.”
“It all depends on the distance to the weapon. Keep listening. Assume a speed of forty-five knots and resolve the weapon’s course and distance.”
“I’m patching Jake and Pierre through to the tactical control room,” Walker said.
“Go ahead.”
“Have you been attacked?” Renard asked.
“Yes. Single torpedo. I think I’ve got the jump on me evasion, but only because Jake was smart enough to tell me to stop running from the last torpedo.”
“Have you identified the shooter?”
“No. I’m moving too fast. But I did get off a snapshot. So I’ll at least distract the mongrel, and maybe I’ll get lucky and hit him.”
“Leave that to me,” Jake said. “I’m going to head below the layer and take care of it. But before I do, I’ve got your incoming torpedo on my towed array. I just sent the bearing histories. You can use them to get yourself a tighter solution.”
Cahill looked at a tactical display on the Goliath’s Subtics system as it accepted Jake’s updates.
“Thank God,” he said. “I should outpace it long enough to exhaust its fuel, but I could be running into another trap. These mongrels’ submarines are everywhere.”
“But they’re probably not in the water between you and me that you just sprinted through. Come back the way you came, and you should be fine.”
“Right. Liam, continue right to course one-nine-one.”
“Continuing to one-nine-one.”
“What about you, Jake?” Cahill asked. “I’m bringing a torpedo right towards you?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ve snorkeled enough to head deep for a while, as long as I don’t need to sprint. I’ll get out of the way and hunt down whoever shot at you.”
“Your batteries are at what? Thirty percent?”
“Thirty-five. But I can make enough speed on MESMA.”
“How the hell are you going to chase somebody down at a sustained MESMA speed?”
He heard Jake’s sardonic laugh.
“Because your snapshot has already made the bastard run. I heard him for a bit, before he went under the layer. I only need another minute of data on him to get a firing solution.”
“Happy hunting, mate.”
“Just make sure you think twice before launching a torpedo at a submerged contact,” Jake said. “Make sure it’s not me.”
“Wouldn’t think of it.”
“I’ll keep an eye out for hostile assets in your path, too,” Jake said. “I’ll be in a good position to do so. You just keep running. Specter, out.”
“Everything’s on the razor’s edge but seems under our control at the moment,” Renard said. “You may as well take advantage of your time on the surface to use more of your railguns. In fact, a warship just emerged from a storm and appears to be headed dangerously close the Kim. I’ve tagged it for you.”