“The jets are close enough for me to use the phased array to guide me rounds. But I’m facing heavy jamming.”
“They’re close enough that a ballistic shot should be good enough. Just aim and take them down!”
Jake’s blood pressure rose as the cracks echoed, the dolphins pinged him, and the torpedo chased him.
“Got one!” Cahill said. “One Fencer is turning back. I must have winged it.”
“Keep shooting! Take down the other one.”
“I’m on it.”
Rays of horror leapt to life on his display.
“Vampires!” he said. “Coming from the port at Novorossiysk, both Fencers, and land-based launchers from Crimea.”
“Saturation attack,” Cahill said. “We’ll have to dive.”
“But we have anti-submarine helicopters inbound from Crimea.”
“They’re seven minutes away. The vampires are the problem we need to solve first.”
The dooming lines showing incoming missiles became clearer as the Goliath’s tactical system calculated their geometries.
“Hold on,” Jake said. “It’s not a saturation attack. It’s more like suppressing fire. Those vampires are staggered. Some are heading towards waypoints. They’re going to blanket us and make us stay submerged.”
“To protect their helicopters.”
Jake rested his mind from the airborne threats and looked at Remy, who announced that the weapon from tube three had detonated under the Grisha. With the target dead in the water, most of the twenty-four undersea limpet bombs had attached, scattering holes across the corvette’s length. Remy also informed him that the Kilo’s inbound torpedo held its deadly course.
Preparing to hide under the water’s surface, he lowered the Specter’s periscope.
“Jake, we need to submerge. Now!” Cahill said.
“Slow to thirteen knots and submerge,” Jake said.
The display of the Goliath’s internal tanks showed the inundation of seawater as the transport vessel’s centrifugal pumps sucked liquid into the beast.
“We’re under,” Remy said. “We’re slow, but I can hear better now. The inbound torpedo is eight thousand yards away. Time to impact has shifted from twenty minutes at our surfaced speed to seven and a half minutes at our evasion speed of thirteen knots.”
“Very well, Antoine,” Jake said.
He looked into his monitor.
“Let’s review our threats, ignoring the vampires. We’ve got three inbound helicopters that we know of, and we’re still in a tail chase with the Kilo’s torpedo seven and a half minutes behind us.”
“The torpedo is still the least of our worries,” Cahill said. “If a helicopter gets one whiff of us, we won’t have seven and a half seconds before it drops a weapon on our heads.”
“They’ve got us in a squeeze play. Damned if we surface, damned if we stay under.”
“We’ve been through this before.”
“But it wasn’t this bad. We need a new tactic. Fast. Something that allows us to be in between states — surfaced enough to fight the helicopters but submerged enough to avoid the vampires.”
A glint in Cahill’s eye told Jake he had spurred the right thought in his Australian colleague.
“I know what to do, mate. We’ll toggle between states like you said.”
“Are you thinking about porpoising?” Jake asked.
“Damned right I am. Now get your submarine off me back. I can’t do it with your radar cross section exposed above the water.”
“Got it,” Jake said. “Before we disconnect, I’m sending you coordinates for our reunion.”
He tapped the navigation plot at a random point to the southwest.
“I have the coordinates,” Cahill said. “I’ll meet you there. Make yourself light, and I’ll make meself heavy. You’ll need to veer to the south and head deep. I’m driving us deeper now to give you room to maneuver without broaching.”
The deck angled downward.
“I’m going to bottom myself and hope that the torpedo and the damned dolphins stay on you.”
“That should work,” Cahill said. “We’re crossing the three-hundred-meter curve, and the floor angles down steeply from here. That should help hide you from active torpedo returns.”
“There’s nothing active. Antoine can barely hear the high-speed screws. They must be guiding the weapon to us.”
“Even better,” Cahill said. “Stay quiet, and they’ll definitely key on me.”
The deck leveled as the Goliath-Specter tandem settled at one hundred meters. Jake looked to Henri, who nodded. He then glanced at his internal tanks and saw that the Frenchman pumped water overboard to make the Specter light.
“I’m light,” he said.
“I’m heavy,” Cahill said. “You’re about to break free of me presses on your own. Let’s do it.”
“Shoot straight.”
“Hide well. Disengaging!”
Jake shut down the laser communication system, and the screen went dark.
“We’re rising,” Henri said.
“I know. Give Terry time to clear under us.”
“We’re rising fast, Jake.”
“Flood the centerline tanks.”
“I’m flooding centerline tanks,” Henri said. “I need more. I need speed and down angles to keep us under.”
“All ahead one-third.”
“Coming to ahead one-third. We’re at sixty meters and rising at five meters per second. We’re a cork, Jake.”
“Full dive on the stern planes.”
The deck angled ten, then twenty degrees down. Jake pressed his palms into the railing and shifted his weight to his shoulders.
“Fifty meters and rising at two meters per second,” Henri said. “And our stern is even higher than that.”
“All ahead standard.”
“Coming to all ahead standard.”
“You have full dive on the fairwater planes?”
“Yes, of course,” Henri said. “We’re still struggling. Forty-two meters and rising at half a meter per second.”
Jake ran the numbers through his mind. Speed of nine knots, accelerating to fifteen, an angle of twenty degrees forcing the ship downward, the hydroplaning of the fairwater planes pressing against the ship, and the rate of influx of the trim and drain pumps against the Specter’s lightness.
His mental equation resolved as favorable on the Specter’s ascent.
“We’re fine,” he said.
“Thirty-seven meters,” Henri said.
“And?”
“And steady. Now descending.”
“Reduce the ship’s angle to ten degrees down. Slow to all ahead one-third. Left full rudder, steady course south.”
The deck became less taxing on Jake’s shoulders, but it lifted him sideways.
“How’s your depth control now, Henri?”
“Good. I can manage it with pumps.”
“All stop.”
“Coming to all stop. Are we drifting to the bottom?”
“Yes. Rig the ship for ultra-quiet. Everyone’s going to hold their breath for a while.”
“How hard do you want to hit the bottom?” Henri asked.
“Gentle. I don’t want to give away the noise. A quarter meter per second?”
“I can do that. I’m pumping water off now.”
“Very well, Henri. Bottom the ship.”
“May I have the fathometer?”
“It may not help much on this steep bottom, but go ahead.”
Remy interjected his report.
“I’ve lost the wires to both weapons,” he said. “The maneuvering was too much.”
“I understand. How did they line up against your last solution of the Kilo?”
“I don’t have any new data on the Kilo. It stopped sending commands to the dolphins.”