The image changed to a blue submarine.
“Make it two submarines, co-located, just to be clear.”
“Done,” Remy said.
Jake stared at his dolphin-submarines while considering his next move. As the initial success in connecting with them and geo-locating them bolstered his confidence, he took his leap of faith.
“Let’s see what they see,” he said. “It’s time to query them for submerged contacts.”
“One query at a time, Jake,” Antoine said. “And you have to ask them discrete questions about each contact.”
“Right. Pierre said they’ll likely see multiple contacts. They’ll supposedly report any submerged contacts moving clockwise, considering us at twelve o’clock for reference. Start with querying for the bearing to a contact.”
“I’m ready to query them for the bearing to a contact.”
“Transmit the query.”
An exchange of chirps and whistles.
“They say a submerged contact is at five o’clock.”
“Very well,” Jake said. “Now query for the range.”
Another exchange of chirps and whistles.
“They say it’s far away,” Remy said. “Remember that they’re trained only to say if a contact is close, far away, or between close and far. Near is within a nautical mile of their position, far is beyond ten, and in between is a random guess.”
“Far away is fine for now,” Jake said. “That means we’ve got time to drive the geometry, especially if they’re stationary waiting to ambush us. Continue with the next query for range.”
Three contacts later, Jake met Henri’s stare.
“The dolphins must be seeing drones,” Jake said. “If I assume two drones per submarine, they’ll report a total of nine to twelve contacts.”
“Indeed,” Henri said. “They have excellent natural skill, and I’m sure they can tell a submarine from a drone.”
“But they don’t know how to tell us which are drones and which are submarines, unfortunately.”
“Precisely the limitation I was beginning to lament.”
“Well, let’s exhaust the information they can tell us, and then we’ll figure out how to figure out what’s what.”
Jake ordered Remy to continue the queries. Ten minutes later, he saw twelve submerged contacts outlining a barrier between him and Cahill. As the last one appeared in the Specter’s Subtics system, he stepped down to the central chart and bent over it. He felt his mechanic appear beside him.
“Holy shit,” he said. “That’s four submarines, each with two drones covering a whole lot of water. There’s no way to punch through that without…”
“Yes?” Henri asked. “Without what?”
“Shit,” Jake said. “Without dolphins.”
“Agreed, but be careful. There’s nothing trivial about this. We can’t attack twelve targets without risking the noise of reloads, even counting the two weapons the dolphins carry.”
“But we can punch our way through six of them, including any drones we can’t tell apart from submarines,” Jake said. “And that’s enough.”
“I see what you mean,” Henri said. “We’re not defeating four submarines and eight drones, but we’re only penetrating their wall. We only need to break through.”
Jake blocked out the Frenchman’s words while awaiting inspiration as he looked at the icons. The moment of clarity he needed arrived, and he saw his efficient path.
“We need to defeat only one,” he said.
“Without telling a drone from a submarine?”
“Possibly. What we already know is useful information. Get a communication buoy loaded to tell Pierre what we know about the twelve contacts, and launch it with a ten-minute delay.”
“Understood. I’ll get it launched. But do you really think you already have a plan in mind to get us through the ambush?”
“Sort of.”
“Even without being able to tell which of the twelve contacts are submarines and which are drones?”
“I think I know how to overcome the communication barrier we’re facing with our newest hunters on the team,” Jake said. “And I think we’ll be able to discern a submarine from a drone just in time to make a difference for helping Terry.”
CHAPTER 17
Cahill stood in the Goliath’s tactical control room, praying for the solitude of silence as he stared at several sonar displays. The hull arrays heard nothing, but he knew they were challenged against distant, quiet contacts.
The noises on the towed sonar array concerned him.
“I see a lot of contacts,” he said. “But nothing crisp like the well-machined screws of a combatant. It’s not just wishful thinking, is it, to think we’re in the clear?”
His sonar supervisor shook his head and slid his earpiece behind his jaw.
“No, sir. I have all the surface combatants identified in our system based upon Renard’s low-bandwidth input. With that advantage, it’s easy to stay away from them. It’s only the helicopters and submarines that scare me.”
“You mean until we stop running in circles and try to break out of here,” Cahill said.
“Yes. We’re safe for now but trapped.”
“And they’re tightening the noose,” Cahill said. “You can see them converging on us from the south. Our only saving grace is that they’re moving slowly. I think they respect our firepower.”
“Either that, or they take us for dead.”
“That would be even better, but they’re professionals, and I don’t expect them to risk that conclusion untested. They’re coming.”
Cahill turned and stepped beside Walker, who leaned over the plotting table.
“I don’t like it,” Walker said. “The noose, as you said, is tightening. We may have to surface and fight our way out.”
“Against that wall of combatants to the south alone, it would be risky. Given that they can jam and evade our rounds if we use only satellite guidance, we’d have to get within range of our phased array radar, and that would place us near the range of the frigates’ cannons.”
“Near their range, but still beyond it, if we’re careful enough. I’ve calculated that we’ve got about a three-mile advantage against them, based upon the height of our radar arrays detecting the frigates by their tallest masts. We can target their engineering spaces with certainty and cripple them.”
Cahill absorbed the insight while expanding the chart.
“But look just a bit to the south, and you see a wall of submarines,” he said. “As soon as we announce ourselves on the surface, we’re easy prey for them.”
“But we’re well over twenty-five miles away, and possibly farther than that.”
“The distance can be closed quickly by a sprinting submarine to within launch distance of us, and then a torpedo can find us with over-the-horizon guidance through a wire if we linger on the surface to attack multiple surface combatants.”
“I’m trying to find us a way out of this, mate,” Walker said.
“I know it, and it’s good thinking. I’m afraid that there’s just no obvious tactic. There’s risk at every bloody turn and in every bloody direction.”
A sailor stirred and called Cahill’s attention to news from his boss. He thanked the man and invoked a train of text on the table.
“Check it out,” he said. “Pierre’s sent us data based upon Jake’s work in identifying a lot of the submarines. I’m sending the new updates to the chart.”
Ovals of uncertainty spread from north to south with thin axes across their east-west middles.
“These solutions are almost useless with their shitty guesses at the ranges,” Walker said. “And they’re incomplete. It says he assumes there are twice as many drones as submarines that he’s detected, and that means there’s at least two submarines unaccounted for by that math.”