Jake then leaned into Remy’s ear.
“And you tell me what hostile sounds are out there and what they’re doing. Then get me updates from the kids on either side of you and let me know what’s going on.”
As the veteran nodded and curled his chin towards his chest to listen to the water’s acoustic clues, the dolphins surprised Jake with another report of a new undersea contact.
Then they reported again.
Then they reported a fourth time.
“What the heck?” Jake asked. “Are they stuttering?”
The fury of conversations in front of him prompted his patience, and he folded his arms while waiting.
“Torpedoes in the water,” Remy said. “At least four, all coming from the bearing of target five. Target five just launched a salvo at us.”
“Shit, right full rudder, steady course one-zero-zero.”
The deck angled.
“I’m analyzing how good the shots are now,” Remy said.
“Damn it,” Jake said. “There’s a good shot in that salvo since I fed them our bearing by talking to the dolphins. That crew figured out the big fake dolphin that kept talking too much was us.”
“They have no idea of our range, other than the blunt estimate wave-front analysis of our transmissions may have granted them,” Henri said.
The torpedo seeker alarm wailed, piercing Jake’s ears.
“Silence it!” he said.
As a technician stopped the electronic howling, Jake looked at the torpedo seeker’s bearing and recognized the danger.
“Their ignorance of our range may be the only reason we can get out of this alive,” Jake said. “The first torpedo has a near-zero bearing rate, but they have it running slow and searching for us too early.”
“Understood,” Henri said. “Countermeasures?”
“No. Not yet. Maybe never.”
“We’re steady on course one-zero-zero. The rudder is amidships. Do you wish to accelerate?”
“No. Let’s make sense of what we hear first. Antoine?”
“The other three torpedo seekers just went active,” Remy said. “But I’d still like you to slow to hear what target five and the surface ships are doing.”
“That’s risky.”
“Your turn to the right already has the closest torpedo on the left drawing slight left. All the other torpedoes are also on the left drawing slight left.”
Jake twisted his torso to the tactical scene on the table and saw lines fanning out every fifteen seconds with raw bearings to the four incoming torpedoes.
“Two of them may draw slight right if I slow. That means they’d be overtaking us on possible intercept courses.”
“We’ll be fine once you speed up again.”
“Unless target five still has a wire and steers them towards us,” Jake said.
“I need you to slow to tell you what target five is doing.”
“Fine. Shit. I’ll give you five knots for thirty seconds. Henri, slow to five knots.”
While the Specter slowed, Jake addressed the technician seated to Remy’s left. The sailor confirmed the assignments of all six loaded slow-kill weapons to the proper three surface ships.
When the ship’s speed fell to five knots, Jake began a silent countdown and burned his eyes on Remy, hoping for insight. Before thirty mental seconds elapsed, the guru slid his listening equipment behind his neck and looked up at Jake.
“Target five is making twenty-two knots and will evade. It’s already slipped outside weapon one’s seeker cone. The good news is that it probably lost the wires to all its weapons while turning and sprinting away.”
“I don’t like it, but I can live with it. What else have you got?”
“The surface combatants you assigned our torpedoes to aren’t turning back where you’d expect them to turn back. They’ve broken from their repeated patrol patterns and are continuing to the east.”
“But that’s outside the battlespace,” Jake said. “It’s like they’re quitting the battle and walking away.”
“Or it’s like target five told them about us, and they rightly assumed we were getting ready to shoot torpedoes at them.”
“I see. It’s been thirty seconds. Can I speed up now?”
“Yes, I recommend that you do, or else the first torpedo may become a threat.”
“Henri, make turns for eleven knots.”
Jake turned from his sonar ace and watched Renard’s low-baud data trickle across the tactical display. Updates to the easterly frigate and its gunboat escorts aligned with Remy’s observations.
“Shit,” he said.
He made a rare trip to Henri’s station to solicit the Frenchman’s advice. His unofficial therapist and tactical sounding board swiveled in his chair and faced him.
“A lot just happened to us. What’s your first thought?”
“Great question,” Jake said. “Forcing me to prioritize the noise in my head. Let’s start with why target five made one good shot at me and three shitty ones. It could easily instead have been two or three good ones to increase the probability of hitting me.”
“Do what you always do, and start with the geometry.”
“Yeah. Good thinking. Hold on.”
Jake visualized the data, played with it in his mind, and sought significance in the multitude of objects in motion.
“There’s a large bearing separation in the three bad shots,” he said. “I assume that’s because they had three different running speeds, like target five shot them at fast speed, medium speed, and slow speed to spread them out in front of us.”
“In front, like a wall to the north.”
“Shit, Henri, those three torpedoes are a temporary version of the wall the Greek submarines set up between Terry and us the first time. But I can’t shoot torpedoes out of the way, and I need to run from the good shot coming at us.”
“And even the good shot erred to the north,” Henri said. “All four torpedoes had either a primary or secondary goal of forcing us away from the Goliath.”
After a moment to ponder the insight, Jake felt his heart plummet into his stomach.
“I can’t help Terry,” he said.
“I’m afraid I agree,” Henri said. “At least I agree for the short term. Have faith that he’ll find a way to survive a bit longer than you hope, and think through the long-term options.”
Jake’s mind raced into a temporary panic, but then he assessed the factors governing his situation, and he drew calmness from the methodical analysis.
“Let’s next get the dolphins into a holding pattern before they slip out of range. We can’t keep up with them anymore. Antoine, order them to hold their position.”
Remy sent the order, receiving silence the response.
“They were only eight miles ahead of us,” Jake said. “They should still be in range. Try them again. Jack up the power to full.”
Again, the sonar guru issued the command and the dolphins ignored it. Jake struggled to recall if there was a mitigation for letting the Russian animals swim beyond communications range, but he wanted to avoid the situation.
“One more time,” he said.
The response of chirps and whistles relieved Jake.
“They acknowledge the order to hold their position,” Remy said. “They may have lingered near the surface during their last breath, but they’re back underwater now.”
“Very well, Antoine. Henri, get a communications buoy ready for Pierre to update him on all the submerged contacts, including our course and speed and the position of our dolphins.”
“I shall see to it. Do you have any recommendations for him, or for Terry?”
Having considered Cahill’s fate dire, Jake appreciated Henri’s subtle challenge. He leaned his hips into the navigation table and forced himself to brainstorm a positive outcome for his colleague.