Volkov’s queasiness eased as the rocking subsided.
From a console with a black screen, Jake tested the underwater datalink. “Can you guys hear me?”
Letting the native English speakers talk, Volkov listened to their words and his translator’s interpretation.
“Yeah, mate. You sound clear as a bell. How do you read me?”
“You sound great in digital clarity. Are you getting a data feed from me, too?”
“I’ve got it right here in front of me.”
“How far’s this thing supposed to work, again?”
“Your countrymen say it can push out to ten miles, but we’ve all set our power limits to three miles for this mission.”
“So, I’ll lose you before you deploy Dmitry.”
“Right, mate. Happy hunting.”
In silence, Volkov watched a screen of icons showing the Goliath-Wraith tandem move west while Jake took the Specter east. The data feed faded at three miles. “We’re alone now.”
The translator interpreted Cahill’s response. “Not for much longer. We’ll be within range of the California in the next ten minutes or so if we want to try communicating, depending where it is in its patrol circle.”
Without Jake, Volkov assumed the Australian commander was in charge, but the patient expression on Cahill’s face suggested he awaited an opinion, and the Wraith’s commander provided one. “Let’s not broadcast. We’d risk alerting the Iranians, and for what? To attempt to hail the California’s crew when they should already know we’re here?”
Commander Hatcher nodded. “They do.”
“Alright, mate. I’ll take you straight to your drop point.”
While he rode the Goliath westward, Volkov tasked his sonar technicians with listening for submerged contacts, both friendly and hostile. He studied a display showing the Indiana’s expected position five miles away, and the lack of sonic information concerned him. “Still nothing, Anatoly?”
Seated at a Subtics tactical console, the young sonar guru shook his head.
The American rider explained the silence. “The California measured sound levels from the Indiana, and it’s undetectable outside two miles. With our background noise while tied to the Goliath at our transit speed, I’d be surprised if you’d hear it if we drove right over it.”
The Wraith’s commander recalled a briefing stating that the Americans had diverted two UUVs to mirror the Indiana. Nobody had mentioned the derogatory term for their roles, but the label “torpedo-sponges” cycled through his mind. “I had dared to hope to hear your robots, but I see that they’re impressively quiet.”
Commander Hatcher boasted of his navy’s unmanned undersea vehicles. “They’re impressive. They’re much cheaper than building manned submarines, and there are too many Iranian submarines in these waters for our manned fleet to track. They’ve gathered invaluable data and were operating flawlessly until… well, we haven’t confirmed if the malfunctioning unit failed or was sabotaged.”
During the next thirty minutes, Volkov’s tactical view showed the Indiana, circled by the California and mirrored by robots, moving to his northeast. As his attention shifted to dangers closer to his submarine, he stretched his legs and walked about the small compartment. With the Goliath’s catamaran hulls worsening the background noise, the sonar displays were empty of hostile sounds.
From the monitor at the captain’s console, Cahill’s voice rang out.
The translator interpreted the command. “Terry said he’s slowing to deploy us.”
Volkov walked to the gray-bearded veteran who controlled the flow of water, air, and communications throughout the Wraith. Tapping his shoulder, he leaned towards him. “Man the full watch sections, and have Vasily prepare his dolphins.”
The gray-beard nodded and reached for a microphone.
“No. Do it quietly. Iranian submarines may be drifting out there, unheard.” As the vibrations under his feet died with the decaying speed, Volkov walked to his commanding officer’s console and sat in front of the Australian’s image. “We’re ready, Terry.”
“I see that your weight distribution’s good. When we’re dead in the water, I’ll let you go.”
Volkov watched digits on his display tick towards zero. “Almost there.”
“Let’s kill off the rest of this speed with an upward glide.” Cahill turned his face from the screen, and the deck took a subtle upward angle before settling. The Goliath’s commander aimed his nose back towards the display. “We’re drifting. Are you ready, Dmitry?”
“Da. Yes.”
“Pump water off to make yourself light.”
Volkov lifted his chin for his gray-bearded veteran’s benefit. “Pump overboard from the middle drain tank.” He then turned his jaw back to the screen with his Australian friend’s image. “I’m pumping, Terry. I’m ready.”
“Off you go. I’m deploying you now.”
Through the Goliath’s external cameras, the Wraith’s commander watched hydraulic presses roll back and release his hull. As his ship rose and the laser communications lock with his host failed, the screens froze and then went black. But the borrowed American software allowed an acoustic link with Cahill’s voice and low-bandwidth data.
“Can you hear me, Dmitry?”
“Very clearly, yes.”
“Can you see data coming over the link?”
The Wraith’s commander watched the Goliath’s course, depth, and heading walk across the otherwise black monitor like tickertape. Other parameters rolled by, which he ignored. “Yes.”
“Happy hunting, mate.”
Volkov accelerated the Wraith northward into Iranian waters, losing the acoustic communications with the Goliath as distance weakened the link. When he reached the line he expected the Indiana had drawn in the mud, he slowed to follow the wounded American submarine with a zigzagging search. As his crew settled into the routine of looking for Persian threats, he walked to his torpedo room.
A man as lithe and graceful as the animals he trained hovered over a makeshift aquarium in the compartment’s center passageway. The trainer kept his hand on a broached dorsal fin as he looked up. “Andrei’s already in tube three.”
Volkov saw the opened breach door and four sailors bending themselves around spare weapons to maneuver a tarp hanging from an overhead hook towards the centerline tank. He stepped back to let his men load the second bottlenose dolphin onto the sling. With practiced skill, the men lowered the canvas under the floating animal and worked him over it.
They hoisted Mikhail and swiveled him towards the waiting tube, exposing a blue harness wrapped forward of his dorsal fin that carried a camera, a sonic communications transceiver, and a small explosive device. The animal wiggled, exposing long rows of small teeth, and he fluttered his tongue while releasing a staccato screech.
Volkov snorted. “I can’t tell them apart except for how animated Mikhail is.”
Overseeing the sailors, the trainer nudged his way past his commanding officer. “Yes, yes. Mikhail the complainer and Andrei the stoic. It’s so demeaning how you regard them like caricatures. It’s not just you, but the whole crew. You may not think they notice, but you’re wrong.”