Anatoly’s voice rose above a whisper. “I’m listening. We all are.” He aimed his nose at the technicians seated beside him. “There’s no indication that we’ve been heard.”
“Not yet, but no captain in his right mind would react at this range and signal that he did hear us. Any aggression would invite a one-for-one exchange. If he hears us and intends to shoot, my bet is that he’d wait until he’s opened to at least three miles.”
“I know you’re not ready to shoot yet, but do you want a tube assigned to the new contact?”
“Yes. Tube one at one-third charge. Set it to swim out. I want a silent launch.”
Anatoly nodded. “We’ll make tube one ready.” He tapped his colleague’s shoulder and uttered the instruction for the junior technician to handle the weapon.
As his torpedo became available, Volkov evaluated his maneuvering options. Wanting to avoid the hydraulic and metallic adjustment sounds and the shifting flow noise of his rudder, he had one option. He crept to his gray-bearded veteran’s side and attempted a telepathic link by mouthing the words while lifting his index and ring finger in a V-shape. “Two knots.”
The veteran nodded. “Slowing to two knots, sir.”
Volkov retraced his steps to his sonar ace. “That should make us harder to hear and let the Iranian drive away faster.”
Ignoring the comment, Anatoly spoke to the man seated two consoles away. “Track the close-aboard contact. I hear something new.” He aimed his jaw over his shoulder at his commander. “When you slowed down, I heard something else. There’s another Ghadir-class submarine on the move. I’m assigning a cursor to it now.”
After recovering from the shock of another phantom submarine’s appearance, Volkov sneered. “That could be a good sign. Hopefully, the Iranians have received orders to withdraw from the area. Perhaps our close-aboard contact’s driving away to a new patrol area, and not maneuvering to shoot us.”
A silent, tense thirty seconds elapsed. “My initial solution has the distant Ghadir heading northeast as well. It’s not the exact same course as the close-aboard contact, but they’re both heading in a similar direction.”
The Wraith’s commander watched the lines of incoming sound from the nearby submarines steady on a constant bearing as the vessels slipped away. Watching the geometry and waiting for hostile action taxed his patience.
“Tube one is ready, sir.”
“Very well, Anatoly. However, I’m not ready. We’re still too close for torpedoes. The noise of the launch… the accuracy of a reactionary weapon. Not yet.”
“Should I get a weapon ready for the second contact?”
Volkov lacked clarity on his ability to determine the distant Ghadir’s fate, but he gave himself the option. “Yes. Tube three. Set it at one-third charge.”
After furious tapping, Anatoly bounced his announcement off his display. “Tube three is ready.”
“Easy now. These are slow submarines. No need to hurry.”
“The close-aboard one’s passing two and a half miles.”
“Patience. I’ll move us across the line of sight now so that our torpedo doesn’t work as a tracer bullet in reverse.”
“Agreed. I think we’re far enough away from the target to maneuver without being heard.”
Volkov risked raising his voice towards his gray-bearded veteran. “Make turns for six knots. Come right to course one-one-zero.”
After the deck tilted and settled into the turn, the sonar ace’s tone was impatient. “Three miles to the closer Ghadir and opening.”
“That’s good enough. Shoot tube one.”
“Weapon one is swimming out of tube one.”
“Very well. Now make sure our drones are still paralleling our course and speed.”
“They are. They’re still taking orders from the system.”
While skulking through the Gulf of Oman with frequent turns, Volkov had set his two deployed drones to behave like robots mimicking his ship’s course in their self-drive modes.
“Do you want to shoot the next Ghadir, Dmitry?”
“Show me the fuel prediction.”
“It’s insufficient. The weapon would stop half a mile short of the target, but you can close that distance before shooting.”
Volkov sniffed a possible trap. “Of course, I could. And that may be exactly what they want me to do. Shoot a few gentle slow-kill weapons at their transiting submarines while their drifting colleagues stay hidden and use my torpedoes as tracer bullets to fix my position. There’s a reason they built a lot of cheap, small submarines. Power in numbers.”
“But if you let the second one get away, it’ll become a risk to the Indiana.”
Volkov frowned as he realized he’d been prioritizing his safety over the mission’s success. “Damn it. You’re right.”
“Sorry, Dmitry. It’s a difficult decision.”
“Don’t apologize. Reminding me was your duty. Deciding how much I’m willing to risk our Russian hides to save an American submarine is my duty.” The Wraith’s commander straightened his back and looked across the room at his rider.
Commander Hatcher raised his voice. “And what’s the captain’s decision?”
“I couldn’t live with myself if I showed any cowardice. We’re going after that second Ghadir. But we’re doing it calmly and carefully. It’s making six knots. I’ll make eight to reduce the distance by a mile over the next thirty minutes and give myself a half mile of margin with my weapon. Then I’ll shoot.” Volkov gave his maneuvering orders to his gray-bearded veteran, and then the deck titled with the left turn to the northeast.
The American qualified his agreement. “That should neutralize the second Ghadir before it can tangle with the Indiana, assuming that nothing changes in its course and speed after you hit the first Ghadir.”
Volkov glanced at a tactical display showing his first weapon racing towards its victim. “We’ll know what the second Ghadir does soon enough. We’ve got its colleague pegged.”
The sonar ace echoed his commander’s sentiments. “Half a mile to impact. There’s not even a reactive weapon yet. We shot from so deep in the baffles, I don’t think they have a good bearing to our weapon, if their sonar team can hear it at all.”
“Maybe not, but it doesn’t matter. Have one of our guys listen for submunitions and for the Ghadir fighting to the surface after we hit it. The rest of you listen for submarines in hiding.”
Seated next to the captain’s console, the translator called out. “There’s a note from Pierre on the low-baud feed. He says Jake sank the dolphins’ mothership and recorded an undersea exchange he believes is the return-to-mothership command.”
Volkov grunted. “Impressive. That could create some confused Iranian dolphins.” He glanced around the control room and was thankful for the absence of his ship’s cetacean trainer, who’d retreated to his bunk to hibernate after his babies’ loss.
“Pierre says he’s sending the dolphin command recording in a continuous loop on the high-frequency broadcast. It’s there for you whenever you come shallow.”
“I’m in a bit of a tactical bind here. It’ll have to wait.”
“Okay, I’m reading the data as it comes. He also says he’ll send it in pieces over the low-frequency feed in between other updates. He says it should take about two hours that way.”
“That’s fine. Good thinking on his part, as usual. Once you’ve got it, loop it every five minutes from our drones. Half-power broadcasts.”