The captain of the Kilo welcomed Jinan more than he did the Romeo. For one thing, the destroyer’s two turbines were loud, which would hopefully distract any enemy’s sonar from any noises his Kilo might make. Even more important, however, Jinan, like all Luda type II destroyers, carried two French ASW helicopters. Those would be very useful if the Kilo needed help while engaging an American submarine.
As pleased as the Kilo’s captain was with the surface ship, he was equally displeased with the Romeo. It was an old attack submarine that had been reactivated from the naval reserve, and, in his opinion, it was more of a threat to his own submarine than it was to the enemy. It was too noisy, for one thing. That could be desirable when the noise came from the surface, but down below it would only serve to alert the Americans to the presence of one or more Chinese submarines in the area.
Worse, the farther he tried to get from the Romeo, the more it tried to stay close to him. The Romeo captain was no fool. He knew he stood a better chance under the protection of the Kilo than he did on his own.
Assuming, that is, that the Kilo captain didn’t sink the Romeo himself.
Back on board Cheyenne, sonar was trying to reacquire contact. Mack had gone back to 247 feet to continue the search, while at the same time maintaining copy over the floating wire.
In the control room, Mack was looking at the BSY-1 fire-control console, which he liked to keep online for himself. “Sonar, conn, have you regained contact on Master 24?”
“Conn, sonar, we’re working on a possible contact,” the sonar supervisor said, “but I’m not sure it’s the same convergence zone one. This one may be a surface ship. Master 24 was tentatively classified as a submerged submarine.”
Several minutes later, the sonar supervisor reported that he had not one contact, but two, one Romeo submarine and one Luda destroyer, both bearing 020. They were both given new Master Numbers, designated Masters 25 and 26 respectively, since the sonar supervisor was not sure if either one was Master 24. Reconstruction would have to sort it out later. Without hesitating, the OOD ordered his section fire-control tracking party manned. Mack went to the sonar room.
“Good job,” Mack said, unaware that they had failed to detect the Kilo that was in the area of Masters 25 and 26. “Anything else out there?”
“Not that we can tell yet, Captain,” the sonar supervisor said, “but those two contacts are loud. We can hear them aurally, so there could be more ships operating in the area.”
Mack left the sonar room and went back to the control room. The BSY-1 operators had a rough solution on range, about 30,000 yards.
At Cheyenne’s current speed of ten knots, Mack would soon be within range to launch his Mk 48 ADCAPs at the Chinese contacts. When he got closer, he would slow. No need as yet for long-range shots. Cheyenne was currently running with the TB-23 towed-array fully deployed and, with the OOD’s maneuvers, the section fire-control tracking party at the BSY-1 computers was getting better and better solutions on the Chinese destroyer and submarine.
“Conn, sonar, the TB-23 just picked up a helicopter overhead,” the sonar supervisor announced. “Probably flying from the Chinese destroyer.”
“Take her down fast, to five hundred feet!” Mack ordered the OOD. This was another helo “Sierra” addition to his patrol report.
Throughout Cheyenne, sailors grabbed for whatever they could as the submarine headed down at standard speed with a twenty-degree down angle. The diving officer, helmsman, and planesman had all buckled their seat belts as soon as they heard “take her down fast.”
Above them, the Chinese Z-9A helo hovered and began to lower its powerful French HS-12 dipping sonar via the hydraulic winch. The winch was touted to be “high speed,” but it didn’t seem fast enough for the helo pilot as it slowly lowered the HS-12 toward the water.
“Conn, sonar, we just received a sonar pulse from the helicopter’s dipping sonar. It’s a French type, HS-12-the same kind they sold to China. The transmission came from the opposite direction of the Romeo. I don’t think they could have detected us, sir. Signal level of the pulse was low.” Which probably meant the helo was quite a ways off or else it hadn’t dipped its sonar beneath the layer.
Mack acknowledged for the OOD. “Very well, sonar, we have it out here on the WLR-9 as well,” he said. “Were we able to pick up any other information from the transmission?”
“Sonar, conn, negative,” the sonar supervisor answered. “It wasn’t a very strong pulse. Let’s hope she ran out of batteries.”
Mack smiled at the joke. Unlike the communicator’s earlier gaffe, this comment was well timed, and helped to ease the tension slightly.
One hour and fifteen minutes later Cheyenne had closed to within 20,000 yards of her targets, Masters 25 and 26. Mack ordered battle stations manned.
A few minutes later the helo was active again. The WLR-9’s acoustic intercept receiver at the conn picked that one up also, even though it was near the baffles.
“Conn, sonar, that was a loud one, sir,” the sonar supervisor said.
Mack smiled. “She must have recharged,” he said, in a deadpan voice. “Designate the helo Master 27.”
“Conn, sonar, she got us on that one, sir — but that’s not all she painted! Captain, we’ve got another submarine out there, a Kilo class, one six-bladed screw, making turns for ten knots. It’s bearing 025, near the same bearing as the Romeo. It’s been hiding from us all this time.”
All humor was gone from the conn. Considering their situation, Mack was pleased with how well his officers and crew were handling the sudden tension. Not aware they had regained old Master 24, the Kilo was designated Master 28.
Cheyenne had just been pinged on by a directly overhead Chinese ASW helicopter, which had undoubtedly received an exact fix on their present location five hundred feet below the surface. The helo would now probably be making an MAD (magnetic anomaly detection) pass to confirm Cheyenne’s position. Mack was concerned that they would follow that up by dropping a torpedo directly on top of Cheyenne.
“Conn, sonar, the Kilo, Master 28, just picked up speed. It’s heading directly at us, making turns for seventeen knots. It must suspect that the helo gave their position away.”
“What’s the range to the Kilo?” Mack asked the fire-control coordinator.
“Twenty-four thousand yards, Captain. We’re within ADCAP range for the Kilo — it’s making lots of noise at seventeen knots. Recommend making tubes one and two ready.”
Mack nodded and initiated Firing Point Procedures on Master 28. “Torpedo room, fire control, make tubes one and two ready in all respects. Open the outer doors.”
The order was acknowledged. One minute later it was confirmed. “Tubes one and two are ready in all respects, sir. Outer doors have been opened.”
“Sonar, conn, stand by.”
“Conn, sonar, standing by.”
“Match sonar bearings and shoot tube one, Master 28.”
“Match sonar bearings and shoot tube one, Master 28, aye, sir.”
Mack then came right to clear the datum.
“Tube one fired electrically,” the combat system officer reported. That was as far as he got. Before he could report on the torpedo’s status, the sonar supervisor spoke up.