During the Cold War, some boats had slipped along in stealthy pursuit of an unsuspecting Russian ballistic missile sub for a week at a time, until the unnatural quiet — the hushed voices and careful movements; the conversations carried out with eyebrows, shrugs, and grimaces — became what passed for normal, and the din that resulted when ultraquiet was secured seemed like a shocking violation of the natural order of things.
The control room was eerie in red light, like a scene out of some Dantean hell. The tension was palpable. The enemy submarine must be out there, not very far away.
Silently, Garrett went over a mental checklist for at least the fiftieth time. Tubes two and four were loaded, and the outer doors already open. Junior had been launched half an hour ago and steered to a point nearly half a mile northeast of Virginia's position, where the UUV was circling slowly, saving its batteries. The boat was rigged for ultraquiet and the crew were at their stations or in their racks.
What had he forgotten? Nothing he could think of. He would have liked to have been able to go ahead and load tube three as well, but reloading was a noisy procedure that could take twenty minutes, and he didn't want to risk being heard by the other boat.
On the control room monitor, dust motes, brilliantly illuminated like stars in deep space, drifted past. Carpenter had switched on the UUV's powerful external lights, bathing the water around the mobile device with illumination. Visibility was limited to perhaps twenty or thirty yards; beyond that range, the light was swallowed by the ocean. The chance of actually being able to see the enemy sub was slim, but there was a chance. The Kilo wouldn't be able to see the UUV's lights; that gave them an advantage unheard of in submarine warfare… the slender chance of actually spotting the other sub visually.
So far, though, there was nothing but drifting motes within a vast and empty ocean.
A tiny clicking from his chair console attracted Garrett's attention. On the console monitor, a window had opened, and words were typing themselves out in the window.
CAPTAIN, QUEENSLY. POSSIBLE CONTACT, BEARING ZERO-ONE-ZERO. DESIGNATE SIERRA-103.
Garrett opened his touchscreen keyboard and typed out a reply.
DEGREE OF CONFIDENCE?
And Queensly's reply came back seconds later.
LOW. MORE A FEELING THAN ANYTHING ELSE.
Still, for someone of Queensly's skill, a feeling was a damned good thing to go by. When it came to listening to the sounds emerging from the surrounding ocean depths, Garrett put more credence in Queensly's feelings than he did in most men's presentation of solid fact.
The electronic postings of messages back and forth saved having a messenger go back and forth, and was quieter than intercom connections or the 1MC. The silence continued to drag out for another long minute.
The tactical situation was fascinating. Two attack submarines, both among the quietest vehicles ever to slip beneath the surface of the ocean, seeking one another in a game of double blindman's bluff, two opponents each trying simultaneously to hear the other while remaining completely silent. The first one to make a mistake was dead.
The control room monitor continued to show lighted motes of crud streaming past the camera lens, with empty blackness beyond. Garrett had taken a long shot launching the UUV. Without knowing the other submarine's exact course or depth, the chance of acquiring the target visually was remote.
However, he thought suddenly, leaning forward in his chair, there was another way to use the UUV.
Typing again, he posted a message to both the weapons console and to sonar.
WEPS. KEY SONAR'S POSSIBLE CONTACT INTO JUNIOR'S NAVIGATIONAL STORAGE.
The reply came back a moment later. done.
SEND JUNIOR TOWARD THE CONTACT AT HIGH SPEED. AFTER A FEW MINUTES, HAVE IT GO ACTIVE ON SONAR.
Carpenter didn't respond immediately. When he did, it was to say,
PLEASE CONFIRM ORDER.
SEND JUNIOR TOWARD THE CONTACT AT HIGH SPEED. AFTER THREE MINUTES, SWITCH ON THE UUV'S ACTIVE SONAR. PRETEND TO BE A TORPEDO.
PRETEND TO BE TORPEDO, ROGER THAT!
Junior, the sensor-laden reconnaissance/monitor platform, was still, essentially, an ADCAP torpedo. It could not reach the fifty-knot-plus speed of a Mark 48 ADCAP, but it could hump along at a respectable thirty knots.
And when it moved that fast, it would sound exactly like a torpedo in the water.
"Captain! Torpedo! Torpedo in the water!"
"Where?"
"Bearing three-five-eight, speed thirty knots, range eight hundred meters!"
"Helm! Come hard left rudder! Increase speed to twenty knots!"
An ambush! But how had the enemy detected them?
He would worry about that later. Right now, all that mattered was evading the other submarine's torpedo.
Unfortunately, with a maximum speed of twenty knots, a Kilo-class submarine wasn't much of a competitor in a footrace with a torpedo, but Jian could extend the time to impact by moving away from the incoming shot, and it would give him an opportunity to use countermeasures.
The problem was that eight hundred meters was damned close… maybe too close for a successful evasion.
"Control room, sonar! We're cavitating!"
When a submarine attempted to accelerate too quickly, bubbles could form on the blades of the propeller, and the collapse of those bubbles was both noisy and distinctive.
Yinbi's cavitation was unimportant for the moment. Obviously, the enemy had already spotted them somehow, and some extra noise would not make things worse….
"Captain!" Queensly called over Garrett's headphone. "I have a contact, close aboard! Sierra One-zero-three, bearing three-five-five, estimated range two hundred yards! She's a probable Kilo-class boat, and definitely close!"
"Thank you. Update me on the target's movements." Damn! Two hundred yards was point-blank range for submarine combat. In fact, the target might be too close for Virginia's torpedoes to arm before they hit the target. This was not a good situation!
"I'm picking up cavitation, Captain. Sounds like he's really putting the pedal to the metal! He's at fifteen knots… make that eighteen knots… still accelerating. Changing aspect too. Looks like he's turning away from our UUV!"
The good news was that at twenty knots, the Kilo's sonar operators wouldn't be able to hear a thing.
"Maneuvering!" he called. "Bring us ahead slow. Come left to bearing two-seven-zero."
"Ahead slow, aye aye. Come left to two-seven-zero, aye aye, sir!"
Virginia had been hovering motionless as she waited, her bow pointed toward the northeast. She needed a bit of way, however — some forward speed— in order to turn. Garrett intended to pivot Virginia as sharply as possible, bringing her around until she was heading west. By that time, perhaps, Sierra-103 would have passed Virginia traveling south, opening the distance between the two.