The lights of the runway were lined up in front of Nikels’ canopy in the predawn darkness, the neat twin lines inviting him up to the heavens. He pushed the keys to the stops with full afterburners and the F-14 began its takeoff roll. As the jets came up to full thrust he felt the acceleration push him back into the seat, pull the flesh of his face back, every blood cell wanting to pool in his back and buttocks. The takeoff roll seemed to take forever, but at last the airspeed needle pointed to 170 knots. Nikels pulled the stick gently back, giving the wings just enough lift to pull the jet away from the concrete, retracted the wheels and flaps with one motion of his left hand. Now streamlined, the jet surged ahead, airspeed coming up to 300 knots. He turned left in a three-g turn and headed toward his intercept point with the cruise missile. In the background he could hear Tollson talking with the EA6B radar plane, calling a vector up to him to close the missile. At an altitude of 100 feet Nikels swept back the wings of the F-14 and went supersonic, and within two minutes it seemed that half of Virginia Beach’s glass windows were broken from the sonic booms. Nikels had no time to worry about a little glass.
Captain 3rd Rank Dmitri Ivanov stared at Admiral Novskoyy, wishing Captain Vlasenko were in command instead of under arrest.
“Admiral,” Ivanov said. “We must continue to the east, we must not drive this ship into the blast radius of the Magnum.” Novskoyy suddenly felt a heavy fatigue. Unless he could get back to the polynya and somehow transmit the molniya, his plan would fail. It might already be failing. If an American submarine had come for him here, what had they already done to the ships of his fleet? And here this Ivanov wanted to run away like a woman.
“Men are dying right now, our fellow submariners,” Novskoyy told him. “The entire Northern Fleet is off the American east coast. I must warn them. I am certain they are being hunted down right now. Just as the American submarine was sent here to hunt us down. We must get back to the polynya, we must turn back to the west.”
“Sir, the Magnum detonation will rip us apart, we have to continue east—”
“No,” Novskoyy said, pointing to the fire-control panel. “Look, the Magnum is two minutes beyond the air-point. Has it turned?” Ivanov looked down at the graphic display. “No, it’s still steady on course two eight zero.”
“And it is two minutes beyond the aimpoint.”
“Yes, Admiral… Either it is in a tail chase in pursuit of the American or it has lost the target.”
“It is a tail chase, Ivanov. The American boat is faster than we thought. He must also have a polymer system.”
“But, sir, the Magnum could have just lost the target and continued down the bearing line.”
“We, you heard the American as it fled the area after hitting us. He was loud as a train wreck. You heard his reactor recirculation pumps shifting to fast speed. And he was running at maximum speed when you launched the Magnum?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So why would he stop or slow down with a nuclear torpedo on the way?”
“But, sir, what if he went silent? Shut down?”
“Those are not American tactics.” Novskovyy was also a pedant. He had once been a naval instructor. “What would you do if you were the American commander?”
“I’d clear the area, sir. Run.”
“Correct. The Magnum is in a tail chase and the American is running. Turn the ship. If the American is running, the Magnum is pursuing, and the blast radius is further to the west than the polynya. Get me to the polynya so I can radio the fleet.”
“Yes, sir,” Ivanov said, crisply obedient once again.
“Deck Officer, Ship Control Officer, right full rudder, steady course west.”
The officers acknowledged, and 60,000 metric tons of Russian attack submarine came slowly around to the west, enroute to the thin ice of the polynya, on the way to transmit the molniya of Admiral Novskoyy.
Even though Vlasenko had been in the titanium pod for only a half hour the temperature inside was subzero. Since the collision he had sat on a wooden bench, watching his breath form vapor clouds in the cold and trying to decipher the meaning of the sounds of the ship without hard data. The collision must mean that an American submarine had been shadowing them. But did it stop Novskoyy’s lethal transmission?
Vlasenko had felt the hull tremble with the power of speeding up. A few minutes later came the unmistakable sound of a torpedo launch, the deck had angled to the port side, then starboard — turning hard right. The hull had again trembled with speed, then become calm. The polymer injection system was smoothing the ride. It seemed clear Novskoyy had launched a weapon at the intruder, then run like hell — it must be a Magnum! A conventional unit couldn’t hurt the firing ship, but a Magnum could blast them to the bottom if they were closer to it than 20 kilometers. Strangely, though, several minutes later the ship had slowed again and the pod deck angled to and fro as the ship was turned. It made no sense, there had been no detonation shock from the Magnum! Maybe it hadn’t been a Magnum after all. Vlasenko hated his position… from captain to passenger.
He had tried to distract himself with a mental calculation of the amount of air in the sphere, and his rate of oxygenuse. He had decided that the air was good enough for perhaps 12 to 24 hours, depending on the assumptions about his levels of metabolism. He also realized he would probably not last half that long… the cold was chipping away at both his body and his spirit. It was extremely painful. He could feel the circulation slowing in his arms and legs. His toes were numb, so were his fingertips. His ears burned from frostbite and his nasal linings were on fire from the frigid air. Pain. How long could he endure it…?
The Mark 50 Hullcrusher torpedo “felt” the thrust of its spinning propulsor. It had never before cruised on its own power; it had only been through simulated electronic checks. As instructed, it counted out the range from the firing point with a counter on the propulsor shaft so that it knew when to start the circular orbits, swimming in circles until it found a valid return. Seven minutes after launch the weapon reached the orbitpoint, put the rudder over and turned left to the north as it slowed to circling speed. Turning, it “listened” passively.
Nothing to the north. Nothing to the west. The weapon circled. Nothing to the south. Still orbiting, the weapon settled in for a long series of circles to find the target.
Two minutes after Ivanov ordered the turn, the ship was steady on course west, at first at her original polymer injection speed but slower as the polymers ran out. When the ship neared maneuvering range of the polynya she slowed further. All the while the officers continued monitoring the quickly retreating Magnum torpedo, twenty kilometers away, still on its own way west.
It was then that their Magnum turned back to the east, executing its default turn-back, now approaching them. The officers did not hear or detect the Magnum as it turned around. Because at that same moment, the Kaliningrad drove into the search-cone of an American torpedo.
The Hullcrusher torpedo, circling five miles from the firing ship, the Devilfish, “heard” a sound, a loud one, bearing 130, a submerged submarine sound. The unit searched the program codes for instructions. The first line instructed the torpedo to turn toward the sound and wiggle slightly; the unit obediently undulated its rudder and wiggled. The sound changed position from right to left, had a valid left-to-right tag reversal — signifying the target was dead ahead. The second program line told the weapon to put a signal into its guidance wire, telling the mother ship that it had a detect on the enemy. The third line told it to speed up to 50 knots. The propulsor wound up, and the weapon surged forward. The target was just ahead. The unit executed its final arming sequence and strained to feel the magnetic hull-detection-proximity sensor shift from DISTANT to CLOSE. Not long now. Not much longer, and its mission would be fulfilled. Just ahead, the target was coming closer, but then the target zoomed by so fast that it disappeared. The torpedo put its rudder over hard and turned right, the g-forces pushing the fuel in the fuel cell to the port side, almost starving the fuel pump. But then, up ahead, the torpedo received the rapidly retreating sound of the target’s propulsor. It was fast, but it was slowing. Slowing, range decreasing. Closer, catching up. Closer. Soon the target’s propulsor passed by overhead, and the torpedo was under the midsection of the hull. The torpedo “watched” its magnetic-hull-proximity sensor, which sensed iron, followed by a cascade of electrical tickles. The feel of iron was like a reward. In a rush, a compelling sequence of events overcame the weapon, all reflex. The detonators lit off in its belly, a tingling flash.