“All back full!” Thorne yelled over the whine of the turbines.
“Answering all back!” the chief of the boat answered. “Reactors at 115 percent!”
Thorne closed his eyes as he hung on in the almost vertical environment. His lips moved as if in prayer, but he was counting internally. He ticked off the depth in his head, knowing where their crush depth was, and his calculations told him they had another hundred feet before Houston imploded like an eggshell.
The control room was calm for the circumstances they found themselves in. They hung on, and most of the seamen prayed.
“She’s slowing!” XO Devers called out. “Bow’s coming up!”
The words yelled over the din of the reversing turbines was God’s answer to their prayers.
Thorne looked over at his control board and saw the depth numbers slowing. He again closed his eyes as Houston was still nearing her breaking point. The sound of her sail being punched in like a car in an auto accident reverberated throughout the boat. Loud popping started, and each pop of her hull sent fear through the crew. Still, Thorne hoped.
“She’s coming back up!” the chief shouted and yipped.
Houston was two hundred feet beyond her crush depth as they felt the forces shift more to the horizontal.
“That’s it! We are coming up!” Devers said, agreeing with the chief of the boat.
Houston started to rise at an incredible rate. Hull-popping noises sounded as she started to come to shallower waters. Soon she was heading in the opposite direction, straight up. Every man felt the speed as it increased. Thorne, against his better judgment, fought his way back toward the NAV table. He was hanging on for dear life when an announcement came over the loudspeakers that froze his blood.
“Conn, sonar, we’ve been hit with a sonar ping!”
Devers looked over at his captain with shock registering on his face.
“Sonar, conn, what are you talking about?”
“Conn, sonar, we have a surface vessel painting us. Torpedo doors opening. Suspected submarine right over our heads!”
“Damn, we’re going to be fired on!” Devers finally said.
“Sonar, conn, best guess as to ambient noise?”
“Conn, computer says the profile fits that new Russian sub we were warned about. Her screws are starting to turn. She’s Russian, all right!”
Thorne angrily threw the 1 MC mic at Devers, who caught it. “Weapons, open outer doors on aft tubes seven, eight, and nine. Vertical tubes one and two. Are the Harpoons warmed?”
“Weapons, aye, tubes are loaded with war shot, and doors are open. Doors open on vertical tubes one and two.”
“Conn, sonar, we have two torpedoes in the water!”
“Ballast control, slow our ascent!”
“Control boards have shorted out, Captain; we have no control.”
Thorne knew he would never have the time to get an accurate fix on their target. The firing solution was being scrambled by their faster-than-normal climb toward the sky. He came to a quick decision.
“Vertical tubes one and two, do we have a firing solution?” he asked his weapons station only eight feet away. He knew his torpedoes would be worthless at this high rate of ascent. It would now be up to his vertical launch system to send their Harpoon missile outward to avenge the death they would soon suffer from the hands of the Russian torpedoes. He had decided that Houston would kill the sub that killed it.
“Fire solution is constant, Skipper!”
“Torpedoes close aboard!”
Houston was traveling straight up, a position the designers at General Dynamics Electric Boat Division had never intended. Thorne didn’t know if the speed of the vertical climb would tear the Harpoons to pieces even before they were fully ejected from their tubes.
“Fire vertical tubes one and two!” Thorne ordered as he waited for the Russian weapons to impact his boat.
“Firing vertical tubes one and two!” Came the answer. “Harpoons have left the tubes, running hot, straight, and normal.”
Thorne knew that at least Houston would get in her death blow to the enemy just as they were sent to a watery grave themselves.
“Conn, sonar, torpedoes have locked onto us, impact in five, four, three, two, one!”
Thorne braced himself for the imminent death coming their way.
Impact. There was a loud bang. Every man flinched, and even a few screamed out. Another hollow-sounding thung sounded throughout the boat. Houston shook and rattled as she was still speeding full bore toward the surface.
“Conn, sonar, no warhead detonation,” came the call in a voice filled with excitement.
Thorne realized what had happened. Houston was breaking a speed record in her uncontrolled nose-up ascent. As he looked at the speed on the readout, he saw they were at fifty-five knots and speeding up. They had risen so fast and closed the distance to their enemy at a speed so unheard of that the enemy weapons had not the time to arm themselves. The Russian torpedoes had slammed into Houston but disintegrated upon impact. No doubt they would find at least one big hole in her skin when and if they surfaced.
“Oh, shit!” Thorne said as he studied the plot. Thorne looked also.
“Hard right rudder, all back full!”
Houston was heading directly at the enemy sub that had fired upon her, and Captain Thorne and XO Devers saw that their evasive orders would never be input before they surfaced right into their enemy.
Houston was doomed. Her speed and nose-up attitude would send them directly into the bottom hull of the enemy.
Carl took a chance and opened fire from the fire directory two hundred feet up. He missed Salkukoff and cursed his hurried aim.
Suddenly, gunfire erupted from several locations as Her Majesty’s Royal Marines came out of hiding.
It was amazing how military men the world over knew exactly when to act. Upon seeing Collins and Farbeaux about to be executed along with the remaining Russian sailors, everyone in hiding broke cover to assist. Bullets were heading in all directions.
Jack reacted without thinking as he leg-whipped the Russian colonel, sending him to the deck. Collins quickly elbowed the colonel and then reached for his fallen weapon. Henri also brought down another of the confused commandos as he ran by. He fell on the man’s back and then slammed his head face-first into the deck, successfully relieving him of his AK-47. The small battle was over in less than thirty seconds.
Jack stood and then started kicking Salkukoff until the man rose to his feet. He smiled at Jack as he moved his right hand toward the radio and hit the transmit switch three times in quick succession. Collins quickly reached out and took the radio and tossed it overboard.
“Too late, Colonel — we will all be dead in less than thirty seconds.”
“What did you do, you maniac?” Henri asked angrily as he unceremoniously popped the Russian in the belly, making him bow from the pain. The Russian started to laugh.