“Captain, he’s well beyond wire-guided range,” the ops officer responded. “On a rendezvous course at flank speed, it will probably be another twenty minutes before we’re in range. We have six Mark 48 advanced capability, ADCAP torpedoes aboard, and we could fire one now in autonomous mode. We can set it to use its own active or passive sensors to execute a programmed target search, acquisition, and attack procedure. If we set it to run at top speed, it may not quite have the range, but we can program it at a slower speed, and it will probably get there.”
“Go ahead and program it for high speed.”
“Sir?”
“Program it for high speed, autonomous search and destroy.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
Two minutes later, the ops officer responded, “Torpedo programmed and loaded in torpedo bay number one, Captain.”
Captain Buffalo Sewell checked his watch. “Very well. Stand by.”
The ops officer and XO exchanged puzzled glances. A minute later, Buffalo checked his watch again. “Open outer door, torpedo bay number one.”
“Outer door opened, sir.”
“Fire one!”
“Torpedo one away!”
“Load a second Mark 48 ADCAP in torpedo bay number two,” the captain ordered. “Program it for low-speed autonomous search and destroy. And stand by.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
About twenty minutes later, Buffalo asked sonar for an update.
“Torpedo one running smoothly, sir. Estimate fifty thousand yards to target. Our range — approximately ninety thousand yards to target.”
“Very well. Open outer door, torpedo bay number two.”
“Outer door opened, sir.”
“Fire two!”
“Torpedo two away!”
After ten minutes on an easterly heading of 090 degrees, Captain Adams and MacKenzie both heard the faint telltale signature of a torpedo in the water. Ominous… its high-pitched whine indicating it was traveling at high speed.
“You hear that, Captain?”
“I do. We’ll maintain course for another ten minutes.”
“But Captain, with a heading of zero-niner-zero we’re headed right back into it.”
“Roger that, Mac. We’ve got a little over nine and a half minutes until we turn north.”
Those nine and a half minutes seemed like an eternity. The torpedo noise grew louder and louder, and each minute on the clock seemed to take an hour.
“Captain, I hear a second torpedo in the water — fainter, so farther away.”
“Roger that. Maintain your heading.”
Finally, when MacKenzie could barely stand it any longer, Captain Adams ordered, “Come left to zero-one-zero. I’m making our depth fifteen hundred feet.”
“Fifteen hundred, sir? That’s below max operating depth!”
“I know that, Mac.”
“Sir, that isn’t going to help much if those are Mark 48 ADCAPs! They can easily get us at fifteen hundred feet!”
“You’re right, but they’re still a long way away. I don’t plan to be here when they arrive.”
“Well, how do you plan to get out of here, sir? We’re at twenty-five knots, and not getting any slower. If we keep going down, we’re going to hit forty or forty-five knots by the time we get to fifteen hundred feet. Max speed for fighter launch is only ten knots!”
“We’re going to take care of that right now, Mac. I want you to make your way to SF-1 and get her fired up. Since we don’t have engine control, we’re going to pull about twenty degrees up-bubble and bleed off this excess speed. When we hit about three knots, which by my calculations should be at about five hundred feet, I’m going to nose her over into a dive. Keep the hatch open and ready to go, because I’m going to be flying your way!”
“Aye-aye, sir!”
MacKenzie dashed to SF-1 and started the pre-launch checklist. He would have her ready to go by the time the captain pulled off his crazy maneuver and made it to the fighter. He felt the nose of the fighter go up as the captain maneuvered the Louisiana to twenty degrees up-bubble, and the fighter rode along with her. That should certainly be sufficient to bleed off that excess speed. He knew, too, that once the captain nosed her over into a steep dive, there was no way to pull out before hitting crush depth.
MacKenzie felt the Louisiana level off, and he knew the captain would be there any second. Everything was ready to go. Suddenly, the captain was scrambling through the lower hatch.
“All right, Mac, let’s go!” The captain ordered as he squeezed into the fighter and closed the hatch.
“Aye-aye, sir. She’s all fired up and ready to go!”
“I’ve got the controls. Release the latch.”
“Aye-aye, sir!”
MacKenzie struggled with the large release bar attached to the latching mechanism holding the fighter securely to the deck of the Louisiana. But while it usually swung up freely, this time it didn’t budge.
“Sir, I’m trying, but it seems to be stuck!”
“Stuck?! We’ve got to release that latch, Mac. This boat’s going down, and there’s no stopping her!”
“I know, but I’m pulling as hard as I can. It’s stuck, Captain… IT’S STUCK!”
About ten minutes after firing their second torpedo, the silence of the Texas control room was broken by the sonar operator. “Captain, Sonar.”
“Go ahead, Sonar,” responded Captain Sewell.
“Strange sounds, sir, coming from the target — lots of creaking and buckling noises. Sounds like she may be trying to run deep, too deep!”
“Where are our torpedoes?”
“The closest is still at least twenty thousand yards out.”
“So what’s going on here? Is this another one of Adams’s tricks?”
“No sir,” responded the sonar operator excitedly pulling his earphones off his head and then replacing them. “Sir! Total hull failure! She’s gone below crush depth, and the pressure hull has failed! You can’t fake this noise, Captain, this is total destruction!”
Chapter 46
The captain and MacKenzie continued to struggle with the latch holding SF-1 securely to the deck. Meanwhile, the Louisiana began to nose over into an unrecoverable dive into the depths of the Kermandec Trench. Her speed built quickly.
“Captain, we’re at ten knots and the latch is still STUCK!” MacKenzie screamed.
“I know, Mac. We have to get it loose or we’re dead!” In the cramped cockpit of the sub- fighter, George reached across MacKenzie’s lap and grabbed the lever. “On the count of three, pull with everything you’ve got! One… two… three… PULL!”
Together, the two men pulled with all their might… Nothing! The lever didn’t budge. They were still latched firmly to the deck.
“Captain, we’re at two hundred and fifty feet, ten degrees down-bubble. Speed accelerating through twenty knots!”
At this accelerating speed and rate of descent, the captain and MacKenzie had only a few seconds remaining to get the sub-fighter off the deck of the Louisiana.
“All right, Mac. Cinch your harness belts tight. I’m going all ahead full on the impeller. Stand by to engage the SQID drive!”
“While we are still latched, Captain?” MacKenzie asked incredulously.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures. It’s now or never. The SQID drive will put a hundred times more pressure on that latch than we can ourselves.”