Navigator Leonid Lukashenko was charged with monitoring that the captain and the first officer fully agreed on nuclear weapon release, able to veto a weapon release if there were any suspicion of duress or the unfitness of one of the officers. Should one of them become incapacitated, he himself would function as one of the authorizers of weapon release, the duty of being the referee of rectitude passing to the next most senior department head, the weapons officer, Alexandrov. Novikov glanced quickly at Lukashenko, wondering if he should have Isakova relieved, but as if understanding what was happening, she seemed to snap out of her fugue state.
“The Kilo is northwest of us, range unknown, but it lit off its fast reactor and bolted southward out of the Gulf of Oman,” Novikov said. “I’ve turned toward the target, increased speed to twenty-five knots and I’m preparing to conduct an active sonar search of the probable location of the target.”
“No, sir,” Isakova said, louder now, her voice settling into its usual cadence and tone. “For one thing, that Kilo is escorted by a Virginia-class. If we go pinging at the Kilo, the Virginia submarine will counterdetect us and put weapons in the water. And have you forgotten we are operating with the Novosibirsk? And neither you nor Captain Orlov of Novosibirsk is in tactical command. You both have to agree on tactics and weapons employment.”
On some ships, Isakova’s strident assertion of something contrary to the captain’s intention could be considered borderline mutiny, but after the loss of several nuclear submarines over the years, the Admiralty had borrowed the concept of “crew resource management” from the aviation sphere, where officers had significant input and captains were strongly cautioned to listen to the advice of their officers. The Navy called it “command post resource management” and all the fleet’s officers had been forced into training simulators. Novikov thought it was more harmful modern management and coddling of the sensitive feelings of the younger generation of sailors, but with Isakova he tolerated it. What made it easier was that she was so often right. He wondered if Orlov’s first officer were as talented.
That pud-thumper Orlov again, Novikov thought, his blood pressure rising at the thought of having to get that idiot’s agreement on weapons release and approach to the Kilo, but Isakova was right. And he’d been right not to have her relieved. With a feeling of relief, he nodded at her middle console seat.
“Fine,” he said. “I’d intended to toss a Kalibr missile at the contact the minute I got a return ping. I figured the detonation would neutralize the Virginia-class escort, since he’s probably following the Kilo close enough that a nuclear explosion would sink him or incapacitate him.”
“A sound tactic, Captain, but we need a range first, and if we approach the probable location of the Kilo, we can reacquire him on passive sonar, and we can put a salvo of torpedoes into him. Much more surgical, and remember, Captain, a nuclear detonation will make miles and miles of ocean water impenetrable to active or passive sonar — a blue-out from all the bubbles created by the detonation. If our shot goes wide, the target — or targets — could hide from us on the other side of the massive blue-out. Did the second captain even have a bearing rate to the target? If it were going fast enough to make that noise, what, twenty knots? More? He’d have a significant bearing drift. If he were going southward, the bearing to the target must have changed from the original value of two-nine-five to something lower. Two-nine-four?”
“Second Captain,” Novikov said into a microphone mounted on a small pedestal and plugged into his console, “report the bearing rate of the sonar anomaly detected at zero three twenty. Did you detect a bearing drift over the time you had the target?”
“Captain, there was no bearing drift detected for the time of acquisition of the irregularity. It remained at two-nine-five for the duration of the detection, within the accuracy of that beam of the sonar sphere.”
Novikov looked at Isakova. “Dammit, that means he was extremely distant.”
“Once we establish communications with Novosibirsk, we need to proceed on a southwest course at high speed to intercept, even though that will cause our own emitted noise to rise and lower our ability to hear the target. He could be a hundred or even two hundred kilometers away. Or more.”
Novikov cursed to himself. This mission might already be a failure. If the target never sped up again, and were two hundred kilometers away, he’d escape. And they had the devil’s choice — chase him at high speed to close range with his own submarine, and Orlov’s, making tremendous noise of their own while their sonars were deaf, or keep the approach at slow speed where they could hear, but the target disappeared.
“Perhaps the Novosibirsk has a better fix on the target,” Novikov said reluctantly. That goddamned Orlov again. “But we’re not in communication with him yet. Nor do we hold him on sonar. The boat is either out of position or too far away for secure sonar telegraphy.”
Isakova took a deep breath. “You know the standard procedure calls for sending out a pulse to get him to respond with a return ping.”
“But you just scolded me for active sonar employment. It’s not stealthy. That Virginia-class might hear us pinging at each other.”
“It would just be one pulse. It sounds like a biologic and it’s short duration. It’s not ideal, but truly, Captain, what tactical situation against a worthy opponent is ever ideal?”
“Fine.” Novikov turned to the sonar-and-sensor console. “Sonar Officer,” he called. Senior Lieutenant Svetomir Albescu turned from the forward-most seat of the sonar-and-sensor console. Albescu was a scrawny pimple-faced youth with wireless glasses, whom one would think wouldn’t garner a second look in a bar, but every liberty port visited, he always seemed to find a beautiful woman who would drape herself across him. There was no accounting for feminine attraction, Novikov thought.
“Yes, sir,” he said, blinking behind his glasses.
“Line up a secure active pulse on the MGK, wide azimuth pulse, medium frequency, short duration.”
“Power level, Captain?”
Novikov looked at Isakova. “If I dial it up to maximum, perhaps we only have to do this once,” he said. She nodded.
“One hundred percent, Lieutenant.”
“One hundred percent, aye, Captain.” Albescu lined up his panel, leaning over to consult with his glavny starshina, who was the technical expert on the equipment. After a moment, Albescu turned to Novikov. “Ready, sir.”
“Transmit, Sonar Officer.”
“Transmit, aye.” Albescu hit a variable function key backlit with a red light.
A booming, roaring, groaning sound like an angry whale suddenly slammed Novikov’s eardrums, the sonar sphere’s transducers projecting a hundred percent sonar power into the water. The reverberations from the pulse took some seconds to die down.
Novikov’s screen was selected to the sonar active display, the output looking like a conventional radar screen, but it was filled with blotchy colored stains from all the ocean noise. A small dot pulsed brightly for just a half second, then faded.
“I have a return echo, Captain,” Albescu reported. “Bearing zero-four-five, range, ten point five kilometers.” The screen pulsed again, three times from the same position. “We’re receiving a three-ping secure pulse in response, Captain.”