“The blueout is five or six hours out, Captain,” Romanov said. “And we’re definitely outside torpedo range of an opponent, but not if he has anything equivalent to the SubRoc. Like a Kalibr missile.”
“Most of the Kalibr cruise missiles,” Quinnivan said, “are set up for surface ship assault. All it could do to us is make a big bang overhead.”
“Unless it’s a nuke,” Seagraves said. “Or one of the Kalibr variants designed for antisubmarine warfare.”
“We’re worrying about ghosts, Skipper,” Quinnivan said. “Let’s get a few active pulses out there and nail down whatever object or contact is out there, and then let’s drive towards that.”
“Sonar, line up to ping active,” Seagraves ordered. “Three pulses. Low freq, long range detection parameters. Center of pulses at bearing zero-four-nine.”
“Aye, sir, lining up Q-10 sphere for active,” Mercer reported. “Ready, Captain.”
“Sonar, ping active, three pulses.”
An earsplitting roaring shriek sounded in the room, coming from forward, the pulse rising like a siren from a deep bass roar, rising in pitch until it ended in a tenor hum. The comparative quiet after the pulse seemed surreal. Seagraves’ ears ached from the noise that seemed to drill into his skull. After ten seconds, a second pulse went out, and a second time Seagraves’ eardrums were hammered. Finally, ten seconds after that, the third pulse went out.
Romanov had selected the active sonar screen on the command console display, but Seagraves stepped over to Snowman Mercer’s Q-10 stack, not just to see the results on the screen, but Mercer’s expression as he analyzed any return pings.
“Anything?”
Mercer nodded, his reply loud in the room. “Captain, Officer of the Deck, I hold a new sonar contact, Sierra Seventeen, bearing zero-three-eight, range, two hundred sixty thousand yards.”
“Sweet jumpin’ Jaysus,” Quinnivan said. “Are ya sure, lad? A hundred and thirty fookin’ nautical miles? That’s awfully far out to be a strong detect.”
“Sir,” Mercer said, turning in his seat, “It’s strong enough. Whatever it is, it’s big and solid and submerged. The nuclear detonations must have blown off his anechoic tiles and exposed his steel to our ping.”
“Okay, then,” Seagraves said, inhaling deeply, wishing he could smoke a cigarette, or better, one of Quinnivan’s Cuban cigars. “Sonar and firecontrol party, designate Sierra Seventeen as Master One. Pilot, steer course zero-three-eight and make your depth twelve hundred feet.”
The deck inclined downward as Vermont made for the northeast at flank speed, her deck trembling from the power of the flank bell.
“I hope to hell we’ll still have Panther on passive sonar at this speed,” Romanov said.
“No need to worry about that,” Mercer said. “Panther is as loud as a proverbial train wreck.”
“Great,” Seagraves said, shaking his head. “Navigator, prepare a situation report for a slot buoy transmission. Tell the brass we’re chasing after whatever contact is near the blueout.”
“Should I mention that Panther forced our hand, sir?”
Seagraves drilled his gaze into Romanov’s eyes. “Captain John Paul Jones once said, ‘discretion is the better part of valor,’ Navigator. Let’s just leave that detail out.”
Captain First Rank Georgy Alexeyev read the radio dispatch from Voronezh with dismay. The submarine’s fire had killed the entire crew. And now the AI system, the second captain, was attempting to continue the mission? It was lunacy. The AI onboard the Yasen-M-class was primitive. There was no way it could out-think a motivated enemy. Alexeyev and his battlestations crew had tangled with the AI version in battle simulators, and ten times out of ten he’d defeated them. Admiral Zhigunov insisted that was just because Alexeyev and his crew were exemplary, but Alexeyev doubted that. It wasn’t that he was a superstar at submarine vs. submarine combat. It was that the AI was dumb.
Alexeyev left his sea cabin and stepped into the central command post. The on-watch crew greeted him, coming to attention. He waved at them to relax. At the port aft navigation chart console, he leaned over the display and calculated how long it would be before the Kazan would be on-station, then cursed. This was taking entirely too long.
Odds were, if the Panther and her escort submarine were making for the western hemisphere, they’d be there long before Kazan got into position. Zhigunov had called him too late.
Weapons Officer Irina Trusov stood up from her position three console at the captain’s order. He was on the phone to nuclear control.
“Engineer, get a watch relief so you can walk down the ship with us. This damage inspection will determine whether we continue the mission or head home, and for that matter, whether we will even be able to continue on submerged.” Captain First Rank Yuri Orlov listened for a moment. “We can discuss that when we arrive at nuclear control,” he said sternly, cutting off what sounded like a panic-stricken chief engineer. “The weapons officer, navigator and I are walking the ship down for a damage inspection, and you’re coming with us. Be ready when we get there.” Orlov hung up despite Chernobrovin still speaking on the other end.
“Well, something’s very wrong back aft,” Orlov commented to Trusov. She nodded, not knowing what else to say. First Officer Vlasenko showed up in central command with Communicator Sukolov with him, to take over senior supervisory central command watch and the watch officer duty. Trusov spent a moment whispering to Sukolov to tell him the status of things so he could take on the duty.
“Have you tried to raise the radio mast?” he asked.
“No,” Trusov said. “I verified the induction mast and number two periscope work. Presumably the MFHG antenna works as well. You can test it next periscope depth.”
“We need to get a situation report out to Pac Fleet,” Sukolov said, his eyes wide, his cheeks hollow. He was badly frightened, Trusov thought.
“Write up a draft for the captain to look at for when we return from touring the ship,” she said. Sukolov nodded.
“Weapons Officer, are you ready?” Orlov said impatiently. Navigator Misha Dobryvnik stood by the captain, a frown on his worried face. Trusov found herself thinking that it was a good thing that she wasn’t the only one who was frightened and worried. Goddamned Americans, she thought for the dozenth time since the explosion.
“Ready now, sir.”
“Let’s go. We’ll start aft. The engineer was complaining.”
Orlov walked so fast on the way to nuclear control that Trusov broke into a jog to keep up with him. Out the aft door, he flew, down the passageway past the officers’ staterooms to the steep stairs to the middle level, emerging into the crew’s messroom, and aft of that, to an alcove housing the large round hatch that led through the shielded tunnel through the third compartment that housed the 200 megawatt nuclear reactor, the shielding designed to minimize exposure to the neutron and gamma radiation from the reactor. Trusov couldn’t help notice the sign flashing in the space, the yellow and magenta sign lit from behind: