“Back to Mr. Varney,” Romanov said.
“We’ve all got these laminated cards with latitude and longitude of your disguised refueling ships. It’s preferred that we re-provision on the surface, but if the area’s considered hot, there’s a procedure for refueling us while we’re submerged and hovering. It sounds like a recipe for an oil spill to me, or seawater contamination of the oil bunkers, but whatever.”
“What if you lose the cards or run out of fuel far from one of these refueling ships?”
“We lock out a diver with the sat-phone in a waterproof pouch. Speed dial one gets us a dispatcher. The phone provides our location automatically, fueling ship comes to us. But if we have to loiter in one place waiting for a refuel, it could be hazardous to our health. And use of the phone could get us detected if surveillance direction-finder equipment is listening.”
“Not much we can do about that, Mr. Varney,” Romanov said sternly. “Next, Commander.”
“The escort force is a Russian attack submarine. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, it’s a Russian Akula III class.”
“Let’s go back to the OIC. Mr. Dankleff, what then?”
“We’ve talked about this among ourselves,” Dankleff said, standing. “Let’s assume the Akula can trail the Kilo-class but can’t counterdetect Vermont. In that case, we’re looking at mission failure, because presumably if the Panther surfaced, the Akula would heave-to and render aid, and if at that point it did discover Vermont, Vermont might end up shooting at us trying to defend the Panther. And if the Akula can somehow detect us, it could shoot at us preemptively. Of course, we’d shoot back, but we’d have a messy international incident on our hands, and it’s predictable that it could get worse. Of course, any shoot-out between two opposing submarines, well, it could go either way. Naturally, we’re confident we could prevail over an Akula, but what if a Yasen-class decides to show up? We might be evenly matched, or God help us, outmatched. Any hesitation on our part to shoot him could prove fatal, and our present rules of engagement prevent us from shooting first. If we have to wait to fire on a submarine escort, not only are we talking about mission failure, we could be risking the Vermont’s survival. And in addition to attacking us, the Akula or the Yasen might decide to sink the Panther just to protect Russian secrets. This glitch — to use technical terms — is a total clusterfuck.”
“Thank you for that color commentary, Mr. Dankleff. So what do you recommend?”
“I know this is a dark transit, but we need to transmit a request to revise our ROE.”
“You’d change our rules of engagement to what, DCA?”
“We need authorization to employ weapons against an opposing submarine escort force.”
Romanov stared at Dankleff, finally dropping her eyes for a moment, then looked at Fishman. “Let’s skip to the final glitch, Commander.”
“Okay, glitch nine. The Panther is armed with torpedoes and decides to shoot at us while we’re trying to hijack him.”
“Mr. AOIC?” Romanov asked, looking at Pacino.
Pacino stood. “Let’s assume we have at least three tube-loaded ADCAP Mod 9s in CMT mode.” CMT mean countermeasure anti-torpedo mode. “I’d launch a salvo of them at the likely inbound bearings to the Panther’s torpedoes, clear datum deep at flank, and at the right point, slow and hover to eliminate any doppler sonar returns.”
“You know, CMT mode is expected to be a dismal failure in a real encounter, right?” Romanov snarled.
“I know.”
“So, twice your scenarios face mission failure, right, Mr. Pacino?”
“There’s still something we could do,” Pacino said. “I could detonate a SubRoc depth charge in the path of incoming torpedoes. That would do the trick, and probably prevent the Panther from firing again.”
“Mr. Pacino, the rules of engagement prohibit first use of weapons against a Russian submarine counterforce, and they absolutely prohibit your use of nukes.”
Pacino could feel the anger rising in him, knowing his face was flushing.
“But you have to admit, it would work, Nav.”
“I think we’ve run through quite enough,” Captain Seagraves’ hard baritone voice said from the forward entrance to the room. Pacino looked over, wondering how long he’d been listening. “I want to see the boarding party in the wardroom along with you, Navigator.”
Romanov swallowed hard. She shot an angry look at Pacino, then gathered her pad computer and walked past him toward the wardroom.
15
Pacino found his usual seat in the wardroom. Captain Seagraves took his seat at the aft end of the table, XO Quinnivan to his right, Navigator Romanov to his left. Opposite Pacino was U-Boat Dankleff and Boozy Varney, then Chiefs Albanese and Kim next to Varney, with Chief Goreliki seated to Pacino’s left on his side of the table. Dankleff passed around a carafe of coffee and Pacino filled up and passed it to Chief Goreliki.
“So, Nav, I notice we have problems with our rules of engagement,” Seagraves began, opening the meeting.
“Captain, any escorting forces with teeth cause mission failure,” Romanov said evenly. “We need to know how badly the bosses want the Panther. Enough to let us turn some ADCAP torpedoes loose on an escorting Russian attack sub or pop a nuke in the ocean to confuse things? We need authorization to use lethal force pre-emptively at the discretion of Vermont’s commanding officer. We need to send a message requesting revised rules of engagement.”
“We’re in a radio-silenced dark transit,” Quinnivan said to Romanov. “Do I really have to remind you?”
“We could pop a SLOT coded for a delayed transmission,” Pacino offered. “Wait twenty-four hours, come up to PD in the gulf and raise the HDR and see what the brass say.” A SLOT was a submarine-launched one-way transmitter buoy, the unit the size of a baseball bat and fired while submerged from one of two signal ejectors, each a miniature torpedo tube pointed skyward. The SLOT would be loaded with an encrypted coded preformatted message, and when it broached the surface, it would transmit in a brief burst communication to the CommStar communications satellite constellation in low earth orbit, then self-destruct and sink. The reply would take some time, presumably requiring permission from the president himself, but when it arrived it would come back down from the satellite to their HDR high data rate radio antenna, which was more sensitive and faster than the receiver on the periscope.
Seagraves considered for a moment. “You have a problem with that XO, Navigator?”
Quinnivan and Romanov glanced at each other. Romanov found her voice. “It violates the op-order, sir,” she said, “but I think we could be forgiven for coloring outside the lines this one time.”
“I say we do it, Captain,” Quinnivan said, his hand making a fist on the table.
“Navigator, bring the coded draft of the message to my stateroom and have the communicator standing by with a SLOT buoy. Then notify the OOD.”
“Yes, sir,” Romanov said, standing, shooting a piercing glare at Pacino for a moment before she left, the captain and XO following behind her, the chief petty officers rising and clearing out, their clan famous for not liking being in the wardroom any longer than they had to be.