"Helm," Wilson said, "doctrine for our steel-skinned boomers says run shallow, but I want to take her deep. Make your depth ten thousand feet smartly." Ilse thought she'd heard wrong.
"Aye, sir," Meltzer said. "Thirty degrees down angle on the diveplane functions." Ilse gripped her armrests as the deck nosed down. Meltzer called out the numbers every hundred feet. They kept coming faster and faster and started getting much too large.
"Relax," Sessions said. "More depth helps squelch the blast." Ilse caught her own reflection in a console screen — her eyes were popping and she couldn't make them stop.
"Our hull's ceramic-composite alumina casing," Jeffrey said. "We're designed for this, Ilse. I guess now you need to know."
But knowing didn't help much, Ilse thought.
"Chief of the Watch," Wilson said, "disengage shallow water valves and pumping hardware, line up abyssal suite."
Another shock wave hit, not as hard but more drawn out.
"The surface echo from our weapon," Sessions said. Then another one went by, sharp but weaker still. "Bottom echo that time."
A third concussion hit, this one soft but snappy. "Fireball throbbing," Sessions said, "hydrostatic oscillation, damping coefficient is dot nine."
"I want to make another knuckle," Wilson said. "Keep those inbound torpedoes on our quarter, starboard side instead. Let's confuse them with some bearing rate. Helm, hard right rudder, make your course two zero zero." Again the ship banked hard. Sessions whispered, "That'll force their seekers to keep leading us. They can't just ride up our wake turbulence and then we get it in the ass."
"But aren't we blind that way," Ilse said, "without the towing sonar?"
"We've got partial baffles coverage from the wide-aperture arrays."
"Fire a noisemaker," Wilson said. "Fire another decoy onto our previous course." Jeffrey relayed orders to Weapons Control to launch the decoy in tube six.
"Fire an acoustic jammer, starboard side," Wilson said. "Reload tubes five and six, more brilliant decoys."
"Reverb is clearing somewhat," Sessions said. "One incoming torpedo, bearing three four five and constant, depth three thousand feet. It's ignoring the countermeasures. Doppler says it's gaining on us."
"What's the range?" Jeffrey said.
"Fourteen thousand yards."
"Fire Control," Wilson said, "fire two more noisemakers."
"Sir," Jeffrey said, "we're too deep now for noisemakers."
"Then fire another active decoy, shallow running on a reciprocal course. Program hullpopping and cavitation sounds, with a ten-decibel step-up from nominal." Once more Jeffrey went to work.
"How close is too close?" Ilse whispered.
"If it's dot one KT like ours," Jeffrey said before Sessions could answer, "at this depth and with our hull, at two thousand yards of lateral separation we're a mission kill for sure, outright dead if you believe the pessimistic calculations."
"Time to lethal range?" Wilson snapped.
Sessions punched more keys. "Eight minutes if we can't lose it, less if it's a larger warhead … It's got passive lock, it stopped wigwagging!"
"Locked on us or on the decoy?" Jeffrey said.
"On Challenger, I think … Yes, confirmed, our initial decoy's failed, a machinery implosion."
"How's that torpedo tracking us?" Wilson said. "Do we have a sound short?"
"Negative, sir," Sessions said. "It must be catching re-verb off our stern. It's still incredibly noisy out there … Torpedo's first-stage pump-jet has switched to end-game speed!"
"Then we're committed to a dead heat now," Jeffrey said.
"Helm, ahead flank smartly," Wilson said.
Meltzer reached for the engine-order dial and flicked it several times. More transients appeared on the sonar screens, making Ilse jump.
"That's us," Sessions told her as he forced a smile. "The reactor coolant check valves just slammed into their recesses."
"Chief of the Watch, flood negative," Wilson said. "Add some weight to pick up speed." The ship continued diving. Ilse eyed her screens. Fifty-one knots downhill through the water. Fifty-two. The ride was rough.
"Sonar," Wilson said, "did we get those two 212 boats?"
"Can't tell yet, sir. No flooding or implosion sounds were heard above the blast."
"Captain," Jeffrey said, "recommend we go active, search for metallicity inside the bubble cloud."
Wilson nodded. "One ping, maximum power. The whole sector knows we're here." Ilse heard a double buzz, and several crewmen held their ears. Then there was a sharp and high-pitched eeeee, deafening, not at all what she expected. Yet the sonarmen in headphones once again seemed unconcerned. Automatic amplitude filters?
The echoes came back in several seconds. Sessions put the data through his signal algorithms. "Commander Fuller! We have two distinct clouds of falling matter, diffuse, well separate from each other. I assess both targets as destroyed!"
"Status of incoming torpedo?" Jeffrey said.
"Range twelve thousand yards, depth decreased but now it's diving again … It went right past the latest decoy."
"The blue-green laser target discriminator," Jeffrey said. "It's even better than we thought."
"Concur, sir," Sessions said. "Axis hardware's good."
"And we can't use our antitorpedo rockets this far down," Wilson said. "We could go the rest of the way to the bottom, try to twist and turn inside the canyons, and risk being buried alive when the warhead blows. Or we could head up toward the surface, shoot some underwater rockets, and gamble the depleted uranium buckshot'll have the range."
"Commander," Sessions shouted, "the torpedo's going active … It's in range-gate mode!"
"Put it on the speakers," Jeffrey said, "and filter out our flow noise." Ilse heard a hard and eerie dingggg, above a constant whining.
"Depth of the weapon?" Wilson said.
"Steady at three thousand feet."
"That must be its limit," Jeffrey said, "or its preset floor." The dingggg repeated, slightly louder.
Wilson frowned. "Can't we actively suppress?" Sessions hesitated. "It's not working, sir."
"We must have damage to our aft transducers," Jeffrey said, "and we're so deep the piezo-rubber hull coating won't function from the pressure."
"Torpedo booster rocket's firing," Sessions shouted as a not-so-distant rumbling came over the speakers. "It's gone to supercavitating speed inside the vacuum bubble! … One hundred knots and accelerating!"
Jeffrey eyed the sonar console. "Can we outdistance the weapon's final sprint?"
"Negative, sir," Sessions said. "We'll be in lethal radius when the warhead blows at endof-run."
"And we can't hit something that small with an AD-CAP," Jeffrey said. "Captain, recommend we fight fire with fire."
"Concur," Wilson said. "Load tube eight with another Mark 88. Set it for low, repeat low, yield, dot zero one KT, a snap shot on the incoming torpedo's bearing." Ilse watched as Jeffrey watched his console screens. Again lights blinked as he replayed his special weapons litany. "Security alarm!"
"Handling authorized," Wilson snapped.
"Armed guard is in position," Jeffrey said, talking faster and faster. "Electronic locks are bypassed, mechanical locks are broken. Weapon loaded in tube eight. A-wire is connected, special weapons enabler tool connected."
"I've relayed the PAL code," Wilson said.
"Green light!" Jeffrey said. "Breach door closed! Recommend a preset running depth three thousand feet."
"Concur," Wilson said. "We'll command-detonate through the fiber-optic cable."
"Sir," Jeffrey said, "we'd better launch bows-on. We can't afford to lose the wire."
"Concur," Wilson said. "Cut the wire, tube seven. Close muzzle doors and drain the tubes, tubes one through seven. Shore up the inner door tube eight." Jeffrey confirmed and then relayed the instructions, his voice clinical and clear. "Sonar, we need your absolute best estimate of that torpedo's range and speed. This is going to be close."