Sean broke into the Admiral’s silence. “Admiral, we have to do this now. If we don’t, it will be harder to put the genie back in the bottle later. At least right now, he’s still just pushing at the cork.”
The motion of the waves was decreasing. The Great Leader no longer rolled and swayed with every swell. That was bad news. The storm was fading. Soon the Americans could launch aircraft able to find the Leader or worse, direct subs to their location. The First Officer was again at his Captain’s side. The two political officers had decided that their presence would best serve the crew elsewhere.
“Captain, the storm is lessening topside. We should go deeper. What if the Americans have been able to launch anti-submarine aircraft?”
The Captain shook his head. “Not yet, Xian. We are still not past the American subs. We must run the risk and stay in the noise clutter of the surface a little longer.” He looked at his sonar officer one more time. The man was scanning the calculations he had just completed. One great thing about fear was level of dedication to precision it produced.
The noisemakers had begun to fail one by one as their batteries and supply of compressed gas wore out. The echoes and rumblings created by the explosions were also dying down. Soon, the Leader would have to rely on skill and not water conditions to see them through. But the Captain had thought of that.
“Sir, I have the solution calculated and loaded into the computer.”
The Captain kept his eyes on the front of the bridge. “Very well. Relay the range to the forward weapons room and tell them to rig the torpedo to run at our depth.”
“Yes, sir.” Seconds passed. “Forward Weapons Room reports all ready, sir.”
“Rig for battle stations.” Hatches were closed the length of the Leader. If there was a hull breach, it would now only flood a small section of the sub. Unless they were deeper of course; then the hull of the Leader would split like an egg as tons of water would rush into its hull.
The First Officer donned his command headset. He was now responsible for relaying all the Captain’s commands to the crew throughout the boat. A brief exchange crackled in his ears. “All sections report at action stations, sir.”
“Fire tubes one and two. When the torpedoes are near the coordinates, make them active and cut the guidance wires.”
“Firing one.” With the thump of compressed air and a scream of high speed screws, the five hundred and thirty three millimeter torpedo rocketed out of its tube. “Firing two.” Its brother quickly joined.
The Captain thought a second. “Load two more,” and then to no one, “just in case.”
Miami’s sonar supervisor sat bolt upright in his chair. “Conn, sonar transient bearing two niner two. High speed screws. Torpedoes inbound, sir.”
Miami’s Captain looked at the sonar supervisor. “That’s not good enough. I want range.”
“Four thousand meters and closing, sir.”
“Launch a noisemaker. Helm, take us below the thermal. Come to a heading of two zero zero once we’re under and make turns for one quarter ahead.”
The COB listened to his headset and then relayed the weapons room information to the Captain, “Noisemaker released, sir.”
The helm was next. “We’re below the thermal. Helm coming to two zero zero. Ahead one quarter.”
The sonar operator turned in his chair, “The torpedoes just went active Captain!”
Miami’s Captain kept his composure, but he knew if the torpedoes were able to acquire, it did not look good for Miami. “Steady, Mister Goulding. You’re still our ears.”
“Captain! I have a steady contact bearing one one two sir. Strong and constant. Must be a noisemaker.”
“Range?”
“Under four thousand meters.”
“Good.” the Leader’s Captain turned to the weapons officer. “Cut the wires.”
“Yes, sir.”
Miami’s Captain tightened his grip on the arms of his chair. “Do they have us yet?”
“Not yet, sir, but I don’t think they bought the noisemaker. These suckers could be wire guided just like our forty eights. They probably cut the wires right after the things went active.”
It was a tough call. Launch another noisemaker and risk being acquired or stay on his present course and risk being found when the torpedoes started their circular search pattern.
The pings of the high frequency sonar used by the Russian-copied torpedoes remained constant. If the interval between them started to get shorter, that would mean they had been located. Miami’s Captain had some idea of what his adversary was up to. The torpedoes were not just to flush them out; they were also to keep them busy while he slipped through. If the Korean torpedoes did manage to acquire, their sonar officer would be able to use the strong returns from their sonars to generate new firing solutions. It was a good plan and so far it was working. But the Miami was not finished yet.
“Navigation, what’s our distance to the bottom?” The navigator looked at the computer-generated terrain review on a CRT beside his station, and then at the depth gauge above his head. The navigation fix was updated by the second based on the ships inertial systems. Two hundred feet sir.”
“Present depth, helm?”
“Six forty feet and steady sir.”
“Sonar, anything happening with those torpedoes yet?”
“Negative, sir. They haven’t acquired.”
“Ten degrees down on the planes take us to the bottom. Hold at seven fifty. Get another noisemaker in the tube and this time I want it to sound like it’s hurting. Helm, prepare to turn to a heading of two zero zero and accelerate to flank at my command. Navigation plot the new course.” He turned to his XO. “We’re going to make a knuckle right down in the basement and give him a good strong return to go after. I’m hoping his fish will hit the bottom and detonate. He’ll assume he got lucky and we’ll pop up behind him and clean his clock.”
The XO smiled back at his Captain. It had been a bad day for him as well. He wanted this Korean just as much as his Captain. Of course, this new tactic would bring them within dangerous distance of the ocean floor. If Miami nosed up suddenly, the stern would slam into the bottom and tear open the pressure hull. They would be just as dead as if the Koreans had killed them.
The Leader’s weapons officer stood beside the sonar station with one side of a headset held to his left ear and a stopwatch in his right. The Americans were very good. They had managed to avoid the two torpedoes. The sonar officer had directed the bow-mounted hydrophones at the track of the two torpedoes. Their high-speed thrum filled his left ear. He could also hear the high frequency pings of the sonar seekers, but the pings remained constant. The Captain’s ruse had proved ineffective. No, that was not correct. It had just failed to generate the hoped-for results. The weapons officer had been hand-picked by the man and would not give in to doubts about his commander’s abilities. The headphones went silent. The torpedoes had run out of fuel. He turned to his Captain. “Torpedoes ran out of fuel, Captain. No contact.”
The Captain took the news in silence. Perhaps he was too hasty. The Americans might have been too badly damaged and withdrawn from the area. He shook his head. No! That was not the way they thought. They were a nation that hated to lose. That sub was still out there and now they knew for sure that the Leader was out there as well. Every kilometer counted. Time to put distance between the indestructible and elusive American sub.