“Tube one has been reloaded with a conventional UGST torpedo,” Kirit reported.
“Very well.” They would have to pull the weapon out when they reached the next target so they could load a nuclear-armed torpedo, but until then, he wanted all eight tubes ready for a fight.
Traffic was lighter in the channel, but there was still one ship approaching, and another almost out. The departing ship had been much closer when they turned, but with them still creeping at five knots, it had pulled steadily away.
“Recommend energizing Arfa sonar again.”
“All right, First Officer, go ahead.”
Thirty seconds later they studied a white-on-green image of the seabed and the objects ahead of them. It resembled a false-color television picture, but strangely shadowed, unless you understood what it represented. Things that reflected sonar well were bright, while softer or porous materials were dimmer. Rocks and new metals were brightest, then sand and corroded metal were a little dimmer. Mud and masses of plant life showed as dark spots. There was enough resolution to not only see the three wrecks, but also their condition. One was little more than a skeleton, one an angular mass of metal, while the third was almost intact. Passing too close to any of them would risk damaging his boat.
A bearing readout across the bottom of the screen gave Jain exactly what he needed. “Starboard fifteen, steer zero three four.”
The helmsman acknowledged the order, and Jain said, “Rakash, I intend to go to the left of the center wreck. The gap between left and center…”
“Torpedo propellers bearing green zero one four! Seeker is active!” shouted the sonar operator over the intercom. The acoustic intercept receiver, a device designed to listen for and warn them about hostile sonar transmissions, began beeping loudly just as sonar gave their report.
“Release countermeasure, release decoy!” Jain gave the order almost without thinking. “Rapid fire procedures, tubes one and two, torpedo course zero four six, zero five zero! Full speed, minimal enable run! Fire!”
Jain barely heard Kirit acknowledge the firing order. “Helmsman, increase speed to twenty knots, change depth to eighteen meters.” His maneuvering orders were punctuated by two dull shocks he could feel through the deck as the torpedoes were fired.
He looked around the central post. The decoy and countermeasure were out there, hopefully muddying up the water, and he’d counterfired two weapons back down the bearing of the approaching torpedo. The deck was vibrating under their feet as the prop spun, churning the water into froth as Chakra built up speed. For the moment, that was all they could do. Was it enough?
“Sonar, report.”
“Seeker is active, constant bearing.”
Rakash was watching the sonar display next to Jain. They were still heading for the gap between the wrecks, although Chakra seemed to be going slower, not speeding up.
The first officer observed, “Turning really isn’t an option here…”
“In the channel?” Jain observed. “Besides, that would mean turning back the way we came. Open water and safety is out ahead of us. Kirit, what about our torpedoes?”
“Both running at speed, their seekers are still searching.”
Sonar reported, “Hostile torpedo has shifted from short scale back to search! Steady bearing rate!”
“It’s lost us?” Jain wondered hopefully.
“The countermeasure…” Rakash suggested.
“Hopefully the weapons we sent back will force our attacker to maneuver, breaking any guidance wire. And when the weapon searches for us, it will hopefully home in on either the decoy or maybe even one of the wrecks we are rapidly closing on.”
“Passing fifteen knots,” the helmsman reported. Jain knew that by looking at the Arfa’s sonar display; the sonar didn’t work well at high speed, and the image was blurring and washing out.
He made one last adjustment. “Starboard ten, steer zero three six.”
The wrecks were just a few hundred meters ahead, barely more than a boat length.
Jain announced, “After we’re past the wrecks, I’m going to go active for one ping. Hopefully we will see him. Stand by for sharp maneuvers and to fire another pair of torpedoes. Open bow caps on tubes three and four.”
Jain saw heads nodding. Both Rakash and Kirit said “Understood” softly.
“Sonar, what about the torpedo?” he demanded.
“It’s gone, Captain. Constant bearing all the way. It must have passed directly under us. It’s in the baffles now.” He could almost hear the man’s shrug over the intercom.
“One of our torpedoes has shifted to short scale!” The sonarman’s excited report was almost a shout.
They were past the line of wrecks by now. Part of him wanted to slow down, but the more distance they put between them and the hostile torpedo, the better. It had to be turning by now…
“Explosion!”
“Where away?” Jain demanded.
“Off our starboard bow. Solid hit.” The sonar operator, Chief Petty Officer Patil, had seen enough attacks on merchants during the war to know what one should sound like. But what about the weapon searching for them?
It came an eternity later, almost thirty seconds by the clock. “Sonar reports a low rumble, evaluated as reverberation from an explosion.” Their enemy’s weapon had found something to home in on, and attacked it, all of it happening in their blind zone aft. Still, an echo was all they needed to hear.
“Rakash, can we turn now?”
The navigator only had to glance at the plot. “Yes, Captain! Recommend course one seven five, new depth twenty-five meters. We can increase depth to forty meters in fifteen minutes — twenty minutes if we slow to fifteen knots, which I strongly recommend.”
Jain realized he was gripping the edge of the chart table, hard, and told his hands to let go. They did, which was a relief, and he realized he had fought and won his first battle as Chakra’s captain.
He gave the helmsman the new course, speed, and depth, then turned back to the chart table. He studied the chart and did the math.
“He fired an active weapon, which meant he was close, no more than five thousand meters. That’s how I knew I could fire active weapons back,” Jain remarked to Rakash.
Jain then asked, “Sonar. Did you ever see more than one torpedo fired at us? Did you identify the type?”
“Yes, Captain. Only one weapon was fired and it was a TEST-71 on the high speed setting.”
Jain nodded knowingly. The TEST-71 was a Russian-made torpedo. Chakra had been equipped with similar weapons in the past, but they’d been replaced a few years ago with the newer UGST torpedoes, also Russian-made, but a smarter, more dangerous weapon.
“And they only fired one torpedo,” Jain observed. “That means the shooter was one of their Kilo-class diesel boats. They can only fire one wire-guided torpedo at a time.”
Jain shook his head disparagingly. “He should have fired two and just depended on the torpedo’s seekers.”
Rakash argued, “But the seekers wouldn’t be able to tell us apart from the wrecks.”
“You’re right,” Jain agreed. “So he had to go for positive control and bet on a single shot being enough.”
“But how did he hear us in the harbor? There were at least two merchants between him and us, both as noisy as cement mixers. And active sonar wouldn’t help him search with all that junk on the bottom.”
“But it did,” Jain countered, smiling. “Our own active mine-hunting sonar, that is. When we used our Arfa to search for the wrecks, he heard the pings, but not on his passive search sonar.”
Jain looked at the other officers. They were listening, trying to understand. In fact, the central post was perfectly silent. Everybody was listening.