“TACCO, Sensor One. I have a weak fifty-hertz line on buoy fifty-one.”
“Sensor One, TACCO. Contact on buoy fifty-one, aye. Let me take a look.”
The tactical coordinator pulled up the acoustic display and looked at the picture as it formed. The TACCO was impressed. It was a very weak narrowband line, but it was there. Wang had caught it just right. Frankly, the coordinator hadn’t had great expectations for this mission. His sensor operators were used to looking for Chinese nukes that sounded like freight trains. Looking for a much quieter Akula was in a whole other league.
“All Stations, TACCO. Possub contact on buoy fifty-one. Sensor Two, stand by to drop a localization pattern south of our buoy field. Sensor Three, keep your eyes open for a MAD contact.”
The Orion banked hard left and flew to the far southern corner of the sonobuoy field. Five more sonobuoys dropped from the aircraft’s underside and parachuted down to the water.
“TACCO, Sensor Three. No MAD contact.”
Figures, thought the tactical coordinator. Russian boats were all fitted with degaussing gear and had really low magnetic signatures. They’d have to fly within a thousand meters before they’d even have a chance of picking the Akula up.
“TACCO, Sensor Two. Localization field up, no contacts.”
“TACCO, Sensor One. Narrowband line is fading. Contact is showing down Doppler, target is moving away from the buoy.”
Shit, swore the officer, we’re losing him! He needed to do something fast if they were going to keep this sub.
“Sensor Two, TACCO: Stand by to drop a DICASS buoy. Set depth selection to deep.”
Once again the aircraft turned and proceeded back toward the southern corner. As it was just about to fly over sonobuoy fifty-one another silver canister was dropped from her belly. The DICASS buoy splashed into the water, and immediately released the transducer subsection from its float. Unwinding rapidly, the transducer dropped to a depth of 136 meters, well below the seasonal thermocline, or layer. Seconds later, a sharp high-frequency ping began scanning the water.
The acoustic intercept receiver chirped madly. The estimated sound level indicated the active sonar was close.
“Helmsman, slow ahead. Make your depth three hundred meters,” barked Jain. “First Officer, report!”
“Active sonobuoy bears red one seven eight. It’s almost directly behind us.”
“Set ultra quiet condition throughout the ship,” Jain ordered. “Now we have to act just like a water molecule.”
“Captain, frequency and pulse pattern indicates it’s an American SSQ-62 active, directional sonobuoy. I can’t believe that the Americans are looking for us!”
“I don’t think they are, Number One. It’s probably a Taiwanese P-3.”
“Sir, something is very wrong here. Why are our allies looking for us, and so aggressively I might add?”
“I don’t have a clue, Number One. But we’re on a good course to get out of range of the buoy, and between the anechoic coating and our narrow aspect, I think we’ll get out of this with our hides intact.”
“Captain, our speed is five knots and ultra quiet is set,” reported Rakash.
“Very well. Given the circumstances, we may want to rethink that twenty-knot speed idea.” Jain wasn’t thrilled with slowing down, but he had little choice. He pulled out the target list again and started looking real hard at his options. He’d have to get the time back somehow.
Samant and Petrov hovered over the digital chart of the waters around Taiwan. It had been twenty-two hours since they’d left Hong Kong, after sending the two UUVs on their way to begin searching the harbors. Mitchell had wasted little time, and turned his boat toward the northeast and ran off at high speed. After six hours, he slowed to get a good look around, and then alternated between a sprint and what Thigpen had called “a fast walk.” They hadn’t seen any signs of the Indian Akula yet, but by Samant and Petrov’s estimate they were still sixty-some-odd miles behind. Nevertheless, the lack of even the slightest contact was disheartening.
Poring over the available data, the two struggled to guess where Chakra would go next. That the first target would be Hong Kong was intuitively obvious. Figuring out the second one was far more difficult. The multiple commercial facilities at Ningbo-Zhoushan and Shanghai placed both in the top five busiest ports, with the Shanghai International Port on the edge of the Yangtze River being number one. And while a submerged submarine could approach all of the ports, some were considerably easier than others.
Jerry and his executive officer were in the radio room talking with their superior at Squadron Fifteen. They’d received an urgent message a quarter of an hour earlier for the submarine to come up to periscope depth and make contact. Since Petrov and Samant were barred from that part of the ship, they hung out in control and watched as the crew expertly handled their boat. Both were still in awe of the sheer processing power that a Virginia-class submarine possessed.
Still, Samant felt uneasy, out of sorts, there was something wrong with this picture. Then it struck him; there were too many pictures. Everywhere he looked there were multiple display screens. The two vertical flat-screen panels forward were simply enormous. The starboard display had the output from one of the BVS-1 optronics masts on it. Samant sighed and shook his head.
“I’m still not comfortable with this central post configuration, Aleks. It doesn’t feel right to not have a periscope!” he grumbled.
“I understand how you feel, Girish, but this is the future. The newest Russian submarines are going down this path for the same reasons the Americans have, to make more information available to the commanding officer.”
“Not all progress is necessarily a good thing,” Samant shot back. “There’s a feeling of control, of being in command, when one stares at his adversary through an eyepiece. This is like watching a video game!”
Petrov chuckled. “You’re sounding like a hopeless romantic, Girish. You have to remember that these ‘children’ grew up with video games. We just have to accept that how we did things is behind the times, old-fashioned, obsolete.”
Samant turned to Petrov, a crushed expression on his face. “Thank you for making me feel ancient, Aleks.”
“You’re welcome, my friend,” Petrov laughed. He was definitely feeling more like himself, and he enjoyed being able to poke fun at his Indian comrade. Samant just growled in frustration.
“Well, we finally got a break,” Jerry declared as he and Thigpen came out of the radio room. “A Taiwanese submarine got a solid contact and reported in. Please plot these positions,” he said to the quartermaster, handing him a piece of paper.
“Aye, aye, sir,” replied the petty officer.
The four officers gazed at the chart as two dots popped up. “The sub reported contact here, and about six hours later a Taiwan P-3C got a weak hit here. This puts them on a course to the southeast. Jain’s going around the east side of Taiwan,” explained Jerry.
“Any indication Jain knows he’d been picked up?” questioned Samant with excitement.
“I think that’s a given, Captain. The P-3 dropped a DICASS bouy when they tried to maintain contact. They failed, but Jain would’ve had to be completely deaf not to hear it.”