The inside of the Boise was almost completely dark now, including the Chiefs’ Quarters. One by one, the lighting busses had tripped off as a result of the small fires and the resultant circuit breaker trips. Most of the light that remained came from the indicator lights on the systems that remained working, lights that were yellow, green, and red.
Those colored lights barely penetrated the dark, or the thick haze of smoke that now permeated the ship. The air was unbreathable, filled with fumes and vapor from the fires and the slow destruction of the ship. None of the ship’s atmospheric control equipment was working, and most of the fans had tripped off, so the smoke was pooling in thick clouds in the darkness.
But the ship’s propulsion machinery continued on, designed to be the most secure, the most survivable, the last thing to die on the boat. The screw continued to turn and the ship moved forward, but these were like the shallow breaths of a man in a coma, signs of life that weren’t really alive, the core reflexes of a man whose soul had long since departed.
At 0615, Danny looked at his watch, and avoided eye contact with the captain. His eyes scanned the bearing repeater, checking their depth, course and speed. Boise had taken a few minutes to show up before, he reminded himself, as he fought off his anxiety that they’d lost her.
He wondered about her, out in front of them, what might have gone wrong. How long could a ship steam on without a crew? Maybe she’d gone off course, or taken a dive. Maybe she’d driven herself to the bottom of the ocean before they could shoot her.
It bothered him that the notion disappointed him.
“It’s 0625,” said the captain.
Jabo shook his head. On cue, the sonar supervisor came into control.
“No sign of her?”
“No sir. Recommend we go active.”
Danny looked at the captain, who nodded. “Three pings,” he said.
Sonar sent three pulses into the water in front of them, each about five seconds apart. The returns came back scattered across their display, two of them vaguely aligning with their solution, one completely off.
“Wonderful,” said Jabo.
“How confident are you in this solution?” said the captain.
“About fifty percent. But I’m one hundred percent sure that this is all we’ve got.”
The captain shook his head. “Well shit.”
They watched the clock tick by until 0630 passed without a sign. Silence descended on the control room.
At 0640, V-12 broke the silence. “I still think that solution is solid,” he said.
“That’s incredibly comforting,” said Jabo. “I do too. But I can’t shoot a million dollar torpedo where I hope she is. We need to hear something.”
“But we won’t hear her,” said V-12. “We’re going five knots, she’s going five knots. Same class of submarine. We’re making the same amount of noise. We’re probably making more, what with… everybody alive on here. Without that 0600 pinging we’ll never hear her.”
V-12 was trying to help, but he was getting on Jabo’s nerves. Suddenly, unexpectedly, he remembered that afternoon of rabbit hunting in a snow-frosted field in Tennessee. He remembered shutting out his nephew’s jabbering as he focused on his shot. He remembered the advice he gave the kid, how sometimes you needed to stop moving in order to flush out the rabbits.
“All Stop!” He had an idea, but there was no time to explain it. That’s why he had the conn, he thought, to make decisions like this.
The helm paused momentarily, but his hand reached toward the Engine Order telegraph automatically. He rang it up.
“Maneuvering answers all stop,” he said.
Jabo picked up the 27MC microphone, to explain to the captain and sonar at the same time. “Sonar conn, coming to all stop, let’s see if we can pick her up on broadband as we slow down.”
“Conn sonar aye!”
The ship slowed as the screw stopped — and it grew quieter. Danny noticed the ship’s depth and course starting to creep. The ship was like an airplane; it required forward motion, water flowing over its rudder and planes, to maintain control. As they slowed to a stop they would lose control of their motion. But he hoped this wouldn’t take long as their ship became almost completely silent.
“Four knots,” said V-12. Another two minutes went by. “Three knots.”
“Flood Aux four,” said the Diving Officer. “Officer of the Deck, we are losing depth control.”
“Very well,” said Danny.
At 0650, Danny heard the 27MC crackle. “Conn, Sonar, submerged contact at three-five-zero relative, designate Sierra One. We’re hearing steam ring.”
“She’s close!” said the captain.
“Snapshot, Tube One!” said Danny, as the fire control operator punched in the bearing.
A “snapshot” was a procedure designed to launch a torpedo very quickly, with a bare amount of information. It was generally designed as a defensive move; a shot at an enemy submarine that suddenly appears out of the acoustic haze. Danny had hoped to take a carefully aimed sniper’s shot, but instead it was a shot from the hip, into a dark room. But unlike a sniper, Danny’s bullet had ears and a brain.
The battle stations torpedo team executed the snapshot procedure quickly, without question, and with competence honed over hundreds of hours of practice. Within fifteen seconds they had thrown the switch that forced compressed air into tube one, and ejected the torpedo into the sea.
The Mark 48 torpedo came to life once it left the ship. Its fuel, a monopropellant that contained its own oxidizer, ignited immediately and turned its motor. The torpedo was swift: it was designed to exceed the fastest speed of the fastest Soviet submarine. It also began transmitting active sonar from its nose immediately, and sending that data back to the ship via the thin copper wire that connected her.
The sound she transmitted bounced off the hull of the Boise and returned. Like a shark sniffing blood, the torpedo turned and accelerated toward her target.
“Torpedo is away!” came the word into control.
“Very well,” said Danny.
“It’s homing!” said the fire control operator. Through its wire, the torpedo was now sending them telemetry data.
Danny looked at the fire control screen. She was 800 yards almost directly in front of them.
The torpedo counted down its distance to the Boise and broadcasted the range back to them. They watched the numbers on the screen countdown… and then disappear.
A dull thump sounded in front of them.
The torpedo was designed not to kill directly with its explosion. Ideally, it wasn’t even supposed to contact the target vessel. Against a surface ship, it was designed to explode well beneath the target. A steam bubble would then raise up against the hull, lifting it, and break the ship’s back.
It worked slightly differently against the Boise, which was not vulnerable to being lifted up in the air like a surface ship. The fuse of the torpedo sensed when it was close to the Boise and detonated the Mark-48’s 650 pounds of high explosive, plus the large amount of fuel that remained inside the weapon. A huge, superheated steam bubble was created instantly, its walls moving outward in all directions faster than the speed of sound. When the bubble reached the hull of the Boise it attached itself to the side of the ship. The steam bubble collapsed in the water, then expanded again, oscillating. It was a massive, twisting, murderous amount of force.