“We got off the SLOT buoy message. That’ll have to be how we’d hand off,” Quinnivan said.
“Captain,” the engineroom upper level watchstander said, “the officer of the deck reports the first letter of our call sign has been received aboard on the VLF loop. Also, he requests to shift propulsion to the emergency propulsion motor.”
Seagraves nodded. “Tell the OOD, permission granted to shift propulsion to the EPM.” He looked at Kelly. “Eng, keep a close eye on the EPM. If it fails, we’ll have a very long swim home.” To Quinnivan, he said, “in only two hours we’ll know what the message says.”
“Only two things they could say,” Quinnivan said. “Either break trail and come home to Mommy. Or shoot the fookin’ BUFF out of the ocean and kill his ass.”
“The essential problem of under-ice combat,” Alexeyev said to the room of gathered senior officers, “is to establish enough straight-line distance from the target to be able to shoot at him without sustaining damage to our own submarine.” The words of his dead engineer came to him then—distance. Could this be what she was talking about? “And if Hostile One keeps as close to us as he has been, that won’t be possible. We’ll have to withdraw from the icecap the way we came in, retracing our steps, and monitoring Hostile One. If Madam Trusov is correct that the American has a propulsion problem, he’ll lose the ability to move underwater. If he bottoms out or comes up to a polynya, we would be able to arrange enough distance to shoot him.”
“But if he loses that thrust bearing, Captain,” Trusov said, “he’s not going anywhere. He’ll be dead in the water. Plus, he won’t be making the noise that’s allowed us to track him.”
“If we don’t hear him,” Sobol said, “we can hit that direction with active sonar and get his position. If he’s a few hundred meters out, we can shoot him with the Shkval torpedo.”
“If that fails, all we have left is a nuclear Gigantskiy,” Alexeyev said. “And as we’ve demonstrated, we need more than ten miles range to avoid damage to us. And we won’t get ten miles under ice, not until we’re much closer to the marginal ice zone.”
“Sir?” Trusov said hesitantly.
“Go ahead,” Alexeyev said.
“Sir, if the Americans lose propulsion, they’ll be trapped under the ice.”
There was silence in the room for a long moment. Finally, Lebedev spoke, her voice harsh.
“Trusov, we’re under orders to destroy the American. That means we shoot him no matter what’s going on with his goddamned engineroom.”
“Madam First,” Trusov said, frowning, “the Americans are fellow submariners. We can’t shoot them if they’re helpless. And we can’t leave them to die under the ice.”
Alexeyev stood up abruptly. “This meeting is over,” he said, acid in his voice. “Clear the room except for Madam Lebedev and Captain Kovalov.”
When the more junior of the officers had left, Alexeyev looked at Kovalov. “Your systems officer is out of line. But she’s also correct.”
“Sir,” Lebedev said, “we have clear orders concerning the hostile submarine. Shoot to kill. I recommend we discuss the ‘how’ of those orders, not the ‘why.’”
“Let me humor you, Madam First,” Alexeyev said. He looked at the projection left on-screen by Maksimov. “We’re here, surfaced at the original ice target — open water. The ice walls roughly form a box, seven miles wide east-to-west, perhaps half of that in the north-south direction. Presumably, Hostile One is hovering underneath us or on the bottom, waiting for our next move. Also, I presume he will follow us no matter what we do. So, imagine this. We vertical dive to a hundred meters. Then we follow our course line that got us into this box back to the corner opening into the ice maze farther west of us. But we do that at flank speed.”
“Flank speed?” Lebedev said, color draining from her face. “If we do that, we could hit a pressure ridge and rupture the hull. Or shear off the conning tower — or the rudder.”
“It’s the only way to establish stand-off distance to the American,” Alexeyev said. “When we’re at the entrance to the box, seven miles from open water, we spin the ship, ping active to get a data package on the American and open fire with a Shkval torpedo. Nominal depth, one hundred to two hundred meters. But we fire it whether or not we have reestablished contact on the American.”
“Shooting a Shkval blind means throwing it away,” Kovalov said, shaking his head. “If Hostile One is surfaced at the open water after we leave — probably to get or send radio messages, you won’t get a return on active sonar. And the probability of a hit on a target not acquired by sonar? You would essentially be jettisoning it.”
“So what?” Alexeyev said. “Better to return from this mission with no torpedoes, yes? Which brings me to the next tactic. If we can’t confirm a kill on Hostile One after shooting a Shkval at him, we’ll fire the last Gigantskiy at him.”
Lebedev’s eyes grew wide. Alexeyev could see the whites of her eyes above and below her irises. “Sir, the box — as you described it — is only seven miles wide, and the last time we shot a Gigantskiy, we almost lost the entire first compartment to fire and explosions. That could have sunk us. We’ll be too close, Captain. The next time we may not be as lucky. Plus, we might have latent damage from the first detonation that we haven’t discovered yet. A second explosion could cause a catastrophic failure from a hundred systems.”
“My plan is to shoot the Gigantskiy, then spin the ship and sprint northward back the way we came. We’ll have a thick ice wall between us and the detonation.”
Kovalov looked unhappy. “It’s an awful risk, Captain. And still no guarantee this will kill the American. He survived the first detonation.”
“Do we care?” Alexeyev asked. “We need to return to Zapadnaya Litsa with no weapons, Sergei. Our patrol report will claim a kill unless we absolutely have proof he survived. And even if the American boat does survive, we’ll have no more weapons, so there’s nothing we can do about the hostile submarine.”
“Let me make a suggestion, then, Captain,” Kovalov said. “While you are spinning the ship, my crew and I will undock the Losharik and maneuver away from you.”
“What? Why?” Alexeyev held out his hand for a cigarette, pulled over the ash tray, and sat at one of the seats of the table. Kovalov and Lebedev also sat. Alexeyev lit up and looked at Kovalov through the smoke.
“Just in case, Captain. If something goes wrong and Belgorod lies on the bottom, Losharik would be helpless with your bulk lying on top of us. You’ll be a crushing weight above us. We’ll be useless. But if we’re free of Belgorod, Losharik can rescue your crew from the upper hatch of the escape chamber and drive us all back to open water, where we can call for help. And while we wait, we can keep everyone warm and fed — assuming our reactor survives.”
Alexeyev nodded. “What do you think, Madam First?”
Lebedev exhaled hard, her cheeks blowing out momentarily. “I don’t know, Captain. Losharik isn’t equipped for operation under the ice. I think she’d have trouble finding open water. And what if the nuclear explosion damages her? How well will Losharik survive a shock event?”
“A damned sight better than Belgorod,” Kovalov said. “Our pressure hulls are spherical titanium, good down to twenty-five hundred meters. That’s five times the depth of Belgorod’s test depth. We can stand a shock wave better than Belgorod can. And if we’re under ice without you, I’ll use the side-scan sonar to feel out the ice field. I’ll have to do a lot of thrusting and spinning, but I can find open water.”