“All that work for nothing,” Pacino said to himself.
“Torpedo run time, eleven minutes, Captain,” Quinnivan said. “Six to go.”
“Makes you miss the old Vortex missiles, doesn’t it, XO?” Seagraves said. “A supercavitating underwater missile would have reached Master One in about two minutes.”
“They just tended to blow up the firing ship until they came up with the Mod Echo,” Quinnivan said. “But you’re right, it would have been nice.”
“Captain,” Styxx said from the weapon control panel, “I’ve lost wire guide continuity on own-ship’s unit.”
“Sonar,” Seagraves called. “Is our torpedo still pinging?”
“Yes, Captain,” Albanese said. “The pinging sounds are rising and falling in volume and pitch. The weapon must be circling, sir.”
“Reattack mode,” Pacino said to Cooper. “It can’t see the target. So it cut its wire and is just circling around, hoping it finds something.”
“How much fuel do you think it has left, Weps?” Quinnivan asked Styxx.
“Somewhere between five minutes and ten,” Styxx replied. “Without wire continuity, I have no data.”
“Master One must be hiding himself behind an ice wall,” Pacino said.
Quinnivan frowned. “We’d better hope that fookin’ weapon finds him and takes him out before he shoots another nuke, this time, with a note on it that says, ‘Dear New Jersey, with love from your good friends aboard the Belgorod.’”
“Captain,” Albanese said from the sonar stack, “own-ship’s unit, pinging has shut down.”
“Ran out of fuel, sir,” Styxx said sadly.
Pacino glanced at Short Hull Cooper, whose eyes were as wide as hard boiled eggs. “You okay?” Pacino asked him.
Cooper swallowed hard. “I’m fine,” he said, but Pacino could tell he was frightened.
“What the hell do you mean, Weapons Officer?” Captain Alexeyev asked harshly.
“I’ve got a weapons control trouble light,” Weapons Officer Sobol said. “I’m showing an open circuit on the weapon control panel, sir.”
“Can we take local control and bypass the panel?”
“Yes, Captain, but I’ll have to program the weapon at the tube control panel station.”
“Well, get down there,” Alexeyev ordered.
“Wait, Captain,” Lebedev interjected. “If we’re having trouble shooting the Shkval, let’s switch to shooting the Gigantskiy. Let’s see if that works. We were planning on launching it anyway.”
Alexeyev nodded. “Stay at your station, Weapons Officer, and line up the Gigantskiy in large bore tube five. Slow speed transit. Enable it at two miles. Active search. Full one megaton yield. Set for proximity detonation with contact detonation as a backup in case it hits the ice wall at open water. Same target data package as for the Shkval, bearing zero eight seven, range seven miles.” Alexeyev paused, then announced to the room’s watchstanders, “Procedures for firing the Gigantskiy.”
“Ship is ready, Captain,” Shvets said.
“Weapon is ready, sir,” Sobol reported. “Assumed target data package inserted. Your presets inserted. Weapon on internal power.”
“Weapons Officer, fire large-bore tube five!” Alexeyev barked.
And again, nothing happened.
“Goddammit, Weapons Officer, what now?”
“Captain, same indications as for the Shkval. I’ve got a weapons control trouble light,” Weapons Officer Sobol said. “Another open circuit on the weapon control panel.”
“Get down there and sort this out with Glavny Starshina Yeger. Insert the presets locally and try to get the tube to fire.”
“Sir,” Sobol said, “do you still want the Shkval first? Then the Gigantskiy?”
“Yes,” Alexeyev said. He rubbed his bad eye, which was itching through the eye patch. This fucking mission, he thought. What the hell else could go wrong?
The sonar ping came through the hull, audible to the naked ear, lasting a long fifteen seconds, which was long for a pulse. Sonar pulses generally tended to be short, so the sender would shut up and listen for a return ping. The surface navy used long pulses that rose and fell in pitch like a police siren, but they had large equipment capable of transmitting and receiving at the same time. Belgorod was not similarly equipped. But the oddest thing about the pulse wasn’t just its length, it was the content.
“Did you hear that, Captain?” Lebedev asked Alexeyev.
“What the hell is it, First?”
“It’s the ending of the 1812 Overture,” Lebedev said. “By Tchaikovsky.”
“A Russian composer,” Alexeyev said. “Why the hell do you think they’re transmitting music from a Russian composer?”
“Maybe they’re trying to communicate with us, sir. Maybe they are saying they’re friendly.”
“Begging us not to shoot them?” Alexeyev shook his head. “No, it can’t be that. Damned if I know what they’re doing.”
Lebedev blew her lips out for a moment. “Who knows what the crazy Americans are thinking at any given time?” she asked. “At best it’s a trick.”
“Yeah,” Alexeyev said, glancing at his watch. “This is taking too long. Madam First, get down to the torpedo control console and see if you can help.”
“Right away, sir,” Lebedev said, unbuckling her seatbelt and vaulting out of her chair to rush to the first compartment.
Lebedev hurried down the steep stairways to the zero three deck, jogged forward through the narrow passageway, emerging into an equipment room. The door to the weapon control electronics room was open and Chief Yeger and Sobol were standing inside staring at the inside of a cabinet. Lebedev entered, noting it was a tight squeeze with all three of them in the space between the racks of electronics.
“What was wrong?”
Three tube bank control cabinets were opened. Two of them were unrecognizable, both ravaged by fire, black fused wires and control panels still emitting thick noxious smoke to the overhead.
“Look at this, Madam First,” Glavny Starshina Semion Yeger said. He pointed to a package slightly smaller than a cigarette pack, the unit nestled into the wiring harness cableway inside the port tube bank’s controller cabinet, which was undamaged.
“What is it?”
“An explosive device,” Yeger said. “Wired to go off when you gave a weapon launch signal. So the large bore cabinet and starboard cabinet are destroyed. The port cabinet survived since we didn’t try to launch anything out of it.”
“Is there a selector switch that would allow us to take manual control of the tubes? Weapons Officer Sobol said we could do a local launch.”
Yeger looked up from the undamaged port tube bank cabinet. “That is correct, we could, but it will be faster to wire the starboard tube bank to the undamaged port tube panel. I’m almost done wiring it, I just need to remove this bomb or whatever it is and jump the wires. When I give you the word, tell the central command post to give a signal to fire tube six, which will actually launch tube five.”
“What about the Gigantskiy?”
“Once the Shkval is away, I’ll do the same thing with the large bore tube cabinet.”
“Hurry up,” Lebedev said.
“Captain, XO?” Pacino said. “If I could make a suggestion?”
“You have an idea, Mr. Pacino?” Seagraves put his chin in his hand, his tell when he was deep in thought.
“Yes, Captain. Let’s do what you did in the Arabian Sea. Fire two nuke SUBROCs at Master One. One set at the other side of the box opening. The other, say, another five miles north — the direction he entered from. We set for maximum yield. Two hundred and fifty kilotons. We’ll set the depth charges to go off at depth zero.”