The decision of what to do by then had almost made itself.
The Second Captain’s mental profile at this point would closely resemble that of a child trying to whistle nonchalantly while walking through a scary graveyard. At first, it looked like the tactical decision was correct, since there was no sign of hostile intent by the 688 as the two ships came to their closest point of approach. The ships then opened the distance as the Hegira overtook the 688 and passed it. But as range opened to 500 meters the 688 made a sudden move, with a high probability that it was related to counterdetecting the Hegira. The Second Captain’s original decision to try to sneak by at close range was revealed to be incorrect.
The 688 had detected them after all.
The Second Captain reacted in a way to offset its previous poor decision. It would take into account the fact that the 688 now knew it was here. It started the gyro on Nagasaki torpedo number six, flooded the tube and opened the bow cap, frustrated that the weapon would take several minutes to warm up, complete its self-checks and accept the targeting data from the Second Captain. The Second Captain felt significant neural flux that could be interpreted as resembling chagrin, or perhaps regret, that it did not warm the weapon up sooner so that it would be ready to go in the event the 688 counterdetected. But then, it reminded itself, the spinning gyro of the Nagasaki emitted a high frequency noise that might have given the ship away that much sooner.
The Second Captain was now truly a ship’s captain, feeling the weight of every decision, agonizing over anticipated consequences, the risk of every move perceived as if it were a physical creature. In the realization of that stress, the system longed for the days when it was subordinate to a human crew. If the crew ever woke up, the system would never take them for granted again.
Chapter 25
Tuesday, 31 December
“CONN, SONAR,” Senior Chief Sanderson announced on the Circuit Seven PA speaker. “REACQUISITION TARGET ONE, CLOSE ABOARD TO STARBOARD, NEAR HELD EFFECT, RECOMMEND EVASIVE MANEUVER TO PORT.”
Kane, who had thought he had been given his life back, felt like a released prisoner thrown back into his cell.
“Helm, left hard rudder!” he heard a voice shout, a detached part of him taking a few seconds to realize it was his. The port handrail came up to strike him in the ribs as the deck rolled hard in the turn. “All ahead full.”
“My rudder’s left hard, all ahead full, maneuvering answers—”
“Steady as she goes.”
“Steady, aye, course one three five.”
“O.O.D, man silent battle stations.” That was a stupid order, Kane thought, made as a reflex. Half his battle stations watchstanders were casualties. “Hold it, maintain this watch but man the plots and the attack center and get the watchstanders on the phone circuits.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Sonar, Conn,” Kane said into the microphone of his headset before he even had it strapped to his head, “what’s the status of Target One? Any speed change?”
“Conn, Sonar, no. Target One is at slow speed but we hold him broadband.”
In sonar, Edwin Sanderson glared fiercely at his broadband trace, then at Smoot, who was sweating trying to bring up the narrowband modules in spite of a bad program glitch.
“Contact is definitely Target One but we’re receiving a lot of transients, multiple flow-induced resonances, fluid sloshing. Captain, he’s louder than a train wreck. If I’d had sonar up faster I’d have caught him a long way out. He must have been damaged.”
Kane was not encouraged. He’d launched an entire torpedo room against the Destiny and been sent to the bottom by a single Nagasaki. Now the Destiny had returned from the torpedo field with no damage except a louder sound signature. Not for the first time Kane found himself wishing he had command of the Destiny instead of a pedestrian and aging 688 class.
“Sir, we’ve got a manual plot leg on Target One,” Mcdonne said from the plotting table, his voice too loud on the phone circuit. “Recommend maneuver to course two five zero with speed after the maneuver of at least fifteen knots.”
“I don’t want to close range.” Kane’s tactful way of saying why the hell would they do that? Target motion analysis on the Destiny when they were out of torpedoes? The correct course of action was to keep going on their course away from the son of a bitch, open the range, clear datum, run like hell. But something told Kane that Mcdonne was right. And even if Phoenix had no weapons, someone out there sure as hell did. With an ocean full of Burke-class destroyers and the sky roaring with P-3s, surely there was someone who could put this sub on the bottom. They lacked only one small piece of information — where the hell he was.
“Should be a parallel course, sir, just drives the speed across the line-of-sight.”
“Helm, right five degrees rudder, steady two five zero, all ahead standard.”
“Right five, two five zero, ahead standard aye, maneuvering answers ahead standard.”
“Sonar, Captain, coming around to the right to get an Ekelund range on Target One. We’ll be driving Target One through the baffles.”
“Conn, Sonar, aye.” Sanderson pulled the right headphone back from his ear, the one that listened to incoming sonar data but could be interrupted to relay voice information from the conn, and pressed hard on the left headphone that was dedicated to sonar feeds. Damn it, where the hell was that narrowband processor? “Conn, Sonar, more transients from Target One. Hull door coming open, possible high frequency from new equipment. We’re still down hard on narrowband and I can’t tell from Q-5 audible.”
“Sonar, Captain,” Kane’s voice said. “Any chance Target One is spinning up a Nagasaki?”
“Captain, Sonar, I can’t tell.”
“Captain, XO, we’ve got a curve. Target One range is 6,500 yards, bearing two eight zero. Target course, two six two, speed eight knots.”
If they had had a torpedo, that would have been a firing solution, and even with the screens of the firecontrol system blank he could have set targeting instructions into a torpedo manually and fired it from the torpedo room. Mcdonne had been right after all about saving a weapon, but then, if they’d kept one it might have detonated when they hit the bottom and ruptured the hull. And there was no sense going over something that happened a few laps back.
“Helm, all ahead two-thirds, turns for seven knots. Attention in the firecontrol team, we’re going to fall back to a discreet trail range on the Destiny and follow him. Indications so far are that he hasn’t heard us and that his own noise is loud. We may finally have gained an acoustic advantage, assuming our own-ship’s noise isn’t tremendously increased by our collision with the bottom. We need to get to periscope depth and grab a Navsat fix. Immediately after, we’ll transmit a contact report on the Destiny to CINCLANT and COMSUBLANT with our best position from the Navsat fix. We’ll go back deep and try to trail the Destiny without being detected. Jensen, you got any kind of fix from that GPS?”
“It’s within fifty miles, sir.” Jensen, the plot coordinator at battle stations, with all the casualties was reduced to being a manual plotter. Mcdonne was doing the plot evaluation.
“We need to come up to PD and get a Navsat fix.”
“XO, rewrite the message you did. Make it a contact report on the Destiny with a paragraph on our encounter at Gibraltar. Dive, make your depth one five zero feet. Sonar, making preparations to come to periscope depth. Radio, stand by to code in a contact message.”
The room grew busy as the ship came shallow, the range to the Destiny ahead fading to 10,000 yards, the hostile submarine still loud and tracked on broadband sonar. In sonar, the narrowband processors were finally coming up in a reduced status. Sanderson was ready to ask the conn to stream the alternate towed array — the advanced thin-wire unit had been mangled and amputated by the maneuvering to get off the bottom, its continuity check showing a complete open circuit. The TB-16 array was shorter and not as sensitive and had fewer bells and whistles, no caboose array for one thing, but was still capable. It would give them much more capability than broadband sonar alone.