That made the Annapolis something of a sacrificial lamb. They were now thirty nautical miles ahead of the convoy. Astern of them by ten miles was the USS Santa Fe, commanded by young Chris Carnage. If a hostile submarine was waiting for them, the Annapolis and Santa Fe would draw their fire. His operation order required him to make an emergency transmission to the carrier in the event he came under attack. That meant he’d have to come to periscope depth and shoot at the same time, a truly impossible tactical burden.
There had been no excuse for Admiral Henri not sending them out days ahead of the task force, to sanitize the western Pacific and the East China Sea. Hell, it wouldn’t have cost him anything. They could have sailed ahead while Henri loaded troops and equipment. They could have done an initial East China Sea search at twenty knots and a second at a slower fifteen, with Santa Fe escorting in the convoy a mile ahead while Annapolis drove ahead. Between the S-14 Blackboards and the P-5 Pegasus patrol planes out of Japan, the East China Sea could have been cleaned of every single marine mammal, much less offensive submarines. But now all the two U.S. subs were amounting to was a security blanket for Henri, perhaps at best a lightning rod for any attack that would be aimed at the convoy.
Patton looked up at the officer of the deck while the youth gave him a status report. No sonar contacts, ship was at best detection depth, sound channel good at seven hundred feet, ship rigged for patrol quiet, as best as they would do while at flank. He nodded, checking his watch and frowning, when the off-going engineer officer of the watch came in. Patton got his report, nodded curtly, and walked into the sonar room, forward and starboard of the control room.
At the second console sat Senior Chief Byron Demeers, his acerbic sonar expert. They had served together since his days on the Providence, because Patton had taken him on his two command tours. He and Demeers meshed well. Their words were minimal but each was attuned to the moods and thoughts of the other.
Demeers had formerly been plump, with a bald pate, penetrating eyes and a dark, full mustache, but two years before he had discovered a fitness center, and now he was a poster boy for chiseled abs and pumped-up pecs.
For the first time in two decades he was considered attractive by the opposite sex. And he was single, his wife having filed for divorce after his first submarine tour. He now had several aggressive women calling the boat every time he was in port, but for the most part he stayed on the ship, tending to his equipment and the sonar system’s software programming.
The chief sonar billet on the Annapolis was perhaps the number two slot in the entire fleet, and working with Patton seemed to agree with him. He wasn’t too enthusiastic about this mission, though, having said to Patton in private that it was a fool’s errand, a waste of time, that they were being employed by an admiral who didn’t know how to spell submarine. Patton, again keeping his mouth shut, had thought that it was damned hard to disagree.
“Tell me again about your search plan,” Patton said to Demeers.
“If I do, it’ll be the twelfth time this run.” Demeers sighed. “But okay.” He turned the half-empty Coke bottle upside down, draining it. “The search plan is in four parts.”
“Part one — diesel boat search. We’re looking for a diesel on the battery, looking for low-frequency main-motor or screw noise. Not much chance of finding her, so processing time would normally be low since we don’t want to waste time, but on the other hand, ‘Diesel Boat Eddy’ is more likely to be found out here than the other threats, so we’ve upped the processor time.”
“Part two — snorkeling diesel boat search. We’re trying to find a low-and medium-frequency ocean noise from a diesel engine, like we’d hear from a diesel boat snorkeling at periscope depth, recharging the batteries. Not much probability on this one, because anyone trying to attack the fleet would sure as hell want to keep it quiet.”
“Part three — nuke boat. We’ve got it tuned for three nuke profiles. The first an older 688 boat, like the kind we sold to the third world. Low probability on those. Second profile is an updated Han-class, like the Reds used to have, but which should have rusted to dust twenty years ago. Who knows? Maybe someone kept an old vintage boat and sent it to sea. Also low probability. And damned loud if it is out there — I’d hear it with my naked ear. Third profile is a French Rubis-class, the sub they sold on the market for ten years. It’s tiny, it’s loud, and it has only eighteen weapons. This is also low probability.”
“Part four — all sub classes. This is the transient classification system. We’re looking for any of about four hundred transient noises, all of which are guaranteed to be manmade. Hatch slams, pump startups, check-valve slams, dropped wrenches—”
“Torpedo tube doors coming open,” Patton added.
“Oh, yeah. Torpedo gyro startups, torpedo propulsor startups, and a bunch more. None of which can come from whales or shrimp. The processor module is brand-new, and we’re not sure how well it’s going to work. You’d better prepare yourself for some false alarms. We could hear a hatch slam and it might just be a whale fart.”
“And that’s it?”
“That’s it. Skipper.”
“What about that alert that came from USUBCOM, the one about possible variants of Japanese Destiny or Rising Sun ships being used by the Red Chinese?” Patton had read the skeletal message from Admiral Pacino, with veiled references to the Reds possibly having some Japanese-type submarines, but it had sounded strange.
“USUBCOM thinks the Reds stole the technology, reverse-engineered a nuke platform based on the Destiny or the Rising Sun. Yeah, I saw it. Trouble is, a reverse-engineered carbon copy of a Destiny won’t sound like a Destiny. The sound signature would be nothing like the copied boat”
“So, why would USUBCOM put us on alert for a Destiny or Rising Sun?”
“Especially when our intelligence would come up with any carbon copy the Reds had been building or testing out in Go Hai Bay? You got me. Skipper. I’m lost”
“Doesn’t add up. But what if they somehow got the Japanese to do something for them? Japanese could still be upset with us after the blockade….”
“Come on. Captain. That makes zero sense. They put the Rising Suns to sea with American permission.”
“Yeah, and then they all sank.”
“Who knows? Maybe the USUBCOM engineering guys sabotaged the Rising Suns. Maybe the Japanese subs were considered too much of a threat” Demeers said, his active imagination firing up. Patton glanced at the dogeared science fiction novel on the side console, Demeers’ passion. He wondered if the sonarman’s reading preference was affecting his on-watch thinking.
“I highly doubt it. And it just seems like it’s off the wall. Destinys? Rising Suns? What next, a Severodvinsk-class Russian?”
“No more whacky than a Rubis or a Han or an old Los Angeles.”
“True. What if we put some processing time on a Rising Sun?”