“Senior, I’d give anything to be wrong right now.”
“Want to take a console?” Demeers asked, holding up a headset.
“Nah. I’ll go back to control. Just keep a weather eye out.”
“Yessir.”
Patton absentmindedly wandered out of sonar, finding himself back at the chart table without remembering going into the control room. There was no shaking the feeling. There was something out there.
Xhiu’s question hung in the air. Chu ignored it for a second to scan his console displays.
“No,” he finally said, “I’m not going to shoot him.”
“But, Admiral, he’s gone right past us and sped back up. He didn’t hear us.”
“Exactly, Nav. He’s not a threat. Not right now. And shooting him will just put a big ball of noise in the ocean, and the surface force will hear it, even over the noise of their own screws.”
“But the second submarine is nearing closest point of approach. What about him?”
Chu smiled at his console, knowing his face was being displayed at the sensor-control console where Xhiu Liu was strapped in. “You know what I’m going to say to that, don’t you, Nav?” Xhiu cracked his first smile of the watch. “Let him go.”
“Aye, Admiral”
“Now, are we set up on the convoy?”
“They’re coming in at sixty-five clicks, distance thirty-five kilometers.”
“It’s time to come up to mast-broach depth. Target ST-2, the second submarine. Is he opening distance now?”
“Past closest point of approach and opening,” Xhiu said.
“Very good. Ship Control Officer, slow to fifteen clicks, mast-broach depth, twenty-two meters, up-angle thirty degrees. Mr. First, take the command console.”
As the deck tilted upward, Chu’s seat leaned down toward his aft-feeing console. With some difficulty he unbuckled his harness. Pulling himself up with handholds placed at the top and sides of the console, he stood on a deck that was slanted at a thirty-degree angle. Lo Sun squeezed into the narrow gap between the cocoon-like console and the reclining seat, strapping himself into the harness. In the meantime Chu pulled himself to the circular platform of the periscope stand in the corner.
He hit a mushroom button, and the periscope seat unfolded and lowered, the arrangement a sort of motorcycle without wheels. Chu straddled the seat, his hands on the scope grips, his eyes to the binocular eyepieces. Because the periscope mast was retracted, the display in the binoculars was dark and dead. Chu trained the seat until it was pointing exactly forward, the way he liked to start a periscope search.
“Second Captain, control room lights on dim,” he said to his boom microphone. The room lights dimmed till he was in twilight, to eliminate glare from the room interfering with his view out the instrument
“Nav, range to the convoy?”
“Sir, twenty-four kilometers.”
“Admiral, ship’s depth is passing through one hundred meters,” Yong Wong reported from the ship control console.
“Bring her up,” Chu ordered. “Second Captain, raise the periscope mast.”
He returned to the periscope, and as it rose from its haven in the fin, the darkness in Chu’s eyepieces lightened just a bit. He rotated his left grip down, training the view to angle toward the surface high above. With his right index finger he pulled a trigger on the right grip, and the motorcycle seat slowly rotated clockwise, as did Chu’s view out the rotating periscope mast. He could see sunbeams streaming downward from a lighter portion of the sea directly above, but otherwise it was a blur. Chu kept rotating the instrument slowly, his view trained upward.
“Thirty meters, sir. Taking ship’s angle flat.”
“Very good.”
As the deck angle began to become level, Chu was able to sense the deck rocking almost imperceptibly, rolling to starboard just a little, then back to port. The waves overhead came into focus, their underside an odd silvery color. The sea was not as calm as he’d expected, but with small waves. Now that he could see the surface, he sped up the platform rotational speed.
“No hulls, nothing close,” he said into his boom mike.
Finally the lens of the fiberoptic transmitter mast, the periscope, broke the surface. Water blurred the lens for a moment as Chu rotated the platform, still looking for ships passing too close to their position. Nothing was visible as the film of water cleared from the lens. The horizon came sharply into view, the world above composed of only two elements — white overcast sky and dark blue water — and the line of the horizon was ruler sharp. Chu slowed his rotational speed, searching in low power for surface ships.
“Nav, latest bearing to the convoy.”
“Sir, zero nine four.”
Chu trained the scope to the east He increased the optic power to medium, and the horizon seemed to grow closer. Yet there was nothing coming. He snapped his right grip again, increasing the power to high, with 24X magnification. The sea jumped slightly in the view, making it harder to see clearly, since the slightest movement of the ship made the scene outside jump. But even in 24X the horizon was clean.
“Second Captain,” he muttered, “superimpose geographic plot on top of reticle.”
The computer god’s-eye view came up in a sort of heads-up display, superimposed on top of the view outside.
The plot snowed up as the direction he was looking, and at the other end of the bearing line at twelve o’clock were several dozen hostile-contact diamond symbols.
The distance to the convoy was shown as being nineteen kilometers. He bit his lip — he should be able to see the tall masts of the aircraft carriers by now, or at least the lead vessel.
“Ship Control, change depth to twenty-one meters keel depth.” That would stick the periscope mast skyward by nine meters, a telephone pole sticking up above the sea. His new “height of eye” should make a difference.
As his view moved farther from the waves, the ship coming shallower, the horizon changed. What once before had been a sharp line between sky and sea now blurred slightly.
And now visible were three black spots on the horizon.
Chu focused high power on the spots, finding them to be just portions of the tall islands, the massive hulls of the ships still hidden by the curvature of the earth.
He then applied double-high power with a trigger on the right grip, increasing power from 24X to 48X, but the first spot on the horizon jumped around, tough to keep it in sight Even in the bouncing image, though, Chu could see that it was the island of an aircraft carrier.
“Three surface contacts, gentlemen. Bearing zero nine five to the center target. Contacts are hull down but approaching rapidly.” Chu cleared his throat, enjoying the moment. “Designate the central carrier target number WT-1. Target to the left is WT-2, target to the right is WT-3. Prepare for torpedo attack, tube assignments to follow. Ops Officer, all weapons nominal?”
Chen Zhu, at the weapon console in the opposite corner of the room, piped up. “All twenty-four primary torpedoes nominal. Admiral.”
“Very well, all tubes and all weapons shall be set to ultraquiet swimout, all speed settings to ultraquiet slow speed, shallow-draft approach, immediate enable. If we are detected or if we need to hurry, we’ll switch to impulse mode on the gas generators and go to highspeed transit. Now, tube assignments… Target WT-1, central aircraft carrier, assign tubes one and two. Target WT-2, left carrier, assign tubes three and four. Target WT-3, five and six.”
“Aye, sir,” Chen said. “Tube assignments set and coming up on your heads-up display now.”
The tube assignments flashed up for a moment, the geographic plot vanishing. The three carriers were closing, their islands becoming more focused, the ships grayish blue in the haze. Soon a row of other ships became visible, just the mastheads. And then the hulls of the carriers came into view, the center one first, then the ones flanking it.