“Designate the contact Target One,” Patton commanded.
He walked across the room to the battlecontrol station zero, the first in line on the starboard side, and climbed in. Pacino followed suit, climbing into station four, the aft-most station. Lowering the canopy over his head down to waist level, he then pulled the helmet over his headset. A yellow screen came up, and the bluish orb of a contact, about a half mile away, appeared.
“Switch to battlecontrol virtual display on Yo-Yo one.”
The amber background with its floating specs of red and blue vanished, replaced with the viewing point of the Yo-Yo: a cool blue world, the surface of the ocean overhead, the submarine a three-dimensional shape, not far away. “Switch to geographic plot, calibrated scale.” The display changed to a god’s eye view of the Nazeyakushima Gap, the Yo-Yo’s target on the upper section, their own ship on the lower right, the land appearing in detailed relief. Pacino whistled to himself. After seeing this, it would be impossible to go back to the old-fashioned two-dimensional consoles.
“Captain Patton, we need to launch the Mark 4s.”
“Admiral, we’re all set.”
Within two minutes the first four Mark 4 missiles were away. The vertical-launching-system tubes in the forward ballast tank opened their upper doors, and a gas generator blew the missiles to the surface in a bubble of steam.
The rocket motors lit and took the missiles skyward a half mile, then detached and fell back to earth. In the meantime, the onboard air-breathing jet engines had fired up and the missiles dived for the safety of low altitude. They skimmed the surface, barely twenty feet above the waves, until they arrived at their preordained splash-down positions. Abruptly, the missiles popped up toward the sky, rising by a thousand feet, then diving straight for the water. On the way down, the nose cones popped open in a flower-petal sequence, the missile airframes breaking apart. From each missile a package detached, a streamer trailing behind it for stability, a drogue parachute coming next, followed by the main parachute, deploying just a few hundred feet over the water. The Mark 4 payload, the Sharkeye sensor, drifted gently to the water and splashed down. The parachute was ditched as the main body of the sensor sank, leaving on the surface a transmitter connected by a cable.
Two minutes later, the second four missiles were away, and two minutes after that the final two Mark 4s were fired. All ten Mark 4 Sharkeye acoustic-daylight-imaging remote sensors survived their trips, sank to best listening depth, and began transmitting to satellites overhead.
“Sir, we have a splash in the water, bearing zero nine five.” Lo Sun sounded extremely nervous.
Chu stiffened in his command-console seat. He had taken the ship back deep to a depth of three hundred meters, the temperature profile indicating that to be the best listening depth.
“That’s not all. We’ve got faint turbojet engines.”
“Jets and splashes. What is that?”
“Sir,” Lo Sun said, “we might have some incoming cruise missiles.”
“Cruise missiles? What could a cruise missile do to us at three hundred meters?”
“For one thing, drop a plasma depth charge. Splash number two, sir. Now three. I’ve got a total of four now, all points of the compass.”
Was that a coincidence, Chu thought, that the splashes were north, south, east, and west? Were they bracketing him, putting plasma depth charges around him? Or could they be sonobuoys, listening for his ship? Or were they cruise missile-delivered torpedoes?
He had the deepest feeling of unease he’d had during the operation. The Americans weren’t afraid of him.
They were marching in with aircraft and now missiles, undeterred that he’d shot down their planes. What would be next? And with the destructive power of plasma weapons, would he even know what happened?
Hurry, my little warrior, for they are coming for you, and they are strong. Finish quickly.
In his hour of uncertainty the dream returned to him, and he knew now what it meant. It had not been his father mysteriously speaking to him from the beyond, but his own mind putting the solution together for him, sounding a warning in the voice of the one man on earth he had always listened to. Except this time. He had not finished quickly. He had put the first convoy on the bottom, but it had not been enough. Perhaps he should have let one ship survive to tell the horrible tale — perhaps that would have made his power more real to the Americans. But there was no going back now.
The Americans were coming. They were coming without fear, with certainty and death. And they were strong.
And he was going to die. Today was the day. And there would be no headstone, no bones to bury.
Chu had to admit to himself that he was deeply frightened.
His father’s words came back to him yet again: Courage is not the absence of fear, but actions taken from the heart while under the terrible grip of fear, actions taken for your men, your ship, your fleet, your country. Someday, my son, you will show your courage. For now just know that it is in you, that courage will come from your heart when it is time. Never doubt that.
Pacino climbed into the position four battlecontrol station as soon as he heard that the first Sharkeye had detected a submerged contact.
He had to switch his display to the ship-centered virtual reality, to see the relative positions of the contacts as the onboard Cyclops computer analyzed the data rolling in. He allowed himself a smile as he looked at the sea and the contacts around them, even the land modeled in three-dimensional relief. He counted, not believing his eyes — four, five, six. They were all present and accounted for. He wanted to jump out and give Patton and White a high-five, but then he cautioned himself.
The Cyclops system could cease functioning at any moment. Colleen had called it corrupt, ready to crash.
Also, was it possible that it was misinterpreting the data?
Did the computer see six when it should see only one?
He left the eggshell canopy and climbed to the elevated periscope platform. A look at the computerized chart display, which was linked to the Cyclops, displayed their position, the 688s’ positions, and the position of the Piranha. There was good news here — they had in fact detected all six Rising Suns.
But there was bad news too. The six Rising Suns were outside weapons range. Attacking with aircraft was impossible with the P-5s shot down, and the Blackbeard squadrons and Seahawk helicopters were too far away onboard the carriers and destroyers of the backup Rapid Deployment Force. His sub force would have to take them down, but they were outside his Vortex Mod Charlie’s range and outside of Piranha’s Mod Bravo’s range.
They were also outside the Mark 52 range of the 688s’ weapons as well. Everyone would need to close range, which would bring them into range of the Rising Suns.
He dictated a message to the 688s and the Piranha and gave it to Patton to transmit. He’d given the subs the grid coordinates of the locations of the Rising Suns.
The force would go in. Piranha and the 688s deep at moderate speeds. Piranha at seventeen knots, the 688s at ten, fast enough that they could make speed over ground, slow enough that their sonars would be able to strain for the enemy’s noise over their own noise, and slow enough that they wouldn’t rumble through the ocean like rattling old cars.
It seemed too easy, Pacino thought. What was he missing?
The answer came to him when the officer of the deck cursed.
“Loss of battle control,” he called, picking up a microphone to the circuit one shipwide announcing system, shouting into it — despite it being a loudspeaker PA circuit — his voice mirroring the frustration of everyone aboard, “Loss of battle control.”