A voice in his head told him to withhold his limpet weapon and to instead trail his target to a potential rendezvous. But he silenced that voice with a counterargument of taking decisive action.
“Shoot tube one,” he said.
Jake’s ears popped as the flushing whine of the torpedo launch system filled the Specter.
“Tube one, normal launch,” Henri said. “Wire guidance engaged.”
“Transfer control to Petty Officer Kang,” Jake said.
“I’ve got it,” Kang said.
Jake watched the inverted triangle of the torpedo slide across the screen from the Specter toward the Santa Cruz.
“Do you think they’ll realize that it’s a limpet weapon?” Henri asked. “I can’t imagine their terror when they hear its screws and mistake it for a kill shot.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Jake said. “Even at just eight knots, that thing won’t hear the torpedo until it’s right on top of it, which, by the looks of it, is about four minutes.”
“Do you wish to change course, Jake?” Henri asked. “They may get lucky and hear the torpedo in time to fire one back at us. A puncher’s chance, I believed is the term you’ve used in the past.”
“Good point,” Jake said. “Let’s get on a lag line of site. Left ten-degrees rudder, steady course zero-two-zero.”
Jake felt a gentle lurch as the submarine turned. The symbols representing the torpedo and its target converged, and Remy announced the Santa Cruz’s reaction.
“The Santa Cruz is accelerating to flank speed,” he said. “Cavitating. Dropping active decoys.”
“Did it shoot a countering weapon yet?” Jake asked
“I just picked it up,” Remy said. “Launch transients. Now high-speed screws. Torpedo in the water!”
On his monitor, Jake checked the line connecting the Specter’s torpedo to the Santa Cruz. Since he expected his target’s commanding officer to shoot back down the bearing of the Specter’s weapon.
“How long to confirm the course of the torpedo?” he asked.
“Probably thirty seconds,” Remy said.
“Our torpedo is approaching the decoys,” Kang said.
“Guide it through,” Jake said.
“I have a course estimate for the Santa Cruz’s torpedo,” Remy said. “It’s right where we expected it, passing safely aft.”
“How long until detonation?” Jake asked.
“Twenty seconds,” Kang said.
Moments later, Remy described the detonation.
“It sounds like a perfect hit,” he said. “Most of the limpets are attaching and activating.”
“Very well,” Jake said. “We’ve tagged our target, and now that the Santa Cruz’s crew knows it was a limpet torpedo, they can all clean their underpants.”
Henri locked eyes with him. Jake sensed the question before the Frenchman voiced it.
“What weapon would you like loaded into tube one?” he asked.
“An Exocet.”
“I’ll send for my relief at my station and see to it personally that the missile is loaded.”
“When you’re done with that,” Jake said, “set up the normal evening watch section. Everyone needs to get some rest tonight.”
In his stateroom, Jake reclined in his rack and tried to push the what-if scenarios from his mind. He grabbed a novel about earth defending itself from an alien race with a space-based navy and opened to its middle pages where he had left off.
The story’s hard science left him wondering if mankind were close to discovering fractional light-speed travel, power sources that don’t consume carried fuel, and weapons of destructive force beyond his reckoning. The novel made the assets of the Specter seem prehistoric, but the concept of an alien race intrigued him more than the science.
Jake looked away from the book and pondered that writers had flirted with extraterrestrial life since the dawn of imagination. If alien intelligence existed, they must know something crucial about the universe. He wondered if such a race were found, whose earthly wisdom would it confirm, and whose would it contradict.
He glanced at the bible on his foldout desk and decided to let the question remain in the realm of fiction. Proof of any truth would always elude him, and at some point he would have to pick a belief system based upon faith.
He swallowed as he acknowledged that his present belief system allowed him to beat a man to death out of anger.
A knock at the door startled him.
“Come in,” he said.
Kang’s head appeared.
“Jake,” he said. “The Santa Cruz is surfacing.”
In the control room, Jake watched his best men shuffle to their stations. Some rubbed sleep from their eyes.
“Won’t you offer Commander Martinez a warning?” Henri asked.
“The limpets were his fucking warning. If he thinks he can just surface and pry off limpets after I tag him, he’s delusional. I’m not playing that game.”
“A verbal warning, perhaps?”
“I’m not revealing my position with a radio broadcast.”
“Launching an Exocet missile will reveal our position.”
“I’d rather give up one piece of information about our whereabouts than two. Plus, I’m not in a forgiving mood with this guy since he thinks he can just stop and undo my work. If he didn’t get the memo with the limpets that he needs to bow out of this theater and head home, he deserves my wrath.”
As his words echoed in his head, Jake realized he risked replicating the same behavior that led him to kill a man with his fists. But he also knew that the real world demanded action in real time, denied the luxury of complete philosophical reflection. He believed his actions were just.
“Load the solution to the Santa Cruz into the Exocet.”
“It’s loaded, Jake,” Kang said.
“Henri, take us to thirty meters, speed three knots.”
As the Specter began its imperceptible climb and deceleration toward optimal parameters for the submerged launch of an Exocet missile, Henri came close to him and whispered.
“You may sink the Santa Cruz and kill them all,” he said.
“It’s a chance I’m willing to take,” Jake said. “I have to.”
“You don’t believe that you’re going to sink the Santa Cruz, do you?”
“The missile will target the conning tower, and most of the blast energy will be expended outside the pressure hull. Even if it does breach the pressure hull, it’s only going to kill the men in the control room. The damage should be manageable enough to keep the Santa Cruz afloat.”
Henri sighed and returned to his station, leaving Jake with the burden of the decision.
“Shoot tube one,” Jake said.
The flushing whine of the launch system shot the missile from the tube.
“Tube one, normal launch,” Henri said.
Jake realized that he had fired his first missile from a submarine and that there was nothing he could do but wait for the impact. Given the missile’s speed, the report came quickly.
“Loud explosion from the bearing of the Santa Cruz,” Remy said. “I’m sure that was the Exocet.”
“Do you hear any evidence that it’s sinking?”
“Not yet, Jake.”
“Water ingress?”
“I can’t tell. I don’t hear it.”
“Do you want to drive in closer for a visual inspection through the periscope?” Henri asked.