“You must thank Miss McDonald for the information she has made available to us,” Henri said.
“I’d rather keep my distance,” Jake said. “From what Pierre tells me, she’s become a she-devil.”
“Nevertheless, we are in her debt.”
“That’s the problem.”
“Shall I raise the communications buoy for updated data?”
Jake looked at the digital clock on his chart. The latest download had aged ten minutes. With his buoyant communications suite tethered below the waves, it remained hidden from airborne and orbiting spies, but its temporary stealth made it useless.
Slithering across the sea’s surface, a wire trailed behind the Wraith, invisible to hunters. It handled low-frequency and low-bandwidth data, designed as an alarm system to get Jake’s attention. He likened it to a paging system.
“No,” he said. “Let’s see what the world looks like ten minutes ago and then determine if we need an update. If something big happens, Pierre will page me.”
The eastern section of the irregularly shaped Spratly Islands appeared with the crosshairs of the Wraith at the center. Thirty miles southeast of the submarine, a blue square indicated a freighter at anchor beside the Second Thomas Shoal.
Within his horizon, the Chinese-held Mischief Reef appeared as a blob of a landmass. Despite watchful enemy eyes, he considered the adversarial stronghold to be innocuous as long as he kept his masts and antennas below the water’s surface.
One hundred and twenty nautical miles to the northwest, red lines sprang from squares of the Chinese task force, indicating the motions of its ships towards Thitu Island. Land masses dotted the water between the Wraith and the task force, as did a half dozen red squares representing Chinese fishing vessels suspected of carrying spying equipment.
Also dotting the water, blue squares represented Philippine fishing vessels that carried friendly spy equipment. The closest one ten miles away served as Jake’s communications conduit to the command center. When he raised his buoy, he could keep its transmission power minimized and directional to avoid detection while reaching the nearby craft.
A corner of the chart showed the latest photograph of the railgun module from the perspective of the Sierra Madre, the vessel that Philippine maritime forces had grounded in the shallows.
The unmoving winch from the freighter had just freed itself from bearing the railgun module’s weight. Pontoons held the structure buoyant as tugboats positioned its pillars above its final location at the northeast tip of the landmass. The latest update reported that divers were checking the final placement and that it would be operational in thirty minutes. From the look of the Chinese task force, the timing would be ideal.
Additional blue icons of interest represented the nearby friendly gunboats, but he expected them to provide negligible crippling force due to the limitations of their weapon systems. To his west, an inverted semicircle represented the Rankin, which served no purpose in his mind other than staying out of his way and then usurping whatever political credit the Australians needed to claim.
To his southeast, a blue square showed the frigate Gregorio del Pilar standing guard behind the Wraith. Ten miles from the Pilar, its sister ship, the Ramon Alcatraz, offered to serve as part of the final barrier to any would-be assault on the module at the Second Thomas Shoal.
Despite his fond memories of the Pilar’s role in his acquisition of the Wraith, he doubted its use beyond serving as an accidental missile sponge. The aging frigate and its sister ship, the Alcatraz, positioned southeast of the module, lacked defenses against cruise missiles beyond rudimentary retrofitting of Vulcan Phalanx close-in weapon systems.
The ancient former United States Coast Guard cutters faced an uphill climb trying to survive modern combat. But Jake respected their commanding officers’ desires to participate in protecting the railgun. In the event of surface combat, he hoped that the frigates’ cannons and the gunboats’ small-caliber armaments might provide enough harassment against the Chinese to create a protective fog of war.
“I can’t predict what’s going to happen,” he said. “But I think something interesting’s about to take place. We need to get ready.”
“Shall I prepare a drone?” Henri asked.
“Prepare them both. We’re digging in to play defense.”
Jake had used drones to his advantage in past encounters, but they incurred a significant cost. Since they transmitted information back to their host vessel by a wire connected within the torpedo tubes, each one’s use precluded reloading a tube. Using two drones limited him to four available weapons.
But he had loaded two drones during his Philippine port call, knowing that he would want them out in front of his submarine, protecting it and extending his acoustic detection radius.
“Where do you want them?” Henri asked.
“Ten miles out, forty-five degrees off our bow in either direction. Straight runs at eight knots.”
“I shall take care of it.”
Henri slid behind Jake and leaned over the shoulder of the newest young man recruited from the French Navy. Henri had assured Jake of the new crewman’s training and ability with operating drones. The sailor appeared confident while he exchanged words with the mechanic.
Henri returned to Jake.
“He entered the data,” he said. “The drones are initiating and will be ready in ninety seconds.”
“His name is Durand, right?” Jake asked. “The new kid running the drones?”
“Correct,” Henri said. “His commanding officer in the French Navy said he was the best weapons control operator he had seen. At the end of his enlistment commitment, Renard plucked him away by offering the usual tripled salary versus the military pay scales.”
“Thanks, Henri” Jake said. “Take your station.”
He returned to the conning platform, stood before a monitor, and called up a miniature overhead view of the tactical chart. He raised his head and watched Durand turn his chin towards his shoulder. A tiny line jutting from the man’s freckled skin revealed that he approached his thirties.
“Drone one is ready,” Durand said.
“Very well,” Jake said. “Launch drone one.”
“Launch drone one, aye.”
Jake appreciated the subtlety of a drone launch. Unlike many torpedoes, which high-pressure air thrust from the tubes, drones operated free of the safety interlocks that required rapid accelerations to disarm. The Wraith maintained its whisper-like silence as its first mechanized spy swam into the sea.
“Drone one is launched,” Durand said. “Normal launch, all systems normal, normal control.”
Jake watched the inverted blue semicircle separate from the crosshair of its host submarine. It veered off forty-five degrees to the left of the Wraith, which floated silently with the ocean current.
“Drone two is ready,” Durand said.
“Very well,” Jake said. “Launch drone two.”
“Launch drone two, aye.”
“Drone two is launched,” Durand said. “Normal launch, all systems normal, normal control.”
Fed by a combination of onboard battery power and electricity delivered up its control wire from the Wraith, the second drone accelerated to eight knots. Its blue icon veered forty-five degrees to the right.