The target was fast, but not fast enough. And it was tricky, but not tricky enough.
Inside the torpedo’s acoustic seeker head, an array of 152 miniature sonar transducers were bombarded by a powerful source of white noise.
Under other circumstances, the interference might have been enough to mask the target entirely, but the target was close, and the acoustic seeker could still detect it clearly through the cacophonous barrier of sound energy.
The transducers detected another sonar contact, with acoustic characteristics that closely resembled the target. For a few milliseconds, this confused the targeting algorithm running through the torpedo’s digital processors. Two targets to choose from, both displaying acoustic characteristics within acceptable parameters, both easily within the weapon’s attack envelope. It could strike either target in a matter of seconds.
With no compelling criteria to use for target selection, the torpedo’s computer did exactly what its programmers had intended: it locked on to the closer of the two potential targets and started the final arming sequence on its warhead.
Slightly less than ten seconds later, the weapon’s acoustic sensors determined that it was nearing optimum range for detonation. The torpedo dove to twelve meters, a depth calculated to place it beneath the hull of the target. The algorithm’s calculations were precise; the torpedo reached the twelve-meter mark at the exact instant that the target’s acoustic signal strength reached its peak. The torpedo was under the target.
The warhead contained 250 kilograms of plasticized-hexite high-explosive. It detonated with a destructive force equivalent to nearly 500 kilos of TNT.
The target was vaporized.
“Holy shit!” the Sonar Supervisor shouted over the net. “They just blew up the Antietam’s Nixie! The torpedo fell for the decoy! Yeah! Fuckin’-A!” The sonar team was cheering in the background.
Ensign Cooper jabbed his comm button. “Sonar — USWE. Can it! Maintain net discipline! This is no time to get excited anyway. There’s still another torpedo out there, and there’s no way Antietam can get her backup Nixie fish deployed in time.”
About five seconds later, the second of the DMA37 torpedoes proved Ensign Cooper right. With the other distracting target out of the way, it dove to an optimum depth of twelve meters, slid neatly under Antietam’s hull, and detonated.
The explosion flash-vaporized a huge volume of water directly beneath the cruiser’s keel, simultaneously ripping and burning an enormous hole through the steel hull plates of the ship’s bottom. The keel, the structural backbone of the ship, fractured like bone under a sledgehammer. With its spine shattered and nearly all support snatched out from under its hull by the still-expanding bubble of vaporized water, the cruiser bent near the middle, and then broke. The sound was unbelievable, an ear-rending cacophony of tearing metal and roaring water, punctuated by the screams of the injured and dying. The overburdened steel hull plates separated completely, ripping the old ship in half.
The aft section of the ship rolled over on to its starboard side and began to sink immediately.
The forward half of the ship remained afloat somehow, without power, as the generators had been destroyed along with the engineering spaces.
Fires raged through the powerless steel hulk that — ten seconds ago — had been a United States warship.
“Jesus Christ,” the copilot whispered. “Oh Jesus …”
The pilot stared down at the flaming remains of their ship. “SENSO, did you get a fix on the spot where those Vipers left the water?”
In the rear of the helo, the Sensor Operator stared blankly into space, too stunned to even answer.
The pilot keyed the mike of his inter-phone and shouted, “Goddamn it, Perkins! Snap out of it! We don’t have time for this shit!”
The Sensor Operator jerked as though he’d been slapped. “What? What? I’m sorry, what did you say, sir?”
“Did you get a fix on the spot where those Vipers left the water?”
The Sensor Operator scanned his console. “Um, I think so. Ah … yes, sir. I’ve got a fix.”
“Good,” the pilot said. “Shoot me a fly-to point.”
The SENSO nodded. “Yes, sir.” He used his trackball to roll a cursor to the screen coordinates that corresponded to the point where the missiles had popped up on radar. He punched a button. “Fly-to point coming up now, sir.”
“Got it,” the pilot snapped. He tweaked the cyclic and the collective, swinging the helo around until his instruments showed that they were pointing toward the appropriate spot in the ocean. “Start your weapons check-off list,” he said. “Cut corners if you have to, but get that weapon ready now! The longer we wait, the farther that sub’s going to be from the spot where he launched those missiles. We’re only going to make one pass. We’re going to make it low, and we’re going to shove a torpedo up that bastard’s ass.”
“Yes, sir!”
The copilot keyed the radio. “SAU Commander, this is Samurai Seven-Nine. I am prepping for an attack run, over.”
The pilot looked at him out of the corner of his eye. “Who’re you talking to?”
“SAU Commander.”
The pilot jerked his head in the direction of what was left of USS Antietam. “SAU Commander just got his ass shot off. We’re on our own, Larry.”
“Who’s the next most senior captain?” the copilot asked. “He’s the next in the chain of command, so he’s the SAU Commander now.”
“Fuck the chain of command,” the pilot snarled. “Our people are dead or dying down there. We’ve got maybe sixty seconds to kill the bastards that did it. After that, they’ll be outside the search envelope of our torpedo.”
“Weapon is ready, sir,” said the Sensor Operator. “Standing by to launch on your order.”
A voice came over the radio. “All units, this is the commanding officer of USS Towers. I am assuming SAU Commander at this time. I say again, I am assuming SAU Commander at this time, over.”
The pilot pitched his aircraft into a shallow dive. “Weapon away on my mark”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
The ocean rushed up toward them. “Here we go,” the pilot said.
“Launch — now, now, NOW!”
The Sensor Operator jabbed a button. The airframe of the helo jerked as it was suddenly relieved of its five-hundred — pound burden. “Weapon away, sir!”
The pilot pulled back on the stick. “Eat that!”
“Oh shit!” the Sensor Operator shouted. He began pointing frantically out the window at a bright flare of light down on the water. “Missile emergence! We’ve got a missile coming out of the water, bearing three-three-zero!”
“Chaff!” the pilot screamed as he threw the helo into a wild side-slip.
“I need chaff right fucking …”
He never finished the sentence. The sub-SAM came through the port side of the aircraft, just forward of the sonobuoy launchers. The detonating warhead flash-fried the air crew, even as it blasted the fuselage of the helicopter into burning bits of wreckage.
“TAO — Air Supervisor. Samurai Seven-Nine just dropped off the scope. We lost his IFF signal and all communications. Looks like he went down, sir.”