Captain Culkins allowed himself a tiny, humorless smile. Okay, maybe that last bit had been a bit below the belt. Benfold had just taken a missile hit right in the face; some equipment was bound to be knocked off-line. It was just a hell of a time to lose Aegis, the heart of the destroyer’s combat system.
Culkins shook his head and keyed into Navy Red. “SAU Commander, this is Ingraham. Request permission to break formation and close Benfold’s position. We can provide missile defense coverage until Benfold gets her Aegis system back on line, over.”
“Ingraham, this is SAU Commander. Roger. You are cleared to break formation. Keep an ear in the water, though. Those subs are still out there.”
“You don’t hear that every day,” Ingraham’s Tactical Action Officer said. “A frigate providing missile coverage for a destroyer. My, my, how the mighty have fallen.”
“Don’t enjoy it too much,” Captain Culkins said. “Those are our people dying over there.”
“Of course, sir,” the TAO said. All traces of mockery were gone from his voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean …”
“Don’t sweat it,” the captain said. “It’s an honest mistake. I went down that road myself, for a couple of seconds.”
“Yes, sir.”
“USWE — Sonar. Hostile torpedo number one has broken acquisition.
Looks like we fooled it.”
On the CDRT, Chief McPherson watched the symbol for one of the enemy torpedoes go astray. She keyed her mike. “Sonar — USWE. What’s the status of the second torpedo?”
“Still closing, Chief. It’s sticking to us like peanut butter sticks to the roof of your mouth.”
“USWE, aye. Break. TAO — USWE. We have evaded the first torpedo, but the second torpedo is still locked on. We’re not going to shake this one, sir.”
“TAO, aye.” Lieutenant Nylander looked at the captain. “Any ideas, sir?”
“One,” the captain said. “A crazy idea that one of my academy buddies came up with about a hundred years ago. I have no idea if it’ll work, but it’s not like we’ve got a lot to lose.” He looked up at the Aegis display screens. “The torpedo is coming dead up our stern, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right,” the captain said. He keyed his mike. “Bridge — Captain.
Come right thirty degrees and steady up.”
“Bridge, aye. Coming right thirty degrees.”
The ship began to turn.
“The idea,” the captain said, “is to get the torpedo to come in from your quarter, about thirty degrees off your stern.”
The TAO watched the tactical displays. “What does that do for us, sir?”
“Nothing, by itself,” the captain said. “But we know the torpedo is programmed to dive under our hull and detonate. So we have to give him as little hull as possible at the critical moment. It won’t eliminate the damage, but — with a little luck — it might keep this fucking torpedo from blowing us in half.”
“Captain — Bridge. We are steadied up on new course zero-six-five.”
“Captain, aye. Stand by for my orders. When I give the command hard to starboard, I want you to throw the rudder over hard to starboard, then go all-ahead flank on the port engine, and all-back on the starboard engine. Got that?”
“Bridge, aye. Copy all, sir. Standing by for your order.”
“Good,” the captain said. He keyed his mike again. “USWE — Captain. I need to know when that torpedo is going to hit us. I know you can’t give me an exact answer, but I want Sonar’s best guess, based on signal strength and elapsed run-time. Understand?”
“Uh … I think so, sir. That is, yes, sir. Do you want us to give you a countdown?”
“That’s an excellent idea,” the captain said.
“TAO — Air. I’ve got three missile pop-ups! Bearing two-seven-five!”
The Electronics Warfare Technician confirmed the report a few seconds later. “TAO — EW, standing by on chaff. I have active H-band seekers on all three missiles. Classification: Exocet SM-39s, ‘November Variants.’”
“TAO, aye. Break. Weapons Control — TAO. Let me know the second you get fire control lock on those Vipers.”
“TAO — Weapons Control. We are locked on and tracking all three Vipers. Request batteries released.”
Captain Culkins keyed the net. “This is the Captain. You have batteries released.”
Out on the forecastle, the Mark-13 missile launcher rotated up to the zero position and an SM-1 surface-to-air missile rode up the vertically aligned rail to lock into place on the launcher’s single arm. Nicknamed the one-armed bandit, the Mark-13 system was an unwieldy-looking contraption, but it was fast. Although it could handle only one missile at a time, it could load and launch fast enough to keep up with most twin-armed launchers.
The one-armed bandit slewed around and pointed the nose of its missile in the direction of the enemy Vipers. With a brilliant flash of light and an unholy roar, the SM-1 leapt off the rail on a trail of fiery smoke. The launcher swung back around to the zero position, and another missile slid up the rail.
“Torpedo impact in approximately ten seconds,” Chief McPherson said over the net. “Nine … Eight …”
“Bridge — Captain. Hard to starboard!”
“Bridge, aye!”
The ship heeled over sharply, and the bow swung to the right as the rudder shot around to the hard-over position. A fraction of a second later, the ship began to shudder as the blades on the starboard propeller rotated from full ahead to full astern, reversing the direction of thrust on the starboard side of the ship. The bow came around even faster, and the ship heeled over even farther as it reefed into the turn.
Chief McPherson shouted into her mike, “Three… Two… One… Impact!”
The acoustic signal strength from the transducers was close to optimal.
The torpedo dove toward twelve meters and slid under the target’s hull, exactly according to the targeting algorithm in its computer. But the calculations were off somehow. The target signal strength peaked before it should have and was falling off rapidly by the time the torpedo reached twelve meters.
The target had made a violent turn toward the torpedo at the last second, and the torpedo overshot its mark, rocketing under the hull and beginning to come out the other side before it could correct its course.
Had the DMA37 been a hair smarter, it might have aborted the arming sequence and swung back around for another pass at the target — one with better placement. But the arming conditions had been met, however briefly, and the computer followed its program. The detonating signal reached the warhead, and 250 kilograms of high-explosive erupted into an expanding sphere of fire and death.
For an instant, the underwater explosion illuminated the darkened ocean like a flash of lightning. A microsecond later, the shock wave smashed into the port side of the destroyer, lifting the stern completely out of the water, and rolling the ship far onto its starboard side.
With a shriek of rending metal, hull plates buckled and collapsed. The ship’s stern seemed to hang in the air for a second, apparently suspended on a mushrooming bubble of steam and fire. The keel began to bend.