“You mean Meredov? Promoted?”
Jeffrey nodded. “Akula-Twos have double steel hulls, with inner and outer so widely spaced apart that they’ve got the highest reserve buoyancy of any fast-attack in service anywhere. And the inner hull has eight separate watertight compartments, right? They’re nearly indestructible, unless we go nuclear.”
“Would we?”
“Our odds of surviving a two-on-one duel like that with nukes are nil.”
“But Carter…”
“I know. She is absolutely, positively not expendable. Our orders say we are. If this thing goes tactical nuclear, with the big yields on Russian warheads, Harley needs to run, not help us, and I don’t see Carter surviving the whirlwind of shock waves and fireballs anyway. Do you?”
“No, sir.” Bell was abashed, and worried.
Challenger’s deck nosed down slightly, and the ship gained speed. As she approached her maximum, fifty-three knots, she began to vibrate — as she always did when the propulsion plant put out so much power. Things in the control room shook, squeaking and bouncing gently on their shock-absorbing mounts; mike cords hung on the overhead jiggled. The ship was making a heavy surface wake by doing flank speed so shallow, but that was the least of Jeffrey’s concerns.
He tried to think ahead. Everyone in Control had heard what he’d told Bell, and they were tense. “I need two separate acoustic link setups. One for Carter, and one for the Akulas. Get your best Ru-ling in here to handle comms with the latter.” A Russian language expert. “I think your XO should continue to manage link messages with Captain Harley.” Sessions, sitting at the command console, nodded, with what for the mild-mannered Nebraskan was the grimmest expression that Jeffrey had ever seen.
“Understood, sir,” Bell said. He issued orders.
The senior chief, who was the best onboard Russian linguist, entered Control. “Use the console I was borrowing, Chief,” Jeffrey told him. “I’ll stand.” Technicians were already installing the software needed to be compatible with the Russians’ own frequency-agile, encrypted, digital undersea communications link. That link and the one used by Challenger and Carter had totally different formats and protocols, so neither could detect or interfere with the other. The Ru-ling reconfigured his keyboard to represent the Cyrillic alphabet.
“Sir,” Lieutenant Torelli said from by the weapons systems consoles, “we have the overlay of hostile minefields and hydrophones uploaded now.”
“Perfect.” Jeffrey walked over to look at them on a fire-control technician’s console.
“I sure hope Russian spies haven’t stolen the specs to be able to detect and listen in on our comms link,” Bell said. “And that Germans didn’t nab the specs and hand them over to Russia.”
Jeffrey remembered the mole, still on the loose somewhere in America’s submarine warfighting personnel structure.
“Concur in the extreme…. And I better make damn sure I don’t mix up which link is which, and send the Russians a message I mean for Harley. Everybody hear that? Backstop me if I make a mistake.” Sessions and the Russian-speaking chief nodded.
Jeffrey studied the tactical plot. Challenger would reach the prearranged rendezvous point with Carter, from the old mission plan, only a few minutes before the Akula-IIs got within extreme torpedo range. They were all still over the shallow continental shelf, giving little room to maneuver or use fancy tactics. He had to work out a whole new doctrine for his strike group and convey it to Harley, all in a very short span of time.
“Sirs,” Meltzer asked from by the navigating table, “may I offer a suggestion?”
“Go ahead, Nav,” Bell said.
“Use one of the vertical wide-screen displays set up as a split screen.”
“Nav?” Jeffrey didn’t get it.
“Two tactical plots, sir. One labeled from the point of view of your combined task force with the Russians. The other from the point of view of the Challenger-Carter strike group. It’ll help you keep things straight and manage two sets of strategies if you have the proper visual aides.”
“Good thinking, Executive Assistant. The same four ships, except that on one display three are friendly and one is hostile, a German Amethyste-Two, and on the other two are friendly, us and Carter, while two are hostile, the Russians.”
“That’s what I meant, Commodore,” Meltzer said.
“Okay,” Jeffrey responded. “Captain, I need Lieutenant Meltzer’s help full time for the duration.”
“Of course, sir,” Bell said.
“Let your assistant navigator take over here,” Jeffrey told Meltzer. “You and I need to bone up ASAP on Akula-Two and Amethyste-Two strengths and weaknesses and their relevant antisubmarine weapons. We need some way to keep Carter alive for a thousand miles as she pretends to be an ex-French sub with half Carter’s real capabilities, while two Russky skippers do their very best to try to destroy her. Let’s use my office…. Captain Bell, have a messenger get me when we’re five minutes out from effective acoustic-link range to Harley.”
Jeffrey and Meltzer headed aft. Jeffrey stopped in his tracks. “Weps!”
“Commodore?”
“Get that Russian minefield overlay overlaid on both sides of the split screen.”
One of Torelli’s technicians typed keys, and more icons appeared on the display that showed two tactical plots.
This is gonna give me schizophrenia before we’re done.
“Captain!”
“Sir?”
“What’s in the tubes?”
“Four high-explosive ADCAPs, two high-explosive Mark Eighty-eights, and our two remaining Mark Three decoys.”
“Perfect, for the moment.” With the Russian sensor and minefield maps, Challenger didn’t need to send out off-board probes. “Get the outer doors open on all tubes, now, while we’re noisy. Prepare two ADCAPs for immediate firing at Carter.”
“Armed, Commodore?”
“Armed.”
Several hours later, Jeffrey had updated Harley and given him orders to head east toward the hulk of the real Amethyste, continuing to emit the proper false acoustic signature. After warning Harley of what he was about to do, Jeffrey ordered Bell to fire a pair of live ADCAPs at Carter, programmed and wire-guided to barely miss. This would establish Challenger’s credibility to the Russians, while creating a sonar disruption that would help Harley begin to evade.
Bell gave orders, firing ADCAPs. The near-misses made very satisfying, ear-splitting roars. Shattered bits of pack ice, thrown high into the air, pattered down for minutes afterward. Carter vanished through this impenetrable acoustic wall.
Jeffrey established contact with the two Russian captains, and worked out a scheme to pursue the Amethyste into a trap in the Canada Basin, meanwhile wearing the German skipper down. He told them not to open fire at all unless he gave them orders, so as not to foul a shot from Challenger with her superior capabilities. Wild Boar and Cheetah could dive below two thousand feet, almost twice an Amethyste’s crush depth, but not nearly as good as Challenger’s. Akula-IIs were very quiet, the best fast-attacks Russia had, quieter than a real Amethyste, but noisier than the real Carter.