The Seawolf changed course slightly to the west in hopes of slipping silently between the two contacts while Kristen continued to work, feeling the sweat on her forehead and lower back. The captain, despite his orders allowing him to engage targets at will, was trying to get past the two submarines undetected in hopes of avoiding battle. Their orders were to find the Borei before she could launch, and if he could do so without firing on anyone else, that was what he intended to do.
As the Seawolf turned westward, Kristen shifted her search to the port side passive hull arrays, wanting to check as much of their baffles as possible in hopes of hearing anyone lurking behind the Seawolf. The others provided information on the Akula and the — as of yet — undetermined second submerged contact designated Sierra Six.
She found nothing at all trailing them but knew this didn’t mean no one was there; it only meant she hadn’t heard them. She turned her sweep back around, moving through the entire search fan of the Seawolf’s acoustical suite.
“Transients!” she heard Martinez announce in an excited whisper. “Sounds like a hatch slamming on contact Sierra Six, classify contact as definite submerged submarine.” At almost the same time they came up with range data on the first contact.
Miller reported everything to the control room as he received it. “Range to Akula Four, eleven thousand yards, course and speed undetermined,” he reported, suggesting the Akula, operating on a very low power level, might be hovering near the bottom and waiting to ambush someone. “Transients from Sierra Six. Verify contact as submerged contact now bearing zero-five-eight.”
Kristen knew the information they were feeding the control room was being used to create and update firing solutions that would then be fed into the weapons loaded in the eight torpedo tubes. It was almost surreal, like some high stakes video game. Except the weapons were real and the results deadly.
Kristen handed off the second contact to the other three for classification while she resumed searching for other potential threats. Other sonar crews were jammed into the room and multiple other operators were wearing headphones and offering advice, and all the noise was becoming a distraction. She tried to tune the men out but some were even arguing with one another over the proper classification of the latest contact, and it finally reached a point she turned in her chair to face them. “Shh!” Kristen ordered, putting a finger to her lips.
“Sorry, Miss,” Miller said, his hand playing with a lighter for his cigarette but having thus far managed to resist lighting it so as not to disturb her.
Kristen saw the others quiet down, properly cowed, and she turned back to her display. Almost immediately she heard something new. “Surface contact,” she whispered. “Bearing zero-three-six, twin screws turning at about eight knots. It’s faint and sounds far off.”
Miller reported the surface contact to the control room as she and the others continued searching. They also managed to classify the new submerged contact as a Kilo class diesel electric submarine.
Kristen had once again tuned out every other sound around her, trying to focus her every thought, every ounce of her concentration into finding and discriminating the significant noises from the millions of insignificant ones.
Miller left the squawk box on so he could communicate with the control room instantly as he received updated information. The result was they now had another distraction since they could hear everything happening in the control room. They were silently slipping between the two opposing submarines and within two thousand yards of the Kilo. So close in fact, that if the Kilo were to fire, the Seawolf would have no time to react. Kristen assumed the Kilo was an Iranian boat, but the Akula might very well be Russian, in which case it would be armed with the revolutionary Shkval rocket torpedo. The Shkval used super-cavitation technology to create an air pocket around the torpedo as it passed through the water, eliminating the usual drag and allowing the unguided torpedo to race through the water at two hundred miles per hour. They were now less than seven thousand yards from the Akula and a rocket torpedo would close the distance in seconds.
Kristen heard Brodie’s voice in the control room ordering a course change to the north as they cleared the Kilo and Akula, leaving them behind. He was taking a huge gamble in leaving these two potential threats in his wake, and as they passed through the cordon undetected, they would lose the two contacts in their baffles and have no idea what they were doing.
Kristen removed her glasses for a moment and rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to address the growing mental fatigue she feared was beginning to impact her ability to concentrate.
“Do you need a break, Lieutenant?” Fabrini asked her.
Kristen did. She needed to take the headphones off and stand up for a few minutes to stretch, but she refused the offer and went back to work, forcing herself to concentrate, blocking out everything else. She moved her joystick, slowly sweeping the area, listening on multiple passive arrays as the Seawolf, now in less than two hundred feet of water, continued toward the Strait and the protective minefield. She was sweeping the area to the east of the Seawolf, using the three starboard side hull-mounted passive arrays when she heard another faint sound.
Kristen closed her eyes and leaned forward slightly, willing the distant ghost of a sound to come in clearer. Without conscious thought, her fingertips moved over the controls, making fine adjustments.
“Submerged contact!” she whispered harshly. “Close! Nothing but plant noise. Bearing zero-four-one,” she reported and Miller passed it on as Fabrini got the other three operators working to identify the new contact, but then Kristen added, “It’s the Audacious.”
“Are you certain?” Miller asked trying to hide his skepticism. The Audacious was nearly as silent as the Seawolf.
But she didn’t answer. Instead, she raised a hand and motioned for silence. “There’s another submerged contact on almost the same bearing,” she reported. “Faint…” she hesitated, trying to discern the symphony of sounds she was hearing.
“It’s another Akula on her retractable pump-jets.” she offered. “Bearing is zero-four-three.”
“Jesus,” Fabrini whispered anxiously. “It’s a fucking convention in here.”
Kristen focused on the new Akula, knowing it was the biggest threat. This particular one was moving in near silence on a pair of retractable pump-jets capable of moving the Akula at three knots. But Fabrini was right. There were now four submarines within a thirty-five square mile box around the Seawolf. The oceanography of the Strait was to blame. The land masses to the north, east, and west were closing in, forcing all seaborne craft into a tighter and tighter channel, and the submarines, naturally searching for deep water to hide in, were congregating in the deepest part of the channel.