Her thoughts of the dream came rolling back to her. Kristen stood, the exhaustion momentarily forgotten, her thoughts clear for the first time in hours.
It had been real!
She hadn’t dreamed it at all. Nor had she imagined it.
Just like she hadn’t imagined what she was now certain she’d heard in the sonar shack just before being relieved from duty to get some sleep.
Kristen rushed from the cabin and back to the sonar shack. She entered the stuffy, stench-filled space and saw Fabrini supervising the others. He immediately turned on her, and she could see he was surprised to see her. “I hadn’t expected you back so soon, Lieutenant,” he offered as he stood in front of her.
“I wasn’t imagining it,” Kristen told him as she slipped by him to the broadband stack. “Hicks, can I?” she asked, prodding Hicks to surrender his seat.
Hicks did so grudgingly as Fabrini stepped in behind her. “Ma’am, I thought the captain wanted you to get some sleep?” he asked delicately.
Kristen had regained — for a brief time she was certain — some semblance of alertness, and she frantically began searching the depths for the sound she now knew she hadn’t imagined.
“What course are we on?” she asked Fabrini, trying to maintain her recent surge of energy long enough to locate the contact she’d heard.
“We’re back on the base course, heading north,” Fabrini offered.
“No,” she said out loud, shaking her head to keep herself awake. “No, that’s wrong,” she insisted. “He’s behind us. We need to turn around.”
Normally the control room listened to course suggestions from the sonar room when they were working a target, but Fabrini hesitated. “Lieutenant, maybe you should get some sleep.”
Kristen shook her head forcefully. “Mister Fabrini, the Borei is dead astern of us right now. If we don’t turn around, we may never find her again.”
“How can you be so certain?” he asked. “The waters there were filled with noises, and you’re—”
“Trust me,” Kristen insisted trying to ward off the onset of physical collapse from exhaustion just a few minutes longer. “It was them.”
Fabrini hesitated, but then reached up and pulled down the microphone. “Con, sonar.”
“Whatcha got, Mister Fabrini?” Kristen heard Brodie’s voice.
“Sir, Lieutenant Whitaker requests we execute a one-eighty and double back on our course,” Fabrini explained. Kristen could hear the combination of skepticism and concern in his voice.
“I’m on my way.”
She knew Fabrini and the others thought she was losing it. This recognition caused her to get angry, which helped keep her alert as she waited for Brodie who appeared a few moments later.
He came in, looking as haggard as before. For a brief moment she feared he would join the others in their skepticism. Instead, he simply asked, “What is it, Lieutenant?”
“Sir, I know what I was hearing,” she explained. “I wasn’t imagining it. It was plant noise.”
Brodie didn’t argue with her. “Yes, but we couldn’t reacquire them.”
“True, but there was something else; something within the other noise; something I missed.” Kristen’s encyclopedic memory was pulling the sounds she’d heard and replaying them over and over again in her head. “Please, Captain, you have to trust me,” she nearly pleaded. “Just once more.”
He paused for a moment and glanced at Fabrini, who clearly thought she could no longer be counted on because of her fatigue. Despite this, he nodded his head. “Okay, Lieutenant,” Brodie replied and leaned against the stack, gripping a handhold to steady himself. Brodie pulled down the microphone and ordered the one-hundred-eighty degree turn about as Kristen had requested.
The Seawolf came around slowly, turning her powerful bow mounted sonar array on the waters behind them. As they turned, Kristen worked her controls, closing her eyes and searching for the noise she was certain was there. She’d heard it. She hadn’t been mistaken; just like she wasn’t mistaken about their encounter in his cabin. A momentary encounter interrupted by a call from the communications shack about an incoming message for him. Her fatigue had caused it all to blend together, but she’d managed to push the weariness away once more.
Behind her, she could feel him watching. The fact he believed her, the fact he’d changed course meant more to her than any words he could ever say. But now she had to justify his confidence. She had to once more prove to everyone she was right.
Her hand trembled slightly as she adjusted the fine tuning on the broadband system. She focused the incredible sound vacuuming power of the thousands of hydrophones in the bow sonar array to bring in the one noise she was looking for. She listened intently, certain she would hear it if she were patient enough.
It seemed to take forever for the Seawolf to turn. Her fingers constantly adjusted her controls. Then she heard it, and with a hint of triumph she flipped a switch on the panel, and the sound was now audible over her speakers. “Bearing zero-two-three,” she reported, leaning back tiredly but with eminent satisfaction.
“What’s that?” Brodie asked anyone who cared to answer.
Fabrini response was simply, “Jesus.” The other sonar operators heard it too and looked at her incredulously, not believing it. “Crab, sir,” Fabrini explained. “Snow Crab.” He then spoke to her, “How did you know? How did you pick it up?”
Kristen told them how she’d heard regular plant noises originally, but the noises had faded. In her exhaustion, she’d failed to consider what might occur if the Borei shut down its reactor and turned over to its fuel cell. “If they did it, then the plant noises would be replaced by something similar to what we heard earlier when we encountered the Gagarin,” she explained.
“Snow Crab,” Brodie concluded as the Seawolf once more had a target.
Kristen stayed on the broadband stack as Brodie ordered three course changes over a twenty minute period. This was sufficient to provide a trio of new bearings for the tracking party to begin estimating a firing solution. Meanwhile, the Seawolf slipped silently through the water.
“Keep your ears open in other directions,” Brodie ordered the sonar operators. “Standard Russian submarine doctrine,” he explained. “No Boomer travels alone, so I doubt the Borei is flying solo.”
Kristen stuck to the Borei as the others continued searching in the event a fast-attack boat was close at hand.
“He’s loitering, Captain,” she whispered. “There’s hardly any propeller noise.”
The squawk box overhead came to life with Andrew Stahl’s voice, “Skipper, we’ve got a pretty good firing solution, on Sierra Twelve.”
“Roger,” Brodie replied. “Program the information into tubes five and eight. Be ready for a snapshot on tubes three and seven. We’ve got a fast-attack boat out there somewhere.”
Kristen didn’t doubt him, but had no idea how he could be so sure. The Gagarin might have been the Borei’s escort.
“Look sharp, people,” Brodie whispered.
“Sir,” she again heard Stahl, “ADCAPs in five and eight have firing date entered. Should we flood tubes and open outer doors?” This evolution would put sound energy into the water and possibly alert any nearby fast-attack boat.
“Roger,” Brodie ordered, “flood tubes three and seven as well. Once we launch on the Borei, our hidden friend will show himself.”