The approach was classically Russian. He knew the Soviet would increase his depth long before any weapons were actually employed. It was a standard doctrinal approach that other submarines of that class would follow. Reed also knew that Olympia’s skipper would wait until his shot was almost assured. There was no point in giving away position to a faster, deeper-diving target. The objective was to make your first shot your best shot. There was another matter for consideration that Reed hoped wouldn’t take place. The Russians were improving their technical capabilities every year and their listening gear had advanced tremendously.
Olympia was waiting too long!
Timing. Just a few extra seconds, but now there were two opposing torpedoes in the water — no longer just a game between hunter and hunted. Each had become a target. There was no room for follow up, no chance to wait breathlessly for a torpedo to strike home. Both submarines were frantically attempting to elude the warheads searching for them in the depths.
Reed closed his eyes. It was easier for him to imagine the next step when he could create the picture in his brain. There was the Soviet submarine, deeper than its counterpart, its torpedo searching upward for the target, seeking an identifiable sound that would draw it toward its destiny. The American torpedo might still be attached to Olympia by a long, metal thread, her computer directing it to the last known location of the target. Then it, too, would home on the sounds it had been programmed to search out.
More likely, the wire would break as they took evasive action.
The inner space of the Pacific was no longer quiet. Both submarines were accelerating as close to full speed as possible, racing from a closing torpedo. The Russian would likely be heading deeper at the same time. Both submarines employed noisemakers in their wake to deter the torpedo homing devices.
As the situation evolved, the Soviet torpedo was not immediately attracted by Olympia’s early noisemakers. The torpedo, still well below its target, sped in the proper direction before rising to search. It was only as the last of the decoys were ejected from the American vessel that Reed’s assumption was confirmed. The torpedo was diverted as it rose, exploding thirty yards from the actual target, and Olympia reared upward like a bronco, the shock wave snapping through her entire length. The hydrophone array on her tail was ripped off; a high-pitch whine shrieked from her jarred shaft. But her basic systems survived the near-hit.
Olympia’s torpedo detonated just off the stem of the Russian, destroying her propeller and warping the shaft. As water spurted through ruptured seals, the Russian craft, suddenly powerless, had no option but to seek the surface.
Olympia turned, listening for her quarry. The beat of the Soviet’s propeller was gone. Compressed air could be heard whooshing into ballast tanks, forcing water out as she struggled toward the surface, her forward motion negligible. There was no telling if she would still fire. Obviously she was suffering. No need to close if there was no forward momentum. A second torpedo was instantly on the way.
The silent ocean carried the harsh squeal of only one high-speed torpedo. The Russian was totally involved in the struggle for survival. This time, Olympia enjoyed the luxury of monitoring the progress of her torpedo.
On board Houston, Reed had no immediate clue to the effect of the initial two explosions that rolled back to their sensitive listening devices. He only knew that both submarines had fired, both torpedoes had detonated. The sound of a single, third torpedo meant one was going for the kill. This time the computer called the eventual winner before the torpedo ever located its target — the screw-beats were American. The frantic roar of compressed air never reached Reed’s ears. There was no way to tell how badly damaged the Soviet was, only that it was once again a target. Reed’s heart beat in sympathetic response to the Russian’s terrified efforts.
Then the second blast came clearly to them, soon followed by the unmistakable, unforgiving sounds of a submarine breaking up. Though Soviet listening devices were shorter range, Reed was sure that what had just taken place might be just as obvious to the Soviet submarine accompanying them — it should already be evading! He also was sure that the Russians had to have a need for revenge, that sudden, natural desire for a parting shot. They had been prepared for more than twenty minutes. He gave the order quickly. In seconds Helena launched two torpedoes at the trailing Russian boat.
There had been no hesitation in Reed’s decision. While it was his alone, his original orders sanctioned the act. It would be months before the Russians could prove a thing. Of course, the explosions could be heard over great distances underwater but no one could say for sure what had caused them or what the result had been. As far as Reed was concerned, the mission justified his reaction.
The sounds of battle had been monitored by Imperator, and they understood what had taken place ahead of them though there was hardly a soul in the active navy who could remember actual submarine warfare. But they knew that when a submarine was killed, every man went down with her.
Resting in her stateroom, Carol Petersen thought back to the early days of Imperator’s planning. Computer-aided design of standard seagoing vessels was an art. The giant submarine, however, had taken shape on a modular basis with various teams creating separate units of the vast ship. They worked on their own, using the specifications provided for their particular module while the consortium’s computer oversaw the project on a single, giant scale.
The submarine was longer than four football fields laid end to end. Her reinforced hull was a cocoon enclosing compartmentalized units that other teams never saw. The reactor area and associated engineering spaces were a world on their own, as were human subsistence areas, command and control spaces, the massive storage areas, and navigational and sonar units. The consortium planned that there would be no chance she could be sunk by one torpedo, even two or three. She could sustain damage like the old battleships, and damaged or open areas could be automatically sealed off from the remainder of the ship. This compartmentalization was controlled by the computer to avoid the necessity of having a huge crew to operate her. Caesar managed many of these spaces, and his programs were designed to respond to the possibilities of battle damage. Carol felt increasingly secure as Imperator continued to prove the success of her design.
Hal Snow also considered the effects of damage to Imperator, but at the same time he was reminded of her ability to annihilate almost any challenge. She was a creature born of futuristic technology. Her hull possessed aerodynamic features allowing previously unimagined underwater speeds, and she was driven through the depths in almost total silence by her propulsor system of shroud-enclosed blades. She became a creature of her environment, an immense shark, sinister and lethal.
Her sensory system, under Caesar’s direction, could seek out the slightest variants in the marine world, detecting and identifying anything man-made well before her own presence was realized. This capability was tied into a fire-control system able to react instantaneously to a variety of dangers. Imperator’s kill capability was well beyond the range of any known submarine weapons. Her highspeed torpedoes could be fired either directly at a garget, or conveyed by rocket over the ocean’s surface to a target hundreds of miles distant.
Perhaps the aspect that fascinated Snow more than any other was her ability to support a battalion-size marine amphibious unit. Missile systems were integrated into the fire-control apparatus to support the landing team with antiair or antisurface fire. Imperator was capable of either landing her force via undersea amphibious craft, ejected in the manner of a torpedo, or she could surface, defend herself against attack, and land her team in the normal manner. She carried helos for vertical envelopment, and artillery and tank units to provide close support to her ground forces. To Snow, she was a lethal machine beyond anything man had yet imagined, and her most dangerous quality was her ability to deliver this immense force without warning anywhere on the globe. Carrier battle groups and amphibious forces gave prior warning to their enemy. Imperator could literally strike without a sound. By herself, she was dangerous to any country who challenged the United States. If she was successful in this initial transit, the Northern Flank of Europe would be her goal. While Hal Snow and Andy Reed were certain they would be directed there, especially after the message to rendezvous with the amphibious force near the Pribilof Islands, they had yet to receive firm orders.