And on and on the litany went as Challenger launched eight wide-body, deep-capable nuclear fish at the Admiral von Scheer.
“Reload all tubes, Mark Eighty-eights Mod Twos. Set warhead yields to maximum.” One full kiloton each.
Bell, Weps, and their people got busy.
Jeffrey studied the tactical plot. Challenger had gained on the von Scheer’s projected position, but Challenger’s torpedoes were dashing ahead and gaining on the von Scheer much faster.
Without needing to be told, Bell had his weapons technicians spread the charging, fully armed weapons apart — to catch the von Scheer in a pincers and make it harder for her to evade or destroy Jeffrey’s fish.
Jeffrey’s eight reloads were all positioned by the tube breach doors, for him and Bell to enter their special weapons arming codes. Soon all tubes were ready to shoot another massive salvo. It was high time to update the firing solution. At flank speed, with von Scheer so quiet, Milgrom still held no passive contact on Master One.
“Sonar, go active.”
The overpowering bow-sphere blast this time was like a shout from an angry dolphin. The undulating whistles and clicks were designed to look past Challenger’s own noisy Mark 88s in the water and pound the von Scheer’s hull and sail and control planes and pump jet with an inescapable fist of pure sound.
Once more Jeffrey waited for the data to come back. While he fidgeted impatiently he brought up that picture he had of Ernst Beck and windowed it onto his now-crowded console.
You know I’ve got you cold, Herr Korvettenkapitan Beck. Watcha gonna do next?
Ernst Beck listened on the sonar speakers. The all-too-familiar engine noise of eight inbound enemy torpedoes bounced off ridges and escarpments and came in through his ship’s hydrophone arrays. The other bounces of increasing, gaining noise, of Challenger herself tearing after von Scheer, emphasized the energy of Jeffrey Fuller’s pursuit. The time for sneaking and guessing was over. There was nothing subtle about what was going on now, nor anything the least bit quiet or stealthy about what would happen quite soon.
“Inbound torpedoes are spreading out, Captain,” Stissinger reported.
Beck watched his tactical plot. “As expected, Einzvo.”
“Can’t you go any faster?” von Loringhoven demanded.
“Yes, I could go faster. Thirty knots is our top quiet speed, Baron. More than that, we begin to make much more noise. We give Challenger a continuous passive sonar contact to track, which sharpens the enemy’s firing solutions and takes away options from us.”
Just then an earsplitting whistle hit the ship, with palpable physical force — the control room was filled with the siren call of a determined and deadly opponent. The whistle was overlaid with piercing clicks, like stones hurled against the hull — a small hint of worse things to come.
“Contact on acoustic intercept!” Werner Haffner shouted by rote. “Unable to suppress ping echoes off our stern!”
“Very well, Sonar,” Beck said, blasé — he surprised himself. He realized his newfound command persona was fast kicking into gear and felt rather pleased with himself. Even amid mortal threats from outside, and even in such close confines with the shaky nerves of his inexperienced crew, Beck was finding the inner strength to lead his men. They need a father figure now above all else, to reassure them — like frightened children — that everything will be all right…. And being a good father is one thing I do know plenty about.
Beck and Stissinger watched Challenger’s first salvo of torpedoes draw closer. Because of the ranges involved, even with the high-speed Mark 88s, it would be minutes before they got in lethal range.
“Noisemakers, Captain?” Stissinger prompted.
“Not yet.”
“Launch counterfire?” All eight of the von Scheer’s tubes were loaded with deep-capable Sea Lion nuclear eels; eel was German slang for “torpedo.”
Beck watched his screens. “Not yet.”
“What are you waiting for?” von Loringhoven said. “We have eight atomic weapons on our tail!”
“Watch closely. You might actually learn something.”
“Order flank speed! They’re moving more than twice as fast as us!”
Beck shook his head.
“But—”
“Baron, if this game is too hard on your pampered constitution, I suggest you retire to your cabin for a nice lie-down and keep out of my way. I must warn you, though, don’t expect pleasant dreams. The ride is about to become much louder and rougher than anything you ever imagined.”
This time it was Beck who sneered — again he surprised himself. But now that battle was joined, the gap between atomic combat veteran Beck’s sum total of experience, and the cushy life von Loringhoven had led, seemed truly unbridgeable. Beck considered ordering the baron to his cabin right now.
No, let him stay where I can see his fear and suffering. Let this be my revenge on him for the terrible things I must do later. Let my crewmen also see his panic and his sweat, as a portal through which to find their own bravery.
“Sir,” Stissinger said, “we should launch our counterfire.”
Beck gave no answer. His ship continued her fast but quiet thirty-knot course due east.
“Evasive maneuvers at least, sir? Make a knuckle in the water?”
Beck looked at the loyal but untested Stissinger. He’d never fired a nuclear weapon in anger, just in a simulator. He’d never been shot at for real, only in training drills.
The captain smiled. “Thank you, Einzvo, but I think not.”
Stissinger was going by the textbook, and doing it well — but men like Beck and Fuller had thrown out the textbook months before.
Beck returned to observing the tactical plot. “Show me the enemy warhead kill zones against us.”
“At what yield, sir?” Stissinger said.
“The maximum for Mark Eighty-eights. I’m sure he’ll use the maximum.”
“One-tenth kiloton.”
Beck nodded.
Little disks appeared around each inbound torpedo symbol. They represented the radius within which their warhead detonations would inflict fatal damage on Ernst Beck’s ship at her present depth. The disks still had some time before they were dangerous to the von Scheer. Though water was very rigid and dense, so that blast force traveled great distances, the warhead yields were small, and the von Scheer was very shock hardened…. And blast force in deep water died off inversely with the cube of the range: ten times as far from ground zero meant only one-one-thousandth the impact. Even a megaton hydrogen bomb set off in the sea could just kill a steel-hulled sub out to a dozen miles or so.
Beck was surprised at his own inner calm as he ran through these cold-blooded facts. But calm was one key part of his plan. He watched the icon on his display that represented Challenger. He listened to her noise coming over the speakers.
Who knows himself and the other man better, Captain Fuller, you or me?
Who remembers more from the last time we met? Who more clearly understands the crucial differences now?
And who learned the most from our previous battle? The victor or the vanquished, you think? I do believe that failure is a sharper, keener tutor than success.