Michael DiMercurio
Voyage of the Devilfish
This one’s for you. Dad.
PROLOGUE
The USS Stingray hovered silently 200 feet below the polar icecap. The nuclear submarine’s control room was absurdly cramped. Filled with consoles, valves, piping and cables it was uncomfortable, but functional. The room was lit by a dim red wash from the overhead fluorescents and the redmasked gages and dials of the ship’s control consoles. The only sounds were the whining of the gyros, the low growl of the ventilation fans and murmurs of conversation from the crew in the space.
On an elevated platform surrounded by stainless steel handrails, a tall man with a tightly trimmed beard frowned in concentration at a television screen glowing red. The dim light further revealed a stern-faced man in his early forties, dressed in black overalls with a silver oak leaf on each collar. Over his left pocket was a gold pin resembling a pilot’s wings, but each “wing” was a scaly fish facing the middle, with a submarine’s conning tower — its sail — forming the center: a submariner’s dolphins. Embroidery thread over his right pocket spelled PACINO.
A phone buzzed. Without taking his eyes from the screen, he pulled the handset to his ear. “Captain.”
“Captain, radio, sir. The outgoing patrol-report message to COMSUBLANT is ready to transmit.”
“Very well, radio.” Pacino replaced the headset.
A lieutenant standing at the fire-control console looked up at him on the periscope stand. “Sir, the ship is ready to vertical surface. Ice overhead is one foot thick.”
“Very well, vertical surface.”
“Diving Officer, vertical surface the ship,” the lieutenant called to a chief petty officer sitting behind Pacino at airplane-style controls. At the lieutenant’s order another chief at a wraparound console on the control room’s port side pushed the hovering system’s joystick up to the BLOW position.
The ship started to rise at a steady two feet per second.
Every half second the digital-depth gage clicked off another foot. On the surface above a stiff arctic wind blew the falling snow almost horizontally. The howl of the wind was suddenly punctuated by the sound of the Stingray’s three thousand tons crashing through the thin ice. Several ice blocks fell from the top of the black conning tower to the horizontal surfaces below. A tall mast rose out of the sail — the periscope.
A second — the radio antenna — soon followed. It began transmitting a flash priority message to COMSUBLANT, the admiral in command of the Atlantic submarine force. The message reported the position of the newest known Soviet attack submarine, NATO code name VICTOR III.
Four kilometers away, aboard the Leningrad, Captain 1st Rank Alexi Novskoyy hunched over a fire-control console showing the position of the American submarine to the south. Long sleepless hours had left dark circles under his eyes, barely showing through the mass of uncombed hair hanging over his face.
He stood and addressed the men in the cramped space.
“Attention in the control compartment. As you are all aware, four months ago an American submarine collided with the Kiev not far from here. The Kiev’s hull was ruptured and she sank with all hands. Our submarine force was disappointed by our official response, little more than a diplomatic protest to Washington. Now we are positioned to deliver the Northern Fleet’s unofficial response.”
All conversation stopped as the four officers stared up at the solid, compact Novskoyy. Only the whining of the fire-control computer and the deep bass of the ventilating ducts could be heard as he lit a cigarette and blew the smoke into the overhead. Novskoyy looked into his officers’ eyes. Each man nodded and turned to his control console. “Weapons Officer, lock the fire-control solution to the target into the torpedoes in tubes one and two and prepare to fire. Deck Officer, open outer doors to tubes one and two. Ship Control Officer, slow to fifteen clicks.” Each officer began his assigned task almost before the order was given. He’d trained them well, Novskoyy thought.
The hole in the ice created by the Stingray faded as the ship descended to 500 feet and accelerated to five knots. The phone beside Pacino buzzed again.
“Captain.”
“Captain, radio, sir. Outgoing patrol report message to COMSUBLANT transmitted to the satellite. The broadcast has been received, it’s printing out now. No flash traffic, sir, but we do have the familygrams aboard.”
“Very well, radio. Did I get anything?”
“Yes sir. Message from your son, sir. Should I read it out to you?”
“No, just send over the printout.” Pacino replaced the headset, smiling faintly. Every month or so COMSUBLANT included radio messages from family members— usually less than a hundred words — in their submarine broadcast. For the last three months, it was the only communication from home anyone had had.
“Officer of the Deck,” Pacino called. “Time to head home. Come around to the west and clear baffles before you steady on course. I don’t want the VICTOR sneaking up from behind and following us home.”
“Come around to the west and clear baffles. Officer of the Deck aye, sir,” the lieutenant said. “Helm, right five degrees rudder, steady course two seven zero.” The lieutenant picked up a microphone and spoke into it. “Sonar, Conn, clearing baffles to the right.” The speaker crackled, sending the voice throughout the control room. “CONN, SONAR, AYE.” Pacino stared at the sonar console, wondering where the Soviet submarine was. A radioman came to the control room and handed him a metal clipboard with the incoming radio messages. The first page was Pacino’s own familygram, typed by the radioman on the inside of a blank Christmas card. Pacino grinned as he opened the card. “Nice touch.”
DAD — ANNAPOLIS IS A PAIN. I KNOW, I KNOW — I’M SUPPOSED TO HATE PLEBE YEAR. I’M HANGING ON FOR CHRISTMAS. AND FOR YOU AND STINGRAY TO GET BACK. SEE YOU THEN. GOOD HUNTING AND TAKE CARE, MIKE
Pacino left the center of the control room and wandered back to the navigation alcove; he wished he could have been more of a father during his son’s first year at the Naval Academy, but Stingray had been at sea so much he’d only been able to make a few calls and send the occasional letter. Still, Pacino thought, nothing would stop Michael from being an officer. He’d hang in there, graduate and maybe fly a jet off an aircraft carrier — or even follow his old man’s footsteps and join the Silent Service. Michael would be okay. He had to believe that.
“Tubes report ready. Captain,” the Weapons Officer reported to Novskoyy.
“fire-control ready. Captain,” his First Officer called out.
“Shoot tube one,” he ordered, and felt the deck lurch beneath him as the heavy 53-centimeter torpedo was ejected from the ship. “Shoot tube two.” After the second lurch,
Novskoyy leaned over the fire-control console to watch the target disappear…
The force of the torpedo explosions threw Pacino into the ship-control console. His head spurted blood over the central panel. Before his eyes the depth gage turned faster and faster, its normal slow clicks accelerating to a mad buzz. The numbers spun by: 1300 feet, 1350, 1400. The ship’s crush-depth approached rapidly. Pacino heard the hull creak and pop around him. He heard a scream and water roaring into the room. The lights went out, and soon the deck was so steeply angled downward that the forward bulkhead, the wall, had become the floor. The depth gage continued to buzz off the depth. Pacino’s eyes became unfocused. For a second he thought he saw his son Michael standing in front of him, tall, tanned, handsome and proud in his fourth-class midshipman’s uniform.