Joint Operations

FIFTEEN

Renny shut his eyes and leaned back in his chair. He clamped his hands over the headset, pressing the foam surrounding the earpieces into the sides of his skull. There, almost at the edge of his hearing — no wait, it was gone again. He sighed, and looked over at Otter. “You got anything?” he asked, taking a look at the passive display as he asked the question.

Otter shook his head. “You’re hearing ghosts, man,” he said.

Renny started to argue, then froze as a familiar sound came peppering his ears through the earphones. “Helicopter,” he breathed, his voice almost a whisper.

“I got it, too.” Otter toggled the sound-powered phone on. “Conn, sonar. Hold incoming helicopter.”

“Classification?” the OOD asked.

“Not ours, that’s all I can tell you.” A seriously worried expression spread itself across Otter’s face. “I don’t like the feel of this at all, buddy,” he said softly to Renny. “Not one little bit.”

As they listened, the sound of the helicopter both in Renny’s ears and as translated on the passive acoustic display became louder and louder. The increase in frequency indicated that the aircraft was approaching them directly. Finally, the up Doppler stabilized, then began wavering up and down in frequency.

“It’s directly overhead,” Renny said, now whispering for certain. Around him, the rest of the crew were setting quiet ship stations, and he noted the red light flashing to indicate general quarters. “Right above us,” he whispered.

A small splot then, a second motion in the ocean, the noise that a drop of water falling into the bathtub makes. Renny came bolt upright in his chair. “Sonobuoys, I think,” he said, his voice barely audible. “Whatever it is, they’re tossing something in — ” A massive explosion rocked the water around the ship. Renny screamed, ripped the headphones off and bent over, moaning. The automatic gain control had managed to block out most of the noise, but still enough acoustic energy had made it into the headsets to feel like an arrow lancing straight through his skull.

The ship rolled hard to port and then back to starboard as the OOD fought to stabilize her. A down angle on the deck developed almost immediately. Renny felt the nauseating motion of the ship going into a hard lefthand turn while still unstable from the explosion, and diving at the same time.

“Depth charges,” he said, barely able to hear his own voice. Behind him, his chief tapped him on the shoulder and nudged him out of the chair. Renny’s earphones were already on the chief petty officer’s head. “Depth charges, goddammit, who the hell uses depth charges anymore?”

A second explosion answered that question quite handily.

The ship dove more rapidly now, but it was controlled movement from the ship seeking out a deeper layer of water rather than a submarine damaged by the blast. The further down they got, the further away from the helicopter overhead they’d be. Still, submerging held its own dangers. As the pressures increased, so did the potential consequences of even a small pinhole leak in any gear. Outside the submarine, the water pressure was increasing rapidly, bearing down on every square inch of the hull. Since water was thicker under pressure, it also served as a better medium for conducting acoustic energy. A blast at this depth would be amplified, not only in the amount of energy that hit the submarine but in the damage that any breach in hull integrity would pose.

“How the hell did they find us?” Otter demanded. His hands were dancing over the passive acoustic display, checking out different frequencies, searching frantically for any hint of a threat around them. They both knew the answer to his question.

“Nobody was active, and there were no sonobuoys in the water,” Renny said. “It was the other submarine — he must have heard us on his passive gear, then surfaced to radio in a position report.”

“But when? When!” Otter demanded. He scrolled back to the time on the display. “When was it that you heard something?”

Renny leaned over and pointed to a spot on the graph. “There. Right about then.”

“That was almost thirty minutes ago,” Otter said. “You certain about that?”

Renny shook his head. “Not entirely, but the time fits. He would have had to be fairly close to us to have heard anything at all, and you know he wouldn’t want to be anywhere around if they were going to drop depth charges. So he crept up, took a listen, then sneaked back out of area before he came shallow and radioed in a position report… By now he’s at least ten miles away, maybe more.”

“All hands, this is the captain,” Tran’s voice said over the loudspeaker. Every section of the submarine had been turned down to minimum volume, but the boat was so quiet that his voice was easily distinguishable. “It appears we have evaded the helicopter, and I’m going to be bringing the ship back to a shallower depth. Maintain silence about the decks, even after I secure you from general quarters. It looks like we had the bad luck to be directly under that helicopter while he was dumping garbage or something.”

Renny grinned, admiring Tran’s ability to stay so calm during a crisis. It had been exactly the right thing to say to the ship and crew.

“And I figure we got us a little score to settle with the submarine we left alive back behind us,” Tran’s voice continued, the slightest hint of a Southern drawl in it now. “So suck it up, stay quiet, and I promise you — we’ll get that bastard snitch before he pulls back into port again.”

There were no cheers, no applause, but everyone in the submarine could feel the invisible surge of enthusiasm that rallied through the crew. “We’ll move back into position on the Chinese aircraft carrier.”

As the ship maneuvered, a loud, clanging noise reverberated throughout the entire hull. It seemed to saw at Renny’s bones, sink through his flesh, and then fade away into nothingness. Without having to ask, he knew what it was. The ELF antenna wire that they had been trailing had been severed. Their submerged communications with the outside world had been cut off. Sure, they could still come to communications depth and receive and transmit messages, but that would mean giving up the cloak of invisibility that was the submarine’s primary defensive weapon.

The call came from the SEAL team just as Batman was mobilizing his forces to deal with the troop carriers headed for shore. Tombstone’s pickup team jumped as the speaker crackled to life.

“Bad news, sir,” the remarkably clear voice of the SEAL team leader said. “We found the weapon — but it’s inaccessible. The Chinese dumped it in the shallow water. I’ve got some plans for getting to it and disarming it, but it’s going to take a little while to set up. In the meanwhile, if your sub could keep the area clear around it, it might lessen the chances of detonation. Over.”

“Roger, copy all. We’ll do what we can, Murdoch.” Batman’s voice was grim. He turned to Bam-Bam. “Get off a message to Centurion.”

Captain Tran fought his impulse to pace, schooling himself to stillness that rigged for silent running required. He would not allow himself the luxury of expending some energy through pacing the small compartment. Not only would it not have achieved anything, but it would set a bad example for the rest of the crew. Silent ship meant just that — no unnecessary movement, no talking, and above all, no pacing the deck.

This was the hardest part of submarine warfare, probably the reason that the men who served on these ships bore the name “silent service.” It was a game of cat and mouse, of waiting, of staying submerged and hidden while you waited for the other fellow to make a mistake. Captain Tran held this as an article of faith, that there was no crew as superbly trained as the one on board an American fast attack submarine. Granted, the equipment gave them every edge as well, but it was the crew rather than the steel that encased them that he placed his trust in.

A movement aft caught his eye, and he turned to see the sonar chief holding one finger up in the air. Slightly ashamed at the relief he felt to be moving, Tran padded silently over to the console. He studied data displayed there before asking in a whisper, “Is that her?”

Jacobs nodded. “Bilge pumps, I think,” he said. “It’s faint, and intermittent.”

Tran reached for a spare set of headphones jacked into the input line and slipped them over his ears. He was always surprised at how much more quiet it was with the headphones on, even on a submarine at quiet ship. He could hear his own heartbeat, hear the steady rhythm of his own breathing as blood coursed through his veins. And, just at the edge of perception, he heard the sound that had alerted his sonar team. There it was again — a faint hiss, whine followed by a thump. Bilge pumps or some other slow rhythm machinery on board. It didn’t matter exactly what — the important point was that it wasn’t one of theirs.

“Not as watertight as we are, perhaps,” he said, making an old joke. Bilge pumps weren’t normally run for leaks inside a submarine — any leak would be almost instantly fatal, as high pressure water rocketing into a hull would probably precipitate cascading casualties faster than any crew could keep track of them. No, bilge pumps were used to pump over the small discharges that steam, an occasional leaky pump, and just sheer spillage accumulated in the lower parts of the ship. Still, his joke was met with a slight smile from the crew.

“Targeting solution?” the sonar chief asked.

Tran nodded. “Completely passive. No one is supposed to know we’re here until the carrier is ready to move.” He could see by the expression on the chief’s face that this didn’t sit well. They had contact, albeit a tenuous one. They would have a firing solution within seconds. Every second that they let pass with this submarine still alive in their home waters ate at them. He now regretted the one ranging ping that he’d ordered earlier. That extra bit of uncertainty might have now worked in his favor.

“We can’t do anything right now with the situation as it is on the land,” he said, and briefly debated with himself just how much to explain to the crew. He knew about the nuclear weapon located on the island, but was it necessarily something he needed to tell the rest of the crew? Most of them had families, girlfriends, even parents on the island. Would the additional worry about the families distract them from the job at hand? And more importantly, would knowing that their friends and loved ones were in such mortal danger improve their performance at all?

No. Tran decided to keep the information to himself. “It’s all part of a plan,” he temporized, not entirely comfortable with the withholding of the information, but certain in his heart it was the right thing to do. This was what he was paid for, to carry the burden of knowing such secrets without allowing them to distract his crew.

That was evidently enough for his chief. He nodded, then pointed to the attack console immediately to his right. “Firing solution, Captain, anytime, anywhere.” A quiet smile betrayed the pride behind his voice.

“Captain — she’s increasing speed. Look.” Jacobs pointed out some acoustic components on the display, then tweaked an automatic gain control knob. “I hold they’re headed directly for us, sir, although she’s still shallow.”

“She can’t know we’re here,” Tran said confidently. “Maintain firing solution.”

“And now she’s turning away,” the chief said softly. Not that he needed to announce the fact — the downward shift in the submarine’s frequency had already told Tran she was maneuvering.

Now why is she doing that? Charging straight for us, then turning and heading in the opposite direction. And why the relatively high-speed run now? Tran glanced at the chronometer and verified that it was indeed still daylight on the surface above.

Nothing about the submarine’s conduct had made much sense thus far, and this high speed charge was just the latest anomaly. Creeping in too close had put Centurion far closer to the rest of the Chinese forces than he was comfortable with, and now it seemed that their positions had been reversed. Was the diesel trying to tempt him into giving chase, hoping to lure him into a trap?

“Sonobuoys!” the chief said, his voice marginally louder than it had been before. “Who the hell is — ”

Suddenly the sonarmen ripped off their headphones as a violent explosion rocked the submarine. It was too far away to do any real damage, but the downward force from the explosive rolled the submarine slightly, an odd sensation for those used to working on a virtually motionless platform.

Tran had it on the speaker now, the faint splash-gurgle of something large and metallic hitting the water, the hiss as air escaped from it and it bubbled down through the water. Then the explosive crump before the pressure wave reached the submarine.

A second, then a third, a fourth explosion, each one progressively closer to the submarine. Captain Tran’s mind was racing. They can’t know where we are, it’s impossible. This was sheer bad luck, nothing more — wait it out. They’re guessing now, but if you come up to high speed and make a run for it, try the noisemakers, they’ll know for sure they’ve got you.

Even though his cold intellect advised silence and waiting, every atom in his body screamed for speed. As the explosions came faster and closer, he had an overwhelming sense of the vulnerability of the steel hull that protected them from the deep. Most of the time, he was simply unconscious of it. He lived in the submarine, and everyone else did that you knew, too. No big deal — that’s just where you were.

But now, hearing the violent echoes crash against his hull, he felt a sense of vulnerability and frailty. Around him, he could hear the uneasy stirrings of the crew, as their iron discipline cracked slightly under the strain of the noise.

“Not sonobuoys. Depth charges,” he said. Tran stepped to the middle of the control room and raised his voice slightly. “They’re guessing.” He looked around the room, careful to catch each gaze, willing his confidence in his own abilities out in a stream of courage to each of them. “They’re guessing — they don’t know where we are.”

He could feel the tension in the compartment ease slightly. Then the next explosion came, this one farther away than the previous ones. Another, then another, all walking away from the boat. He heard a collective sigh issue out from ten pairs of lungs, and said a silent prayer to the god that watches over submariners that he had been right. Finally, the explosions were muted, more like the far-off rumble of an undersea earthquake than what they really were.

“How many years has it been since anyone used those?” his executive officer said, his voice still low and soft. “We don’t even carry them in the inventory.”

Tran shook his head. “Maybe we ought to. It might be effective as a scare tactic against someone who didn’t have our technology.”

“Are we still holding contact on that diesel?” Tran asked.

“Negative, Captain,” the chief said. “A lot of noise still in the water right now, though. We might pick her up any second.”

“Find her and hold her.” Tran’s voice was grim. “It’ll be payback time soon enough.”

“Captain, I’m a little bit worried about this,” his XO said, handing him a scribbled damage control report. “Structurally, we’re fine, but radio thinks we might have lost the ELF. Do you want to give it a try now?”

Tran studied the message for a moment, working out how that would affect their mission. With no ELF communications, they would have to come shallow and trail an antenna to query the satellite for other messages. Coordinating the attack with the carrier battle group — and eventually there would be an attack, of that he was certain — would be a hell of a lot trickier. And more dangerous. “Give it another half an hour, and let’s see if we regain contact on the diesel. I know she can’t track us off an ELF transmission, but I don’t want her hearing any extra noise in the water right now. None of them.”

They would have to come shallow in a while, let the battle group know that their ELF capabilities were damaged. Maybe it was just the receive side — they’d try a transmission over ELF, and see if they could get confirmation by return satellite message.

But what good would that do them, simply to be able to transmit? It was receive capability that was critical to coordinating their attack with the battle group, not the transmit side of the house. And the odds that one capability had survived on the single antenna when the other had not were small.

Still, he would have to find out. He told the XO to draft the casualty report and have it ready to go out in two hours. Already a list of tasks was arranging itself in his mind, prioritizing itself as a checklist. First, locate the submarine. Second, assess the extent of the damage. Third, check the area for other contacts. Fourth, when it was safe to do so, come shallow and transmit the casualty reports of the battle group.

“We’ve got her back, Captain,” the sonarman said. “I have a firing solution.”

“Good. Hold contact, weapons tight, and wait for my order.” Tran’s voice was grim. “We’ll teach them just how big a mistake it is to take on an American submarine.”