Joint Operations

TWENTY

“What you got?” Jacobs asked as he stumbled into the sonar shack. His eyes were still bleary around the edges, his face slack with exhaustion. “The messenger said you needed me.”

Pencehaven shook his head. “Need isn’t exactly the right word. Oh, hell, it is.” He jerked his thumb at the junior sonarman sitting next to him. “Take a hike, Jack.” The sonarman slid out of his seat, and Jacobs took his place.

Pencehaven took a deep breath. “We haven’t always been on the best of terms, Renny. I know that. But let me show you what you’ve got. Your ears — your ears are better than mine on something like this. The skipper doesn’t believe me because of what happened last time. But I’ve got something this time; I want you to take a look at it and back me up. They’ll listen to you. And somebody’s got to listen before this little bitch gets away.”

Pencehaven sketched in the last fifteen minutes, then passed his headset over to Jacobs. “Here — I can still hear it.”

Jacobs leaned back in his chair and his face assumed that oddly peaceful and serene expression that Pencehaven had come to associate with his nemesis. His eyes were shut, his mouth barely open, his breathing slow and regular. For all appearances, he might have been taking a nap in the sonar shack. Suddenly, Jacobs popped upright in the chair. He reached out for the communications switch, then hesitated. He turned to Pencehaven. “You’re right on this, you know. You didn’t need me to tell you that.”

Pencehaven heaved a sigh of relief. “You heard it?”

“Of course I heard it,” Jacobs said dismissively. “You’d have to be deaf not to hear it. And you’re right, it’s probably a bilge pump of some sort. The one thing we know is it isn’t ours. So call the captain, tell him you know you have a contact. It’s your contact, you lead the targeting on it. I’ll back you up.”

“They might take it better coming from you,” Pencehaven said.

Jacobs shook his head. “No. The captain will make his decision based on how confident you sound. That was the problem last time — you didn’t trust your instincts. But you’ve nailed it hard and true this time. Now, go for it — do what you’re supposed to do.” Jacobs’s eyes glittered with something that in someone else would be taken for fanaticism.

Pencehaven took a deep breath, his gut suddenly shaky. The safety of the submarine — indeed, the entire battle group — rested on his shoulders, now. He had to do it right, had to make them believe. “Conn, sonar,” he began, consciously forcing his voice to sound a little louder, a little surer. “Captain, I have a subsurface contact. Probability high.” He reeled off the current range and bearing information, now refined from their own submarine’s movement through the water and the angle to the anomaly. “He’s hiding behind the memorial, sir. I’m sure of it.”

“Sure?” the captain came back. “Sure like you were last time?”

“No, sir. That was a mistake. But this time I’m sure.”

“Get Petty Officer Jacobs in there,” the skipper said. “Pencehaven, you have to learn that this isn’t a solo game. We live and die by teamwork.”

Pencehaven glanced over at Jacobs, his eyes grateful. “He’s here with me now, sir. And Petty Officer Jacobs concurs.”

“Then why the hell didn’t you say so?” the captain snapped. “Good call, Pencehaven. Your aw shit status is rescinded effective this moment.”

“Thanks, Renny,” Pencehaven said awkwardly. “I owe you one.”

Jacobs shook his head. “No. I owe you one. Because if you hadn’t gone with your gut on this one, you would have ignored the contact. And the next sound I heard might’ve been a torpedo heading for my bunk.”

“Okay, let’s run the targeting problem,” Pencehaven said, and began punching in figures. “Snapshot protocol — you on it?”

Jacobs’s hands were flying over his keyboard. “Couldn’t get rid of me now to save your life,” he murmured. Finally, his targeting solution solid, he looked back up at Pencehaven. “This time, we do it right.”

“I have a targeting solution,” the TACCO announced calmly.

Rabies didn’t reply as he listened to the voice coming over his headset. Finally, he said, “Aye, aye, Admiral,” and flipped the switch back over to internal communications. “Negative on the firing solution,” he said.

“What! It’s mine!” the TACCO howled.

“No go, buddy. There’s a friendly in the area — the submarine’s taking the lead on the kill.”

“The sub’s gonna kill my contact?” the TACCO bitched.

“That’s affirmative. We’re all on the same team here, remember?”

In the backseat, the complaints subsided to an angry muttering occasionally drifting around the cockpit. Rabies shook his head sadly, commiserating with the TACCO and the AW, but understanding the reasoning. The last thing an American submarine wanted was an S-3 dropping torpedoes into the water it was operating in. Yes, letting the submarine prosecute this contact was a better solution, no doubt about it.

But what exactly had the admiral meant when he said that the submarine had an advantage that the aircraft didn’t? And why had he said that the enemy contact was a pushover?

“Conn, radio. ELF message requesting we come shallow for coordination with battle group.”

The captain gripped the arms of his chair. “I don’t want to come shallow right now,” he said quietly, frustration evident in his voice. “I’m holding contact, damn it.”

“Sorry, Skipper. The battle group seems fairly insistent.” The radioman’s voice was apologetic.

The captain sighed heavily. “You heard the man. Conning officer, make your depth eighty feet. Prepare for communications with the battle group.”

As the submarine rose smoothly through the water, the captain thought sour thoughts about the Navy, about surface ships, and about one admiral aviator in particular.

Five minutes later, his worst fears about aviators were confirmed. “You want us to do what?” he almost howled, but then caught himself at the last moment. “I’m not sure I understand, admiral,” he said in a voice more suited to the close confines of the submarine. Silence was a reflex with most submariners, and the skipper was no exception. “What you’re proposing is… shall we say… not without its risks?”

“I understand that, Captain.” The admiral briefly outlined his concerns about a torpedo attack, then concluded with, “Besides, I think you’d agree it’s time the old girl had a chance to fight back. She didn’t. Not the first time, not against the attack that put her on the bottom of the ocean, there.”

The captain sighed, and considered the physics of the problem. Sure, the bow of the submarine was particularly strengthened with measures designed to prevent her from flooding in the event that she did run into something. But still, Murphy’s Law prevailed. If something could go wrong, it would. “She wasn’t built as a battering ram, Admiral.”

“I’m not asking for a battering ram, Captain, just a gentle shove. We’ve got an expert up here who thinks that will be all that it will take. A couple of nudges, then you back on out of there at best speed.”

Backing out at best speed. Yeah, sure. The captain refrained from pointing out just how unwieldy a submarine going astern was, the difficulties of maneuvering, and just how much noise she herself would kick up. “The southeast corner, you say?” he asked delicately.

“Affirmative. One nudge, the southeast corner.”

“Aye-aye, Admiral — we’re on it.” The captain clicked off the circuit and gazed around the control room with a sense of unreality. Finally, he said, “Okay, you all heard the admiral. Conning officer, take us to the southeast corner of the Arizona and prepare for… nudging.”

“Incoming!” General Haynes clamped down on the edge of the table and ducked involuntarily. The two Navy officers on either side of him shot him a surprised look, while the Air Force officer grinned enigmatically.

Sheepishly, the Army officer straightened up. “What is it with you people?” he asked good-naturedly. “You ever get used to that?” That was the hard thunder rolling through the compartment, the noise that was as much felt as heard, the bone-jolting sensation that rattled computer screens, shook coffee mugs, and rendered conversation almost impossible.

Batman shrugged. “Around here, we call it the sound of freedom.”

The Army officer breathed deeply. “Where I’m from, we call it the sound of artillery,” he grumbled quietly, but returned to the task at hand.

Tombstone pointed to a small TV screen located in one corner of the room. “Watch — what you’re hearing will make more sense then.”

The plat camera showed an overview of the flight deck, and now the Army officer could see the source of the noise. A Tomcat on the bow catapult was in full military power, trembling on the catapult with the JBDs, or jet blast deflectors, at right angles to the deck behind her. As he watched, he saw a small, blurred figure on the deck to the left of the aircraft whip off a sharp salute, then another figure dropped to the deck and held up one hand.

The Tomcat moved almost imperceptibly at first, but after the first few microseconds, it picked up speed at an astounding rate. It shot down the catapult, trailing steam and fire in its wake, and blasted off the bow of the aircraft carrier. It disappeared from view for a few moments, then he saw it struggling back up into the air. “I thought he was a goner,” the Army officer said softly, his voice hushed with awe.

Batman shook his head. “All in a day’s work for those fellows,” he said. He pointed at Admiral Magruder. “For me and him, too. Years ago.”

“Not so long as you’d think,” Tombstone shot back.

The plat camera showed two more F-14s already taxiing into position, the jet blast deflectors now flat on the deck to avoid impeding their progress, to allow them easy access to the catapult, the flight deck crew in their specially choreographed dance around the waiting aircraft. Seven seconds later, the roar thundered through TFCC again.

“This goes on all day and all night?” the Army officer asked, doubt in his voice.

“The Tomcats are the worst,” Tombstone said. “Or the best — depending on how you look at it. The other guys, you can hear them launch, too, but after a while you can tell what’s launching by how bad your compartment rattles.”

“Or whether your computer reboots,” Batman put in.

“And in just a few minutes, they’ll be within each others’ engagement envelopes,” Tombstone said, turning away from the plat camera to study the tactical display located at the forward part of the compartment. “It’ll be all over but the shouting. Do you think this is going to work?”

Batman said, “It has to. We don’t have any other choices.”

“Admiral, it’s the S-3,” the TAO shouted, not even turning around to look at them, his gaze fixed on the screen in front of him. “He’s reporting audibles, audibles from his submarine contact — looks like she’s going to make a break for it!”

Both Batman and Tombstone swore softly. Then Batman said, “Okay, everyone. You know the game plan. Let’s get started.”

“What about the submarine?” the Coast Guard officer asked.

“Our sub is on him. And if he misses, we’ll have him clear the area and turn the S-3 loose on him. Put a couple more ASW helicopters airborne, then forget about it.”

The sudden barrage of green lines dancing across his screen and the hard thrum of mechanical noise in his headset sent a huge wave of relief flowing through Petty Officer Pencehaven, followed immediately by a rush of adrenaline. If he’d had any doubts at all — and he’d had a few, he admitted to himself — they were now evaporated like the early morning dew.

The acoustic signals tracing across his display, as well as the churning noise of the propeller completely resolved the question of whether or not there was a submarine hiding behind the Arizona on the seabed floor. He turned to glance at Jacobs, a wide smile on his face. “Guess we got him.”

Jacobs shook his head. “Guess you got him,” he pointed out. His smile deepened a little bit, until it almost looked like a snarl. “But we’re gonna kill him — together.”

“Sonar, Conn. I need that targeting solution now!” the captain’s voice said.

“Updating now, sir. Done,” Pencehaven said. “Request weapons free.”

“Weapons free. Fire at will. Flooding tubes three and five — it’s all yours, boys. Good work.”

Pencehaven double-checked the solution, his finger poised over the fire button. Then he glanced over at Jacobs, took the other man’s hand, and pressed it firmly down on the button. “First kill is yours, buddy,” he said. “And thanks.”

A low rumble shot through the submarine as the torpedo left its tube. It appeared immediately on his acoustic display, just after the noise saturated his headset. The automatic gain control cut in, reducing the noise to a tolerable level.

“Looking good, looking good,” Jacobs chanted softly, watching the contact on Pencehaven’s screen. “You can run, but you can’t hide.”

And indeed that was true with the Mark 38 ADCAP torpedo. It had both acoustic and wake homing capabilities built in, as well as a logic discriminator that kept it away from its own submarine. Once it caught the first sniff of a contact, it was virtually impossible to avoid.

Pencehaven and Jacobs watched as the torpedo fell into a lazy circle, then broke the arc to zero in on the contact now streaking across their screen as a bright green lozenge. “Recommend we go active, sir,” Pencehaven said. There was no longer any advantage in maintaining strictly passive and acoustic contact. The other submarine knew that they were there. With a torpedo, it could reach no other conclusion than that it was not alone in the ocean.

As they watched, bright noise splattered across the screen, overlapping clusters and blobs of brilliant noise. The contact faded out, its acoustic return blanked out by the noise.

“Sir, we need that active,” Pencehaven said urgently.

“I hear, I hear — go active,” the captain said.

The submarine had evidently detected the torpedo — and who could not, as much noise as she put in the water — and ejected a series of noisemakers. They spun frantically through the water, churning up massive flumes of air bubbles, probably with acoustic generators inside them as well. The entire passive spectrum was clotted with new frequencies, lines that wavered crazily in and out of contact, completely obscuring the other submarine.

They could see that the torpedo was distracted by a noisemaker off to its right. It fell away from its original course, and started to make an approach on the noisemaker. Jacobs made the correction automatically, steering it away from there and back onto its original course.

“How much longer?” Pencehaven asked.

“Another five hundred yards,” Jacobs said. Another five hundred yards, and the wire umbilical that still connected the torpedo to the submarine would snap, terminating the submarine’s guidance capabilities.

“Man, look at her go. What’s she doing, forty knots?”

“Has to be,” Jacobs agreed. “Her propulsion has to be — ”

“Let’s get another shot off, boys,” the captain’s voice ordered. “No sense in taking any chances.”

“Second shot, aye, sir,” Pencehaven said promptly. Without even looking, he could tell that Jacobs was readying the second shot now. This one would be his, all his. He waited until Jacobs nodded, then depressed the fire button. Another low rumble swept through the submarine along with the whish of compressed air exploding outward from the tube.

“Shit!” Jacobs and Pencehaven exclaimed simultaneously.

“Inbound, inbound!” Pencehaven shouted. “Torpedo, torpedo in the water, bearing zero-zero-zero relative. Range, ten thousand yards. Snapshot procedures.” He had Jacobs toggle off another torpedo immediately down the line of bearing, then held tight to the arms of his chair as the submarine broke into a hard turn to the right. “Noisemakers, decoys,” he ordered.

Suddenly, the water around them was as alive with sound as it had been around the enemy contact. The submarine had managed to snap off a torpedo at them, and while the American submarine had sent one immediately down the same line of bearing, their main problem right now was not to guide their torpedo onto the target, but to avoid being a target themselves. Jacob snapped the wire guidance and said a silent prayer that the torpedo would find its mark.

The submarine was now traveling at one hundred and eighty degrees off its base course, establishing a line of bearing. It then cut hard to the right again, then to port, crossing its own wake several times. Finally, the depth tilted down at a steep angle. Pencehaven watched the depth indicator, and noted that they were moving below the thermocline, entering a region of the ocean where sound waves would be bent downward rather than upward. The change in depth across the gradient was intended to obscure the noise of the American submarine from the other torpedo.

“Can’t be much of a torpedo,” Pencehaven whispered, his voice barely audible. “Look, it’s buying the first noisemaker.” And indeed, the screen bore out his observations, as Jacobs watched the loud, slow torpedo fired by the minisub take dead aim on the first noisemaker they’d ejected. Thirty seconds later, they both pulled their headsets off long enough to avoid being bombarded by the noise of the explosion. “Wonder how many she carries,” Pencehaven said, his voice slightly louder.

“Can’t be more than one or two,” Jacobs observed. “Not as small as she is.”

“Back to the hunt, boys,” the captain’s voice said over the circuit. “I’m coming shallow — I want two more torpedoes up that bastard’s ass.”

The thermocline was a tricky bitch, one that worked both for you and against you, Pencehaven reflected. Sure, it obscured your own noise from an enemy submarine, but it also blocked the return of your own active sonar transmissions, although of course they’d gone silent during evasive maneuvers. The best hunting is done when both the submarine and the target are in the same acoustic layer.

As they came shallower, the enemy contact reappeared on their screens. “Got a targeting solution,” Jacobs announced.

“Hold fire, hold fire!” the captain shouted. “We’re too close to the carrier.”

Pencehaven swore silently. The carrier was showing up as a large, green lozenge on his screen, her acoustic signature unmistakable on both the waterfall display and in his earphones. Nothing but a carrier had that peculiar chug, chug, the rhythmic thumps that accompanied flight deck operations, the peculiar hiss and whine of reactor coolant pumps. “No way we can take the shot,” he observed.

“The best thing the carrier could do is get out of the way,” Jacobs said. He shook his head in frustration. “We’ve still got two torpedoes in the water, though. Maybe one of them — ” As he watched, the submarine contact disappeared from their screen.

Rabies let out a howl of glee. “Okay, boys and girls, time to earn our pay. It’s all ours.” The Desron had just handed off contact prosecution to the two ASW helicopters and the S-3. While their torpedoes were essentially the same type as those held on the submarine, with the helos bracketing the contact and providing a precise location, the targeting solution was improved by a factor of five.

“Who goes first, the helo or us?” the TACCO asked.

“Helo’s closer in — not within minimums, though,” the copilot pointed out. “I’d say the helo.”

Sure enough, moments later, the Desron’s TAO said, “Paddywhack Six Zero One, take target with torpedoes.”

The TACCO let out a groan of frustration. “It was mine, all mine,” he said brokenly. “If only — ”

Rabies put the S-3 into a tight turn, putting them nose on to the attacking helo. They watched the torpedo fall off of her hard point, splash noisily into the water, then dive. In the crystal clear waters, they could follow the course of the torpedo down to a considerable depth. Rabies fancied he could even see the outline of the minisub, a darker blotch against the white sand seabed and coral.

But wait, was that…

“Homeplate, you’ve got an inbound torpedo,” he said, his voice calm despite the tension twisting his gut into a knot. “Repeat, torpedo inbound!”

“We’ve got it, Hunter,” the TAO snapped.

As he watched, Rabies saw the Jefferson’s wake change in its configuration as the aircraft carrier started to turn. It was a standard ASW evasive maneuver, but was probably of no use in these waters. First, the carrier was just too massive, took too long to commence a change in direction. Her turning radius was measured in miles instead of yards. Second, the range was just too close. There was not time for the carrier’s wake to even reflect the change of course, much less for it to do any good.

“With a target that big, she can’t miss,” Pencehaven said. He stared at the geometry of the attack, sick dread filling his heart. Sure, it wasn’t his boat that was going to get nailed, and he was glad about that. But what about the six thousand plus men and women on board that aircraft carrier? And wasn’t that the heart of the entire battle plan, having the air power to establish air superiority for the troops who would follow? An idea flickered through his brain, and without thinking, he toggled the communications switch. “Captain, recommend course two-four-zero, speed flank plus,” he said firmly. “Sir, if we can get close enough in, we can eject our noisemakers into the path. We’ve already seen that it’s a stupid torpedo — it’ll go for it, sir. I’m sure of it.”

“The carrier’s got her own noisemakers,” the captain said.

Pencehaven shook his head. “It’ll be too close, sir. Even if they destroy the torpedo, it looks like it’s going to be astern of her. The overpressure wave and the explosion itself may damage the carrier’s propellers. I know she’s got four of them, but if she loses maneuverability…” Pencehaven didn’t need to finish the sentence. Everybody on board the submarine knew what it would mean to lose a propeller — a dramatic decrease in maneuverability. And if the aircraft carrier couldn’t maneuver, she couldn’t turn into the wind to launch and recover aircraft. “Recommend we deploy noisemakers for the carrier’s protection, sir,” Pencehaven concluded.

Men don’t rise to be the captains of submarines if they’re prone to indecision. The captain’s answer came back immediately. “Roger, conning officer, come right, steady course two-four-zero, flank speed. Engineer, give me everything you’ve got. We’ll be noisier than a pig, but let’s see what this old tub can do.”

I know what this old tub can do, Pencehaven thought. We’re on refresher training, for heck’s sake. If ever there’s a time that she’s got max speed available, it’s now.

Beside him, Jacobs looked sick. “We’re going to be back within range, then,” he said, “And noisier than a bitch in heat.”

“Not a problem, Renny,” Pencehaven said with more confidence than he felt. “Like I said, these are stupid torpedoes. They went for the noisemakers once — they’ll go for it again. And we both know she’s probably only carrying two. After that, she’s going to have to cut and run, and then we’ll nail her ourselves.”

“We haven’t been so good at that so far,” Jacobs pointed out.

Pencehaven shook his head, waving away the comment. “She’s mine, Renny. She’s all mine.”

Everything inside the submarine was shaking now as the submarine approached max possible speed. The water was coursing over her like a thick fluid, sound echoing through her limber hulls, vortices creating noise as the water flowed over every protuberance in her hull. The submarine was built for silence, but it was almost impossible to run silently at flank speed. The equipment required to maintain the engineering plant, the water over the hull, even the rattle of the periscope in its tube all contributed to the cacophony now pouring into the water.

As they watched, the contact turned back to meet them.

“Okay, bitch. Let’s see what you’ve got,” Pencehaven said softly. As they watched, the other submarine accelerated to her own flank speed. No new torpedoes appeared in the water. For a moment, Pencehaven marveled. They’d pegged it that time, hadn’t they? Two torpedoes, that was all. And now she was out of weapons, and running for safety. But she wouldn’t find it, not anywhere in this sector of water, not as long as USS Centurion was there.

“Captain, she’s headed back to the Arizona,” Pencehaven said. “I recommend you let her think we’ve lost her, then execute the maneuver recommended by the carrier.”

“Roger, that’s the plan,” the captain’s voice said, now firmly in control. “Go active, stay in a search mode. As soon as we lose contact. Let her think we’re clueless. Then secure on my command, and we’ll close the Arizona.”

It was the Army officer’s turn to look puzzled as the naval officers and Coast Guard officer clustered around the table turned pale. He looked from face to face, searching for a clue, then looked back at the tactical display. “What’s that funny symbol?”

Finally, Magruder spoke. “An enemy torpedo. And it’s headed straight for us.”

“But what’s Centurion doing?” Green broke in. A frown creased her face, then slowly cleared. She turned to Lab Rat, and nodded solemnly. “Seems that we’re not the only ones with some good ideas around here.”

They all stared at the screen as the Centurion screamed toward them, her speed leader increased to an almost unimaginable length for a submarine. New symbols popped onto the screen, evidence that she was ejecting noisemakers. As they watched, the torpedo symbol turned abruptly left, and headed straight for one. Just as abruptly, the Centurion changed course, then disappeared from the screen.

“I’m gonna owe that man a beer,” Batman said softly. He turned his attention back to the TAO. “How many more fighters have we got to launch?”

“Six more, sir,” the TAO replied. “All standing by and ready to go.”

Batman turned to Tombstone. “Just like the old days, isn’t it?” he asked softly.

“Not quite,” Tombstone said. “We’re not in a cockpit.”