Sea Strike

43

“Retainer Zero One. This is Yancy Five Niner Bravo. We’ve got him boxed! We’ve got him boxed!”

In the distance, the S-3 Viking pivoted on its wingtip like a hunting hawk and cut across the nose of the Sea Comanche.

Going to hover, Lieutenant Vince Arkady snapped an order to his S.O. “Down dome!”

“Deploying sound head,” Gus Grestovitch replied, keying the command into his systems.

“Do we have a tactical?”

“Yes, sir. Receiving data from Yancy Five Niner’s buoy pattern. They have two passive buoy lines down and they have a contact. Single submerged target, depth two hundred meters. Course 190 degrees true. Estimated speed sixteen knots. Bearing to target zero four five relative.”

“Do we have positive target ID?”

“It's submarine contact. Blade count indicating a single seven-bladed screw. No plant noise registering. The data annex can’t provide a class identification. She’s real quiet, Lieutenant … so quiet I can just barely keep her acquired.”

Arkady frowned deeply, the skin of his forehead tugging at the sweatbands of his helmet. “That doesn’t sound right. Not for a Chinese boat turning that rate of speed.”

He thumbed his transmitter key. “Yancy Five Niner, do you guys have a positive target ID?”

“Negative, Zero One!” an excited voice replied. “It’s got to be one of the Red boats, though. We have verified through Hunt Boss that none of our boats are out here. We have bays open and we have fish spinning for drop.”

This kid was eager. His crew wanted a kill hack under their cockpit window.

“Yancy Five Niner, uh, stand by. There’s something screwy here. This guy seems too quiet. Advise you verify ID before you engage.”

“We have ID, Zero One,” the Viking’s S.O. insisted. “This guy must be running under a thermocline. We have adequate targeting to drop. We are rolling in now!”

“Hey, Gus,” Arkady asked quietly, “did you check the bathythermograph before we left the Duke?”

“Yeah. On the last set of readings there were no appreciable thermoclines above three hundred meters.”

“Down dome! Full extension! Two hundred and fifty meters!”

“Dome deploying, sir!”

“Five Niner, this is Retainer Zero One. Advise you wave off until we verify this bogey. There’s something wrong here!”

“Retainer, the bogey is approaching the box perimeter. If we don’t drop now we could lose our firing solution! We are dropping!”

The sun gleamed off the windscreen of the ASW jet as it circled back to set up its approach.

“Lieutenant,” Grestovitch interjected. “We have full extension.

Bathythermograph does not record a thermocline.

We have no variance in the target’s sound level.”

“Aw, Jesus! Gus, go active on the sonar! Full power!

Attack ranging!”

“Yes, sir!”

“And override Yancy Five Niner’s control on the sonobuoy lines! Bring them active too. All of them!”

“Aye, aye!”

In an instant, the submarine sound environment exploded. A dozen different sonar transponders snapped on, lashing half a hundred square sea miles with interlocking waves of ultrasonic energy. The inhabitants of those sea miles, natural and manmade, panicked.

“Retainer Zero One!” the Viking’s S.O. roared. “What in the hell are you doing?”

“Saving your ass, Yancy. Stand by!”

“Target is accelerating,” Gus reported. “Aspect change, target is turning … Target is diving! Audio spike on passive channels. Data annex now identifying target as a Block Akula attack submarine. Russian Pacific Fleet. I say again, the target is Russian!”

“Son of a bitch,” a shaken voice whispered over the radio link.

“Roger that, Yancy. I advise you remember that we aren’t the only kids playing on this block.”

“Losing target through the thermocline, Lieutenant,” Grestovitch reported. “He’s really taking off. I think we scared him.”

“Not only him, of’ buddy.” Arkady closed his eyes for a moment and emptied his lungs in a sigh of relief.