Renard arrived ahead of the fleeing Romeo and loitered. Like a wounded prey, the targeted submarine would attract attention.
Renard’s monitor showed that the helicopters and frigate had reversed course, detaching to escort the Taiwanese tanker convoy through the corridor they had swept and leaving the stealth patrol craft Tai Ping and the submarine Hai Lang to hunt the Chinese submarine.
If nothing else, Renard thought, the distraction will enable the convoy to pass.
“Sporadic active sonar from the Tai Ping,” Jake said.
“The Tai Ping holds the Romeo with its blue-green laser,” Renard said. “That sensor is insignificant at long range but inescapable at short. The pinging is to remind the Romeo that the Tai Ping is there. It is instilling fear.”
“New submerged contact!” Remy said. “Moving fast.”
Jake huddled beside Remy and studied the data.
“It just raced by us,” Jake said. “Another Romeo, running in to help his buddy. It was rattling on multiple frequencies and was deaf to the world.”
“Let it go,” Renard said.
Several heads turned to Renard, the most accusative glare coming from Commander Ye, seated in front of Jake where he handled weapons control.
“The Tai Ping can manage against two Romeos,” Renard said. “We will not reveal our position for less than a Kilo.”
Minutes passed in which Renard sensed the disgruntlement of the Taiwanese for his having let a Romeo pass unscathed. He began to doubt his decision of leniency when Remy pressed his headset to his ears, closed his eyes, and raised his finger.
“Medium-speed screws,” he said. “Bearing three-five-zero. Seven blades!”
“Kilo class!” Renard said. “Correlate speed. Let the integrators process and give me bearing rate. We know its destination, so apply your judgment to the solution.”
Jake bounced between Remy and Ye, iterating raw acoustic data towards a solution that targeted the Kilo.
“Range is sketchy,” Jake said. “But we’ve got something tight enough for a good shot. Recommend you take it. Tube one is ready.”
“Shoot tube one!” Renard said.
A muffled whine emanated from the torpedo room and Renard’s ears popped as high-pressure air relieved into the compartment.
“Successful launch,” Ye said. “Torpedo course is zero-two-five. It will turn its seeker on in three miles.”
Jake appeared in front of Renard.
“Let’s make it a passive shot,” he said.
“Passive?” Renard asked.
“We can always make it active again, but with that Kilo moving–best we can tell at fifteen knots–that torpedo is going to hear him. And if we keep the active seeker off, he’ll never hear it coming. No evasion.”
“Indeed,” Renard said. “Do it then.”
Jake hunched over Ye.
“Seeker is commanded to perform passive search, optimized for the Kilo’s screws,” Ye said.
Two minutes later, the torpedo’s speed leader shortened on Renard’s display.
“Our torpedo has slowed. Its seeker is conducting a passive search,” Ye said.
The petty officer seated beside Ye rattled off quick words in Mandarin. Ye translated.
“Our torpedo hears the Kilo,” Ye said.
Jake studied the monitor over Ye’s head.
“Between our own sensors and the weapon, we’ve got him nailed,” Jake said. “Our torpedo’s a mile and a half away from the target.”
“Turn on the active seeker at five hundred yards,” Renard said. “Just to be certain.”
The weapon closed. Ye tapped his console.
“Active seeker is engaged,” Ye said. “Our torpedo switched straight into range-gating and is shortening its ping interval. The Kilo is accelerating.”
“Countermeasures!” Remy said.
“Guide the weapon through if needed,” Renard said.
The deep rumble reverberated through the Hai Lang’s hull. The throbbing hiss that followed indicated that vaporized water had bubbled to the surface. Renard even heard a metallic creak.
“Hull rupture,” Remy said. “The Kilo is sinking.”
Renard realized that he had defeated one of the world’s most feared submarines. He also felt an uneasy sickness in having killed dozens of his submarining brethren. He sat and calmed himself, but the veins in his neck throbbed.
“Keep your wits about you men,” he said. “There may be other submarines nearby. There will be plenty of time for celebration later.”
A distant explosion filled the operations room with less vigor than the prior detonation.
“Explosion on the bearing of contact one, the first Romeo,” Remy said. “Hull fracture. It’s going down.”
“The Tai Ping was weapons free as soon as it heard our warhead,” Renard said. “And it wasted no time taking out an old Romeo.”
The day is ours, Renard thought.
Silence enshrouded the room. Renard considered searching for the second Romeo he had heard running to the first’s rescue but decided against turning himself into a potential friendly fire target for the Tai Ping.
He decided to clear the area when Remy stirred.
“Hull popping,” Remy said.
“What?” Renard asked. “On what bearing?”
“One-three-three,” Remy said. “Hull popping has stopped. I hear nothing else.”
“Someone’s changing depth,” Jake said. “Their hull is creaking with the pressure change. If all we hear is the hull popping, it could be a slow moving Kilo.”
“Perhaps someone is coming shallow to share the bad news with the Chinese East Sea Fleet Command,” Renard said.
“We just scared the shit out of someone,” Jake said. “You think we should drive towards him and check it out?”
“An Agosta against an alerted Kilo on even terms?” Renard asked. “I would consider the outcome a coin toss at best. Would you wager your life on that?”
Jake frowned.
“Hold on,” he said and darted to Remy.
“Antoine,” Jake said. “Any biologics–marine life–on the bearing of the hull popping?”
“Yes. A very large shrimp bed.”
Jake trotted across the row of Subtics stations and sat at an empty seat. He fiddled with the console.
“Nothing yet,” he said. “But I’m going to try different elevation angles.”
Renard’s curiosity got the better of him and he gravitated behind Jake. He inhaled cool a tobacco taste and blew smoke into the overhead.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked.
“Hole-in-ocean,” Jake said.
“All I see is mush,” Renard said. “This system is just an experimental waste of hydrophones.”
“Agreed it’s shitty as a detection sensor,” Jake said. “But let’s see about localization.”
A dark spot appeared on the screen.
“Even if that is our target, I can’t shoot a torpedo at an ink dot.”
Jake tapped keys.
“I’m trying to listen on the best frequency that the shrimp are putting out,” Jake said. “It’s broadband, but we can still optimize within the higher frequencies.”
The blot on the screen became oblong and piqued Renard’s interest.
“Not bad,” he said.
“Let’s apply a filter,” Jake said.
Like photography software, the Subtics filter cleaned the image of a cylinder with rounded ends. A small rectangle atop the cylinder hinted at a submarine’s sail.
“Mon Dieu! It looks like a submarine,” Renard said.
“I’m comparing the dimensions to the scale of a Kilo,” Jake said. “We know how many degrees of arc that acoustic silhouette spans, and we know the length of a Kilo. We’ll have to guess at the aspect, but it looks broadside enough. A little trigonometry gives us the range. And since he’s not moving, his speed is zero. You have a targeting solution.”
“Thirteen miles,” Renard said. “That’s a strain on a torpedo’s range.”
“Shoot it slow,” Jake said. “Conserve fuel. If this guy’s really scared, he might just sit there for a while and wait to see what happens. We can slip a slow one up his tailpipe, don’t you think?”
“Commander Ye,” Renard said. “You can get thirteen miles out of a torpedo, and set it with passive homing, can you not?”
Ye tapped his keyboard.
“Yes,” he said. “It will be a very slow-moving torpedo, but the weapon in tube two is ready,”
“Shoot tube two,” Renard said.
*
Renard checked his Rolex. The torpedo had been running for twenty minutes.
“Our torpedo maintains speed, already running at minimum,” Ye said. “Our torpedo seeker is conducting a passive search.”
The petty officer seated beside Ye shook his head and mumbled a dirge. Ye translated.
“Torpedo hears nothing,” Ye said.
“It’s where it should be,” Jake said. “The Kilo hasn’t moved. I still have it on hole-in-ocean. It may just be too quiet.”
“Fuel remaining, Commander Ye?” Renard asked.
“Seven percent.”
“Damn,” Renard said. “A dilemma. If our solution is off by even a mile, the torpedo could pass by and never hear it. If we go active, we alert the Kilo and begin a chase with almost no torpedo fuel.”
Hoping for insight, he looked to Jake.
“Fifty-fifty,” Jake said. “Use your instincts.”
“Commence active search,” Renard said.
He retreated to his captain’s chair.
“Active return!” Ye said. “Torpedo has acquired and is accelerating. Fuel remaining, six percent.”
“High speed screws!” Remy said. “The Kilo is accelerating. And there are countermeasures!”
“Bearing to the Kilo?” Renard asked.
“One-three-two,” Remy said. “It won’t change much. He’s too far away, sir. We won’t track the Kilo from here. The weapon will have to find him itself.”
“Accelerate the weapon through the countermeasures,” Renard said, “and recommence the search.”
The sailor beside Ye hunched over his screen, tapped his keyboard, and talked to Ye.
“Weapon has reacquired and is closing. We have a solution to the Kilo,” Ye said. “It has reached fifteen knots and is still accelerating. Our weapon is at sixty-three knots and would impact in two minutes, but it will run out of fuel sixteen seconds before impact, three hundred meters from the target.”
“You assume nominal Kilo acceleration?” Renard asked.
“Yes.”
“Target aspect?”
“I don’t understand,” Ye said.
Jake raced beside him, pointed at the monitor, and explained. He looked to Renard.
“Two-one-zero relative,” Jake said. “He’s running, but not tail to weapon. He’s trying to slip left to work himself out of the torpedo seeker’s acquisition field.”
“Then a command detonation will have some broadside effect?” Renard asked.
“Yeah,” Jake said as he ran his hand through his hair. “Shit, Pierre, that’s a great idea.”
“Commander Ye,” Renard said. “Command-detonate the weapon at one-half percent fuel remaining.”
Renard exhaled smoke as the hair on his neck stood.
If I miss, he thought, that Kilo will come for us.
*
The torpedo’s life waned. The algorithms within its central nervous system cried out alarms. One program shrieked in machine code that fuel approached exhaustion. Another requested more time to close in on the target. The central processing unit concluded that its conflicting programs portended failure.
It asked its onboard gyroscope for an update and sent its position to its launch platform–the submarine Hai Lang that hosted the torpedo tube from which it had sprung. It then calculated its target’s course, speed, and depth and passed the data via wire to the launch platform. The launch platform acknowledged receipt of the data but offered no resolution to the impending mission failure.
An algorithm took center stage and howled that failure via fuel exhaustion was eminent. The central processing unit relayed this to the launch platform. This time, the launch platform offered more than acknowledgment. It offered purpose.
The new purpose was to detonate before death. The launch platform assured the central processing unit that this would destroy the target and complete the mission. The torpedo armed itself and gave the launch platform a final chance to change its command. It did not.
The torpedo sent the detonation signal to its warhead.
*
Renard tensed and leapt towards Antoine Remy.
“Well, what do you hear?” he asked.
“The explosion is subsiding. I hear the Kilo’s flow noise. It is still tracking at twenty-eight knots.”
“Damn,” Renard said. “We missed and are now in an equal battle.”
“Wait,” Remy said. “The Kilo’s screw is slowing. The screw has stopped.”
Renard had his hand on the nape of Remy’s neck and noticed he was squeezing too hard. He let go.
“High-pressure air!” Remy said. “It’s surfacing!”
Tension flowed from Renard. He inhaled the cool tobacco taste and relaxed.
“The only thing better than sinking a Kilo,” he said, “is forcing one to surface.”