Aleksandr Plecas stepped into Compartment Two, the first stop on his evening tour, visiting his crew and checking on the status of his submarine. First up was the Central Command Post. It was quiet on watch, as it had been since their encounter with the American submarine eight days ago. He stopped by the navigation table, evaluating Kazan’s progress toward the launch point.
It had been a long journey, much longer than if he had been tasked with attacking only targets along the East Coast of the United States. Instead, the target set covered almost the entirety of the country. From the right location, Kazan’s 2,500-kilometer-range cruise missiles could attack targets not only on the East Coast, but all the way north to Canada in the center of the United States, and a significant portion of the West Coast. That launch location was in the Gulf of Mexico, just south of the Texas shoreline.
Instead of heading toward America’s East Coast at ten knots using Kazan’s stealthy electric drive, Plecas had proceeded on the submarine’s main propulsion at twenty knots, staying in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, headed south. Although Kazan’s main propulsion was louder than the electric drive, the higher speed meant Kazan would be well past any containment the Americans tried to establish around his encounter with the American submarine near Iceland, if they assumed Kazan was proceeding at its stealthier, electric-drive speed.
Launching from the Gulf of Mexico had additional advantages. If the Americans discovered Plecas’s plan to attack the United States, their ASW forces would most likely be arrayed in a defensive screen designed to prevent Kazan from approaching launch range of the East Coast. By launching from the Gulf, Plecas had been able to remain far out in the Atlantic, skirting around any protective East Coast screen.
Kazan had passed east of Puerto Rico two days ago and was now curling westward below Cuba, approaching the Cayman Islands. Plecas was one day ahead of schedule; when providing the American with Kazan’s launch date and time, he had factored in an extra twenty-four hours in case there were any unforeseen delays. If there were none, Kazan would slow down toward the end of its transit to arrive on time.
Seated at the navigation table was Michman Erik Korzhev, the Electric Navigation Party Technician. Korzhev was busy verifying the operation of the submarine’s two inertial navigators. It had been a lengthy transit without any trips to periscope depth to obtain satellite position fixes. Satisfactory operation of their inertial navigators was critical.
Korzhev looked up. “Both navigators are stable and tracking together, Captain.”
Plecas acknowledged Korzhev’s report, then stopped by Hydroacoustic. In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, there had been few contacts, but now that they were preparing to enter the Gulf of Mexico, with Central America closing in on one side and Cuba on the other, contact density was increasing. However, as long as Kazan didn’t proceed to periscope depth or encounter an American warship, the additional contacts were of little concern.
Plecas ducked his head as he stepped through the watertight doorway into Compartment One, closing the heavy metal door carefully to prevent a transient from being transmitted into the surrounding water. Although there were no American submarines trailing Kazan or nearby—that he was aware of—shutting the door carefully was a habit, ingrained into every sailor in the Submarine Fleet. Plecas had entered Kazan’s Torpedo Room, occupying the top two levels of the compartment, its ten tubes arranged in two vertical rows, one on each side of the submarine.
Although Kazan was the second Yasen class submarine, it was notably superior to Severodvinsk, the lead ship of the class. Kazan’s keel was laid sixteen years after Severodvinsk’s due to construction delays, and as a result, Kazan boasted significant advances in tactical warfare systems, along with a shortened hull to reduce cost. Although initial plans called for two more vertical launch tubes and two fewer torpedo tubes, Kazan had retained the eight-tube vertical launch module and ten-torpedo-tube design of its predecessor.
Seated near the forward bulkhead below the torpedo launch console was Starshina First Class Oleg Noskov, a junior torpedoman on watch, who rose to his feet as the submarine’s Commanding Officer entered the compartment.
Noskov was only eighteen years old. It never ceased to amaze Plecas how the Russian military’s most advanced weapon platforms—its nuclear-powered submarines—were operated by such young men. Even with Plecas’s advanced age factored in, with this being his second command tour, the average age of his crew was only twenty-four. His officers weren’t much older: Erik Fedorov, Kazan’s First Officer and second-in-command, who was notably older than the officers beneath him, was only thirty-five.
Plecas spent a few minutes talking with Noskov, learning that he was from Yudanovka, not far from Plecas’s hometown of Panino, just east of Voronezh. Upon hearing where the young man was from, Plecas’s thoughts went to his family. Tatiana was also from Panino; they had started dating while in secondary school and had married shortly after Plecas graduated from Grechko Naval Academy in St. Petersburg.
Tatiana was one of nine children and Plecas one of six, and both had looked forward to having a large family. That hadn’t been in the cards, however. Tatiana had difficulty getting pregnant, and after twenty years of trying everything, including in vitro fertilization, they had finally accepted their fate.
A year later, Tatiana became pregnant with Natasha. Their miracle baby, Tatiana still called her, and the joy she had brought to their lives had been immeasurable. Natasha’s illness had been a devastating blow, threatening to take away their only child. Plecas was convinced that Tatiana, like himself, would do anything to save her. He knew Tatiana would forgive him for what he was about to do. The Russian government, however, would not.
Plecas was jarred from his thoughts by a subtle change in the deck’s vibration. The submarine’s main engines were straining a bit more than normal.
He bid farewell to Noskov, then proceeded aft to investigate.