“What have you got?” asked Commander Bowman. He had been summoned to Colorado’s radio room, located adjacent to the control room. XO Mauk accompanied him.
The twenty-six-year-old radio room tech looked up from his seated position at the comms console. Colorado’s disguised floating surface radio antenna maintained a secure link to Pearl Harbor. “Sir, COMSUBPAC just reported picking up an emergency DISSUB beacon. GPS coordinates are consistent with the Russian boat’s operating area.”
“Advise COMSUBPAC that the beacon might be from a Russian submarine escape pod.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
Bowman and Mauk returned to the horizontal large screen display in the control room.
“Maybe the crew survived,” Mauk said.
“The beacon is a good sign.”
“Who do you think is going to rescue them? I don’t know of any nearby Russian assets.”
“Probably the Philippines. I expect COMSUBPAC will be talking with Manila soon, issuing an international disabled sub alert.”
“Skipper, what if the PLAN shows up instead? I don’t think that will go over well with the survivors.”
“That would be ironic alright.”
* * * *
Captain Zhou Jun, Dr. Meng Park and a dozen staff were inside the S5 subterranean operations center at Shendao, Hainan Island. They all focused on the flat-panel wide-screen display secured to a nearby wall. Live video images transmitted from a Y-8FQ PLA-Navy maritime patrol aircraft filled the monitor.
“There it is,” shouted the S5 duty officer, pointing to the upper left corner of the screen. The escape pod surged through the water-air interface in the morning sun, rising beyond the midpoint of the vertical steel cylinder before re-submerging. The pod repeated the oscillation several times before reaching buoyant equilibrium. The crown of the twenty foot high capsule was about four feet above the sea surface.
“The Vipers took out the sub!” announced Captain Zhou, officially confirming the kill.
Jubilation erupted from the assembled. Handshakes and high fives broke out.
Zhou saluted Meng Park as the S5 watch officer approached. “Congratulations, Captain. Serpent worked perfectly.”
“The thanks belong to Dr. Meng. This whole project is her brainchild.”
Zhou’s deputy turned toward Meng and bowed. “Brilliant concept, Dr. Meng.”
Meng Park smiled. “Thank you.” She turned back to view the screen; it displayed a close-up view of the bobbing escape pod.
Dazzled by what had transpired, euphoria flooded Meng’s senses. It really worked!
Meng and Zhou had observed Serpent’s attack remotely. The network of seafloor hydrophones scattered throughout the South China Sea allowed real time monitoring of the hunt. Zhou had supplemented the bottom listening stations with sonobuoys dropped from the Y-8FQ that orbited above the underwater battlefield. Terabytes of acoustic energy data poured into S5 every minute via satellite, allowing the S5 supercomputers to generate three-dimensional positions of all six attacking Viperinas and the Russian sub. Unlike the Novosibirsk or the Colorado, S5 had the decrypt key that allowed eavesdropping of the Vipers’ machine to machine acoustic comms.
Meng focused on the rescue capsule, wondering when the survivors would open the top hatch. She was about to ask Zhou a question when she noticed the disturbance in the water near the pod. Something was just below the surface, orbiting the pod in steadily decreasing radii.
“Oh my god!” Meng screamed.
* * * *
“What’s that noise?” called out one of the submariners inside the escape capsule.
Captain Petrovich heard the scraping racket, too. “Quiet everyone,” he ordered. He touched the steel wall of the chamber. He could feel the vibration in the tips of his fingers. What’s that? he wondered.
With a suppressed tone, Yermakov said, “Captain, maybe someone from a passing boat is securing a line to the pod.”
“Let’s hope so.”
The metallic rasp stopped, rendering the interior of the capsule silent. To a man, the bliss of impending rescue was the universal—and last—thought of the Novosibirsk’s survivors.
* * * *
“WOW!” shouted the Colorado’s sonar supervisor.
“What?” demanded Commander Bowman. He stood next to the horizontal large screen display. Executive officer Mauk was at his side.
“Captain, I just picked up another explosion.” Petty Officer Anderson pulled down his headphones.
“Where?” Bowman asked as he and Mauk joined the sonar supervisor
“Same general area as the Yasen,” Anderson said.
“Ordnance detonating in the bottom wreckage?”
“No sir. It was a surface blast.”
“The rescue capsule?”
Anderson looked up, facing the captain. “Maybe. I’m going to replay the event.” He worked his keyboard and the sharp crack of an explosion broadcast from an overhead loudspeaker.
“My god, Tom,” muttered Mauk. “They wouldn’t self-destruct, would they?”
Commander Bowman did not respond, lost in his thoughts. What the hell’s going on?