Ernie Colon’s first thought—his only thought as he was violently hurled against his harness—was that the supercavitation drive of the D had prematurely engaged. That would have accounted for the sudden surge. But the submarine hadn’t gone forward or backward, it had spun off to the side. Even a one-jet firing would not produce that kind of effect.
The captain gripped the armrests as the D turned quickly in a clockwise direction. Then the submarine stopped suddenly, accompanied by a sound like that of a large branch snapping in a high wind. Everyone was pitched hard to port when the vessel stopped.
The disturbance took three or four seconds, after which the D settled back on a relatively even keel. The lights were on and all of the crew were still harnessed in their seats. They were probably shaken and some of them bloodied where foreheads, chins, and cheeks had struck the angled wall. But they were upright and moving. Colon’s headset had been flipped from his head. He found it hanging alongside his chair. It was still plugged into the armrest.
“Status report,” Colon said.
Lieutenant Michaelson ignored a bloody right palm. He had probably torn it on a console projection.
“All systems are on-line,” he said.
Colon slipped the headset back on. “Ant Hill, are you there?”
“We are,” Dr. Carr said.
“Abby?” Colon said.
There was no response.
“Repeat, Abby. Dr. Albertson, come in. Rear Admiral, come in.”
“What happened?” Carr asked. “Our instruments are showing the D has made a nearly complete horizontal turn along with a five-meter rise.”
“Ant Hill, have you got the Abby?” Colon asked.
“No. Captain, what happened?”
The scientist’s voice was even, unexcited. Colon was glad to hear that. It was too early for the captain to know how he himself felt.
“We have no idea,” Colon said. “We saw something approaching, but we didn’t feel an impact and the engines didn’t light. All we know is that we were kicked around for about four seconds.”
“Sir, sonar is picking up a large mass to starboard,” said Lieutenant Junior Grade Bain.
“Specifics?” Colon snapped.
“Working on that.”
“Rockford, ramjet report.”
Lt. (j.g.) Wayne Rockford was the man with his foot on the pedal of the supercavitation drive. He was sitting on the port side, to Colon’s left. The black-haired young man was looking at his controls, not at the captain, waiting for a command.
“The jets didn’t do this. They’re silent,” Rockford said.
“Bain?”
“Still working, sir,” she said.
Colon knew she was. He just wanted to make sure she worked faster. During combat or any kind of in-field trauma, it was important to keep the survivors from slipping into a “woe is us” mind-set.
“Sir, the computer’s running a database search of the visible dimensions,” Bain said. “It looks like a submarine out there.”
“Wouldn’t you have seen them?”
“We should have.”
“Not if they were running at a minimum of fifteen knots and came at you between sweeps, from below,” Carr said. “We just ran a sim.”
“Can you narrow the ID for me?” Colon asked. “Who’s out there?”
“Checking,” Bain said. “It looks like—”
Bain fell silent as something screeched outside the hull, on the starboard side of the nose. It sounded as though someone were running a fork across a clean plate, perhaps the other submarine scraping his hull. Colon suddenly had no interest in finding out what was there. He swiveled his chair to port to where helmsman Lt. (j.g.) Jim Withers was seated.
“Mr. Withers, ready standard drive,” Colon said.
“Yes, sir.”
“What are you going to do?” Carr asked.
“Get away from whatever is ahead of us,” Colon reported.
Withers tapped the series of small, flat panels that brought the two turboelectric screws on-line.
“Sir, the object is moving!” Bain reported. “And there’s another object coming into view.”
“Toward us?”
“Yes, sir. But. . . from above!” she said, her voice sounding pale.
The scraping sound continued. Colon listened as the propeller shafts began to turn. In a larger submarine the noise would not be as noticeable as it was in the Tempest D. There were no clanks or dings. The captain was relieved. That meant they hadn’t been dented in the apparent collision or subsequent spin.
Just then the D lurched backward. It stopped suddenly, then angled toward the stern.
“Mr. Walters?” Colon said.
“Sir, ballast tanks registering normal,” said the ensign. “That wasn’t us. We’re being pulled down.”
“Flooding?”
“Negative,” Lieutenant Michaelson said. He was glancing at the small monitor that tracked electric pulses running through the hull. A break in the circuits would suggest a leak. “Our weight is unchanged, hull is intact.”
“Speed, Mr. Withers?” Colon asked.
“Screws nearly at full, sir.”
“Lieutenant Michaelson, jettison towline,” Colon ordered. The lieutenant turned his chair to the button that released the cable. He pushed it. Captain Colon listened for the ping that would tell him the disengage function had been completed.
It never came.
“What happened?” Colon demanded.
“Sir, automatic tow release inoperative.” Michaelson undid his harness and dropped to the deck. “Going manual.”
Michaelson opened a small panel under his station. He took a foot-long socket wrench from a hook inside the door and reached into the compartment. It was an awkward reach but he managed to get the socket on the nut that held the towline plate to the nose. He gave it a hard turn. Nothing moved. He tried again, grunting through it. The nut still refused to give.
“It’s jammed, Captain!” Michaelson shouted from the compartment. “It may have been dented. I can fix it, but that will take time.”
That wasn’t good. They couldn’t remove the tow-plate itself without letting in the sea.
“Start on that Lieutenant. Are we sure the cable is still attached?” Colon asked.
Bain glanced over at Michaelson’s station. “The connector light is red,” the lieutenant junior grade told the captain.
That wasn’t good either. It meant they were still getting current from the battery pack in the spool control on board Abby. As with the hull, current flow was the means for determining for certain that the cable had been released.
The D continued its slow slide backward.
“Sir, we’re down seven meters from postincident position,” Ensign Walters informed him.
“Captain, the submarine image is exiting sonar range from the bottom and the second object is growing larger from the top,” Bain said.
“Identify,” Colon said.
“It’s still too far to determine.”
Something knocked the top of the hull. It was followed by a second and then a third strike.
“Sonar shows material dropping from the second object. Sir—”
“Yes?” Colon pressed.
“That could be the Abby. The hold was open. Debris may be falling through.”
“Mr. Walters, drop forward ballast to level us off,” Colon said.
“Aye, sir.”
The nose of the D began to drop. But only for a moment. Something stopped them with a jerk.
“Hold ballast,” Colon said.
“The cable,” Michaelson said suddenly.
“What, Lieutenant?” Colon asked.
Michaelson slid from the compartment. “Sir, I felt it in here. The towline just pulled on us. The whole attachment was jolted pretty hard.”
There were several additional bangs on the hull.
“Sir, second object is dropping more debris,” Lieutenant Junior Grade Bain said. “Some of it several meters large—”
Another jolting tug interrupted her, this one harder than the others. The D began to dive slowly.
“First object back on sonar,” Bain said.
“We’re descending at one point two meters a second,” Withers said.
“That’s the same rate as the object,” Bain said. “Sir, it’s pulling us down.”
That thought had just occurred to Colon.
“Second object no longer visible,” Bain continued. “Debris field descending, one very large object also dropping.”
“Lieutenant Michaelson, are we still getting a red light down there?” Colon asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Mr. Withers, drop ballast to match the speed of descent. I don’t want extra strain on that forward plate.”
“Aye, sir.”
“The big one is the spool,” Colon muttered. The fucking spool was implied by the captain’s tone.
“What do you mean?” Carr pressed.
“The large object that just entered the water,” Colon told him. “I’m betting that something did strike the Abby, probably a submarine, and tore the towline spool loose. It’s going to pull us down.”
“Can’t you eject it?” Carr asked.
“The join nozzle is jammed,” Colon said. “Something must have twisted the cable and bent the connecting bolts.” He thought for a moment. As he did, he felt sick. “I’ll bet that’s it.”
“What?” Carr said.
“Sir, we’re at twenty-five meters and picking up speed!” Withers told him.
“What’s our speed?”
“Three knots and climbing.”
“Bearing?”
“Northwest,” Withers replied.
“Dr. Carr, what’s the depth in that direction?”
“We’re working it,” Carr said. “You’re heading toward the coast—we make the bottom at about seventy meters.”
“Mr. Withers, give me minimum reverse,” Colon said. “Let’s see if we can slow ourselves down.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Lieutenant, watch that towline plate.”
Michaelson acknowledged. Colon listened as the screws powered up slightly. He could feel at once that there was no change.
“Descending at four knots and rising,” Withers reported.
“Captain, a moment ago you said you had an insight into what happened,” Carr said.
“Yeah. The harpoon effect. The reason reverse engines didn’t do squat for us.”
“I’m not familiar with that term.”
“When a whaler threw a harpoon without realizing there was something snagged on the line, usually another man’s leg, the whale would submerge and pull that ‘something’ down,” Colon told him.
“You’re saying this other object is dragging you.”
“It would explain why we can’t bootstrap ourselves.”
There was a short silence.
“Captain, the DOD satellite monitor just picked up an emergency beacon from your position,” Carr said. “A Chinese signature.”
“What kind of beacon?”
“SOS. It’s an automated signal.”
“Meaning they probably took it on the chin, worse than we did, and their systems are dead,” Colon said.
“Sir, the sonar profile fits the Russian Romeo-class submarine,” Bain said.
“Bingo,” Colon said. “The Chinese have been buying Romeos and refitting them with their own upgrades.”
The captain now knew exactly how much dead weight was pulling them down: 31,750 kilos. He also had a good idea what was keeping the two vessels together. The fucking towline. That would explain the pressure on the nose plate. There was just one thing he didn’t know.
What they were going to do about it.