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Captain Henrich J. Absen was not a man to fret. Affable, cheerful, slow-talking and deep thinking was how his crew would describe him. But today, he was as far from his usual demeanor as they had ever seen. Today, and for the last several days, he was wound tight, concentrating. Today he was hunting.
“Helm, right fifteen degrees rudder, steady on course one seven six.”
“Right fifteen degrees rudder, steady on course one seven six aye...my rudder is right fifteen.”
“Dive, Make your depth two three zero.”
“Make your depth two three zero aye, sir. Stern planes two-degree down bubble.”
Sonarman Leslie Morton looked up at the Chief of the Boat, the most senior enlisted man on board, who was holding a cup of coffee perched on his ample gut. “We’re still heading south?” he whispered. “Aren’t we almost to Antarctica?”
The COB shrugged, took a sip of his ever-present brew—what submariners called “lifer-juice.” “The Old Man knows what he’s doing. Just keep your ears on.” He felt a lot more relaxed, even in combat conditions, since that damned Political Officer had his fatal “accident.” Thinking of it made him smile to himself.
Morton reached up to put the other headphone on his right ear. The one on the left never came off when he was on watch. Computers would alert him, but he liked to hear any contact live and right away, no matter how good the equipment was.
Ten minutes later he got his wish. “Conn: Sonar, submerged narrowband contact, possible sub, bearing two zero five, range...computer estimates thirty to sixty nautical miles by bottom bounce ranging.”
The captain’s voice was steady. “Helm, all ahead flank. Right fifteen degrees rudder, steady on course two-zero-five. Sonar, go active sector search with minimum power. Man battle stations.”
The men in the control room glanced at each other as they complied. “Maneuvering answers all ahead flank, steady on course two zero five.” The submarine, usually so silent, now hummed with a machine vibration, a sound that made everyone nervous, set their teeth on edge, like laughing in a library.
“What the hell is he doing?” Ensign James Cooper whispered to the COB. “They’ll hear us; we’re cavitating at flank speed!” He meant the boat’s screws, or propellers, were going so fast that they formed bubbles of water vapor in the water, and with those bubbles came noise. “And they’ll hear the sonar pings!”
The COB looked at the green young officer with a mixture of condescension and patience. “If they had a crew, son, you’d be right. But the reports said these pirates only have a couple of bubbleheads, max. Think about it – a handful of men to capture a boat, you send SEALs or suchlike mostly, not sub drivers. So the Old Man’s taking a chance going to flank speed, catch up with them. The sonar is for the ice. Be kind of pointless if we run into an ice keel and kill ourselves.”
The devil was listening. “Conn: sonar, active sonar contact ice, dead ahead six thousand yards, depth three three zero.”
“You see?” The COB chuckled.
Captain Absen called, “Dive, make your depth five zero zero.”
“Make my depth five zero zero, aye.” As the helmsman angled the bow planes slightly down, the powerful steam turbine engines drove the boat to the target depth of five hundred feet, plenty of room to miss the mountain of ice looming above them.
Six hours later the contact was still intermittent but strengthening. It had moved around, echoes thrown here and there off the sea floor and the floating mountains of sea ice, but it was still generally to the south-southwest.
Ensign Cooper handed the captain a secure computer tablet. “ULF message from Fleet, sir.”
Absen looked at the decoded print. He turned the screen over, face down to the console. “Thank you, Ensign.”
“Any return message, sir?”
“That will be all, Mister Cooper.”
The junior officer swallowed. “Aye aye, sir.” He nodded and walked back to the chief. He really should be asking the Executive Officer questions like these but the COB was a lot more tolerant of his inquisitiveness. “Master Chief, he’s not doing anything. The orders tell us to turn west.”
“Sir.” The honorific dripped with barely concealed sarcasm. “Neither of us is qualified to second-guess the Old Man. If you want that little gold bar to ever turn silver, I suggest you watch and learn.” The Chief of the Boat stared at his nominal superior, then relented. “Look, Ensign, we know the situation out here better than Fleet. They say look over there, but we know we got something over here. What’s more important, following orders or completing the mission?”
“Sure, but what if he’s wrong?”
“Then he pays for it. Not you, not me. Be happy you’re not him. But someday you might be, and there’s a lot of worse commanders than him to be your example.”
Morton squeezed his sonar headset abruptly with his hands, staring at his displays. “Contact firm, screws bearing two two zero, Ohio class making turns for fifteen knots, range approximately twenty thousand yards.”
Captain Absen’s gaze narrowed. “Helm, come right and steer two two zero. Fire control to torpedo room: Load tube one with a Special, two with Mark 48 ADCAP. Make tubes one and two ready in all respects, including opening outer doors.”
“Make tubes one and two ready in all respects, including opening outer doors, aye. Firing solution computed, awaiting torpedo room actions.”
“Conn, Sonar, active contact, ice, depth four eight zero. Quartermaster reports sounding five six zero feet.”
Captain Absen chewed his lower lip. Only eighty feet between the sea bed and the bottom of the iceberg. The boat was less than fifty feet tall; he could try to go through if he was willing to risk scraping the ice or the sea bottom. Too close. He had searched for and stalked this bastard for the last week and he wasn’t going to risk his boat – and failure – by rushing now.
“XO, plot and execute a circumnavigation of that ice. Helm, all ahead standard. Morty, keep your ears on. If you lose him I’ll have to cut your grog ration.”
The crew breathed a sigh of relief; at the slower standard instead of flank speed, the noise of their passage dropped dramatically as their screws stopped cavitating.
Fifteen minutes passed as they steered around the iceberg. The XO reported, “Back on closing course, range twenty thousand yards. Solution recomputed. We can fire any time now, sir.”
“Isn’t it too far?” Ensign Cooper whispered to the COB.
“Against an enemy sub, sure. They’d hear the torpedo and have all day to take action. At least they’d shoot back. But these guys are blind and deaf, or they should be.”
Sonarman Morton reported, “Target is blowing tanks and rising.”
Absen looked at his second-in-command. “XO, what do you think? Communicating?”
“Maybe they’re going to fire missiles.”
The captain rubbed the day-old growth on his chin. “You think they could have defeated the interlocks and PAL codes?”
“Doesn’t matter what I think, sir. We have to assume the worst.”
“Right.” The captain stood up, crossing his arms. “Lock solution into the Special and prepare to fire. Ensign Cooper, take the firing station.”
“Solution locked aye. Ready to fire.”
“XO, do you concur with special weapon employment?”
The XO nodded, pulling the key from where it hung around his neck. He took out a small plastic codebook and broke the seal. “I have my code and key,” he said formally.
Captain Absen took out his key and code and broke his seal in turn. “I have my code and key.”
The two men took their places at the two nuclear weapon stations. They were across the small room from each other, deliberately out of reach of any one man. The captain began calling out the activation sequence.
“Select Torpedo Special One, Tube One.”
“Torpedo Special One, Tube One selected.”
“Input PAL code.”
“PAL code input.” This was the code that allowed the nuclear warhead to arm itself.
“Confirm with key turn to the left, together on the count of three then turn. Ready, one, two, three, turn.”
The two men turned their keys simultaneously under the wide eyes of the control room crew.
“Confirm valid solution in Tube One.”
“Solution valid confirmed Tube One, aye.”
Captain Absen looked across at Ensign Cooper. “Fire One.”
There came a thud and a whoosh audible to everyone aboard as the torpedo was ejected from its tube by compressed air, and then began its run toward the target.
“Left full rudder, all ahead flank. Come to course zero zero zero. Get us out of here. In about thirteen minutes it’s going to be very, very noisy.” The captain’s voice was calm, his tone dry and droll.
The crew relaxed. The Old Man had it under control.
“Torpedo running hot, straight and normal. Eighteen thousand and closing.” The torpedo forged ahead at high speed, almost two thousand yards a minute.
Morton called from the sonar shack. “Target has leveled and is slowing.”
The captain and XO exchanged glances. “Shit,” said the XO.
“I should have taken us under the ice. Damn it. Call out range every thousand yards.”
“Target has opened outer doors and flooded tubes. Wait, no. Something doesn’t sound right.” Morton fiddled with his controls, rapidly typing commands into his keyboard. “Sir, I don’t have an algorithm for our own boomers, so the computer shows the closest match, but I think they just opened their missile hatch. Hatches. I have...eighteen distinct signatures recorded.”
“Seventeen thousand.”
“Holy shit! They’re going to launch their Tridents! Fire Control: Snapshot tubes three and four on submerged contact!”
The Fire control party at the weapons station frantically began the sequence to fire the two conventional Mark 48 torpedoes. Ensign Cooper stood helplessly by as the skilled enlisted men did everything much faster than he could have.
“Communications. Flash message to Fleet in the clear, send their estimated position and recommend immediate strike with anything they have.”
The XO stepped in close to his captain to speak softly. “It’s going to be too late. If Torp One doesn’t get them, nothing will.”
“I know. It’s better than doing nothing. And who knows, maybe the horse will sing.”
“Sixteen thousand.”
“Eight minutes. Just eight minutes. How many missiles can they launch in eight minutes?” Absen raised his voice. “Anyone? Master Chief? You were on a boomer before, right?”
“Yes sir,” the COB answered. “In eight minutes, maybe all of them, but it would be tight. Several, anyway.”
The XO gently banged his knuckles on a support pole in frustration. “Come on, no launch. Dear God, we need something to go wrong now,” he half prayed, half pleaded.
“Fifteen thousand.”
Morton’s hands froze on the headphones, his eyes so wide the whites showed all around. His voice cut through the tension. “I have missile launch.”
