Attack of the Seawolf

CHAPTER 31 MONDAY, 13 MAY 1153 GREENWICH MEAN TIME

BOHAI HAIXIA STRAIT

1953 BEIJING TIME

Aircraft Commander HuaFeng’s radio headset crackled with the voice of the squadron commander:

“ALL UNITS, SQUADRON ONE LEADER, THIS IS TO ADVISE YOU THAT THE CARRIER HAS BEEN SUNK BY THE AMERICAN MISSILE. WATCH YOUR FUEL AND BE READY TO DIVERTTO LUSH UN OUT.”

Chu HuaFeng’s jaw muscles tightened as he listened to the flat tone of the squadron leader marking the sinking of the flagship, and very possibly the death of his father.

“What’s the status of the Type-12, Lo?”

“Armed and ready. We have a good estimated depth of the submarine.”

“Prepare to drop,” Chu said, jockeying the jet directly over the position of the submarine.

“ALL AIRCRAFT UNITS BOHAI HAIXIA STRAIT, THIS IS UDALOY DESTROYER ZUNYI APPROACHING ESTIMATED POSITION OF ENEMY SUBMARINE SUSPECTED OF FIRING MISSILE ON FLEET FLAGSHIP. WITHDRAW TO A SAFE POSITION NO CLOSER THAN THREE KILOMETERS FROM SUBMARINE POSITION. I SAY AGAIN, WITHDRAW TO A SAFE POSITION NO CLOSER THAN THREE CLICKS FROM THE SUBMARINE. WE HAVE IMMEDIATE SILEX MISSILE LAUNCH PENDING IN THREE ZERO SECONDS, COMMANDER DESTROYER ZUNYI, OUT.”

“You ready, Lo? Drop on my mark.”

“Chu, we’ve just been ordered out of here, you need to clear the area—” “No. We’re dropping the Type-12.”

“Chu, the commander of the Zunyi obviously wants a piece of this action. Let him have it. After he fires his damned Silex we’ll come back and let this submarine have a real treat. Come on or we can be taken out by that Silex—” “This guy down there may have killed my father. I don’t care about Silexes—” “You’d better, he just launched the damned thing and it’s incoming — Chu, don’t be an idiot, get us out of here.”

Chu, hating it, knew Lo was right. He throttled up the cruise engine and flew the Yak away from the position of the submarine. As the jet flew outside the one-kilometer radius from the sub, the bright flame trail from the Silex missile illuminated the cockpit.

USS SEAWOLF

“Conn, Sonar, incoming missile—” “All ahead flank!” Pacino shouted.

The helmsman rang up the flank order. The deck began to tremble with the power of Seawolf’s main engines as the turbines spun at maximum revolutions, accelerating the ship away from the missile launch position.

The crew held onto consoles and handholds, waiting for the detonation, except for Pacino, who looked from the firecontrol display to the chart to the sonar repeater. The wait for missile impact seemed to stretch on and on. Pacino looked over at Jack Morris.

Sweat had broken out on the seal’s forehead. This wasn’t his game, waiting instead of acting. The ship continued accelerating to 44.8 knots as the reactor plant reached one hundred percent power. Pacino looked back toward the firecontrol geographic display, calculating … With a missile average flight speed of Mach 1, firing range of thirteen nautical miles, the missile flight time would be a little over one minute.

With Seawolf’s average speed since he accelerated thirty knots, in the one minute of flight time he would have the ship a thousand yards from her position at launch. If sonar had only given him half the flight time’s warning, and if the commander of the Udaloy had fired at his future position instead of his actual position, the ship would perhaps only be two hundred or three hundred yards from the missile impact point, maybe less. In a worst case, only a hundred yards, three hundred feet.

Now, Pacino thought, would three hundred feet away from a rocket-launched depth charge be enough to save the ship?

BOHAI HAIXIA STRAIT

The Silex missile lifted out of the quad launcher of the destroyer Zunyi and accelerated away from the sleek warship, its tailfins moving slightly in response to the onboard processor’s commands. The missile reached apogee and arced back down toward the dark sea, the inertial navigation system aiming the missile for the position of the submarine, not its position at launch but the position it was calculated to be at time of impact. After forty seconds of rocket-powered flight, the rocket motor cut out, exhausted, the explosive bolts in the ring separating the motor from the depth charge below, jettisoning the inert rocket-motor canister.

The warhead flew on, the surface ahead approaching at Mach 0.95.

The impact of the water jarred the missile’s warhead.

The accelerometer tied into the arming circuit felt the negative four g’s of deceleration and completed the circuit to the depth-charge arming-circuit.