Attack of the Seawolf

Murphy ordered the engineer from aft, and in a few moments Jackson Vaughn appeared, hair soaked with sweat, coveralls stained with dirt, a Beretta 9-mm automatic stuffed into his belt.

“Any luck finding the leak?”

“We need more time, sir. I bypassed Main-Steam Two and pressurized the header, and we had at least three-dozen leaks, impossible to say which were minor and which were major pipe breaks. The steam-header insulation is broken in a half-dozen places. The major leak could be anywhere. Without a proper hydro test I can’t be sure. And I risk the crew if I open Main Steam-One or Two. A double-ended pipe shear would kill every man aft, maybe you guys too.”

“Start patching the lines with seawater pipe patches if you have to, and bypass the cutout-valve again.

We’ve got to get that system back. It doesn’t look good topside. The

Chinese want to take us home with them. If they make a mistake and if you can get steam back in the engine room we could still make a break for it.”

Lieutenant Chuck Griffin, the torpedo missile officer, came into the room, out of breath from running up the ladder.

“Sir, the torpedo-room firing-panel is a wreck. And the tubes are leaking, all of them. The hydraulic rams are both out. Most of the weapons took a hell of a beating from the shock of the last explosion. There’s nothing to shoot with. Holt is working on the panel and Norall is looking at the tubes.

And Watson is crawling on the racks looking for a working weapon, but it’ll be hours before we can give you anything. Without that firing panel, it’s … useless.”

Murphy and Vaughn exchanged looks.

“Keep working on it, Mr. Griffin,” Murphy said in a monotone, and turned back to the engineer.

“Eng, split off a few of your men from the steam leak isolation and have them get ready to scuttle the ship. Find some seawater valves aft that we can open.

When I give the word have them opened. It’ll be better to put this ship on the bottom than give it to the Chinese without a fight. Have a team standing by under the aft-hatch. Make sure they’re armed. We’ll try to hold off a boarding party as long as we can, but when I give the word on Circuit One melt down the reactor and flood the ship. Meanwhile we’ll try to rig some Mark 50 warheads for an in-hull detonation.”

“Goddamned shame. Skipper, to sink our own ship.”

“I’ll only give the order if there’s no other way.”

Vaughn stood there for a moment, as if he wanted to say something.

“Good luck. Captain,” he finally said, nodded at Murphy, then disappeared from the room, headed for the ladder to the middle-deck.

Murphy looked back out the periscope. The Chinese warships had tied up tight on both sides. They were being towed to the Xingang piers. For a moment Murphy looked around at the crew, wondering if he were really capable of destroying his own ship. A rush of guilt overwhelmed him, guilt that he had failed them, first by getting caught, second by failing to escape once the Chinese were alerted. At least he had put one of the surface ships on the bottom. If the steam leak could be isolated before the Chinese got into the hull, if the ballast-tank vents could be repaired, if the ship had enough power to break the lines to the towing vessels, then maybe it was not over yet … except the entire Chinese Northern Fleet would be waiting for him at the Penglai/Lushun Gap, the choke-point at the entrance to the bay. Still, there had to be a better way out of this than scuttling his ship and sacrificing his crew.

Could he even consider surrendering the men to the Chinese, hoping they might release the Americans?

The thought went against two decades of military training. What had the Code of Conduct said, the Code they had all committed to memory the first week as plebes at Annapolis — I will never surrender of my own free will. If in command I will never surrender my men while they still have the means to resist. No, he would not give up the Tampa without a struggle, even if it were a death-struggle.

Tarkowski returned to the control room.

“Sir, the classified material burn is just about finished. But we’ve got bad news from the forward hatch. Chinese boarding party. There are flames from an acetylene torch around the upper hatch. The Chinese will get through that hatch within twenty minutes.”

“And if they burn through the lower hatch we’ll never be able to rig the ship for dive.”

“That’s right, sir. If they burn through the upper and lower hatches we’ll have a bunch of permanent holes to the outside.”

“Have all the lower hatches on all access points opened. Have the fire teams ready. As soon as the upper hatches are opened and troops are coming in, open fire. If we can keep them out long enough to get propulsion we might still be able to break away …”

Tarkowski pointed to the television monitor of the periscope view. The Chinese crews were doubling, tripling, quadrupling the thick lines coming over the Tampd’s hull. It would take more than Tampa’s 35,000-shaft horsepower to break through all that.