Phoenix Sub Zero

Piranha, viewing the fat and long steel Vortex launching cylinder from several angles. The tube was covered with strain gauges and what looked like miles of wires, trying to find out how the tube behaved under the stress of the missile launch. The visual and electronic data would be conveyed to the outside world by means of cables leaving the submarine at the aft end of her sail to a data buoy floating on the surface, which would transmit the images and tube-strain information to the Diamond via data link. The buoy had a long reel of cable with a tension spring, so that no matter where in the bathtub the transmitting sub went, the Diamond would continue to receive data. The data buoy also received control signals to the Piranha’s maneuvering system from the Diamond’s control space; at the aft end of the hot room a control console had been placed with room for two technicians. These men drove the Piranha, changing her speed, depth, and course from the wraparound console.

In the past, data would have been collected from the weapon as well, the warhead replaced with a data recorder, a black box, that would tell the researchers what the torpedo had seen at each second of its trip to the target and the ensuing pursuit and “explosion,” the final detonation replaced with a tumaway maneuver. But in this test, the missile’s tremendous kinetic energy at 300 knots was so extreme that after it passed the target, it would continue on — there was no way to shut down a solid-fueled rocket — and in continuing it would smash into the far sheer wall of the bathtub, taking out hundreds of thousands of dollars of sonar sensors. The weapon-test scientists had elected to allow the

Vortex to detonate its warhead to study the effects on the target, but also to act as a missile self-destruct system to preserve the bath tub’s sonar array.

Pacino watched as the control crew orchestrated the test, the snatches of conversation blending into each other, rising into a slow crescendo as the launch time approached. Over the next hour the Bonefish left the surface, sinking into the clear Tongue water under the control of the towing control tugboat. At the command of the technicians at the Piranha control console, the firing ship submerged and slowly cruised toward the launch point. The morning test preparations continued until the sun was high in the cloud-streaked sky. At last the missile firing was on its final countdown.

Pacino, his summer-weight khaki shirt now soaked with sweat, took a position at the oversized windows facing the Tongue and waited. Dr. Rebman joined him, the suit coat now replaced with a starched white lab coat. The countdown was initiated, and as it reached zero Pacino watched the sea where the tugboat towed the target. At the count of zero, launch point, the room grew silent, all eyes but Pacino’s watching the video monitors.

He saw a slight rush of foam at the distant point where he had imagined the firing ship to be, then moments later the sea at the target bearing erupted in a column of water that blasted upward in an odd spherical shape, barbs of spray coming out of the curving dome of the explosion. The water continued to rise, forming a mushroom cloud that dwarfed the Diamond, the cloud spreading and rising into the air, then raining down on the sea below. Then the sound came from the distant explosion, the roaring power of it rattling the glass of the windows, slamming Pacino’s eardrums, the full bass of the detonation pounding him. Pacino smiled, unable to contain the exhilaration of it, already bringing his hands up to clap, and turned to the men in the room, expecting the crew to be as exuberant at the success of the test.

Instead he saw long, incredulous faces staring at two video monitors as a tape player replayed the scene. Rebman was bent over a control console, shouting into a headset. The video scene rolled, the Vortex tube of the Piranha in the center of the picture, until Pacino could see the tube burst open in slow motion, then the explosion as the missile’s flaming exhaust filled the torpedo room. The camera apparently died at that point, the picture turning to snow. On the screens on the right videos played in a closed loop as the target ship’s cameras recorded the death of the ship— apparently the missile had sunk the Bonefish. But it had also put the Piranha on the bottom. Another tube rupture.

Rebman slammed the headset down and rejoined Pacino at the window. Without a word Pacino walked out to the weather deck and leaned on the wooden railing, staring out to sea where the tugboat floated, no longer towing anything but a frayed-ended cable. Rebman followed him out.

“At least it sank the target,” Pacino said.

Rebman said nothing for several minutes.

Finally the scientist said, so quietly Pacino had to strain to hear him, “This is the end of the program, we’ve tried everything.

The Vortex program is canceled.”