Phoenix Sub Zero

“A few more months and you’ll be working on your second star. Aren’t many admirals these days wearing the Navy Cross. Which reminds me, you’re out of uniform without it.”

Pacino glanced at his chest, the rows of ribbons four tall, the gold submariners’ dolphins presiding above the ribbons, the capital-ship command pin beneath, the ribbon for his Navy Cross absent. Although Donchez would disagree, Pacino had always considered the medal something of a consolation prize for surviving the sinking of the Devilfish.

“You know. Admiral, I think I’d trade the star for a chance to keep command of Seawolffor another year. I don’t suppose you could arrange that …”

“Navy’s got other plans for you, Mikey. Besides, commanding the Atlantic

Fleet’s sub force will make you forget about the Seawolf. Besides, your replacement—Joe Cosworth, right?—will do okay and it’s time someone else got to drive the finest sub in the force. You can’t hog it for ever.”

“I suppose so.” Pacino looked at the older man, wanting to ask him how the war was going but, imagining the answer to be painful, restrained himself.

“Well, on to business. I heard Dr. Rebman packed it in.

You saw the Vortex test? What did you think?”

“Well, sir, on the positive side, there was nothing left of the target after the missile hit it. The explosion made a mushroom cloud—I felt like I was on Bikini Atoll watching a nuclear test. There would be nothing left of an enemy sub after getting chopped up by a Vortex.”

“I knew it. The torpedo is obsolete. The Vortex can blow a bad guy to hell before he even knows he’s been shot at.

This will make the Russian Magnum torpedo look crude.”

“Yes sir.”

“Anything else?”

“I assume you heard, sir. The Piranha sank. The Vortex blew up the launching tube on the way out.”

“I know. And I also know you’ve thought of how to fix that problem.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“That’s why I sent you down there. You’re a PhD. mechanical engineer. You probably scratched a couple of equations on an envelope and figured this whole thing out.”

“Sorry, sir, but I just rubbernecked at the test like everyone else.”

“Come on, Mikey. I know you hate the Vortex. It takes up damn near all your torpedo room and it’s too volatile, like sleeping with a grenade.”

Pacino looked into Donchez’s eyes. His exact words had been “sleeping with a grenade with the pin pulled,” but Donchez had been close enough.

“Mikey, with this weapon you don’t need a room full of fifty torpedoes. One shot does it. With six Vortex missiles you can kill six submarines, every time. In the old days you’d shoot horizontal and vertical salvos and hope like hell the target drove into the search cone. This thing doesn’t have a search cone—the whole ocean is the search cone. Now tell

me how to make the thing work.”

“Equalize the tubes …” Pacino had, of course, thought about his answer ever since the test, figuring he might have such a confrontation with Donchez. He still hated the damn thing, though.

“What?”

“You’ve been launching a solid rocket in a closed-ended cylinder with tons of water at the muzzle end. The tubes are blowing up just like a gun barrel would if the bullet had too much gunpowder. Relieve the pressure at the aft end by piping the thing to sea pressure. When the rocket fuel ignites, instead of a pressure wave that ruptures the tubes, it blows steam out the relief piping and blasts out of the tube. Tube pressure stays within stress limits. It’s pretty obvious, I figured your design team had rejected it for some good reason.”

“That’s all? Just open vent piping at the breech end?”

“Well, it’s more than that. I did do a few calculations—”

Pacino looked at Donchez, who smiled. “The vent piping would need to be fullbore, the diameter of the entire tube. In stead of a launching tube you need a launching duct with the missile in the forward end. On missile launch the exhaust gases pass out of the aft end of the duct and

out the pressure hull, and rocket thrust carries the missile out the duct.”

Donchez leaned back. “The Vortex program is saved—”

“Not exactly. Admiral. The tubes already take up half the torpedo room. The duct tube extensions would take up an other thirty feet of length, with three-foot inner diameters.

That’s a hell of a lot of space. There’s no room aboard.

You’ll have to design a whole new class of submarine to hold these pigs, because on the LA-class, with the duct work there won’t be room for reactors or people or electronics.

The Vortex is just too damned big.”

“Or we could put the tubes outside,” Donchez said.

“Yeah, and take the hit in speed and sound emissions. We spent hundreds of millions making Seawolf the quietest sub marine that technology could build, and now you’re going to put a bunch of tubes and pipes and supports and valves top side to put out flow-induced resonances. For the fleet of sub marines we have, it just doesn’t make sense.”

“I suppose you’re right, Mikey. I’m sorry we called you out over the holiday,” the old man said heavily.