Piranha: Firing Point

The amber background with its floating specs of red and blue vanished, replaced with the viewing point of the Yo-Yo: a cool blue world, the surface of the ocean overhead, the submarine a three-dimensional shape, not far away. “Switch to geographic plot, calibrated scale.” The display changed to a god’s eye view of the Nazeyakushima Gap, the Yo-Yo’s target on the upper section, their own ship on the lower right, the land appearing in detailed relief. Pacino whistled to himself. After seeing this, it would be impossible to go back to the old-fashioned two-dimensional consoles.

“Captain Patton, we need to launch the Mark 4s.”

“Admiral, we’re all set.”

Within two minutes the first four Mark 4 missiles were away. The vertical-launching-system tubes in the forward ballast tank opened their upper doors, and a gas generator blew the missiles to the surface in a bubble of steam.

The rocket motors lit and took the missiles skyward a half mile, then detached and fell back to earth. In the meantime, the onboard air-breathing jet engines had fired up and the missiles dived for the safety of low altitude. They skimmed the surface, barely twenty feet above the waves, until they arrived at their preordained splash-down positions. Abruptly, the missiles popped up toward the sky, rising by a thousand feet, then diving straight for the water. On the way down, the nose cones popped open in a flower-petal sequence, the missile airframes breaking apart. From each missile a package detached, a streamer trailing behind it for stability, a drogue parachute coming next, followed by the main parachute, deploying just a few hundred feet over the water. The Mark 4 payload, the Sharkeye sensor, drifted gently to the water and splashed down. The parachute was ditched as the main body of the sensor sank, leaving on the surface a transmitter connected by a cable.

Two minutes later, the second four missiles were away, and two minutes after that the final two Mark 4s were fired. All ten Mark 4 Sharkeye acoustic-daylight-imaging remote sensors survived their trips, sank to best listening depth, and began transmitting to satellites overhead.

SS-403 ARCTIC STORM

“Sir, we have a splash in the water, bearing zero nine five.” Lo Sun sounded extremely nervous.

Chu stiffened in his command-console seat. He had taken the ship back deep to a depth of three hundred meters, the temperature profile indicating that to be the best listening depth.

“That’s not all. We’ve got faint turbojet engines.” “Jets and splashes. What is that?” “Sir,” Lo Sun said, “we might have some incoming cruise missiles.”

“Cruise missiles? What could a cruise missile do to us at three hundred meters?”

“For one thing, drop a plasma depth charge. Splash number two, sir. Now three. I’ve got a total of four now, all points of the compass.”

Was that a coincidence, Chu thought, that the splashes were north, south, east, and west? Were they bracketing him, putting plasma depth charges around him? Or could they be sonobuoys, listening for his ship? Or were they cruise missile-delivered torpedoes?

He had the deepest feeling of unease he’d had during the operation. The Americans weren’t afraid of him.

They were marching in with aircraft and now missiles, undeterred that he’d shot down their planes. What would be next? And with the destructive power of plasma weapons, would he even know what happened?

Hurry, my little warrior, for they are coming for you, and they are strong. Finish quickly.

In his hour of uncertainty the dream returned to him, and he knew now what it meant. It had not been his father mysteriously speaking to him from the beyond, but his own mind putting the solution together for him, sounding a warning in the voice of the one man on earth he had always listened to. Except this time. He had not finished quickly. He had put the first convoy on the bottom, but it had not been enough. Perhaps he should have let one ship survive to tell the horrible tale — perhaps that would have made his power more real to the Americans. But there was no going back now.

The Americans were coming. They were coming without fear, with certainty and death. And they were strong.

And he was going to die. Today was the day. And there would be no headstone, no bones to bury.

Chu had to admit to himself that he was deeply frightened.

His father’s words came back to him yet again: Courage is not the absence of fear, but actions taken from the heart while under the terrible grip of fear, actions taken for your men, your ship, your fleet, your country. Someday, my son, you will show your courage. For now just know that it is in you, that courage will come from your heart when it is time. Never doubt that.

Pacino climbed into the position four battlecontrol station as soon as he heard that the first Sharkeye had detected a submerged contact.