Piranha: Firing Point

He was doing an antisubmarine sweep at forty-one knots, and the ocean sound acoustics were terrible at that speed. The ideal speed, fifteen knots, would give him an acoustic-detection range against another 6881 hull at approximately ten nautical miles, twenty thousand yards. But a search at forty-one knots meant the water noise around the hull was dramatically increased.

The massive reactor circulation pumps were running fast, four of the two thousand horsepower monsters pouring their noise into the sea. Plus the screw — although hydrodynamic, was still loud at flank speed, putting out high decibels aft. At forty-one knots, the same target hull would not be detected until a distance of two nautical miles, only four thousand yards, a degradation of seventy-five percent There was worse news still. The most likely candidate for an intruder submarine was a diesel boat. True, it would be tough for a diesel boat to get in the proper position in front of them, but a boat lurking directly ahead in their path would be dead silent, no rotating machinery at all to make any noise in the water, just a quiet screw and main motor. The only thing they’d hear would be the launch of torpedoes. An old nuke boat was louder, but if it was cruising slowly, it would put out much less noise than Annapolis. Again, the only way to detect it might be its launched torpedo.

That made the Annapolis something of a sacrificial lamb. They were now thirty nautical miles ahead of the convoy. Astern of them by ten miles was the USS Santa Fe, commanded by young Chris Carnage. If a hostile submarine was waiting for them, the Annapolis and Santa Fe would draw their fire. His operation order required him to make an emergency transmission to the carrier in the event he came under attack. That meant he’d have to come to periscope depth and shoot at the same time, a truly impossible tactical burden.

There had been no excuse for Admiral Henri not sending them out days ahead of the task force, to sanitize the western Pacific and the East China Sea. Hell, it wouldn’t have cost him anything. They could have sailed ahead while Henri loaded troops and equipment. They could have done an initial East China Sea search at twenty knots and a second at a slower fifteen, with Santa Fe escorting in the convoy a mile ahead while Annapolis drove ahead. Between the S-14 Blackboards and the P-5 Pegasus patrol planes out of Japan, the East China Sea could have been cleaned of every single marine mammal, much less offensive submarines. But now all the two U.S. subs were amounting to was a security blanket for Henri, perhaps at best a lightning rod for any attack that would be aimed at the convoy.

Patton looked up at the officer of the deck while the youth gave him a status report. No sonar contacts, ship was at best detection depth, sound channel good at seven hundred feet, ship rigged for patrol quiet, as best as they would do while at flank. He nodded, checking his watch and frowning, when the off-going engineer officer of the watch came in. Patton got his report, nodded curtly, and walked into the sonar room, forward and starboard of the control room.

At the second console sat Senior Chief Byron Demeers, his acerbic sonar expert. They had served together since his days on the Providence, because Patton had taken him on his two command tours. He and De-Meers meshed well. Their words were minimal but each was attuned to the moods and thoughts of the other.

Demeers had formerly been plump, with a bald pate, penetrating eyes and a dark, full mustache, but two years before he had discovered a fitness center, and now he was a poster boy for chiseled abs and pumped-up pecs.

For the first time in two decades he was considered attractive by the opposite sex. And he was single, his wife having filed for divorce after his first submarine tour. He now had several aggressive women calling the boat every time he was in port, but for the most part he stayed on the ship, tending to his equipment and the sonar system’s software programming.

The chief sonar billet on the Annapolis was perhaps the number two slot in the entire fleet, and working with Patton seemed to agree with him. He wasn’t too enthusiastic about this mission, though, having said to Patton in private that it was a fool’s errand, a waste of time, that they were being employed by an admiral who didn’t know how to spell submarine. Patton, again keeping his mouth shut, had thought that it was damned hard to disagree.

“Tell me again about your search plan,” Patton said to Demeers.

“If I do, it’ll be the twelfth time this run.” Demeers sighed. “But okay.” He turned the half-empty Coke bottle upside down, draining it “The search plan is in four parts.