Piranha: Firing Point

Program eight as the ultraquiet unit and nine as the impulse unit.” The weapon in tube eight would be set up to swim out quietly at slow speed, while tube nine would be reserved for trouble. In that case a solid rocket motor would blow the weapon out into the sea, the torpedo preset for a highspeed transit.

Chen acknowledged, but Chu was already on his next stream of nearly instinctive orders. “Ship Control, right five effective degrees rudder, throttle up to thirty clicks, steady course north.”

“Five degrees, thirty clicks north, aye, Admiral.”

“Navigator, set up to get a leg on target ST-3. Three minutes north, then three minutes south. Something tells me he’s way out there.”

“Sir.”

Chu waited, watching data as valuable as gold roll onto the displays. He was feeling fully alert, the way an athlete feels at the start of the second half of a game.

The ship’s pulse was there in front of him, and after the first thirty torpedoes had been fired, he was getting used to the rhythm of the ship. He was almost comfortable with the odd blind-console stupid-Second Captain Japanese design. It was working out so well that he could believe that this was how he would design a submarine.

And yet, had the system really had its shakedown cruise? Certainly they had taken the ship through combat.

He had fired thirty torpedoes and made thirty confirmed hits, and twenty-seven ships with tens of thousands of men had gone to the bottom or vaporized in plasma explosions from his targeting and tactical skill, but then, that was the nature of a submarine — an assassin that was invisible, its stealth its main weapon. But how would it perform against another submarine?

Hadn’t the Japanese scheduled the Rising Sun sea trials as a submarine-versus-submarine exercise? Was there some weakness in the vessels that would make them do poorly against another sub, even ones as unsophisticated as a 688-class? The only answer to that question would come with the first undersea challenge, and by all appearances that was happening right now.

“Leg complete, sir. Recommend maneuver to the south, Lo Sun said from Chu’s right shoulder at the auxiliary command panel.

“Nav, any change in turn count or speed of ST3?”

“No, Admiral. Still inbound.”

“No sign of change in his heading? Does he hear us?”

“Doubt it, sir. He’s as loud as a train wreck.” Xhiu’s face was amazingly calm, his voice steady and deep.

Could it be that his fidgety navigator was getting some confidence?

“Very well, Nav,” he said, giving the next orders to turn the ship to the south to get a parallax distance to the incoming American.

USS ANNAPOLIS, SSN-760

“Sonar, Captain, you have any detect of the Santa Fe?”

“Captain, Sonar, no.” The reply left Patton profoundly dissatisfied. Chris Carnage and Santa Fe were out there somewhere, and if he came on a submerged target, it would be nice to know it was a genuine enemy.

And the worst of it was that there was no contingency plan for this. The more normal ASW sweep plans were bristling with contingencies — what to do if the other sub is attacked, what to do if both the companion sub and the convoy are attacked, but nowhere was there a contingency for the convoy being completely wiped out while the sweeping subs were tens of miles out. He was risking the ship, perhaps foolishly, by going into a hot zone, unsanitized and unsafe, with no idea of what he was looking for.

He had thought of one idea. He could lay a field of passively circling Mark 52 torpedoes in the area where the convoy used to be. If they detected anything they’d run for the sound, perhaps get a target. Yet that would expend his whole torpedo load for perhaps one hit, and if he did it properly, he’d run the risk one of his own torpedoes turning back around to come and get him. In the end, the idea was a loser.

He looked down at the chart table from the conn. It was time.

“Helm, all stop!” he barked, the helmsman answering up. “OOD, rig for ultraquiet with the port side of the engine room shut down.”

The ship would coast down from forty-one to five knots, and Patton was rigging the ship for quiet the old-fashioned way. Shutting down half the plant was potentially a suicidal move. The sonar girls loved it, but the officers hated it, because valuable minutes were needed to be able to return to power in the event they needed to turn tail and run.

At five knots though, he would be able to hear all the way to Tokyo. And if he was fifteen miles from where the convoy had gone down — and they had been targeted from over the horizon — he could be overrunning the attackers even now.

“Sonar, Captain, slowing.”

“Captain, Sonar, aye.” “Supervisor to control,” Patton said, waiting. De-Meers and O’Connor soon came out, both frowning.

“Well, gentlemen, here’s where you earn your medals,” Patton said.

“I’d rather earn my way home,” Demeers said, his voice only slightly distorted.

“Good, you can hear me,” Patton said. “So get in there and find the bad guys. Go on, shoo.” He waved them away.