Terminal Run

“Of course,” Krivak said, suddenly thinking that with the wire-guided torpedoes, Unit One Oh Seven could decide at the last minute to cancel the attack. It could shut down the weapons and they would sink, impotent. “One, I have had a modification to my thinking. I believe it best to cut the guidance wires and rig out and program two new torpedoes. Just in case. Have you completed the terminal run programming?”

Yes, Krivak, units one and two are reset. Please confirm-cut the guidance wires on units one and two?

“Yes, cut the wires, units one and two. Execute.”

Unit one wire cut. Unit two wire cut. Units one and two are now independent. Rigging out units three and four. Units three and four power and signal applied. Firecontrol solution down loaded, gyros at nominal speed. Self-checks executed, units are nominal. Place units three and four at the firing point?

“No, hold on firing point procedures for units three and four.”

Hold on three and four short of the firing point, understand.

Units one and two now ten miles downrange, time to impact four minutes.

“Should we withdraw further from this area? With the warheads being plasma weapons?”

Units one and two were conventional, Krivak.

“Conventional? We just fired regular high explosives at the Piranha]” What a disaster, he thought. A conventional torpedo didn’t have the power to kill the enemy.

They are loaded with PlasticPak molecular explosive, Krivak. There will be no problem obtaining a confirmed kill.

“All the same, line up two plasma-tipped units. If Piranha survives for a half minute after the torpedoes detonate, we’re dead.”

Selecting units eighteen and nineteen. It will take the room mechanism two minutes to rotate those weapons into position.

“Damn. Is it a noisy operation?”

Yes.

“Then stop and wait. I do not want to put a thousand transients in the water in addition to the already launched torpedoes. We had best hope those PlasticPak units succeed.”

Krivak bit his lip inside his helmet. There was no way to eliminate mistakes like this, he thought, since he never had a shakedown cruise with the Snare. He would have to live with the conventional torpedoes. With plasma warheads, why would anyone bother with conventional weapons?

“Escape Trunk, Control, you have permission to flood the trunk.”

“Control, Trunk, aye.”

Chief Keating opened a valve, and ice-cold seawater came pouring into the trunk near the bottom. Keating raised a thumb in Midshipman Patch Pacino’s face as if to ask, are you okay? Pacino grinned, returning the thumbs-up. He’d put the regulator in his mouth before flooding started, the dry air of the tank tasting metallic. The frigid water rose to Pacino’s thighs. He grimaced as it rose to his privates, clenching his teeth as the water rose to his chest. The air in the space above the black water became cloudy, the pressure causing it to hit its dew point, and soon Pacino could barely make out Keating.

Finally the water rose to Pacino’s face, and he felt a momentary tightness in his chest, his body’s reflex to the water covering his nose, but the air flowed freely from his regulator and calmed him down. The water rose over his head, but his weights kept him on the deck. Keating had floated up into the overhead, where an air bubble was trapped on one side of a steel curtain. The other side was directly beneath the hatch. The water had covered the light, which shone through the dark murky water in the trunk. Pacino could dimly hear the speaker up above him in the air bubble, but could not make out the words. The water level had risen to the top of the trunk, up to the hatch, and was being pressurized. Pacino’s ears thumped from the pressure. He grabbed his nose through the mask and blew against his closed nostrils to equalize his eardrums.