Terminal Run

“Dammit, Chief,” Oswald snarled, “don’t do that to me. And get your paws off my conn handrails or you’ll be polishing them on the mid watch

“You done ranting, sir?” Stokes asked, his face pleasant.

“Yeah.”

“Good. The transient sounded like an entire arsenal exploding. We’ve also got bulkheads collapsing. Someone sank. I’m analyzing the tape now to see if we can pick anything up just prior to the detonation.”

“Prior to it? Like what?”

“Torpedo sonars, depth charges splashing, that kind of thing.”

“You’re talking like it was a sub that went down.”

“Could have been a skimmer, sir. But with the Snare to the north of us coming south, and the Piranha doing a squeeze play from further north of the Snare, doesn’t it just seem logical that when we hear a booming noise from the north, we correlate it to fisticuffs between those two?”

“Fisticuffs? You mean they exchanged weapons and the Snare is on the bottom. Regrettable that Piranha got to that robotic piece of dung first, but at least now we can run to the south and get to the IO, where the action is.”

“Unless it was Snare that did the shooting,” White interrupted.

Oswald stood on the conn with his mouth open for several seconds. It had never occurred to him that the robot sub could have beaten a Seawolf-class. Especially the Piranha, which had given the Hammerhead a bitch of a battle in an exercise six months ago. The Seawolfs had an overall acoustic advantage against the Virginia-class unless the Seawolf sped at flank speed by an idling Virginia; at slower speeds the Seawolf would detect a Virginia four thousand yards before the Virginia knew they were being targeted. Which meant that if a Seawolf-class had just been beaten by the Snare, the Snare had a large acoustic advantage over a Virginia-class like the Hammerhead. Especially if the Virginia-class were going fast. Like they were now. At flank speed.

“Diving Officer! All stop!” Oswald yelled. The order was as good as a 1MC announcement of “Captain to control,” since the minute the deck stopped shaking, the commanding officer would bulldoze his way to control to find out why. “Maneuvering, Conn,” Oswald shouted into a 1ME mike, “downshift reactor re circ pumps and rig for natural circulation!”

“All stop, Dive aye, throttles retarding to idle, answering all stop, sir.”

“Conn, Maneuvering,” the 1Me box blared, “downshift main coolant pumps and rig for nat circ, Conn, Maneuvering, aye. Conn, Maneuvering, main coolant pumps off. Reactor is in natural circulation.” “Maneuvering, Conn, aye,” Oswald said. He turned from the 1MC panel to see Captain Judison, Admiral McKee, and Chief of Staff Petri all standing there, looking at him expectantly.

“Captain’s in control,” Oswald announced to the control room. He leaned toward the senior officers. “There’s a problem, Captain, Admiral, ma’am,” Oswald said. “Tell us all again, Chief Stokes.”

The three listened. Judison pulled the admiral and his staffer aside, the three of them talking in their huddle for some time. Finally the admiral and his chief of staff left, and Judison approached the conn.

“Approach the transient site cautiously at standard speed, turns for fifteen knots, at six five eight feet depth. I want you to perform a baffle-clear counter detection maneuver at random times at intervals not to exceed forty minutes and a depth excursion to one five zero feet, also at random times, at intervals no more than fifty minutes. Until we know otherwise, assume this is a trap, that the Snare is orbiting at the sinking site waiting for us. You’ll be coming to periscope depth in about fifteen minutes after the admiral drafts a situation report. Now repeat all that back.”

Oswald repeated back his orders while Captain Judison glared at him. When the captain was satisfied, he left the control room.

“Helm, all ahead standard, make turns for fifteen knots, steer course north,” Oswald ordered.

Hammerhead crept northward, her sonar suite straining to detect the Snare.

“Conn, Sonar, transients close aboard, high negative DE.”

Lieutenant Commander Ash Oswald scratched his belly, a nervous habit.

“Sonar, Conn, aye, negative deflection elevation aye. Sonar supervisor to control.”

“Yes sir,” a voice said from behind him.

“Goddamnit, Stokes! Cut that out!”

Stokes looked up at the conn, his expression serious. “I don’t know what the sound is. It’s almost like someone hammering on a hull.” He stepped up to the conn and flipped through the screens of the sonar display, dancing with the software for a moment, then stood up. Piped into the overhead speakers a rhythmic echoing thumping sounded. Oswald stared at the display, listening to the haunted sound, a sweat breaking out on his scalp.

“Low DE, you said,” Oswald muttered.

“Right below us,” Stokes said.

“Dive, all stop.”

Oswald kept staring at the sonar display as he pulled the phone out of its cradle by feel, his finger stabbing the buzzer circuit.

“Captain, Officer of the Deck, sir. Request you come to the conn.”