Terminal Run

“Mark 80 launch!” Pacino called, stabbing the joystick of the Type 23 on his thigh, the heat-seeking antiair missile launching from the sail and immediately taking off in pursuit of the Javelin cruise missiles. He launched five heat seekers, then a sixth as another missile flew out of the sea, its rocket engine lighting off just above the waves and hurling it skyward. “I don’t have any explosions,” Pacino called, but just then one of the Javelins exploded into flames — one of the Mark 80s had caught up with the missiles and blown it apart.

Pacino continued launching Mark 80s as the Javelins came flying out of the sea. There was one major problem — he had only eight Mark 80s and the Snare out there on the horizon had twelve Javelins.

“XO!” Pacino barked as he launched Mark 80 number seven, and as the third Javelin cruise missile exploded in the clouds. “Get on a UHF circuit to the Pentagon and call in an OP REP-Three on these missiles. Tell them there are four Javelins inbound from this position.”

To Vermeers’s credit, he asked no questions as he threw his headset to the deck and dashed to the radio room. He could have been patched in from the conn, but that would have taken thirty seconds of coordination with the radiomen, and there was no time.

Pacino launched his eighth and final Mark 80 and watched the eighth Javelin cruise missile explode, his face a mask of impotent fury as the ninth Javelin rose from the sea. The damned Snare was right there, twenty miles away on the horizon, and as yet there had not been a single Tigershark detonation.

“Conn, Sonar, we have an explosion in the water.”

“it isn’t the Snare, Sonar,” Pacino said, annoyed. “She’s still launching.”

“Explosion is on the bearing to the motor yacht, sir.”

“Very well. Sonar, continue to examine bearing zero eight eight for Tigershark acquisition.”

“Conn, Sonar, aye, but nothing yet, sir.”

“Dammit,” Pacino muttered.

“Conn, Sonar, we have Tigershark rocket motor ignition on the edge of the starboard baffles, bearing zero eight five.”

“Finally,” Pacino said, his periscope crosshairs on the horizon as the tenth Javelin cruise missile rose out of the sea. If the Snare detonated now, there would only be two cruise missiles that had evaded his counterattack rather than four.

“Conn, Sonar!” the headphone screeched painfully in Pacino’s ear. “Bearing drift to Tigershark torpedo is left, not right! I’m calling torpedo in the water! Tigershark is targeting own ship!”

Pacino ripped off the Type 23 helmet, the helmet bouncing on the deck, and shouted to the diving officer, “Emergency deep! Flood depth control at max rates’ Make your depth thirteen hundred feet, and expedite!” He grabbed the 1MC microphone and shouted into it, “Maneuvering, Conn, execute fast recovery startup, emergency rates!” He dropped the microphone and found Vermeers and shouted, “Arm the TESA!”

Vermeers’s eyes grew wide and he shook his head rapidly. “Sir, we couldn’t tie it into the Cyclops system! If you light it off, the bow planes won’t be under Cyclops control, and we’ll go through crush depth in a second!”

“Conn, Sonar! Tigershark incoming! We have confirmation on acoustic daylight imaging! It’s about to light off its solid rocket fuel, Captain!”

“Captain, depth thirteen hundred feet, sir,” the diving officer called, a frightened kid in the wraparound ship-control console. “Securing flooding depth control two and hovering at test depth, sir.”

Pacino froze for a second. Then an idea formed in his mind, the idea seeming foreign, as if he were being whispered to by someone both far away and standing immediately next to him, and he could hear the words in a mental voice not his own, shouting in his mind, Hit the chicken switch at test depth with a quarter-degree rise on the bow planes Pacino frowned, but there was nothing else he could think of.

“Conn, Sonar, Tigershark torpedo rocket motor ignition, close range!”

“Diving Officer!” Pacino yelled, knowing he was about to give his last order on the Devilfish, his last order on earth. “Hold one-quarter-degree rise on the bow planes and emergency blow forward, now!”

“Quarter…” the diving officer said, his voice in a deep bass, a slow-motion sound as if Pacino’s time sense had blown up so that a second would now take an hour. Pacino’s eyes found the twin yellow plastic-covered steel levers in the overhead above the command console.

“Degree…” the diving officer’s oddly distorted and slowed voice said as Pacino reached into the overhead with both hands and grabbed the Pacino chicken switches, the twin actuators of the TESA torpedo evasion ship alteration system.

“Rise…” the diving officer called as Pacino felt the grips of the TESA levers in his hands. He pulled the levers down as hard as he could.

“On … the …”

Pacino pulled down the TESA levers out of the overhead, held the levers down and twisted, his face a mask of fury as he waited for the system to light off.

“Bowplanes… and… emergency…”