Voyage of the Devilfish

“Don’t think so.” But Duckett did know more than he was saying. The Squadron Twelve intelligence officer had told him about the weird Russian deployment. He’d also blabbed about a concurrent SNCP mission under the icecap, a secret OP involving covert surveillance. Who did the spook say was going north?” Devilfish “Oh, God,” Duckett said slowly. Incredibly, the Russian must have gotten the Devilfish. With the Russian subs on the coastline, only Devilfish and Allentown were this far north, everyone else was tied down with the Russian attack boats. Which meant one thing. Allentown would have to go under ice and see for sure what had happened. Duckett had never liked that wiseass Michael Pacino and his screw-off boat, but they were American submariners.

“What’s going on?” The voice belonged to the XO, Lieutenant Commander Pat Bishop, a short, slight man with a high-pitched, nasal voice. Duckett couldn’t stand the voice, couldn’t stand the man. The XO was competent, but he was a weasel. More than once Duckett had found him compromising his orders. He had tried to transfer him but the thing had gotten snarled in typical navy red tape.

“You didn’t hear the explosion?” Duckett said. He turned to Jameson. “Any idea on range?”

“Negative.” Duckett went to the aft part of the Conn and peered down at the chart table.

“Quartermaster,” he called, “plot a bearing line to this detonation.” The line pointed up under the icepack.

“Cap’n,” Bishop put in, “you’re not thinking of going north, are you?”

Duckett looked at the bearing line, calculating how long it would take to get to the pole.

“Because if you are, let me remind you this ship doesn’t have the depth control for an underice transit. It also doesn’t have a decent underice sonar — no SHARKTOOTH. We can’t rotate the fairwater planes vertical for penetrating ice with the sail, and even if we could, the sail isn’t two-inch-thick steel like on a Piranha, it’s fiberglass over aluminum. If you tried to smash through ice we’d wreck it. Besides, we don’t have the charts, damn little arctic gear, and we don’t have a clearance from COMSUBLANT. We’d have to radio in a request for clearance and we can’t transmit this close to Russia, they’d detect us…”

“You done?” Duckett asked quietly.

“Yes, I am.”

“Good, because you’re absolutely right. You got all the reasons not to go north.”

“Well, sir, I’m glad you agree,” and he moved off to his stateroom.

“God,” Duckett muttered, “where does NAVPERS even get these bozos?” The OOD, Lieutenant Mills, heard with pleasure the captain’s thought, which he shared.

“Off sa’deck,” Duckett said to Mills, “bring us around to the north, course zero one five, fifteen knots, head under the ice. Keep following the bearing to the explosions. Break out the underice procedure. It’s been a while since I’ve been under the icepack…”

ARCTIC OCEAN

BENEATH THE POLAR ICECAP

USS DEVILFISH