Voyage of the Devilfish

At first the Magnum “listened” passively as it cruised out toward the target position that the Kaliningrad’s computers had described to it before launch. It had a great deal of memory devoted to the sounds of the American nuclear submarines. Tapes of every submarine class had first been analyzed and coded into the digital memory. Later, tapes of every hull of the American fleet had been inserted. This target’s hull-number, SSN-666, had been fed in only minutes before, but the data from its August sound surveillance, stolen by an industrial espionage agent from the Dynacorp International Sound Analysis Division, indicated that the 666 had a slight amidships rattle when it ran slow-speed reactor recirculation pumps. Its fast speed pumps were so noisy that no comparison data was needed. After a few moments the weapon had “heard” nothing and switched to active sonar. The torpedo cruised on! “knowing” that the 666 was immediately ahead, and waiting for its noise to manifest itself in the listening-sonar gear.

USS DEVILFISH

“XO, set the Hullcrusher in tube one to passive-sonar mode with a circling pattern, orbit point 10,000 yards away down the bearing line to the OMEGA. Tubes two, three and four, the same. Tube-two unit at 15,000 yards, tube three at 20,000 and four at 25,000. All will need to transit at high speed to the orbit points.” Pacino’s voice was level but his thoughts of his father moments before had brought a sickening taste to his mouth.

“Sir,” Rapier asked, “you sure you don’t want active sonar mode with the snake pattern? The active mode will still screen out the ice noise. It’s a doppler sonar. And the snake pattern will cover a hell of a lot more territory—”

“No.” Pacino cut him off, wondering how Rapier could argue, with the pinging of the Magnum coming in louder every second. Pacino looked down at the firecontrol display. The snake search pattern was a superb open-ocean torpedo program that made the torpedo wiggle side-to-side and up-and-down as it searched, covering huge ocean sectors with the sonar gear either passive or active. But for an underice shot Pacino had decided on a passive circler, a Mark 50 torpedo shot out to a preset range, then instructed to swim in circles until a target came into its passive-search sector. Without some kind of solution, active or passive snake shots would just dud. They examined too thin a slice of the ocean. At least a circler would look around all 360 degrees. And active sonar was out — it would alert the OMEGA that something was there. There was even the possibility a torpedo would home in on another friendly torpedo. It might work, but the odds were still against the OMEGA blindly driving into one of the torpedo’s search cones. Still, it was all Pacino had.

“With four active snake torpedoes out there,” Pacino said to Rapier, “the whole icepack would be filled with pinging. Our solution is getting stale without maneuvers and ownship speed. The OMEGA could be anywhere on this bearing line. Passive circlers are our only chance. All right, XO, program the weapons.” Rapier nodded. “Programming now.” The Magnum’s sonar pinging still sliced through the hull, getting clearer and louder. How long would it continue inbound, Pacino wondered.

“We can’t launch until this torpedo goes by, if it goes by, but if we fool it I intend to shoot everything in the torpedo room at Target One.” Rapier took it in.

“Conn, Sonar,” Pacino’s earpiece rattled, “loss of Target One. Signal-to-noise ratio went below threshold.” Pacino and Rapier looked at each other for a long moment. The Russian had disappeared. The torpedoes would be duds for sure now. Pacino pressed on, seeming to ignore the bad news. “And XO,” he said, having to speak over the noise of the incoming Magnum torpedo’s screw, “all units will have ASH disabled.”

“Sir, with Anti-Self-Homing disabled, the units could swim back and acquire on us.”

“I know, but you heard sonar. We don’t even know a bearing to Target One now. He could be anywhere. Time for an educated guess.” Both men paused to listen to the whine of the incoming nuclear-tipped torpedo.

The plot and firecontrol officers were staring at the two men. Then, as the torpedo’s sonar sounded through the hull, all eyes looked sideways to port, as if they could see through the steel to the approaching torpedo outside. The ping-pitch had dropped from a shrill squeak to medium tone, the screw noise had gotten deeper, the noise no longer coming from the port side but fading away to starboard. Pacino looked at Rapier. “We fooled it.”

“Kicked its ass,” Rapier said, the stress leaving his face for a moment.

“Conn, Sonar,” Pacino’s earpiece announced, “we’re getting down doppler on the torpedo. It’s past CPA and opening.”

“Sonar, Captain,” Pacino said into his microphone, “any reacquisition on Target One?”

“Conn, Sonar, no…”