Seawolf End Game (29 page)

Kristen had once again tuned out every other sound around her, trying to focus her every thought, every ounce of her concentration into finding and discriminating the significant noises from the millions of insignificant ones.

Miller left the squawk box on so he could communicate with the control room instantly as he received updated information. The result was they now had another distraction since they could hear everything happening in the control room. They were silently slipping between the two opposing submarines and within two thousand yards of the
Kilo
. So close in fact, that if the
Kilo
were to fire, the
Seawolf
would have no time to react. Kristen assumed the
Kilo
was an Iranian boat, but the
Akula
might very well be Russian, in which case it would be armed with the revolutionary Shkval rocket torpedo. The Shkval used super-cavitation technology to create an air pocket around the torpedo as it passed through the water, eliminating the usual drag and allowing the unguided torpedo to race through the water at two hundred miles per hour. They were now less than seven thousand yards from the
Akula
and a rocket torpedo would close the distance in seconds.

 Kristen heard Brodie’s voice in the control room ordering a course change to the north as they cleared the
Kilo
and
Akula,
leaving them behind. He was taking a huge gamble in leaving these two potential threats in his wake, and as they passed through the cordon undetected, they would lose the two contacts in their baffles and have no idea what they were doing.

Kristen removed her glasses for a moment and rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to address the growing mental fatigue she feared was beginning to impact her ability to concentrate.

“Do you need a break, Lieutenant?” Fabrini asked her.

Kristen did. She needed to take the headphones off and stand up for a few minutes to stretch, but she refused the offer and went back to work, forcing herself to concentrate, blocking out everything else. She moved her joystick, slowly sweeping the area, listening on multiple passive arrays as the
Seawolf,
now in less than two hundred feet of water, continued toward the Strait and the protective minefield. She was sweeping the area to the east of the
Seawolf,
using the three starboard side hull-mounted passive arrays when she heard another faint sound.

Kristen closed her eyes and leaned forward slightly, willing the distant ghost of a sound to come in clearer. Without conscious thought, her fingertips moved over the controls, making fine adjustments.

“Submerged contact!” she whispered harshly. “Close! Nothing but plant noise. Bearing zero-four-one,” she reported and Miller passed it on as Fabrini got the other three operators working to identify the new contact, but then Kristen added, “It’s the
Audacious.”

“Are you certain?” Miller asked trying to hide his skepticism. The
Audacious
was nearly as silent as the
Seawolf.

But she didn’t answer. Instead, she raised a hand and motioned for silence. “There’s another submerged contact on almost the same bearing,” she reported. “Faint…” she hesitated, trying to discern the symphony of sounds she was hearing.

“It’s another
Akula
on her retractable pump-jets.” she offered. “Bearing is zero-four-three.”

“Jesus,” Fabrini whispered anxiously. “It’s a fucking convention in here.”

Kristen focused on the new
Akula,
knowing it was the biggest threat. This particular one was moving in near silence on a pair of retractable pump-jets capable of moving the
Akula
at three knots. But Fabrini was right. There were now four submarines within a thirty-five square mile box around the
Seawolf.
The oceanography of the Strait was to blame. The land masses to the north, east, and west were closing in, forcing all seaborne craft into a tighter and tighter channel, and the submarines, naturally searching for deep water to hide in, were congregating in the deepest part of the channel.

 Kristen listened closely to the sounds of the
Audacious
and the second
Akula.
She could barely tell them apart as the two signatures blended into one. “They have to be right on top of one another,” Kristen said to Miller as the squawk box came alive.

He was about to reply when they each heard Brodie’s voice over the squawk box,
“Chief, have Lieutenant Whitaker report to the control room.”

Kristen unbuckled her seatbelt and stood on stiff legs. There was no room to stretch in the cramped space, so she immediately began working her way out. As she stepped out of the sonar shack, she was struck with the cool air in the passageway and felt a chill tingle down her spine. Her coveralls were soaked in sweat, and she hadn’t noticed how oppressive the air in sonar had become with all of the warm bodies in it.

Kristen stepped into the control room and didn’t see Brodie at first. She’d expected him to be on the periscope platform, but she saw only the XO there. Behind him, Ryan Walcott and the navigation team were working on maintaining a fix on the
Seawolf’s
exact position. On the starboard side of the control room, Andrew Stahl was supervising the tracking parties, each updating their firing solutions on the various contacts. She looked to the right and then saw Brodie, standing by the helmsman.

“Sir?”

He turned on her, his expression still showing the steady calm it always did in the control room, but she could see beads of sweat on his forehead. “How is it out there?” he asked referring to the sea around them.

“Crowded,” she admitted in reply and then asked, “You needed to see me, sir?”

“We’re loading the LMRS drones in a few moments, and I thought you might like to supervise the process.”

It made sense. She was the only person on board with any real experience with the two drones and Kristen would need to make certain they were properly deployed. “Aye, sir,” she responded curtly, keeping her thoughts and actions professional. They were in the belly of the beast, and none of them could afford to get distracted.

“We’re a few minutes from their release point. You’d better get forward,” he suggested without so much as a hint of emotion in his voice. He was almost machine like at the moment, his outward demeanor showing no evidence that the
Seawolf
and all aboard were in mortal danger.

Kristen was about to respond when, as if to add and exclamation point to their situation, they heard Chief Miller over the squawk box,
“MIDAS alert! Mine bearing three-five-nine.”

Brodie was issuing the order before he even managed to turn his head. “All stop! Right twenty degrees rudder! New course zero-three-five.”

Kristen gripped the edge of the hatchway, expecting a loud explosion any second. They’d come through all of the submarine defenses so far unscathed, but the Iranian minefield was either larger than expected or one of the mines had drifted free of its moorings.

Brodie turned back to her, holding a hand up to halt her so she didn’t leave the control room yet. She understood why. If she went to the torpedo room she would have to pass through multiple watertight hatches, and these needed to stay shut in the event they hit a mine and there was flooding. She watched him, his eyes now on the course indicator in front of the helmsman.

His eyes showed the concern he felt. He hid it well, but she could see it now. A moment ago his face had been an impenetrable mask to her, as it usually was, but now she saw the tension coming to the surface. He was as worried as any of them. He waited a full three minutes as the
Seawolf
settled on her new course and began to coast away from the minefield ever so slowly, like a shadow in the depths.

“Go,” he whispered.

“Gone.” She raced forward to the torpedo room.

Upon entering the cavernous space, she saw the two drones were in the process of being loaded. She delayed the loading long enough to check the drones over one last time. As she went over the checklist, she did her best to ignore the six other torpedo tubes, each loaded with warshot. The
Seawolf
was primed for action, and the men around her showed it. The tension was so thick it was oppressive. The men in the torpedo room had been standing by for six hours, their torpedoes and missiles loaded and aware that the
Seawolf
was tracking multiple threat targets, but they had no idea just how close the threat was.

“How bad is it out there?” Chief Chester asked her.

“Pretty damn bad,” she admitted. “Two
Akulas
and a
Kilo
are within eight thousand yards of us, plus there are several surface patrol craft pounding the Strait with active sonar.”

“Shit.”

 The drones were loaded and sealed in the tubes. Kristen waited until they were ready to launch, just to make certain nothing went wrong with their deployment. No sooner were the tubes sealed and their crews reported them loaded, then orders came down to flood the tubes and open the outer doors. Kristen heard the water rushing into the tubes and then the clear metallic sound of the two outer doors opening. It sounded like someone pounding on an empty metal barrel with a sledgehammer, and although she knew it wasn’t quite as loud as she feared, she was conscious of just who might be listening.

She waited as more orders came down to launch the two drones in succession. As each was activated, she heard the whirl of the motors from inside the tubes as the drones swam out of the submarine to begin their reconnaissance. Then, as she was leaving, she heard a torpedoman with a sound powered phone call out an order from the control room, “Load tubes five and six with MK48 ADCAP.”

She rushed back aft as the torpedomen began moving more weapons toward the two empty tubes. Kristen had the feeling something was happening, and she had the desperate urge to get back into the sonar shack where she might be able to do some good. She reached the control room and saw on the closest tactical display that they were barely making headway away from the minefield. Brodie was standing in front of a tactical display with Graves beside him. She studied the display, seeing all of the contacts they’d found coming up into the Strait. They were now monitoring only two of them, one an
Alvand
class frigate about ten miles away, and the other was a new
Kilo
submarine moving near the surface about four miles away.

“It’s dark topside,” Graves offered. “The idiot probably thinks it’s safe to recharge his batteries in the dark,” he said referring to the diesel electric
Kilo
submarine running on the surface.

Brodie nodded thoughtfully and then saw Kristen. “Any problems with the drones?”

“No, sir,” she replied as she shook her head. She wanted to ask what was going on but realized the one thing the men in the control certainly didn’t need was a spectator. “Both are away and should complete their search grid in seven hours.”

Brodie scratched his chin thoughtfully and asked Graves, “What do you think, Jason?”

Graves stared at the tactical display with a critical eye. “The
Audacious
is probably sitting quietly and monitoring the area. But the
Akula
is close by him and might cause both of us some trouble if someone starts it off.”

Kristen could see what the XO was talking about. It was as if the
Seawolf
and the other five submarines were all gunfighters in a small room. Everyone had their hands near their weapons, and all were ready to start shooting. All it would take to start the fireworks was for someone to make a mistake, or for one of the unsuspecting submarines to accidentally come too close to an opponent.

Brodie didn’t respond; instead, he checked his wristwatch. “We don’t want to be the cause of this shootout,” he concluded and then ordered, “Let’s go dark right here and hover. We can wait until the drones return and then commence our infiltration of the minefield.”

Graves wiped the sweat from his brow and spoke to Kristen, “How’re you feeling?”

“I’m okay, sir.” Kristen replied, a bit tired but well aware that everyone else in the room was equally so. She could hardly complain.

“Do you think you’re up to getting back on a stack and seeing if you might reacquire the second
Akula?
” Graves asked.

“Aye, sir,” she replied and headed back to sonar.

Chief Miller had lit a cigarette and several other men were smoking as she entered.  A thick, acrid cloud hung in the air, and she wrinkled up her nose as soon as she entered.

“Smoking lamp’s out, boys,” Miller said as soon as he saw her, precluding her having to protest. He dropped his own butt to the deck and crushed it out with his boot. “Welcome back, Miss,” he offered.

“Thanks, Senior Chief,” Kristen said as she entered. “Do you think we might leave the hatch open for a few minutes to get some fresh air in here?” she asked in a soft whisper, noticing several men look up from their stations at her.

“Sure,” Miller replied. “Are you up for another spin on the analyzer?”

“Just as long as I can breathe,” she replied as she made her way through the throng jammed into the small space.

Seated at the spectrum analyzer was a 1st class petty officer with slightly graying hair. Miller leaned over and tapped the man’s shoulder to get his attention. The man looked up as Miller unceremoniously jerked a thumb at him, directing him out of the chair. “Give the lady a crack at it, Owens,” he ordered briskly.

Kristen sat down and got right to work. The
Alvand
class frigate was still cruising back and forth across the Strait providing a visible deterrent to anyone who might want to force their way through the passage. But the
Alvand
was a ship built for a different time and would be totally outclassed if the shooting started. Kristen could also hear the
Kilo
class submarine running shallow on her diesel engines which sounded like an old bicycle with a bunch of cans dragging behind it. The
Kilo
was as good as any diesel electric submarine, but she too was old and noisy when not on her batteries. She wouldn’t cause the
Seawolf
any grief.