Seawolf End Game (32 page)

In response, the
Seawolf
kept turning and increasing speed as the
Audacious’
torpedo detonated somewhere in the water astern of them. Kristen forced the rising fear within her back down, refusing to listen to her instincts to panic. Another
Aselsan
submarine decoy was launched and Kristen felt the massive acceleration suddenly cease. The
Seawolf
slowed her turn as the bow angled down. Kristen had no idea where Brodie was going; there was little water beneath them to hide in, and the Russian rocket was racing in at over two hundred knots. She forced the fear from her thoughts, focusing on the direction from which the rocket had come, knowing the
Akula
had to be there.

It was difficult to hear anything through the roaring Shkval torpedo between the
Akula
and the
Seawolf
. Around her, men who’d been calmly thinking they would make it into the Persian Gulf without firing a shot less than an hour earlier, were now sweating along with the rest of the crew while the
Seawolf’s
speed dropped off as she went quiet. Brodie was apparently hoping the rocket would either go for the Aselsan decoy or pass the
Seawolf
by and charge for the countermeasure spread they’d dropped in their wake.

“One thousand yards,” Goodman whispered anxiously as the torpedo continued in on them. “Six hundred yards,” he reported a few moments later.

“I think he’s got us,” Hicks whispered as he removed his headphones.

Kristen removed her own headphones. The sound of the inbound torpedo was now quite clear over the loudspeaker. She and the others braced themselves as they felt the
Seawolf,
inexplicably, arch upward. The deck beneath them was suddenly angling upward at a bizarre slant, and Kristen was acutely aware of every sound and action around her. She glanced at Chief Miller. He was grimacing in pain as he clutched his chest; Fabrini was gripping an overhead pipe and looking grim. The other sonar operators were bracing themselves for impact.

But the torpedo passed them by, and, a few moments later, a muffled explosion reached them. The blast wasn’t too far away but far enough not to cause the
Seawolf
to shake violently.

“What happened?” Hicks asked in disbelief.

“He brought us down low,” Fabrini said out loud. “The skipper brought us down near the bottom and then, at the last minute, blew the tanks and brought us back up. The Shkval was going too fast and couldn’t turn quick enough to follow us and slammed into the soft sand where it detonated.”

“Son of a bitch,” Goodman whispered. “Sneaky motherfucker…” he added and then glanced toward Kristen, “Sorry, ma’am.”

Kristen eyed Chief Miller, who looked to be near collapse. “Fabrini, maybe we should to get the chief to sickbay.”

“I’m all right,” he gasped, clearly in distress. “I just have to catch my breath.”

Kristen didn’t have the luxury of time to argue with him. She returned to listening, hearing the other torpedo still searching for a new target, its active sonar pinging loudly as it hunted for a reflection off anything. The
Seawolf
was now coasting, her pump-jet dormant and making almost no discernible sound, although Kristen would have bet her own heartbeat, as well as everyone else’s, had to be audible through the hull. It had been another narrow escape from a second torpedo fired from the
Akula
. She doubted they would be so lucky a third time and redoubled her efforts, struggling to squelch her anxiety and focus on nothing but the sounds coming from the direction of the Russian. But she was also picking up the sound of a second submarine—the one that had come in behind the
Seawolf.
The
Audacious’
torpedo had struck home, and Kristen could clearly hear the submarine going down.

“Con, sonar,” Fabrini reported. “We’re picking up the sound of a third submarine going down. Bearing one-five-eight. We think the
Audacious
got one.”

“Roger that,”
Kristen heard Brodie’s measured reply.

“Hey, I think that torpedo has found something,” Hicks whispered. “Its bearing has changed and has increased speed to flank.”

Kristen spun her dial to focus on the direction where the remaining torpedo was moving as Fabrini reported what Hicks had heard to the control room.

“Look sharp, sonar,”
they heard Brodie over the squawk box.
“I think we’re about to find out where that Akula is.”

Kristen listened closely. The circling Russian torpedo had gone active and was pinging off someone’s hull. It was either the
Audacious
or the first
Akula
. Kristen was hoping for the latter when she heard a distant pump-jet come to life as the submarine the torpedo found picked up speed. “It’s the
Audacious,”
she reported, anxiety gripping her at the thought of the British now running for their lives. The Brits had risked their lives to save the
Seawolf
and were now paying for it. “They’re launching countermeasures,” she added as she listened to the torpedo closing in.

“Stay on the
Akula!”
Fabrini reminded her forcefully.

Kristen realized he was right and returned her focus to the general direction of the last rocket torpedo. She then heard, launching quietly from one of their own torpedo tubes, another MK48. The torpedo was almost silent as it swam out of the tube and moved away from the
Seawolf.

“What’s he doing?” Goodman asked, wondering what Brodie was firing at.

“Look sharp,” Fabrini replied, echoing Brodie’s own words.

Kristen had no idea why Brodie would fire another torpedo. They had no target, just a general direction where they thought the Russian might be. Kristen closed her eyes, and her fingers were gently resting on her controls when she heard a sudden grunt of pain from behind her.

“Chief!” Fabrini shouted in alarm.

Kristen felt the bulk of Chief Miller slam against the back of her chair. The force of his body nearly propelled her into the console. She turned sharply and saw the badly overweight chief collapsing to the floor, grimacing in pain and gripping his chest. The men around her were all shouting, and for a brief second there was pandemonium again, but she commanded them to be silent.

“Dammit,” she snapped, “freaking out won’t help any of us.” She then motioned to a couple of seamen who were lingering along the rear bulkhead. “You two! Get the Chief to sickbay! The rest of you get back to work!” Kristen ordered, knowing it had to sound mighty coldblooded and heartless to order the rest of them to ignore Chief Miller, who appeared to be having a heart attack.

But to her immense surprise, they didn’t argue. Hicks and Goodman went back to work on their stacks while Fabrini directed the two men she’d designated to get the stricken chief to Doc Reed.

Kristen did her best to put concern for Miller out of her mind as she returned to searching the depths while Goodman reported on the
Audacious
and the torpedo closing in on her. “Range six hundred yards and closing,” he said, beginning the deadly countdown.

Kristen blocked out the sound. Instead, she listened to the depths in the direction the
Akula
had fired on them from.

“Four hundred yards.”

Kristen ignored the grim report and stayed focused on the distant
Akula.
She was rewarded a moment later when she heard the slightest whisper of sound: water rushing softly as if through a tube.

“Submerged contact, bearing zero-one-four. Submarine flooding its tubes.”

“Two hundred yards,” Goodman reported at the same time, as if ringing the death knell for the
Audacious.

Kristen put her hands to her headphones, ready to remove them but anxious to hear more. Then she heard the MK48 they’d recently fired go active as Brodie ordered the tracking party to engage the torpedo’s seeker head and light up the water around where the
Akula
had to be hiding, lashing the sea in front of the torpedo with active sonar.

Kristen removed her headphones as the torpedo destined for the
Audacious
exploded. She didn’t wait for the shockwave to finish reverberating around them before slipping her headphones back on to be rewarded by the sound of the
Akula
moving and firing another rocket torpedo.

“
Akula Nine
, bearing zero-one-four,” she reported as the
Akula
turned away from the homing MK-48 ADCAP now racing toward it at over fifty knots. “Shkval torpedo in the water. Passing through seventy knots. Speed increasing rapidly.”

“
Sonar, where’s that torpedo heading?”
Brodie asked coolly.

“The Russian fired the rocket back down the bearing of the MK-48,” Hicks replied.

Now they realized why Brodie had fired the MK48 without a target. After launch, the torpedo swam away from the
Seawolf
at a diagonal. So, when it went active and headed for the
Akula,
it was no longer on a direct line between the
Seawolf
and the Russian. This meant the incoming rocket torpedo was heading not at the
Seawolf,
but at empty sea.

“Con, sonar,” Kristen reported. “
Akula Nine
now at thirty-five knots, bearing three-five-eight. Our MK-48 is at fifty-five knots and homing in on active sonar.”

“Roger, sonar. What’s the status on the
Audacious?” Brodie asked. She knew this had to be hard on him. She’d only met the British crew briefly while at Sasebo, whereas Brodie and Captain Gardener were lifelong friends.

“She’s trying to get to the surface, Captain,” Fabrini reported. “We’re picking up a lot of transients coming from her. She sounds to be pretty beat up.”

“Roger that.”

Three seconds later Kristen heard another MK48 clear its tube and head for the
Akula.
The
Akula
was racing away from the
Seawolf
at flank speed, trying to outrun the first MK48 coming at it, so the Russian would never hear the second MK48 over the noise of her own power plant.

Kristen listened as the
Akula
pulled out all the stops in a futile effort to gain more speed. The
Akula
had been a tough opponent, tougher than it should’ve been. The Russian had outsmarted a MK-48 and sent two Shkvals at the
Seawolf.
But now that the situation was reversed, Kristen felt no sense of pride. They’d done what they had to do, but she could find no pleasure in it.

She passed the fleeing submarine off to Goodman who started calling out the ever-decreasing range between the
Akula
and the MK-48, which appeared to have a solid lock on the fleeing Russian. “Five hundred yards. The
Akula
has launched counter measures and is turning. Coming shallow,” Goodman reported.

Kristen listened impassively.

“Range two hundred…” Goodman said with excitement in his voice. A few seconds later, the torpedo detonated. “Gotcha, you cocksucker!” Goodman nearly cheered, only to be thumped on the back of the head by Fabrini who was standing behind him.

“Knock it off,” Fabrini barked. “That damn well coulda been us.”

They listened as the
Akula
, now making all kinds of noise, tried to run away from the second MK-48 closing in on the double-hulled, fast-attack boat. But the
Akula
, now injured and with what sounded like a badly damaged screw, had no chance. They managed to reach the surface, but the second MK-48 bore in on them relentlessly, striking less than a minute later.

Kristen listened as the
Akula’s
blade noises stopped and the sound of her power plant was replaced by alarm claxons from inside the submarine. There was a secondary explosion, and over the speaker above their heads the men in the sonar room heard the
Akula
beginning to slip back beneath the waves. There were a lot of transients and Kristen assumed it was the sound of men abandoning the sinking submarine. She couldn’t help but feel sympathy for them. Odds were many were already dead, and many more would not get off the boat before she plunged back into the depths.

Control Room, USS Seawolf

K
risten reported to the control room ready to deliver a damage report. Ski had arrived from engineering, and she saw he was soaked in seawater. Apparently there was some flooding in engineering. She bit her lip at the thought of how close they’d come. She then noticed Brodie on the periscope platform talking into the Gertrude.

The Gertrude was a rather crude but very effective sound system that allowed two submarines, when very close, to communicate through the water without sending out any radio signal. Brodie was in the process of speaking to his counterpart on the
Audacious
and getting a damage report from his old friend, Alec Gardener.

“It sounds like you’re out of it, Alec,” Brodie told him.

There was a long pause, and then Kristen heard Gardener’s voice over the squawk box,
“I’d prefer not leaving you Yanks to have all the fun, Sean.”

“Nah,” Brodie responded. “Get your people out of here. We’ll clean up what’s left,”

She didn’t know how badly damaged the
Audacious
was. In the sonar shack, Kristen had clearly heard what sounded like metal banging alongside of the British submarine’s hull. After surfacing, the
Audacious
had been able to submerge again, but she was clearly in no condition to continue the fight.