The Seventh Angel (51 page)

USS Towers
:

The rocket struck the destroyer near the centerline of the 5-inch gun, blowing through the wedge-shaped carbon laminate faring, and ripping the large-bore naval cannon from its mount as easily as a child snapping a wishbone.

The concussion heeled the destroyer several degrees to port. The ship immediately rolled back to starboard, and then righted herself as the kinetic energy of the exploding rocket was transmitted down through the keel, and passed from the steel hull into the icy water of the Russian sea.

Broken and burning wreckage from the gun carriage tumbled down into the carrier room beneath the gun, spilling fire, fragments of scorched metal, and scalding hydraulic fluid on the Gunners Mates below. The Gunnery Officer, Ensign Kerry Frey, was killed instantly.

Automatic fire suppression systems kicked on in the carrier room and the 5-inch magazine, limiting the cascade of damage. Two main electrical junction boxes and a breaker panel were shorted out by penetrating shrapnel. Electrical power failed, plunging the carrier room and magazine into darkness. The few surviving battle lanterns came on automatically, casting yellow circles of light over the injured and dying members of the 5-inch gun crew.

* * *

About sixty feet aft of the gun, Seaman Apprentice Melillo and Seaman Dreyfus were thrown bodily against a lagged steel bulkhead by the explosion. Melillo felt his nose crunch as he collided face-first with the lagging, and then bounced to the deck. He lay there for a few seconds, too dazed to move.

The forward missile launcher fired again, and there were explosions in the distance, somewhere away from the ship.

We’re not the only ones getting hammered tonight
, Melillo thought groggily. He wiped blood from his nose, and staggered to his feet. A wave of pain and dizziness swept over him, and he stumbled against the bulkhead for support.

The lighting was different now. Electrical power had failed in this section of passageway, and the emergency battle lanterns were on.

Dreyfus lay on the deck, eyes open but not moving.

Melillo looked down at his shipmate. “Hey, Carl? Are you okay?” His words sounded strange, partly because his ears were still ringing from the blast, and partly because he couldn’t breathe through his nose, which was already beginning to swell.

Dreyfus lay on the deck without speaking.

Melillo tried to lean over his buddy, and instantly regretted the move, as a rush of nauseous pain surged through his head and nose. He staggered again, but didn’t fall.

He nudged Dreyfus with the toe of one steel toed boot. “Carl, are you alright?”

Dreyfus looked up at him, blinking slowly. He seemed to be recovering his senses. “Yeah,” he said finally. “I … I think so.” He extended his hand. It trembled at first, but steadied down as Dreyfus began to regain control of his stunned muscles.

Melillo grasped the outstretched hand, and helped his friend climb painfully to his feet.

There was another rumble of launching missiles. Melillo could smell something burning, and people were shouting somewhere at the far end of the passageway.

A voice came over the 1-MC speakers. “This is the Damage Control Assistant, from CCS. All available personnel report to the nearest repair locker.” The announcement was immediately repeated.

Melillo looked at his buddy. They were both pretty beat up. But their ship was in trouble, and he knew that some of his shipmates were probably in much worse shape.

“
Let’s go, dude,” he said. “They’re playing our song.”

* * *

In the semi-darkness of Combat Information Center, Ann Roark was doing her best to tune out the battle. She swallowed, and took a deep breath.
Don't pay any attention. Let the Navy people worry about their business. Take care of your robot, and leave the other stuff to them. Watch the screen. Just do your job.

After a few minutes, she had honed that last sentence down to a mantra.
Just do your job.
Just do your job.
Just do your job.
She repeated the words over and over again in her head, unaware that she was rocking back and forth in her seat as she recited the mental litany.
Just do your job.
Just do your job.

She knew from the reports bouncing around that some of the crew members were dead, and at least part of the ship was on fire. She wondered where Sheldon was. She had to fight the urge to jump up and go looking for him. Not that she thought she had a chance of finding him in this metal maze. Her brain just wanted her to be up and moving, probably because that was as close as she could manage to running away.
Just do your job.

Another report came through the overhead speakers. “TAO—Air, splash Bogie Number Three. All Bogies are down. All Vipers are down.”

There was no cheering this time. The helicopters had been destroyed, and the inbound missiles were all gone. But the ship was wounded and there were MiGs out there somewhere.

Just do your job.
Just do your job.

A hand touched her shoulder, and Ann nearly screamed.

It was Sheldon, looking rumpled and tired, but otherwise intact. “How are you holding up, Princess Leia?”

Ann tried to smile. “I haven’t thrown up yet.”

“
Me either,” Sheldon said. “But that’s not really a problem for me. When the missiles start flying, I’m more worried about peeing my pants.”

Ann nodded. “I’ve been thinking about doing that, myself. I’m trying to figure out if it’s an acceptable alternative to yakking all over CIC. I mean, it
might
be alright. But I don’t know enough about Navy regulations. Peeing my panties might turn out to be a major breach of military protocol.”

“
We can always
ask
,” Sheldon said.

“
You
ask,” Ann said. “I’m not good with that kind of thing.”

Sheldon nodded absently. “We’re running out of missiles,” he said softly.

Ann could tell instantly from the expression on his face that he hadn’t meant to say that out loud. She sat up. “What?”

Sheldon blinked, but didn’t say anything.

Ann lowered her voice. “We’re running out of missiles?”

“
Yeah,” Sheldon said. “The ship was doing training work-ups when they got tapped for this mission. The
Towers
wasn’t scheduled to deploy for several more months, so the ship wasn’t fully outfitted for deployment yet. When they got the order to come here, they were only carrying about half of their normal missile load.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Between the fight with those MiGs yesterday, and the helicopters tonight, we’re running out of missiles. And the 5-inch gun was wiped out by that rocket hit.”

Ann felt her jaw muscles tighten. “Why are you telling me this? I was already scared out of my wits. Now you’ve got to dump all this on me?”

“
I’m sorry,” Sheldon said. “I thought you’d want to know the truth.”

“
Not when I’m trying to decide whether to pee my pants of throw up,” Ann said. “I don’t want the truth right now. I want to hear that everything is fine, and we’re all going to make it home alive.”

“
We’re going to be okay,” Sheldon said.

Ann cocked an eyebrow. “It’s too late for that now, asshole.”

“
Just take care of Mouse,” Sheldon said.

“
That’s what I was trying to do when you came flitting in like the freaking Bad News Fairy,” Ann said. “I was trying to keep my mind on the job. Take care of my little robot.”

Sheldon shook his head. “No. I mean
now
. Take care of Mouse,
now
.” He reached over and tapped the screen of Ann’s laptop. “ET is trying to phone home.”

Ann turned her head. Mouse’s little green triangle was blinking. The data in the block to the left of the icon was updating every few seconds.

Ann examined the readout carefully. “Go tell Chief McPherson that Mouse is tracking her submarine.”

* * *

Chief McPherson stood near the Computerized Dead-Reckoning Tracer, and looked down at the horizontally-mounted flat-screen digital display that formed the CDRT’s entire upper surface. Five feet wide and almost six feet long, it was essentially an electronic map table, with a viewing area nearly as large as the big Aegis display screens. But unlike the Aegis screens, which could tap into feeds from any sensor or weapons system, the CDRT was optimized for Undersea Warfare. It had been designed specifically for hunting and killing submarines.

Near the center of the display was the circular green symbol that signified USS
Towers
. The ship was surrounded by the white of the ice pack, broken only by the irregular ribbon of blue that represented the channel of open water they had sailed into. The ship was close to the northern end of the polynya, where the waterway constricted even further, and then narrowed to a close.

A voice crackled in the left ear of the chief’s headset. “USWE—Tracker, testing Net One One.”

The chief was currently the ship’s
USWE
, short for Undersea Warfare Evaluator. Her job was to coordinate the actions of the ship’s USW team, and direct the efforts to detect, classify, and destroy hostile submarines.

Tracker
was the temporary watch station ID she had assigned to STG3 Mooney, the Sonar Technician she had appointed to stand behind Ann Roark’s chair, and relay contact information from the civilian’s laptop.

Because the sensor in question was an underwater robot, Mooney had tried to talk his chief into designating the new watch station as
AquaDroid
, or
RoboGuy
, or
SubSlayer 2000
. The Chief had settled on
Tracker
. It was simple, efficient, and she wouldn’t feel like an idiot every time she had to call him over the net.

She keyed her mike. “Tracker—USWE. Read you Lima Charlie. How me?” (Lima Charlie was net-speak for Loud and Clear.)

“
USWE—Tracker. Read you same.”

“
USWE, aye. Break. UB—USWE, what’s the status of your torpedoes?”

The Underwater Battery Fire Control Operator keyed into the net. “USWE—UB. Port and starboard torpedo tubes are prepped for firing. I’m ready to shoot as soon as I get a valid firing solution.”

“
USWE, aye. Break. Sonar—USWE, are you standing by to trigger the beacon?”

The Sonar Supervisor’s voice came back at once. “USWE—Sonar. Affirmative, Chief. We’re queued up for a single active transmission, Frequency F2, with upward FM ramp. Standing by to transmit on your mark.”

“
USWE, aye. Give me a ping, Vasily. One ping only, please.”

The Sonar Supervisor’s voice came back again. “USWE—Sonar. Say again your last.”

Chief McPherson smiled to herself. “Never mind, Sonar. It’s a line from a movie. One of the good ones, about chasing a Russian missile sub.”

The Sonar Supervisor chuckled. “If you say so, Chief. Must be some of that old-school stuff.”

The chief keyed her mike. “It
is
old-school, Sonar. I’ll tell you about it when you’re old enough.”

Then, before the Sonar Supervisor could respond, Chief McPherson keyed up again. “All Stations—USWE, stand by to go hot. Break. Tracker—USWE, start feeding me ranges and bearings.”

STG3 Mooney’s voice came through the left ear of her headset. “USWE—Tracker. All bearings and ranges to follow are from the robot. Stand by… Mark. Bearing three-zero-three, range two thousand four hundred yards.”

The chief keyed her mike. “USWE, aye.”

She laid her hand on the CDRT’s track ball, and scrolled the cursor until it was poised over the green triangular symbol that represented the Mouse robot. She punched a button to give the symbol an electronic tag, and then used the CDRT’s keypad to quickly type in the range and bearing information she had just received from Mooney.

When she finished the entry, the red V-shaped symbol for hostile submarine appeared on the screen at the coordinates she had punched in. There was a red dot at the center of the symbol, but no speed vector. With only one range and bearing fix, the computer couldn’t yet begin to calculate the contact’s course and speed.

The positional information was all referenced from the Mouse robot, which was currently tracking the submarine using a combination of passive sonar and laser-based LIDAR imaging. The chief selected the new hostile submarine symbol, and used the CDRT’s offset tracking function to recalculate all target ranges and bearings from the position of USS
Towers
.

A new data block appeared, containing the requested information. The submarine was outside of the ship’s torpedo engagement envelope, by almost eight hundred yards.

Under ordinary circumstances, she would have recommended a port turn to close the range. But the narrow confines of the polynya didn’t give the ship enough leeway for the turn. If they made the turn, they’d collide with the ice pack. Their only choice was to wait for the submarine to come closer.

She tagged the new data block, typed in a manual designation, and pressed the button to transmit it to the Fire Control Computers. Then she keyed her mike. “UB—USWE, I’m sending you range and bearing updates for new contact, track number zero-zero-one, designated
Gremlin Zero One
. Start your track, and stand by on port side torpedoes.”