Thunder In The Deep (02) (45 page)

and run on emergency diesel here. All power had to come from the batteries. The batteries were needed to restart the reactor, once the safeties triggered by the battle shock were reset, and the fast-unscram procedures were complete. But the batteries were also needed to run the combat systems, which used very high electrical demand. Time was of the essence.

Beck went through the watertight door at the far -end of the corridor. He was in the engine room now—it was hot and humid here, and much too quiet. The engineer stood and supervised, as senior enlisted technicians and junior officers checked the status of control circuits and equipment. Others studied readings from the reactor core, of temperatures and neutron flux.

Everyone worked confidently and efficiently. Beck was hardly needed. He watched as the first group of control rods was lifted, by just enough to enter the restart power range. The operators went through their automated checklists. One Leutnant zur See flipped through thick hard-copy reference manuals, independently verifying key parts of on-line procedure.

The engineer nodded, satisfied. "Very well, Reactor Operator. Lift the next control rod group to restart-level power." This step also went well.

Beck palmed an intercom mike and reported to Eberhard. Eberhard ordered Beck to the Zentrale. Eberhard told him Coomans had gotten the port-side torpedo autoloader working again.

SIMULTANEOUSLY, ON CHALLENGER.

Jeffrey fidgeted as he watched his automated damage control displays. He drew a breath arid exhaled. Around him twenty other air masks hissed and whooshed. Jeffrey was still so used to being at the scene in drills or combat—with

Commander Wilson in charge in the CACC—it was emotionally trying to just sit and wait.

But Jeffrey trusted Bell, his XO now back aft; Jeffrey made himself relax. He told himself he still had a ways to go to learn the captainly ways Commander Wilson had long since mastered.

"Captain," the phone talker said. His voice was muffled through his mask. Jeffrey looked up. "Damage Control reports fire extinguished, sir."

"How long to propulsion restart?"

The phone talker relayed the question.

"Five minutes till the ship can answer Maneuvering bells."

"Very well." Jeffrey knew there was no point in asking Willey to hurry—he already was. When would another torpedo come over the ridge?

"Call the XO forward," Jeffrey said.

"Aye, aye."

Bell was there in moments, slightly breathless from his dash in a heavy air pack. Jeffrey made a point of thanking Bell for his help.

"Navigator," Jeffrey said, "take the conn.*

Sessions unplugged his mask, came to the command console, and plugged in again. "This is the navigator. I have the conn."

The watchstanders acknowledged through their masks.

Jeffrey cleared his throat, and pointed around the CACC. "XO, Sonar, Oceanographer, Assistant Navigator. Strategy session at the plotting table." Everyone took deep breaths, pulled on intercom headphones, put their masks back on, and used duct tape to get good seals; the local CACC intercom circuits were working. They joined Jeffrey at the horizontal nav console, and plugged back in. The assistant navigator, a senior chief, brought up a large-scale nautical chart.

"We've broken contact with Deutschland," Jeffrey said. "Now, fight or flight?"

"Deutschland has more options than we do, sir," Bell said. He pointed to the digital chart.

"They can try to come after us, or evade. If they want to evade, they can head northeast, into the Barents Sea, and take refuge in Russian waters."

Jeffrey nodded. The Joint Chiefs' global ROEs forbade American warships from entering the Barents Sea, to avoid a confrontation with Russia that might escalate.

"They could go southeast," Kathy said, "back the way we came, to Norway or the Baltic.

. .. They could even run the Greenland-Iceland-U.K. Gap, sir, into the North Atlantic, and head for a base in France, or threaten our convoys again."

"Concur," Jeffrey said. "And if they head north under the ice cap, they can sneak up over the top of the world and try to run the Bering Straits, on the Russian side, and break into the Pacific past Alaska. From there they could go anywhere."

"We have only one real choice," Bell said. "Under the ice cap we might blunder into Russian SSNs, guarding their boomers, and anything could happen. The friendly waters right off Northern Greenland and Arctic Canada are much too shallow anyway. That leaves the GIUK Gap for us. Into the North Atlantic and home, or temporary refuge in Great Britain."

"Not the latter," Jeffrey said. "We're too tempting a target. I don't want to bring danger following us to the British Isles, with atomic weapons so recently fired."

"I have to agree," Kathy said. "Although there's the same problem with going to the U.S. East Coast. I mean, triggering a nuclear exchange at a base or near the shore . At least we'd have the whole Atlantic for defensive measures first. Losing an Axis tail, linking up with Allied surface and airborne and undersea forces . . ."

"I concur with Sonar," Ilse said. "If we transit the Atlantic, we give time for heads to cool. We can try to avoid something awful in direct retaliation for the Greifswald raid." Jeffrey nodded. Ilse and Kathy had an important point. The U.K. was smaller in size and population than the U.S., and the Brits were hurting bad in this third Battle of the Atlantic. The U.S. could take more damage and keep up the fight. Cold-blooded, but there it was.

"All right," Jeffrey said. "But let's get back to the main question. We know we want to destroy Deutschland. Do we try to do it now and here?"

"Captain," Bell said, "you started this by asking if we wanted to escape."

"I don't think we have an alternative, XO. Deutschland and the Axis high command can't afford to let us get away, because of the model missile and the hard drives. Eberhard's most likely decision is to continue pursuit."

"Assuming he isn't badly damaged," Ilse said.

"Yes, assuming that. Even if he doesn't regain contact soon, he'll be somewhere in our rear, hunting us. As we approach the GIUK Gap, we may encounter one or more Axis Amethyste II's on barrier patrol. They'll know the Gap's our only practical escape route, too."

"A pair of those in front," Bell said, "and Deutschland behind . . . I don't like those odds one bit."

"Nor do I," Kathy said. "Any datum we made, fighting other German SSNs, would draw Deutschland immediately. There's partial deep sound channel coupling through both passages in the Gap."

Jeffrey'd already made up his mind, but it was good to hear the others check his thinking and agree.

"Now, how do we find Deutschland before she finds us?" "Captain," the phone talker called, "Engineer reports, Ready to answer all bells."

"Very well," Jeffrey said. "End of briefing. I have the conn. . . . Helm, ahead one third. Make your course zero two five."

Meltzer acknowledged.

"XO, I intend to proceed five nautical miles up this canyon, turn to starboard, and take a peek back over the ridge."

Beck was leaning over Werner Haffner's sonar console when the Zentrale phone talker spoke.

"First Watch Officer, sir, the engineer's compliments, and reactor is in full-power range. Ship is ready to answer all bells."

Beck went back to his own console, now rebooted, and repeated the message to the captain, who'd surely heard the talker himself—but this was procedure.

"Very well," Eberhard said.

Beck saw Eberhard was examining the large-scale nautical chart. Eberhard typed, and the same image came on Beck's screen.

"So, Einzvo? What would you do now?"

"If I were Challenger, sir, I'd head southwest, toward one of the passages between Greenland and Iceland and Scotland."

"Yes, that's his obvious egress path. Your sonar search plan?"

"Sir, Challenger will surely continue to hug the terrain, for acoustic masking."

"Tell me something I don't know."

Beck swallowed. "I suggest we first proceed to the top of the nearest ridge, then listen with the advantage of height and concealment." The series of parallel ridges ran northsouth; the nearest lay just west of where Deutschland and Challenger had had their inconclusive nuclear skirmish.

"What makes you think that will work?"

"Challenger is in a bind, sir. If she goes fast she'll make more noise, and we'll detect her from a distance." The noisy damage to her rudder, from the surface battle in the Sound, had been impossible to miss. "If she goes slow, she'll be closer, and that much easier to localize."

"Pilot," Eberhard said, "steer two zero five." To the south-southwest. "One-third speed ahead."

"Steer two zero five, jawohl. One-third speed ahead,

jawohl." Coomans glanced at Beck for a moment, as if to give him a mental shrug. Beck was miffed. Eberhard hadn't even replied to Beck's suggested plan.

"Sir, may I ask your intentions?"

"Work our way further south at the near side of the nearest ridge line. Then proceed to the crest at four knots."

Ilse and the others sat in their air breather masks, with intercom mikes underneath. She heard Sessions report they'd made the progress north that Jeffrey wanted.

"Very well, Nay," Jeffrey said through his mask. "Helm, make your course zero six zero.

" To the east-northeast. "Make turns for five knots." Ilse watched her gravimeter screen, -set to the forward-looking view. Challenger drew closer to the talus slope at the western base of the volcanic ridge line. The ship put on a steep up-bubble as Meltzer took the slope. On the display Ilse saw the ridge flank passing under her, very close.

She looked down at the deck, and reminded herself that all this imagery was real. The ridge was there outside the hull. The jagged basalt was right there under her feet. She glanced at own-ship's depth; the two-tons-per-squareinch sea pressure was also real. She switched to the bird's-eye view gravimeter mode. It showed the ridge from above, with Challenger's position marked. The own-ship icon slowly scaled the ridge, at an angle.

The gravimeter could see through solid rock—and through the boiling ocean of a sonar whiteout. The display showed the other side of the ridge, and the floor of the Shetland Channel just beyond. Ilse wondered what waited out there. To the gravimeter, a moving SSN would be invisible.

Beck watched his screens as Deutschland slowly climbed the east face of the ridge. Beck saw something on the sonar readouts.

"Hole-in-ocean contact on starboard wide-aperture array!" Haffner shouted. "Ambient sonar contact as well! Near-field effects."

"It's Challenger," Beck said. The two ships had met head-on at point-blank range.

"Pilot," Eberhard snapped. "Flank speed ahead!" "Reactor check valve transients directly to starboard!"

Haffner shouted. "Tonals imply Challenger accelerating. .

Aspect change! Signal drawing toward our baffles."

"She's turning to try to follow us," Beck said.

"Not she. He. Fuller. Pilot, starboard thirty rudder."

They'd found Deutschland, and Deutschland had found them. Ilse held on as Challenger banked steeply into a very hard turn to starboard, building up momentum as she went. The deck began to vibrate as the ship fought for flank speed.

"Contact still held on Master One," Kathy said. "Relative bearing is constant."

"We're in a turning dogfight," Jeffrey said.

The two ships tried to follow each other into a tightening circle; turning radius in a sub depended on rudder angle, not speed. Challenger hit thirty-two knots; the pump-jet's heavy shaking began.

"Bearing rate on Master One!" Bell said. "Master One is drawing into our baffles!" Deutschland was winning the contest for position.

Challenger topped forty knots, on the way to fifty. The ride was very rough.

"Sir," Bell said. "At close enough range Deutschland may try to cripple our pump-jet by ramming it with a safed Sea Lion, or even fire at us with her antitorpedo rockets." The only fish that worked this deep that either side had were nuclear.

"Concur, XO," Jeffrey said. "We have unknown damage back there already, and Eberhard knows it. He heard that shaking, too."

A sudden rumbling roar got louder, then another and another. There was a bang-bangbang, then a staccato plinking against the hull.

"That was a salvo of rockets," Bell said. "A broadside, depleted-uranium buckshot. . . . No apparent damage, sir." "A ranging shot, to scare us." Deutschland and Challenger danced their ballet. On the gravimeter Ilse watched the ridge crest turn in a dizzying circle beneath her. Challenger hit fifty knots. Jeffrey ordered COB to blow high-pressure air into the sail trunk. Ilse heard compressed air roar, then a rushing whistle as water was forced out through the leaks in the flooded trunk. The noise changed to a gurgle.

Jeffrey ordered Meltzer to reverse his rudder, hard, and follow the ridge slope down, back the way they'd come.

It took a moment for Deutschland to react. She tried to follow.

Jeffrey ordered COB to flood ten tons of variable ballast. Ilse knew that trick would help them build speed down the slope. Sonar tracked Master One behind by echoes off the ridge flank.

Challenger leveled off, racing northward in the canyon.

Jeffrey told COB to secure the high-pressure air—Ilse realized they'd blown the trunk dry to prevent another snap roll; the sail trunk flooded again. Jeffrey told COB to restore neutral buoyancy.

The close-in flank-speed stern chase resumed, the roles now reversed: Challenger in the lead, with Deutschland hard on her tail. The canyon floor got gradually deeper.

"Target separation eighteen hundred yards," Bell said. Too close for a Mark 88 on lowest yield without self-damage. Deutschland gained on them slowly.

Jeffrey grabbed a spare sound-powered phone, and yelled through his mask. " Maneuvering, Captain, push the reactor to one hundred twenty percent. . . . Yes, I know Admiral Rickover would turn over in his grave. Do it, Enj, or we'll join him." FOUR HOURS LATER.

Kathy came back from another catnap and sat down next to Ilse; Jeffrey and Bell had also taken turns with snatches of sleep. All around Ilse, things in the CACC bounced and jiggled. Her backside was numb from the constant vibrations, and from sitting in concentration. At least the crew was out of their respirators now. Ilse glanced at the speed log: 53.3 knots.