than most of the rest of the world put together. That led to the question that really worried him. Why were they being hunted, they’d killed the Scarlet Beast hadn’t they?
Captain Ben-Shoshan was asking himself the same question and he really didn’t like the answers he was getting. However, he was unable to pursue the matter further because a much more urgent development demanded his attention. His submarine had just been surrounded by a neat diamond of four active sonobuoys. There was no doubt about that, the low-frequency pulses hitting the hull could be heard by everybody in the submarine.
“Give me maximum power right now!” He knew what was going to happen next, above him the anti-submarine aircraft were coming in for the long, low pass that would end with a pair of torpedoes dropped on his position. In this relatively shallow water with no thermocline to hide under, he had very few options left. Under his feet, he felt the humm as the electric motors picked up power and started to spin the prop faster. He guessed that the propeller wouldn’t be cavitating yet, but it was only a question of time. Shallow water meant little pressure on the prop blades so that the bubbles of water vapor would form so much more easily. Every one of them would sound like a tiny hammer hitting the prop blade.
“Torpedoes in the water.” The call from the sonar system operator was desperate. On the command system displays, the symbol representing Tekuma had been joined by two more tracks. Ones that were already moving fast towards her and curving in towards her stern. He could see the two crews above him had done an excellent job of killing him. The torpedoes were perfectly placed, one in each stern quarter. No matter how he turned, he was going to be presenting his stern to one and his beam to the other. That left him with few options.
“Launch decoys.” Outside, from small tubes built into the superstructure, the torpedo decoys popped out. They included noisemakers that would duplicate the sound of his machinery and bubble generators that would give an active sonar something else to ping. There had been a time when decoys had worked but those days were long past. It was the same everywhere, the computer technology that allowed small hand-held telephones to emulate computers allowed an unprecedented level of data processing inside the warhead of a small, expendable weapon. It wasn’t just necessary for a decoy to sound like a submarine, it had to act like a submarine as well. Target Motion Analysis it was called and it had spelt the doom of cheap, expendable decoys. The same technology was now spelling his doom also.
“Do not be concerned, the Lord will protect us.” Yitzchak’s voice was dreamy, distracted. He had been promised protection and salvation, the archangel who had guided him would not let him down. He would not be allowed to fall victim to those who had allied themselves with the Eternal Enemy.
“Bring her around hard, to starboard.” There was a odd quirk with the Dolphin design, she could turn slightly tighter to starboard than to port. It was a tiny fraction but it was the only card Ben-Shoshan had left to play. Then his communications officer’s words struck home. “Yitzchak, what the hell are you talking about? What have you done?”
The Mark 54 had a very specific target. The warhead that could be carried by a lightweight torpedo was inadequate to penetrate the hull of a modern submarine. Probably. So, the Mark 54 had been designed to pick out the submarine’s propeller an home in on that. More importantly, it was designed to blow at least one of the blades off that propeller leaving it completely unbalanced. It was the blast that destroyed his propeller that ensured Ben- Shoshan never got an answer to his questions. Not in this life anyway, things would be different very shortly.
With two of its propeller blades blown completely off and the remaining five mangled beyond recognition, Tekuma had no effective propulsion and was losing speed rapidly. Her shaft was still spinning despite the fact that the explosions had bent it through a ten degree angle and that was much more critical than the loss of propulsion. The bent, unbalanced shaft ripped open the shaft tunnel and destroyed the seals that kept the water out. Throughout the stern quarter of the submarine, water started to pout into compartments, weighing down the stern of the boat and dragging her to the bottom. That left just one thing to do.
“Blow tanks! All hands, abandon ship!”
B-25J “Heavenly Body”, Mediterranean
“Here she comes!” Perdue’s voice was straining with excitement. The two P-3s had made their drops and there had been a nail-biting delay before the pair of oil-stained white towers of seawater announced the hits. Then, the sea seemed to have started boiling as the shock wave had reflected off the seabed and erupted upwards. Now, the sea had boiled again as the submarine blew her ballast tanks in a desperate attempt to get to the surface. The dark green shape arched upwards in the middle of the spray, the sunlight surrounding her with rainbows that gave an almost supernatural aura to the scene. Then the hatches fore and aft of the sail started to open and men started to heave themselves out. Already, yellow life rafts were expanding from their containers on the deck.
“And here we go boys and girls.” Tyson was already diving on the submarine, his four nose-mounted. 50 caliber machine guns spraying bullets into Tekuma’s crew as they tried to abandon the sinking submarine. Heavenly Body’s twin. 50s in her top turret was firing as well, only Trudy laFonteyn continued her burst as the B-25 swept across her target and continued to pour long bursts into the crew as it started to circle the wreck. She was joined by one of the waist gunners and between them they mowed down the submariners. That was what aircraft like the AC-130 did, they circled their target, mowing down the enemy. It was good, if unexpected, training for laFonteyn.
“A bit harsh that.” Perdue’s instincts as a mariner were overcoming his loathing for the crew of this submarine and what they had done. Beneath them, the submarine was obviously sinking, its stern was underwater and the bows were rising as flooding aft pulled her under. That made her crew fellow seamen in distress and the slaughter as the machine guns mowed them down was repugnant to him. He knew the rationale, submarines carried shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles and it only needed one man to bring down a fabulously expensive maritime patrol aircraft and its crew. It still just seemed wrong to him and he was glad when Heavenly Body ran out of ammunition for her top turret and waist guns.
By that time, Tekuma was clearly in her last moments. She was almost vertical in the water, her bows pointing skywards, her sail already vanishing beneath the waves. With a final flourish caused by the remaining air bubbling out of her hull, she slipped away, leaving nothing on the surface but oil, debris and the bodies of her crew.
“Hey, old timer, Quebec-Seven here. We’ll write you up as an equal share in the kill. Fair?” The radio message from the P-3C caused a cheer in the old B-25. After more than sixty years, Heavenly Body finally had a kill of her own to paint under her cockpit.
“Very fair kids. Now, we’ll take you home.”
Chapter Fifty Three
Lemuel’s Home, Eternal City, Heaven
He knew something was wrong the moment he stepped into his home. It wasn’t just that the small palace was silent, there was something else. A brooding air of tension and anger. In a way that Lemuel-Lan-Micheal couldn’t quite comprehend, it was as if the house itself was sullen and resentful. It didn’t help matters that he wasn’t feeling very well. It was strange, he always felt fine when he was with Maion, at the Montmartre Club or at the Temple but as soon as he was away from them for any length of time, his feeling of contentment and gentle bliss would go and be replaced by headaches, irritation and vague, formless anger. It was this pattern, more than any other factor, that had finally reconciled him to the now self-evident truth that the Temple of Ceaseless Compliance was, in fact, merely an over-zealous proponent of the True Path. As his new friends had pointed out, austerity and spirituality had its place once, but new times and new conditions demanded change. If they could better serve The One Above All by following a different way, was it not their duty to do so?
Something else was missing as Lemuel-Lan entered the vestibule of his house, Onniel was nowhere in sight and for that he was grateful. Her sneering, contemptuous voice was the last thing he needed to hear right now. What he really wanted was to stretch out in his pool, let his wing-feathers soak in the limpid waters and feel their warmth wash away his discomfort. That wasn’t too much to ask was it? Or to have his wing-feathers combed so they lay flat and comfortable. Maion wouldn’t even have to be asked, she would know that such small services would please him.
As it turned out, a warm relaxing bath was too much to ask. On his way to the pool, Lemuel-Lan had to pass one of the entrances to the servants quarters and from therein he heard the sounds of weeping. A few seconds attention identified the sound as one of his human slaves. Sadly, Lemuel-Lan put aside his desire for a bath and entered the quarters to find out what the problem was. That was normally something he would not do but this was
