abreast and march back and forth across a swath two dozen miles wide. They also like to work with ASW aircraft and helicopters. Right now, they’re practicing how to hunt us. We’re going to do our best to avoid giving them a real target to train on.”
Hardy went over to the chart table to check the new course, then the fire-control display. “Mr. Holtzmann, assume an exercise area fifteen miles on a side, centered on the pinger’s current position, then add the detection range of a first-line SSN’s sonars. How wide is the danger zone?” Hardy sounded like he already knew the answer.
“I’ll assume an Akula II with a Skat-3 sonar suite,” Holtzmann answered as he brought up a detection/counter-detection program on the HP computer. “We’re ultra-quiet, so that roughly quarters the noise we are putting into the water.”
He punched in the data, then moved to show the display to Hardy as his finger traced a graph. Hardy shook his head. “Remember, mister, he’s trying to avoid detection as well. Assume he’s ultra-quiet, too.”
Chagrined, Holtzmann punched in the corrections, then followed another line on the plotted graph. Hardy nodded and said, “Add that distance to the size of the box and plot a course around it.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“And then figure out the distance we have to be from the box before we can secure from ultra-quiet.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Jerry and Holtzmann turned over the watch at noon, with the boat creeping north-northeast, away from the Russian exercise area. Lunch was cold cuts in the wardroom, eaten in almost total silence and with Jerry being careful not to scrape his chair across the deck. The two ladies were even more careful than the rest of the crew, speaking in whispers, setting down a glass slowly to prevent any sound.
They secured from ultra-quiet in mid-afternoon, and an almost tangible weight lifted from Jerry’s shoulders. Staying quiet wasn’t a hardship, or even difficult, but it meant being constantly aware and constantly careful. That awareness also included the presence of Russian forces, not really the enemy, but a dangerous and capable opponent.
Jerry came back on watch at six, after eating an early dinner. Although most officers would stand one watch section out of every three or four, Jerry had doubled up to get in the experience he needed in this one patrol. Sleep would have to wait until they got back home.
The waterfall display was filled with bright speckles, like a thin fog. The “fog” lay in front of them, and as he watched it move down the display, it widened slightly. That meant it was filling more of the horizon. They were headed straight for it. Into it.
“It’s the Marginal Ice Zone,” Jerry announced. “We’re picking up the sound of the ice floes as they melt and hit each other.”
“Correct,” replied Ho. “This time of year, you’ve got to go pretty far north to reach it. Implications?”
“Reduced passive detection ranges. And we have to be more careful when using the periscope, or any mast.”
Ho nodded. “And this is just small junk. They weigh less than a hundred pounds apiece. Later we’ll get into the bigger stuff.”
By the middle of the watch, they had entered the Marginal Ice Zone. The waterfall display was covered with tiny white specks, like slow-moving static. Above them, the ocean’s surface was littered with an ever-thickening cover of ice floes and a slushy mix of seawater and small ice chunks. To Jerry, everything felt the same, but now there was a roof on their world.
“The good news is,” Ho explained, “we don’t have to worry too much about Russian ASW aircraft and ships. The bad news is that Russian subs operate under this all the time. Their detection ranges are reduced as well, but they’re used to it.”
Ho continued to lecture Jerry as the watch continued. “We can surface in this stuff, if we had to.” His tone made it clear that they wouldn’t do it casually. “Later on, it’ll be solid pack ice. We can navigate well enough under it, but we can’t surface through that. Some subs can, but we are not, I repeat, not, ice-capable. Late-flight 688’s have bow planes they can retract, but we’d wreck our fairwater planes if we tried to go through solid ice.”
“So what happens if we have a problem?” Dr. Patterson entered the control room from the forward passageway. She’d overheard the conversation.
Ho asked, “You mean the kind of problem where we might need to surface?” His tone was light, but when he saw her expression, his changed as well. “We’ve got air as long as the reactor is working, and even if the reactor failed, the battery will last long enough to get us out of trouble.”
Patterson waved her hands in the air, as if warding off biting insects. “Please, don’t tell me all the precautions because that means you have to tell me what might go wrong. I’m sure you’ve thought it all through, just like NASA. But things don’t always go well for them, either.”
“That must be why they pay us the big bucks,” one of the enlisted men muttered sarcastically.
Ho shot him a hard look, but said, “We do our best and try to be ready.” He shrugged. He turned back to Jerry “I need you to stay alert, Mr. Mitchell. Our charts of the area are less than complete.”
Patterson rolled her eyes, but Ho saw the gesture and motioned toward the chart. “The path we’re taking, especially as we get closer to Russia, hasn’t been traveled all that often by U.S. boats, and we weren’t able to get current charts from the Russian Hydrographic service or AAA. Look at the numbers that show depth, Doctor. See how they run in lines. You can almost see where every U.S. submarine has passed in these waters by following the soundings they took.”
He pointed to their own track, drawn on the chart. “See where we’ve crossed these blank areas? The mapmakers will use our fathometer logs to fill in some of the empty spots and also check to see if there have been any changes. Because the seafloor up here never stays the same.”
Ho looked over at Jerry, standing by the chart table and listening to the conversation. “Mind the gauges, mister.” Mitchell quickly turned back to his watch station.
Dr. Patterson said, “Thanks for the explanation, although I’m no less nervous for knowing why the charts are incomplete. What are the chances of hitting an underwater mountain or something?”
“We watch the fathometer closely,” Ho assured her, “and if the bottom starts sloping, either up or down, we find out why — and quickly. We have a high-frequency mine-avoidance sonar mounted in the sail and on the lower part of the bow that we can use to look for obstacles ahead of or over us, but it’s an active sonar, so we won’t use it unless we have to.”
“And if we do hit something?” she asked.
Ho shrugged. “Depends on what it is. If we strike something head-on, at speed, it would damage the hull and cause injuries inside, since we’re not wearing seat belts. When USS
Patterson gave Ho a dirty look that told him that she was tired of constantly hearing about the worst-case scenario. Clearing his throat, he quickly moved on to a more likely possibility. “Our biggest fear is that we could scrape our bottom on a shallow spot that isn’t on our charts. Most likely it would only cause minor damage. There’s almost no chance of rupturing the pressure hull. That’s a couple of inches of HY80 steel. It might limit our speed or make us noisier, which would be a real pain. Of course, if the screw or rudder is damaged, then we’d be in a world of. ” Ho stopped talking, suddenly conscious of Patterson’s exasperated expression.
After a small pause, she changed the subject. “How long until we reach the area?” Patterson asked.
“You mean the dump sites?” Ho asked and she nodded.
Ho rummaged through several rolled-up charts and pulled out the same one she’d shown at the briefing after they’d gotten underway. He noted the location of the first dump site and made a pencil mark on the larger navigational chart. He measured the distance from
Patterson nodded again, as she followed along with Ho’s explanation. Then hesitantly, she asked, “What will
