Dangerous Ground

“How about the Grishas?” Jerry asked.

“Sonar has only a poor fix,” the talker reported. “Their best guess is nine miles and closing.”

Which meant they could be even closer. He wished they could do something to hurry the process.

“I’m stopping Memphis here,” Hardy told Mitchell. My depth is six five feet. Come right a little, to one six eight.”

“Come right to one six eight, aye,” Jerry answered and told the Manta to change course.

“What’s your battery charge?” Hardy asked.

“Sixty percent,” Jerry reported.

“The instant the divers and the warheads are off, send the Manta southeast. I want your recommendations on how to distract those patrol craft.”

“Yessir,” replied Jerry, but before he thought about anti-Grisha tactics, he started working the math. How much range did the battery give him? How much margin did he have to leave? It wasn’t simple, especially with one eye on the video screen and the other on the navigation display.

Knowing Memphis’ keel depth, he brought the Manta shallower as it approached the sub. That way he could risk approaching closely, knowing he was too high to hit he hull. He’d take his chances with the sail by angling a smidge aft.

“Conn, U-bay. Is there any more on the Grishas’ ETA?”

“Negative,” said the talker. “Mr. Bair thinks they’re roughly paralleling the coastline because the bearing drift changes back and forth.”

Well, if they’re hugging the coast, they’ll run aground on us, Jerry thought.

“We should be getting close.” Emily’s statement was half hope.

Jerry knew they were, but had no way of knowing exactly how close. He waited until the Manta’s and Memphis’ locations had merged on the nav display before sending the command to stop. The one piece of good news was that this close to home, the command lag to the Manta was nonexistent.

With the Manta stationary, Emily turned away and switched on Huey’s sonar. “Bingo.” Memphis was right in front of the ROV and quickly came into view. She skillfully maneuvered Huey and its camera to include the Manta.

Jerry instantly corrected the Manta’s course so it was heading directly for Memphis’ after deck. Again, with no way to communicate with the divers, he had to guess what they would do next. How would they want to transfer the warheads from the Manta and the sub?

And where the hell were they going to put them? Jerry suddenly realized that he had no idea of where they were going to stow the damn things. They were too heavy to manhandle through the forward escape trunk, and too big to bring in through the torpedo tubes. The tubes were twenty-one inches in diameter, and the warheads were at least two feet across.

The second question was much more important, and he needed to know the answer to it before he could figure out how to transfer the warheads off the Manta. Memphis did have storage lockers built into the external hull, but they were all way too small. He thought about the bridge recess, but the external cover was dogged from the inside. Besides, even if they could open the cover and fit both warheads in, there wouldn’t be enough room to get up onto the bridge and pass them down into the sub.

As he struggled to solve the problem, he imagined Master Chief Reynolds trying to answer the same question. Would they both come up with the same answer? And was there one?

Emily kept maneuvering the ROV so that the camera would show both the Manta and the after deck of Memphis. As Huey hovered overhead, the light turned the Manta’s hangar into a jumble of angular shadows. Looking at those dark shapes gave Jerry the answer he needed.

The Manta hangar had been attached to Memphis over her original external hull. It was streamlined, so that water would flow smoothly over the Manta when it was stowed, and those fairings had created several large voids — voids that were large enough to hold two good-sized crates.

Hoping the Master Chief hadn’t come up with a different and better solution, Jerry corrected the Manta’s course slightly to port. He carefully checked the Manta’s ballast system, making sure the vehicle’s buoyancy was exactly neutral.

“Emily, please bring the ROV down and move it closer to the Manta hangar. I’m gong to put the Manta right over the hangar opening so the COB and Harris can put the warheads inside.” Although Davis was standing nearby, Jerry used the sound-powered phone so that the Captain and Patterson would know what his plan was. “I need to be able to see how high the Manta is above the deck.”

Davis nodded, concentrating on both the vehicles’ positions and the nearly flat battery gauge. Jerry had to remind her to use the phones.

“Understood,” she answered, angling Huey down more and away from Memphis.

Minimum steerageway for the Manta was somewhere around one or two knots, but Jerry had done precious little work with the vehicle at low speeds. He needed to stop in exactly the right spot.

Still a hundred yards off, with the two divers and the warheads strapped to the hull, he gradually decreased speed. Thoughts of the Grishas urged him to hurry, but instead he concentrated on the physics of the situation. At some point the control surfaces wouldn’t have any effect, and then.

There. The Manta’s course indicator started to fall off to port, and he increased speed by the smallest increment the controls would allow. He didn’t bother trying to correct his heading until the speed increased, and when it did, the vehicle responded, although slowly.

Luckily the correction was small, and the target was stationary. Aiming the Manta at the opening in the center of the hangar was simple, compared to accurately judging its height above Memphis. How close could he come to the deck without striking it?

Emily’s ROV and its camera was ahead of him and off Memphis’ starboard side, while he approached from port. He saw the Manta almost head-on, a little above and to the right of the camera. He would have liked a closer view, but she already had Huey’s camera at maximum zoom, and she had the ROV as close to the Manta as she dared.

Thankfully, at this distance, there was no control lag. He made a small downward correction and watched for the results on the video screen. He made another, inching downward as he approached the aft deck.

And suddenly it was time to stop. Remembering how quickly the Manta had slowed when he had tested the steering earlier, he held her at creep speed until she was almost on top of the sub, then cut it to zero. There was no tail hook, of course, but he couldn’t even back down.

Jerry checked the buoyancy again as the Manta coasted to a stop directly over the hangar opening. It rested, perfectly stationary, less than three feet over the deck. He let out a lungful of air and realized he’d stopped breathing some time ago. Then the sound of clapping startled him and he turned quickly to see the entire torpedo division and several of the ship’s officers behind him.

The applause stopped quickly as he hushed them, but they all congratulated him on his piloting skills.

“That was really smooth, Mr. Mitchell.”

“Makes a jet look easy, huh?”

Lieutenant Richards, the Weapons officer, had the final word. “It looks like you paid attention in Manta school, Mr. Mitchell.” He smiled and said, “Bravo Zulu.”

“Thank you, sir.” The praise was more than welcome and Jerry felt it wash over him, but his eyes were drawn back to the video screen. Emily had remained focused, thank goodness, but there was nothing for anyone to do now but watch as Reynolds and Harris manhandled the warheads off the back of the Manta.

The Manta’s passive sonar display spiked and jiggled as it picked up the sounds of the two warheads being untied, then pulled across the upper hull. The surface was smooth and curved downward, so the divers could let gravity do at least some of the work. Of course, the Manta had a sonar array running along each flank, but he’d just have to take his chances on it being damaged.

Through the camera they could see Reynolds and Harris take the first warhead crate and half-slid it off the Manta’s hull. They managed to work it over to a recess in the hangar, but Jerry couldn’t see exactly where they put it. He trusted the COB’s ability to keep it clear of the latches and the other equipment inside, but he couldn’t really relax until the Manta had been stowed and launched again.

If that ever happened. He risked another call to control. They could see and hear everything that was going