Cold Choices

in front of her home bases clear of intruders, why have a navy at all?

And this was not just a game. A few years ago, Gepard had also been Russia’s newest and best when she left Sayda Guba to find an American submarine discovered in the Kara Sea. Nobody Petrov had ever talked to had the complete story, or the same one; the only consistent fact was Gepard had been lost with all hands. She had been ordered to intercept the American sub in international waters. What happened was known only by the two submarines involved, and Gepard had taken all her knowledge to the bottom.

So what were the intruders doing there? According to the fleet operational schedule, there was nothing of interest scheduled in that area. Was it something on the seabed? NATO subs often attempted to recover Russian materiel.

Could they be investigating the Amga buoys themselves? That was an unwelcome and disturbing possibility. As soon as it occurred to him, Petrov hoped it wasn’t true. According to the briefing he’d received, the warning buoys had been laid in complete secrecy, and were totally passive in operation. Knowledge of their existence would mean security had been severely compromised.

The central post alerted him to another urgent transmission, and Petrov brought Severodvinsk near the surface again, taking as little time as possible to receive the message before racing southwest again. Mitrov hurried into the command center with the message printout.

Petrov scanned it quickly, then briefed the starpom and his tracking team. “They think it’s an American, a first-rank boat at that. It has almost no discernible narrowband components, and what little they heard was detected at close range, very close to the buoy. They were moving slowly as well, possibly less than five knots.”

“That’s not an effective search speed. Could they be loitering in the area? Waiting for something?” Kalinin was thinking out loud.

Petrov was dismissive. “Possible, but pure speculation. We can’t guess at his activities from this. The bad news is, we’re looking for a very quiet boat, of advanced design, at very low speed. The good news is, at slow speed, he’s still close to the position we were given.

“Starpom, assume that he’s making no more than five knots and adjust our search pattern to look for an extremely quiet vessel. If he’s increased speed and we miss him, we’ll need a second, wider search plan.”

Kalinin nodded, acknowledging Petrov’s instructions but busy with a calculator. “Recommend slowing to eight knots in twenty minutes, and to five knots another half an hour later. That should allow us to enter the area with a minimum probability of detection by a first-rank boat at creep speed.”

“How much margin in your calculations?” Petrov asked.

“Twenty-five percent.”

Petrov looked down at the chart, silently weighing Kalinin’s recommendation with his own assessment of the situation. A slight frown developed. After a brief moment, he turned toward his starpom, shaking his head.

“Take it out, Vasiliy. No margin. Time is our enemy. We’ll depend on surprise. I’m willing to make the assumption that he doesn’t know about the buoys, so he can’t know he’s been detected.”

Looking dubious, the starpom recalculated. “In that case, hold this speed for another half an hour, then slow to eight knots, and go to five knots forty minutes later. We will reach the edge of the search area in eighty-five minutes.”

“Agreed, and set silence mode when we slow to five knots. Pass the word that all compartments will be personally inspected by me to make sure it’s properly set.”

“Aye, Captain.”

As the watch section hurried about to carry out his orders, Petrov forced himself to walk away and let his men do their work. He had to pour some of his excitement back into the bottle. Splash it around too much and his crew would start making mistakes. But it was so hard to just stand there and wait. Surprisingly, it didn’t take very long.

* * *

“A little over thirty minutes after setting silence mode, Petrov was summoned yet again to the central post. As he entered the command center, he found the normally bustling central command post as quiet as a morgue. Shubin was hunched over one of the BIUS consoles, staring intently at the display.

“Report,” order Petrov curtly.

“Hydroacoustic contact, Captain. Bearing red zero seven three.”

A quick glance at the BIUS display told Petrov what he needed to know. “Helmsman, rudder left full. New course three four zero. Deck Officer, quietly, I repeat quietly, set readiness condition one, combat alert. And be quick about it, Mikhail Olegovich.”

“Yes, Captain.”

While Shubin brought Severodvinsk to battle stations, Petrov quickly ducked into the sonar post where Mitrov and a senior warrant officer were busily adjusting the passive sonar settings on the control consoles, desperately trying to find the contact they had heard just moments ago.

Speaking softly Petrov asked, “What do you have for me, comrades?”

“A short sequence of transients, Captain, bearing red zero seven three. Definitely mechanical in nature,” replied Mitrov.

“Show me,” demanded Petrov.

The warrant officer handed his captain a set of headphones and called up the historical display and replayed the signal. Sure enough, there was a faint series of mechanical-sounding clunks to the north. His men had done well to pick up the weak signal with all the ice noise around them.

“Captain. ” whispered Mitrov as he pointed toward his display. There on the screen, amid the interfering speckles from the ice, appeared a faint coherent trace, and then another.

As the three men watched the trace lines slowly get longer, Kalinin stuck his head into the small room. “Captain, combat alert has…” A sharp wave of Petrov’s hand cut his starpom off.

In total silence, Petrov watched as the first trace got a little stronger, showing a slight left-bearing drift. The second contact was much weaker and had no discernible bearing rate at all. Mitrov hit a few buttons and an automatic tracker locked on to each of the contacts and started sending data to the fire-control system. With a wicked grin on his face, Petrov turned toward Kalinin and said, “We have him, Vasiliy. We have him!”

USS Seawolf

ETC Hudson had expected to find his department head fast asleep. He didn’t monitor Lieutenant Mitchell’s every move, but by his reckoning, the young officer was running about half empty, and that will catch up with a body after a while. Nobody wanted a cranky lieutenant.

But Mr. Mitchell was up and half buried in paperwork. The door was open, but Hudson still rapped politely on the doorframe. Jerry looked up and smiled. “Chief, excellent, come in. Here are the draft E-6 evaluations you gave me last week. I’ve made some changes. ”

Hudson glanced at the forms, marked with a red pen, then reported. “They’re preparing to recover LaVerne, sir.”

Jerry sighed and pushed himself back from the desk. “So soon?”

“They’ve already deployed the recovery arm.”

“Thanks, Chief, I’ll be along. ”

Suddenly the BONG, BONG, BONG of the general alarm filled the passageway, and both men dashed for the control room. The captain had promised that once UUV operations started, there would be no drills. Something was very wrong.

* * *

Jerry held in his questions as he hurried over to the plotting table by the fire-control consoles. He listened as Will Hayes quickly turned the deck over to Stan Lavoie, the General Quarters OOD. “New sonar contact, Sierra three zero, is on our port quarter, bearing one six five. The computer says it’s a submerged contact, close by at slow speed, with a zero bearing rate. Tracking party’s still getting set up, so they can’t confirm.”

Then Captain Rudel showed up and Hayes had to repeat himself. He’d barely finished when Rudel asked, “And the UUV?”

Hayes shook his head. “Still approaching the basket. About five hundred yards to port. ”

Hayes’s report was cut short when the WLR-9 acoustic intercept receiver started wailing.