'Be careful,' Jeffrey said. 'Don't get too close.' 'I've got it,' COB said. Ilse studied the live feed on one window of her screens. She could see an innocuous mound covered with sponges, anemone, starfish. Jeffrey had explained that modern bottom influence mines were equipped with odd projections, to speed colonization by sea life for camouflage. These mines were CAPTORs. They opened an outer casing to launch an ASW torpedo when their software felt a good contact was near.
'Confirmed,' COB said. 'It's a mine, a live one.' Ilse could see the outline of its workings now, a kind of X ray in ultrasound.
'Tag it 32,' Jeffrey said, speaking to the tactical plotting team whose stations lined the CACC's starboard bulkhead next to the relief pilot's position. Almost three dozen bottom mines on their track so far. Not one of them was a dummy.
Ilse saw the little symbol for the latest threat appear on the bottom chart on her screen, a 'V' in red with a dot inside and the numeral 32. On her other display, picked up by the LMRS's image-intensified CCDs, she watched a siphonophore float past, long and thin, gelatinous, its body lined with stomach pouches, some digesting kills caught by its 10, 000 little fingers. The LMRS loitered well ahead of Challenger, the unmanned undersea vehicle scouting at a safe distance.
'Helm, compensate,' Captain Wilson snapped, breaking Ilse's reverie. 'We're drifting again.'
'Aye aye,' Lieutenant Meltzer said, tense as he piloted Challenger, hugging the bottom, blending in, using the bow and stern auxiliary maneuvering unit thrusters constantly.
'A pattern's showing, Captain,' Jeffrey said. 'Rows parallel to the bottom current. This minefield's not so random as we're meant to think.'
'You're right, XO,' Wilson said.
Ilse superimposed the minefield map they'd been building onto the terrain contours from the bird's-eye-view gravimeter. She set up her own data in another window, bottom geology and local hydrographics. The Agulhas Current here ran several knots, south-southwest along the eastern coast of Africa. The Agulhas extended down this deep, five hundred fathoms, past the anoxic minimum, well into the zone that teemed with biologics.
'Commander,' Ilse said, 'if we continue on this course, we'll reach soft bottom, diatoms and foraminiferal ooze. Our hull will stand out on sonar.'
'Very well, Oceanographer,' Jeffrey said. 'Captain, recommend we come to port, to stay stealthy and make more progress west toward our objective.'
'We'll have to thread this row of mines first,' Wilson said.
'The Boers are clever,' Jeffrey said. 'We'll be broadside to the current if we try to do it gingerly.'
'We'd drift down over one for sure,' Wilson said.
'Sir,' Jeffrey said, 'at point-blank range our synthesized magnetic field won't fool the CAPTORs. They'll figure out we really are a submarine, not some expendable minesweep probe in target emulation mode. They'll launch inside our antitorpedo arming run.'
'I concur, XO,' Wilson said. 'It'd be tight enough getting through this barrier in still water. The mines are spaced a hundred yards apart, shorter than us from stem to stern.' Jeffrey had explained to Ilse that Challenger carried electric coils inside the hull for actively de-gaussing her machinery. Special onboard shielding, a Faraday cage, suppressed the fields from Challenger's main propulsion motors. It was Jeffrey's idea to program the in-hull coils to create an intentionally flawed reproduction of USS Seawolf 's 3-D magnetic signature.
This was a double bluff, to make the CAPTORs think that Challenger was actually a minesweeping sled trying to detonate the mines in place. Since the smart mines were designed to be sweep resistant, they ought to stay inert. Ilse kept her fingers crossed.
'Captain,' Jeffrey said a moment later, 'COB's found some clearance past this line here with the LMRS. Recommend we slip through the barrier crabwise; our propulsion system's quiet enough. Then we can slow down, send the unmanned vehicle farther on to scout along the next leg of our course.'
'Concur,' Wilson said. 'XO, since this was your idea, you take the conn.'
'Aye aye,' Jeffrey said. 'This is the XO, I have the Conn.'
'Aye aye,' the watch standers said.
'Helm,' Jeffrey said, 'listen up. We only get one chance with this. I want to put on a quick burst of speed and then drift between mines 31 and 32 at an angle of forty-five degrees to the current. As our pivot point crosses dead center between the mines, use our remaining steerageway to come to port to keep our stern from trouble. When we're completely through, turn to starboard. Face north-northeast, bow-on to the current, and hold us there.'
'Understood, sir,' Meltzer said.
'Okay,' Jeffrey said. 'Here we go. Helm, using auxiliary propulsors only, rotate the boat onto a three three five heading.'
'Heading three three five, aye,' Meltzer said.
'Now we're starting to be driven downstream,' Jeffrey said. 'On my mark, go to ahead two thirds smartly.
We're deep enough the pump-jet won't cavitate.' 'On your mark ahead two thirds smartly, aye.' 'Ready… Ready…Mark.'
'Maneuvering acknowledges ahead two thirds smartly, sir.'
'Very well,' Jeffrey said. 'Steady as you go…Steady…All right, we have enough momentum. Helm, all stop, stop the shaft, then feather the shaft to minimize our drag.'
'All stop,' Meltzer said, 'stop the shaft, feather the shaft, aye…Maneuvering acknowledges.'
'Now let us drift without propulsion noise or wake,' Jeffrey said. 'This current turbulence should mask our lateral pressure wave at such slow speed. Helm, on my next mark use left standard rudder, make your course two nine zero…Mark.'
'Left standard rudder, two nine zero, aye…Steering two nine zero, sir.'
'Steady,' Jeffrey said, 'steady…Our stern's drifting too much, hard left rudder!'
'Hard left rudder, aye.'
'Make your course two six zero.'
'Make my course two six zero, aye,' Meltzer said. 'Steering two six zero, sir.'
'Okay,' Jeffrey said, 'okay, that's better, we've shimmied through. Now take our way off, Helm. Back one third smartly. Right standard rudder, make your course zero two zero.'
'Back one third smartly, aye, make my course zero two zero, aye. Maneuvering acknowledges back one third smartly. Steering zero two zero, sir.'
'Very well, Helm,' Jeffrey said. 'All stop, hover on manual.'
'Maneuvering acknowledges all stop, sir. Hovering on manual.'
'Very well, Helm,' Jeffrey said.
'Good job, XO,' Wilson said.
Good job, Jeffrey Fuller, Ilse silently cheered.
Still in the game, Jeffrey told himself, as Challenger loitered past the line of mines, holding position all too near the next one. This close inshore they'd have conventional warheads, not nuclear. Directed energy probably. This far down, even with a foot-plus-thick ceramic hull, a big shaped charge meant certain death.
It made sense the minefield began out past the 3,000-foot curve — since maximum effective magnetic- anomaly detector range was some five hundred yards, this was the greatest depth at which surface and bottom sensors combined would offer perfect coverage.
'Master 14 aspect change,' Lieutenant Sessions called. Jeffrey's TMA team confirmed that one of the enemy surface contacts had just altered course.
'Captain,' Jeffrey said as he studied his plots, 'on its present heading Master 14 will pass directly overhead.'
'Turn off all fans and air scrubbers,' Wilson said. 'Turn off all freezer compressors.' COB acknowledged. With twenty warm, sweaty, heavy-breathing bodies in such close confinement, the CACC quickly got stuffy.
'Sonar,' Jeffrey said, 'any blade rate difference on that contact? Could they have heard our fancy footwork just before?'
'No blade rate difference, Commander,' Sessions said. 'No sign they've detected us.'
'Target classification?' Jeffrey said.
'We're getting clearer tonals now. She's German, sir, Klasse 103B destroyer.' Sessions spoke briefly to one of
