Crush Depth

what he’d seen, and how he felt about it. I’ve helped kill thousands of people.

But it’s legal, they were military targets. This is war, and I’m doing my job.

“They need to think again,” ter Horst said. “An island is just a carrier that can’t move. We sank Diego Garcia in every way that matters.”

We did destroy the bastion. We’ve dealt the Allies a terrible blow. We’re closer to winning the war, aren’t we? We’ll save countless other lives, on both sides, if we help bring this conflict to a more rapid close…. Yes, that’s right. I should feel good about this.

So how come I don’t?

Three nuclear depth charges went off one right after the other, much too close to Voortrekker for comfort. Mike cords jiggled on the overhead again, and light fixtures squeaked in their shock-absorbing mounts.

“I think word of our success has reached the Reagan,” ter Horst said. “First Officer, we’ve seen enough. The recorders got all that?”

Van Gelder checked his console. “Yes, Captain. Good imagery.” One of the last frames, six fresh mushroom clouds towering in infrared, sat frozen on his screen.

“Visual targets!” someone screamed, pointing at the periscope pictures. “Multiple inbound aircraft!”

Van Gelder stared. The planes were converging on Voortrekker from every point of the compass, using the mushroom cloud nearby as their aiming point. The enemy was coordinating skillfully, and Voortrekker couldn’t possibly knock them all down with torpedoes. Van Gelder saw sonobuoys rain from some of the planes.

“Lower all masts and antennas!” ter Horst ordered. “Helm, flank speed ahead! Take her deep!” The bow nosed steeply down.

“Captain,” Van Gelder said, “that won’t help.” Voortrekker had been localized, to well within the kill radius of a big atomic depth charge. Enemy active sonobuoys began to ping from all around.

“Snap shots, tubes two, three, and four, onto courses due north, south, and west. Maximum yield, no depth ceiling, stand by to detonate at minimum safe range!”

Van Gelder relayed the commands. Three torpedoes will not save us. Our ceramic composite hull, our crush depth of five thousand meters will not save us either.

“Number One, run the torpedoes deep and then drive them for the surface. Detonate when they leap into the air.”

Van Gelder studied his data readouts. At the right moment he fired all three torpedo warheads simultaneously. Set off low in the atmosphere, he realized, they’d together make a big electromagnetic pulse, and throw a powerful shock wave through the air. Ter Horst is clever.

The force of the detonations was more muted this time as Voortrekker dived — air bursts didn’t pass much energy into the sea.

Everyone stared at the overhead, praying or swearing, as Voortrekker accelerated, still aiming steeply down. Her depth urgently mounted to hundreds, then thousands of meters. Ter Horst snapped out course changes to confuse the Allied aircrews, their avionics now scrambled and their weapon-arming circuits hopefully fried. But Allied aircraft were shielded against an atomic electromagnetic pulse. How badly had the planes been hurt?

An underwater detonation pounded Van Gelder fiendishly, shaking his skull against his spine; his teeth rattled and he almost bit through his tongue. Crewmen shouted in pain or fear. Light fixtures shattered and broken glass went flying, and another console screen caught fire. Everyone rushed to don their emergency air-breather masks.

Another nuclear depth charge blew. A compressed-air manifold cracked somewhere and high-pressure air blew paper around the control room like a tornado. A cooling-water pipe exploded and freezing freshwater sprayed from the overhead.

More air-dropped sonobuoys began to ping above the din.

“Snap shots, tubes five through eight, maximum warhead yields, courses due north, south, east, and west! Shoot!”

Van Gelder forced himself to concentrate, to keep his men under control, to get the weapons programmed and launched.

“Detonate all weapons at maximum depth, at minimum safe range!”

“Captain, recommend an additional safety distance, with four simultaneous blasts in every quadrant around the ship.”

“Negative,” ter Horst yelled through his breather mask. “There’s no time!” The constant pinging outside seemed to emphasize his point.

Van Gelder waited for the moment to fire. When it came, he dreaded triggering the weapons, because of what he knew they’d do to Voortrekker.

The feedback through the torpedo guidance wires showed all four warheads detonated. Seconds later the shock waves pummeled Voortrekker from all sides. TV monitors mounted on the bulkheads tore loose, fell to the deck, and smashed. Standing crewmen were knocked from their feet. A stanchion in the forward passageway snapped off from the overhead, severing a power cable. Both ends of the cable danced on the deck, throwing hot blue sparks. One end touched a crewman and his body jerked and spasmed and his hair burned and his eyes burst and his face began to steam.

“Noisemakers, Gunther,” ter Horst shouted above the ungodly racket. “I just used my own torpedoes as gigantic noisemakers! Let’s hope they hide us well enough!”

Van Gelder nodded numbly, then went back to his instruments.

Another enemy depth charge detonated somewhere close. Emergency battle- lantern lenses shattered and their lightbulbs smashed; the remaining overhead lighting dimmed as one auxiliary turbogenerator back in engineering shorted out; all intercom circuits failed. The control room phone talker said there was a bad electrical fire in engineering; he could barely pitch his voice above the reverb and the aftershocks.

“Helm,” ter Horst shouted, “take her to the bottom smartly! Steer one eight zero!” Due south.

“Sir,” Van Gelder yelled, “strongly advise caution! Bottom here is deeper than our test depth!”

“But not our crush depth! It’s getting too dicey. Do it.”

The helmsman acknowledged. Voortrekker dove deeper and deeper. The echoing rumble outside continued and sonobuoys pinged. Smoke and dust swirled through the air outside Van Gelder’s breather mask. Icy freshwater sloshed on the deck. Van Gelder began to shiver as his shoes and pants were drenched.

Everyone in the control room waited for the next atomic eruption. Would it be near or far? Would it be the one that killed them all? And when? When would it come? The nerve-ripping lull seemed to go on forever. A crewman whimpered, “What’s taking so long?”

“Easy, now,” Van Gelder ordered. This helpless expecting, this tenterhooks of life and death, is mental torture.

Van Gelder felt and heard another enemy depth charge blow much closer than the last one. His teeth hurt and his arms and legs flailed wildly from the shock. The lights went out completely.

SIX

Three hours later

Jeffrey and Ilse sat on the couch again, in the anteroom of the meeting chamber at the Pentagon. The vice chief of naval operations was still inside with some of his key people, holding a crisis meeting on the Indian Ocean attack. Word had reached Washington quickly, cutting short Jeffrey’s presentation. Now, aides, messengers, senior officers came and went through the double doors, all of them in a hurry. Their faces betrayed their emotions,