Crush Depth

hundred knots, and nothing could escape them.

Jeffrey grabbed an intercom handset.

“Get me COB…. COB, we’ve got a Shkval on our tail. We have to get a tube working so we can launch counterfire.”

“Any minute, Captain, I’ll give you tube three.”

“We don’t have minutes, COB. We barely have seconds.”

Jeffrey put down the mike. He could picture the harried activity, as men struggled with parts and tools inside the torpedo tube. The ship topped forty knots, fast on the way to fifty. The flank speed vibrations resumed. Challenger shivered and quaked, as if to somehow shake off the Shkval, as if the ship herself felt fear.

Jeffrey listened as the Shkval roared and roared on the speakers, a mindless machine that ate up the distance relentlessly. Jeffrey began to order countertactics he knew would probably fail. Shkvals were nuclear armed. It didn’t need to get close to do Challenger terrible damage. Jeffrey thought of the fallout any atomic blast would create. Thank God we’re far from the East Coast now, and the winds are blowing farther out to sea.

“Helm, make a knuckle.” The ship banked hard to port and then to starboard. It left a turbulent spot in the water, which an enemy weapon just might think was Challenger. The deep roar of the Shkval kept getting louder.

“Helm, left fifteen degrees rudder. Make your course one one zero.”

“Left fifteen degrees rudder, aye! Make my course one one zero, aye!” A turn left, east-southeast. Jeffrey would try to jink out of the weapon’s path, to force it to lead the target. This might confuse its sensors, and buy him precious time. It also led the weapon farther away from the land.

“Fire Control, launch noisemakers and acoustic jammers.”

“Noisemakers, jammers, aye!” Loud gurgling, and an undulating siren noise, were heard now on the speakers. There was also the roar of the Shkval, deeper in tone as it came up to maximum speed, plus a nasty hiss from flow noise as Challenger herself reached fifty knots. The gurgling and sirens subsided, as Challenger’s countermeasures were quickly left behind.

Jeffrey picked up the handset again. “Maneuvering, Captain. Push the reactor to one hundred fifteen percent.”

Challenger sped up slightly, and the flank-speed vibrations grew much rougher. Jeffrey bounced in his seat. The ship kept racing through the ocean, heading east-southeast at over fifty knots. The Shkval was following them around through the turn, closing by more than the length of a football field every second. It ignored the knuckle and countermeasures.

The data for weapons status on Jeffrey’s console showed torpedo tube three turn green.

“Tube three is operational,” Bell said.

“Tube three, load a nuclear Mark 48, set warhead to maximum yield.” Challenger’s Improved Advanced Capability Mark 48 torpedoes were good, but the latest version’s top speed was seventy knots — barely a quarter of the Shkval’s.

Bell and Jeffrey did the procedures to arm the atomic warhead; Challenger’s torpedo-room hydraulic autoloader, repaired in New London dry dock, seemed to be working well. It better keep working or we’re dead.

Jeffrey felt an iron determination to survive. To defeat this enemy ambush he had to strike back fast and hard. “Make tube three ready in all respects including opening outer doors!”

“Ship ready. Weapon ready. Solution ready,” Bell said.

“Tube three, Master One, match sonar bearings and shoot.”

“Tube three fired electrically.”

“Unit is running normally!” a sonarman said.

“What are you doing?” Wilson said. “You aimed at Master One, not the Shkval.”

“The unit will first pass near the Shkval. The Amethyste’s captain’ll think it’s my defensive shot at his missile, and he’ll be lulled. We have to return fire, to distract him and keep him from sending off a message. If he knows we’re Challenger…”

Wilson stayed quiet.

Good, this is my fight. Jeffrey’s ship kept driving through the sea. The enemy Shkval kept following.

“Range to incoming Shkval?”

“Ten thousand yards,” Bell said. Five nautical miles. If its warhead yield was one kiloton, standard in Axis torpedoes, the blast would be in lethal range at four thousand yards.

With these speeds and distances we have less than a minute to live.

“Fire Control, more noisemakers and jammers.”

“Noisemakers, jammers, aye.”

“Tube three, load a brilliant decoy.”

“Tube three, decoy, aye.”

“Set decoy course due north, flank speed, running depth same as ours.”

“Due north, flank speed, same depth, aye.”

“Make tube three ready in all respects including opening outer doors. Tube three, brilliant decoy, shoot.”

“Tube three fired electrically.”

“Decoy is operating properly!”

Challenger kept fleeing. The propulsion plant worked its heart out. The noise of the Shkval on the sonar speakers was almost deafening now. Jeffrey was taking an awful gamble, that the seeker head at the tip of the enemy rocket would home on the decoy and not his ship. He was taking another awful gamble, that his own atomic fish would force the Tirpitz’s captain to take defensive steps, and buy COB time to give Jeffrey another working tube.

The universe shattered in an unimaginable thunderclap, and Challenger was pummeled as if by the fists of an angry God. Mike cords, light fixtures, consoles, crewmen, everything rattled and jarred.

“Shkval has detonated!” Bell shouted. “Decoy destroyed!” The Shkval had gone for the brilliant decoy after all.

The Shkval’s nuclear blast reflected off the surface and the bottom, pounding Challenger more and more. Kathy turned off the speakers. Endless reverb sounded right through the hull. There were brutal aftershocks, as the fireball of the nuclear blast thrust upward for the surface. The fireball fell in on itself against the undersea water pressure, rebounded outward hard, fell in again and rebounded, over and over. Each rebound threw another hammer blow.

“Give me damage-control reports,” Jeffrey shouted.

“Torpedo room autoloader is out of action!”

“Load tube three manually, a nuclear Mark forty-eight.”

“Torpedo in the water!” Kathy yelled. “Assess as a defensive shot by Master One against our unit from tube three.” The Tirpitz was trying to intercept Jeffrey’s first torpedo with a nuclear countershot.

There was a huge eruption in the distance.

“Unit from tube three destroyed,” Bell said.

The enemy captain had succeeded. Jeffrey distracted his Shkval, but he smashed Jeffrey’s Mark 48. The initial exchange of fire was a draw.

“Shkval in the water,” Kathy shouted. “Master One has launched another Shkval!”

Jeffrey frowned. My decoy fooled the first Shkval, but it didn’t fool the enemy captain. He knows that we’re still out here, and he wants to sink us once and for all.

Jeffrey grabbed the handset. “COB, I need another tube, now.”

“We’re doing everything we can, sir! We got wounded down here! We got men working block and tackle loading the weapons….”