Straits of Power

Bell left quickly.

Satisfied so far, Jeffrey walked the few feet forward of his cabin to his control room. The change since this morning was astonishing. Almost everything was back in place, reassembled and tested. He kept going and took a steep ladder up one deck, and reached the bottom of the watertight trunk that led farther up through the sail. Both the upper and lower hatches were open. Jeffrey decided to climb, to eye everything from the vantage point of the bridge cockpit atop the sail. This ladder was perfectly vertical, with a tricky offset halfway to the top.

Jeffrey clambered up with practiced skill. He knew all experienced crewmen could make the thirty-foot climb one-handed; their other hand would often clutch a cup of coffee.

When Jeffrey got there, the wooden scaffold around the top of the sail was gone, so the crew and yard workers wore safety harnesses. They were doing the final checking to see that all of Challenger’s photonics masts and antennas, and her emergency ventilating snorkel, raised and lowered and rotated properly.

Weapons loading was finished, and that hatch had been returned to use by personnel; it gave convenient access forward, and its ladder was the least steep. Jeffrey glanced at his watch: 2000, 8 P.M., right on schedule so far.

Jeffrey turned to look at that barn the Seabees were building, along the pier on Challenger’s starboard side. Well, they’re as busy as bees, that’s for sure. Jeffrey thought for a second.

Eh, what the heck.

He verified that power was on to the bridge console. He palmed the mike for the ship’s loud hailer. He turned the volume all the way up. Someone has to test it, right?

“Master Chief Seabees, ahoy.” Jeffrey’s voice boomed almost deafeningly.

That got the man’s attention. He looked up, and saw Jeffrey leaning over the top of Challenger’s bridge.

He aimed his bullhorn at Jeffrey. “Captain?” The battery-powered bullhorn couldn’t compete with Challenger’s loud hailer, backed by a 250-megawatt nuclear reactor plant.

“Explain what that thing does.”

“It’s a big cover.” The Seabee chief gestured at the overhead traveling crane that straddled the dry dock. The chief tapped the side of the cover. “On crude visual, and radar, it makes you look like a smallish container ship. It rests on your hull on padded feet, held in place by ropes tied to your retractable deck cleats.”

“How do I get the danged thing off?”

“It floats. Untie it when the moment comes, then sink straight down.”

“Submarines don’t ‘sink,’ Chief. They submerge.” Jeffrey understood more now about why he had to leave in the dark and before the storm; in decent light this cover would fool no one, and in high winds with breaking waves it would be a liability — assuming the structure didn’t fail altogether, leaving Challenger badly exposed at the very worst time, with its wreckage hitting her stern planes and rudder and pump jet.

“Uh, sorry, Captain. Submerge.”

“Is it ready?”

“Almost. From up there I think you can see the opening for where you’ll be standing on the conning tower, like now.” The chief pointed at a spot on the roof of the barnlike thing. There was indeed an opening there; Jeffrey had thought before that it was just an unfinished portion.

“Test it.”

“Sir?”

“Test it.” Jeffrey pointed at the traveling crane. “Lift it, then drop it.”

“It’s not designed for that, Captain.”

“No, no. I don’t mean drop it on the concrete. I mean lift it up, let it drop ten feet in free fall, and brake the crane. Stress the frame. I want to see that it doesn’t fly to pieces.”

“Yes, sir!”

The master chief turned with his bullhorn and started issuing orders. The traveling crane moved. Men atop the camouflage cover rigged cables to the built-in lifting eyes on the cover’s roof. They scrambled off using tall extension ladders, then removed the ladders.

“Lift it,” Jeffrey said through the loud hailer.

“Wait,” someone yelled.

Jeffrey turned. On the near-side pier, where the crew from Challenger labored at loading supplies, Jeffrey spotted Commander Kwan.

He palmed the mike. “Hello, Commander. What do you want?”

Kwan cupped his lips to his mouth. “To watch. This is what I came for. The bounce test.”

“Oh…. Sorry to step on your toes.”

“No problem, Captain. She’s your ship!”

“You take over. I’ll watch.”

Kwan had shouted across the water to where Challenger lay. Jeffrey was impressed — the man could project a very strong voice.

Needs it, in his line of work.

“Captain!” someone else shouted. Jeffrey looked around, confused.

“Captain! Sir!” Jeffrey glanced straight down. Through the grating he was standing on, way underneath him on the deck below the bottom of the sail trunk, he saw the in-port duty officer staring up at him.

“What is it? Can’t you use the intercom?” Jeffrey heard telephones ringing, on the piers on both sides of the dry dock.

The lieutenant (j.g.) filled his lungs and bellowed up the sail trunk.

“Vampires, vampires, vampires inbound!”

Jeffrey gripped the side of the bridge cockpit with both hands. Vampires meant antiship missiles.

“Are you sure?”

“Confirmed. Confirmed. Inbound, Mach 0.7, launch point bears zero-five-zero true.” Roughly northeast. “Range less than two hundred miles and closing.”

“What?” It didn’t make sense. That was much too close. Jeffrey could hear other shouting on the piers now.

“Confirmed. ETA enemy missiles less than thirty minutes! Two separate launch points, sir, simultaneous launches.”

That means there must be two U-boats.

“How many missiles?”

“Six, they think, sir.”

Six so far out of maybe two dozen.

“Get back to the control room! Have COB sound battle stations!” That would at least have damage-control parties assemble with their gear — including a handful of radiation suits.

Jeffrey glanced at his wristwatch. It was barely 8:30 P.M. He heard the battle-stations alarm ringing raucously inside Challenger. Torn, Jeffrey made the only choice he could: He’d put to sea early and hope for the best.

A moving target is always harder to hit. And every ounce of spoofing and diversion has to help.

Jeffrey used the loud hailer.

“Commander Kwan, commence all deception measures.”

Kwan held up a phone handset and nodded that he already had. He hung up the phone, gave Jeffrey a thumbs-up and a wave farewell, and jumped into a waiting Humvee. The driver floored the accelerator and the Humvee roared along the pier. It tore right through the blackout curtain of the vehicle entryway at the rear of the dry dock.

Jeffrey held the loud-hailer mike in one hand and grabbed the intercom mike in the other. He dialed the ship’s internal 1MC. His voice sounded everywhere now.

“This is the captain. I have the conn. Station the maneuvering watch, smartly. Vampires inbound, this is not a drill. XO, take the deck in Control.” Jeffrey glanced over the port side of the bridge.