Straits of Power

“But—” Siregar tried to disagree.

“Do it!” If the chart was inaccurate, or the ship drew a couple more feet than she was supposed to — with USS Challenger in her hold — they’d run aground.

It would be a tight race as it was. The torpedoes fired by the Snow Tiger were almost certainly Russian export-model Series 65s; with neutral Saudi Arabia less than fifty miles away, Jeffrey doubted the Snow Tiger would go nuclear. But the latest versions sold to Germany boasted a maximum attack speed of seventy-five knots, three times the speed of the Bunga Azul. Conventional Series 65s had high-explosive warheads that weighed a ton, three times the size of an ADCAP Mark 48’s.

Jeffrey knew that the standard strategy for an antiship torpedo attack wasn’t to actually hit the hull, but to detonate the warhead under the hull. A hole in a ship’s side might not be a fatal blow. A blast beneath her would snap her keel, and maybe even break the ship in half instantly.

I can’t let one of those weapons get under the Bunga Azul. I have to force them to go for her side after all.

There was some extra protection there, because the ballast control tanks, partway empty now since the submarine hold was flooded, made a sort of double hull, or spaced armor. And the false bottoms of the cargo holds were one continuous structural deck, giving the vessel added strength and stiffening.

Jeffrey grabbed the intercom for Challenger. “XO, Captain, collision alarm! Rig for depth charge!”

Bell acknowledged.

Jeffrey told Siregar to sound his collision alarm. The master pulled a lever. The ship’s whistle began to sound shrill blasts, and gongs came over loudspeakers.

Jeffrey examined the obstacle-avoidance sonar display.

“Helmsman, all stop. All back full until our way comes off, then all stop.”

The master stared at Jeffrey. “We sit here and take two torpedoes?”

“They might miss or they might malfunction. If we’re stopped right over a shoal next to a coral reef, they might not see us if their guidance wires break.”

“Please Allah, let it be so.” There were other shoals and reefs, plus a maze of long but narrow islands, and half-exposed rusting wrecks, both ahead of and behind the Bunga Azul in this area outside the main shipping channel.

With bone-shattering concussions, and towers of flame and filthy water, first one and then the other Series 65 slammed into the Bunga Azul’s port side. Even by following Jeffrey’s example — holding on to something with one hand while standing on tiptoes with both knees bent, to absorb the force and avoid a fractured spine — the bridge crew were knocked to the deck. The Bunga Azul rolled hard to starboard and was brought up sharply when her flat bottom hit the top of the reef. She rolled heavily to port and her bottom slammed into the rocky shoal. The whole ship vibrated and flexed.

Jeffrey shook off the numbness that gripped his arms and legs, then shook his head to reduce the pain in his ears and get his eyes to refocus. It seemed to be raining. He realized that this was the many tons of water thrown upward by the torpedo blasts, now coming back down. Then he smelled smoke — burning paint, wood, plastic — mixed with the stink of torpedo explosive. Still feeling disembodied, he vaguely registered men shouting and more alarm bells sounding. Armored bridge windows were cracked; manuals and coffee mugs and laptops were strewn on the deck; phone handsets, hanging dislodged, bounced and swayed by their wires.

Jeffrey rushed to the engine-order telegraph, and rang up all ahead full. Someone at the other end of the telegraph acknowledged, and the ship began to vibrate in an ugly new way — but she moved.

The master and helmsman began to revive.

“Steer one-eight-zero!” Jeffrey yelled to the helmsman, who took the wheel. Due south. “Get us behind Shakir Island, into the Shadwan Channel. Then steer one-three-five.” Southeast, down the middle of a small side channel between the island and Africa, leading to deep water in the Red Sea.

The Bunga Azul was already listing ten degrees to port.

Jeffrey grabbed Siregar by both shoulders and looked right into his eyes. They urgently needed to lighten the ship and keep her from rolling onto her side. “Pump out all your ballast control tanks. Pump the submarine-hold water level down eight feet. Then counterflood the starboard tanks just enough to keep your list to five degrees.”

Siregar understood. He issued orders over an intercom. He listened, examined display panels on the bridge, then turned to Jeffrey. “Only half our fire mains can be pressurized. Wheat in the aft-most cargo hold is in flames, with the hatches blown off, and many smaller fires may grow and join between the engine room and the superstructure. Fuel oil leaking near the stern, and fuel bunkers threatened by fires. Injured men reduce our chances of fighting the fires. Our radar and our sonar are knocked out.”

Jeffrey called down to Bell. “Do you still have the satellite feed?”

“Affirmative.”

“Give me a damage report.”

“No significant damage to Challenger.” She was very shock hardened, and loose objects had been carefully stowed.

“Status in the hold?”

“Port-side inner bulkhead bulging inward in two places aft. Plates and welds have failed, we’re getting heavy spray of seawater into the hold…. We can hear the host ship’s ballast pumps, they’re not keeping up with the flooding into the hold.”

“Stand by.”

Jeffrey turned to Siregar; the pain in the master’s eyes said he knew his ship was going down. “We need that satellite feed to Challenger for as long as humanly possible. We need it to target the enemy submarine.”

“I understand.” There was iron in Siregar’s voice.

Jeffrey glanced at the nautical chart. Siregar’s navigator stood up, favoring his left arm. He saw Jeffrey erect and determined and ran to the chart, but the man was half dazed. Jeffrey called rudder orders to the helm, to zigzag past shoals and reefs on either side. The bulk of Shakir Island hid the helos and patrol planes from view.

Jeffrey grabbed his laptop off the deck — built to navy ruggedness specs, it hadn’t broken. He studied the tactical plot. A pull-down menu gave details about the aircraft battling the CERTSUB: More depth charges and air- dropped torpedoes were attacking the Snow Tiger. It was heading south in water over three thousand feet deep, near the bottom, accelerating. The plot claimed two probable torpedo hits, and six depth-charge near misses. But even the latest U.S. air-dropped torpedoes, the Mark 54s, had a warhead that weighed only 100 pounds. They could harass a double titanium hull, and shake up the crew — certainly harm the stern planes or rudder or pump jet if they got lucky — but not by themselves score a hard kill on the Snow Tiger. Air-dropped depth charges, which fell but didn’t home, also had to be lightweight; at worst they’d be a nuisance against a target with such good sensors and such high speed.

The Snow Tiger’s captain knows that. He’s gone deep, too deep to launch his Polyphems because the little missiles have shallow crush depth. But the latest mod of Mark Fifty-fours implode before three thousand feet themselves. That’s why he didn’t try to shoot down the ASW helos. He’s picked sure self-protection over risky antiaircraft attack.

And he’s trying to go to flank speed. He’s heading south of Shakir Island, which for now is sheltering me from him on sonar. He’ll block the Shadwan Channel outlet, and fire at me again.

Though Jeffrey knew nothing whatsoever about the enemy submarine’s captain, and didn’t even know his vessel’s real name, to Jeffrey the contest had already become very personal.

His available information showed the water under the Bunga Azul was 110 feet deep. Still too shallow for Challenger to escape.

Challenger’s host ship was laboring. The deck vibrations were heavy, and the highest speed she could manage was eighteen knots instead of twenty-four.

Jeffrey gave another order. The helmsman turned his wheel. The Bunga Azul turned left and steadied on a course southeast. The eight-mile-long Shakir Island sat close on the ship’s port side;