Seas of Crisis

“So saturation diver SEALs defend our channel’s hydrophones, and can sabotage any Russian ones? The Russians don’t even try to compete for the low ground, they just use surface and airborne surveillance platforms instead? That didn’t even occur to me.”

Bell summoned up a different type of display. The spikes and jiggles showed a graph of sound intensity versus frequency, which Bell had set to focus in on the relative bearings near one-eight-zero — rearward. Challenger hadn’t deployed a towed array, because it could drag or snag on the bottom, creating giveaway noise. He was using the sonar sphere at the bow, with its all-around coverage, to check on his own ship’s signature.

Bell turned to Sessions and pointed to spikes on the display. “We need to quell our self-noise more.”

“Concur, sir.”

“Chief of the Watch,” Bell ordered in a stage whisper. “Stop portside auxiliary turbogenerator. On the sound- powered phones, rig ship for reduced electrical.”

This would turn off more unnecessary equipment, large and small, making Challenger as silent as a church mouse.

Jeffrey shimmied back to his console and sat. He cringed as his backside rubbed against the vinyl, squeaking. His brain told him this couldn’t possibly get through Challenger’s state-of-the-art quieting technology, to be heard outside the ship. The sudden tightness in his gut showed that the rest of his body didn’t believe his brain.

Bell ordered one more course change. Patel acknowledged, and Jeffrey’s displays shifted their pictures leftward. The maw of the strait was dead ahead. Bell had Patel reduce speed to three knots, about 3.5 miles per hour — a brisk pace for a person on a sidewalk. The current coming from behind, of about a half-knot, gave them a small extra push with no noise penalty.

“Helm, rig for nap-of-sea-floor cruising mode.”

Jeffrey’s repeat of the helm displays now showed a different type of information, with steering cues and warnings of gradual dips and rises in the bottom in front of the ship, as revealed by the gravimeter’s sharp resolution at very short range.

“Helm, maintain clearance beneath the keel of one-five feet. Engage autopilot but be prepared to override.” Jeffrey knew Bell well enough to hear a subtle quiver in his voice; what he’d ordered was no easy task, with a ship as long as a football field including both end zones.

Even with computer assistance from the ship control station’s autopilot, depth management by Patel and buoyancy and trim control by COB were critical now. The slightest mistake and the bow or stern would hit the sea floor. But Challenger needed every foot of distance from the surface that she could get: LASH worked best at the peak of daylight, and outside the ship it was noon. Every soul aboard was aware, based on horrible experience, of how deadly an antisubmarine weapon LASH was.

Tension in the control room thickened palpably, becoming almost suffocating. Crewmen pulled off sweaters, or unzipped the tops of their jumpsuits. Others rolled up their sleeves, to stay fresh as the air grew increasingly stale. This was only the beginning of the ordeal of making it through the strait.

Jeffrey shuffled his windowed displays, to give more room to the pictures from the hull’s photonic sensors. In passive image-intensification mode, he caught glimpses of fish swimming by, and watched the soft, silty bottom receding behind the ship as she moved forward. He saw rocks, transported over the centuries in icebergs calved off glaciers along the coast; as the bergs melted, their burden, released, fell through the sea.

The tactical plot showed two Russian surface ships just past the northern end of the strait. One was a destroyer, of the type NATO gave the code name Udaloy. Though they tended to be plagued by onboard fires, when they worked right they were formidable. The Russians called the Udaloy class a “Large Antisubmarine Ship,” and to Jeffrey this said it all. The other was a Grisha-V antisubmarine corvette, much smaller than the Udaloy.

At low altitude, on a racetrack-oval course that ran east-west beyond the strait, the plot also showed sonar holding intermittent contact on an Ilyushin-38 four-engine turboprop plane, NATO code name May. The Mays had been modernized since their introduction in 1969. Finally due for retirement just when the war broke out, Russia kept them in service. Each one could carry a dangerous mix of air-dropped torpedoes, sonobuoys, and depth charges. They also bore a magnetic anomaly detector — MAD — on a boom behind their tail, which if properly calibrated could find Challenger in water this shallow. Though her hull was made of nonmagnetic ceramic composite, there was enough steel and iron inside to register at short enough range.

Challenger could easily outrun an Udaloy or a Grisha, but not the Udaloy’s two antisubmarine helicopters. She might or might not manage to escape their lightweight torpedoes. The May maritime patrol bomber, Challenger could never outrun. If that aircraft was carrying APR-2 or APR-3 rocket-propelled torpedoes, and her crew drew a bead and chose to drop the weapons armed, in such confined waters Challenger was finished.

Chapter 5

Jeffrey was staring tensely at the pictures from outside.

“What’s that?” COB hissed.

Through the murky water ahead, Jeffrey saw a long and thin object projecting high off the bottom.

“Helm left thirty rudder,” Bell snapped, the risk of collision too real. “Back one third.”

“Aye, sir!” Patel said, his voice cracking, too panicked to acknowledge properly. The ship swung left. In front of them were more of these towering objects. Challenger had too much momentum to be able to stop or turn out of their way.

“Helm maximum rise on autohover!” Bell kept his voice deep with great effort. The only thing remaining was to try to go up and over the obstacles.

“Autohover, aye, rise!”

“Chief of the Watch, pump all variable ballast!”

COB acknowledged crisply. His hands worked his console controls and keyboard like a concert organist giving the performance of his life. Bell was doing everything he could to get the ship going straight up on an even keel. To use the bow and stern planes would make her pivot about her center of buoyancy too much, especially with a jittery helmsman, and her rudder and pump-jet propulsor would smash into the bottom’s muck and stones. The autopilot computer assists could aid Patel only so far.

Challenger’s depth began to decrease. The unexpected spires were still there.

They must be forty or fifty feet high, Jeffrey thought. What the hell are they?… We’re going to hit them.

“Helm back two thirds!” Bell’s order came out at a higher pitch this time. “Chief of the Watch, on the sound- powered phones, rig for depth charge.” As a modern expression, this meant to prepare for possible shock and damage from enemy weaponry, including not just depth charges but mines, torpedoes, cruise missiles, or bombs. No one knew what might happen next.

“Propulsor is cavitating,” O’Hanlon announced, his Boston Irish accent especially thick. The power Bell had demanded, with the comparatively low sea pressure at such mild depth, meant that the pump-jet turbine blades, thrown hard into reverse, began to suck vacuum, fighting Challenger’s nine thousand tons of inertia.

“Chief of the Watch, on the sound-powered phones, silent collision alarm.”

COB acknowledged. Phone talkers in each compartment, monitoring the circuit, would pass the word to all hands.

The ship’s rise began to accelerate, even as her forward speed slowly came off. Everyone braced themselves and watched the photonics imagery, and prayed. A crash would be disastrous for stealth, and could seriously damage the bow dome or bowplanes — or worse.

As the pump-jet propulsor strained, and internal pumps emptied the variable ballast tanks’ water into the sea, Challenger moved upward past the tips of the spires.

Jeffrey caught glimpses of their profiles: each had a slim, teardrop-shaped cross-section, with the razor-thin edge pointing at him, into the current. They showed no sea-growth fouling. He realized they bore a slippery, echo-