Seas of Crisis

Once the patrolling Russian forces departed, Challenger wormed her way north through the strait and entered the Chukchi Sea, where for hundreds of miles the bottom was less than two hundred feet deep. With Meltzer’s assistance, Bell chose a course slightly west of north. This led toward a canyon in the continental shelf, giving a little more depth to play with. The canyon would pass safely east of craggy Wrangel Island — more properly, Ostrov Vrangelya, since it was Russian territory.

Tension of a different sort started to increase in the control room, and throughout the ship. If Challenger encountered the edge of the ice cap while the water was still very shallow, broken slabs projecting down by many feet, called bummocks, could block her path frustratingly. There was also real danger that she could hit a massive bummock head-on, doing damage where the ice above precluded any emergency blow to the surface. Crippled or sinking, with no way up or out, Challenger might be stranded, or lost with all hands. Advance intel showed this probably wouldn’t happen, because global warming from natural and man-made factors, combined with normal random year-to-year fluctuations, had pushed the start of the solid pack ice in the Chukchi Sea more northward than usual. The ship had sonars specifically designed to warn of inadequate clearance between the bottom and the irregular ice. But using these systems meant radiating, which, as before, compromised stealth, so Jeffrey had forbidden it. This time, Bell didn’t argue with him.

The gravimeter, though excellent for pinpoint navigation under the ice, by orienteering against finely detailed charts of the Arctic Ocean floor, unfortunately couldn’t distinguish between sea water and the ice cap. Their densities were too similar; this was why ninety percent of an iceberg floated beneath the surface.

Jeffrey knew he was taking a serious risk, proceeding toward the hard roof of treacherous ice with all active sonars secured. But the data he’d been given, and the urgency of his mission, told his gut that the risk was worth it, even necessary.

Satisfied that Meltzer and Finch and their men were working in good order under Bell’s leadership, Jeffrey went to his office to reread his orders. He also wanted to practice his Russian in private, using language tapes in the ship’s huge e-book library, accessible through the LAN. He wasn’t at it long when someone knocked.

“Come on in.”

It was Bell. He shut the door behind him.

“Good afternoon, Commodore,” Bell said gravely.

“Why the sudden formality, Captain?”

“I wanted to apologize.”

“For what?”

“I was out of line, in the control room back there.”

“How so?” Jeffrey knew, but wanted to hear Bell say it. He knew Bell needed to get it off his chest.

“I argued with you about tactics, in front of the rest of the crew. I feel… well… it undermined discipline and might have verged on insubordination.” Bell exhaled deeply.

Jeffrey sat back. “Yeah, I admit it’s different, with you being captain of Challenger. We had our knockdown, drag-outs often enough in the heat of battle, when it was us sitting at the command console, side by side. The dynamics have changed, that’s for sure…. But it’s still your job, in part, to advise me, backstop me — and don’t forget filling in for me if I keel over from a stroke. You’re my flagship captain, for God’s sake.”

“Still, I don’t feel right about how I handled it.”

Jeffrey flashed Bell a friendly grin. “I didn’t exactly win any prizes myself.”

Bell smiled for the first time in hours.

“Look,” Jeffrey told him, “you and I, and this whole crew for that matter, have been through a hell of a lot in this war. We were a team in every engagement we fought. The winningest team in the whole submarine fleet. I don’t want to lose that.”

“Readjustments are necessary, sir. We can’t deny the blunt fact.”

“Yup. Can’t deny it. Especially once we hook up with Carter. Then Commander Harley joins the equation. I don’t know much about him, personally.”

“I met him once or twice. I’d have to say that you and he are opposites.”

“Opposites can be good, if they complement each other. If they fill gaps in the other guy’s outlook.”

“All true.” Bell’s tone hinted at more.

“What?”

“I’m not so sure he’s quite the type of opposite you mean.”

“I’ll handle all that in due course.” Jeffrey tapped one of his silver eagle collar tabs, to emphasize that he outranked Harley. “Commander Nyurba seems quite loyal to him.”

“Yes, Commodore. I didn’t mean to be prejudicial. It’s not my business, really. My impression of Harley was passing, brief, months ago, when he’d just been under huge stress.”

“Not to worry.”

But Bell still seemed pensive, hesitant.

“Finished with the preliminaries, then?”

“Am I that transparent, sir?”

“To me, after five combat missions together in barely six months, yes.”

“Okay.” Bell took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I keep asking myself what I would’ve done when we were pinned down by those Russians, if you hadn’t been there, hadn’t been aboard.”

“Without me to teach and challenge you, without me to do the final deciding?”

Bell nodded.

“Well, you got the big question out. So, answer it. What do you think you’d’ve done, if everything had rested on your head alone? And forget about Carter, leave that part aside.”

“I’d have done whatever I thought you would have done in my place, sir. I mean followed your example, imagining you were the captain.”

“Not a bad policy at all, I must say. But you have to find your own tactical style, whatever that might be, since you and I are also different people.”

“Granted.”

“So what specific answer comes up? What actions would you have taken? Issued what orders?”

“I know one thing. There’s no way I’d have let a bunch of stinking Russkies force me to the surface until the very last extreme.”

“Meaning what, in practical terms?”

“I’d have sat there, motionless, and gutted it out as long as possible. I’d have let their own doubts work against them, and waited for them to give up and leave…. Just like you did.”

“And if they’d opened fire in earnest?”

“I can think of a few ways to freak them out nonlethally, and use our potent repertoire to defeat any inbound torpedoes. Then I’d hightail it back to U.S. waters, doing flank speed way shallow on purpose, to let them eat my dust, with my propulsor wake boiling behind as a dare for them to cross to my side of the treaty line.”

“Freak out just how?”

“Launch a decoy or two programmed to sound like ADCAPs. Lob a few Polyphems, unarmed, to fall short of the May but give her aircrew the general idea.”

“Four-oh, Captain.” A perfect grade. “If I’d still been captain myself, and the depth charges had really come too close, or Sonar called a torpedo in the water, that’s exactly what I would’ve done. Used our mobility to clear out of there, fast. Let them know from our tonals whom they were dealing with, and invited them to take on our eight wide-bodied torpedo tubes where our ROEs let us shoot back.”

“Thanks, Commodore. For everything.”

Jeffrey glanced at his wristwatch. “Well, I don’t know about you, but with all that excitement back there, I worked up an appetite. Let’s hit the wardroom together, shall we? Tuck in with gusto, side by side, leisurely like. No better way to show your officers, in very certain terms, that you and I are still on the same page.”

Eventually the water got much deeper, past the continental shelf, over the Chukchi Abyssal Plain. On Bell’s orders, Challenger began maintaining a depth of nine hundred feet, and resumed a silent speed of twenty knots.