Sea of Shadows

Search Plan Delta, over.”

Ensign Cooper grabbed the red telephone-style handset of the Navy Red terminal and keyed the mike. “SAU Commander, this is Towers. Roger. Executing Search Plan Delta, out.”

Over the next few seconds, Ingraham and Benfold both acknowledged the signal.

Now it begins, Ensign Cooper thought. He leaned over the CDRT and waited for the Sonar Supervisor’s contact report.

For the next few hours, Cooper was the ship’s USWE, or Undersea Warfare Evaluator. It would be his job to coordinate the actions of the Towers USW team: cross-referencing contact reports from the ship’s sonars, targeting information from the fire control computers, oceanographic data — particularly the thermal structure of the water and the topographic shape of the ocean bottom — predicted acoustic ranges, non- acoustic sensor information, the locations of friendly or neutral ships and aircraft, and an almost overwhelming array of other variables that could affect the tactical situation. And to make matters more interesting, much of the data was based on computer projections, not all of which would be correct. The USWE was expected to take this mishmash of information, swirl it around in his head for a bit, discard some pieces of it, latch on to others, and come up with a mental picture of the tactical situation. Then, if the contact was designated as hostile, the USWE would supervise the programming and launching of USW weapons. If the USWE’s tactical picture was accurate enough, those weapons should get close enough to the target submarine for their acoustic seekers to lock on, and (hopefully) destroy the bad guys. Conversely, if the USWE’s tactical picture was too far off the mark, the ship’s weapons wouldn’t be properly placed or programmed, and the submarine would eat their lunch.

Hunting submarines was still more art than science, and the best computers in the world — while they could help him — could not do the job alone. Ensign Cooper smiled nervously to himself. He might not have Chief McPherson’s years of experience, but he was good at this part. At least he had been in school. He’d been the best USWE in his class, and his tactical awareness had been excellent. He’d killed the sub in sixty or seventy percent of the tactical simulations the course instructors had thrown at him — a far better record than anyone else in his class.

Of course, this was not a simulation. The enemy subs out there were real, and their weapons were real. If Cooper guessed wrong at a critical juncture, people would die. The wrong people. His people.

Which meant that he couldn’t let that happen.

* * *

The search continued. Seconds dragged into minutes. Then the minutes began to stack up.

He keyed his mike. “Sonar — USWE, testing Net One One.”

The Sonar Supervisor answered instantly. “Read you Lima Charlie, USWE. How me?” (Lima Charlie was net- speak for Loud and Clear.) Ensign Cooper keyed his mike again. “Read you same, Sonar.”

There was nothing wrong with the communication circuit.

He tapped a fingertip on the glass display screen of the CDRT. Why hadn’t sonar reported anything yet?

* * *

Ten more minutes passed, and Ensign Cooper keyed his mike again.

“Sonar — USWE, report all contacts.”

The Sonar Supervisor’s reply came a few seconds later. “USWE — Sonar, my tracks are as follows: Ingraham, designated Friendly Surface Zero One, bears three-one-five. Benfold, designated Friendly Surface Zero Two, bears two-one-seven. Antietam, designated Friendly Surface Zero Three, bears zero-niner-four. Sonar holds negative passive or active POSS-SUB contacts at this time.”

The ensign chewed on this for a few minutes. Could the subs have slipped by them already? Were the Sonar Technicians searching in the right place? He keyed the mike again. “Ah … Sonar — USWE, your Threat Axis is two- eight-zero. Your Search Sector is two-five-zero to three-one-zero.”

The Sonar Supervisor’s voice carried a note of annoyance. “Sonar copies, sir. I promise you, if we get anything, you’ll be the first to know.”

“USWE, aye.” Ensign Cooper let his finger off the mike button. He was getting his first glimpse of real Undersea Warfare, and it was a waiting game. Hours, maybe days of searching between contacts, most of which would ultimately turn out to be biologics or distant shipping traffic.

The Tactical Action Officer keyed his mike. “USWE — TAO. Now do you understand why we call it U-S- W?”

“Sir?”

The TAO chuckled. “It stands for Unbelievably … Slooooooow … Warfare …”

Ensign Cooper smiled wanly. “USWE, aye.”

“Roger that,” the Sonar Supervisor said over the net. “Do you know the definition of USW, sir?”

Cooper said, “I know the definition that’s in the book, Sonar. What’s your version?”

“Six months of boredom, followed by thirty seconds of sheer terror.”

Although no one could see him, Ensign Cooper nodded. “Point taken, gentlemen. I’ll try to be patient. But if you get anything …”

“You have my word, sir,” the Sonar Supervisor said. “We won’t keep it a secret.”

* * *

Three hours and about six cups of coffee later, Chief McPherson showed up to relieve the watch. The hours of uneventful searching had dulled Ensign Cooper’s enthusiasm a bit, and the idea of hitting his rack was starting to sound pretty attractive.

The chief yawned and took a sip from her own coffee. “What have you got, sir?”

The ensign echoed her yawn. “Not a hell of a lot, Chief. We’re about two and a half hours into Passive Search Plan Delta. No luck so far.” He looked up at the clock. “We don’t roll over to a new Zulu-day until after your watch, so you don’t need to worry about updating call signs or loading new-day crypto.”

He yawned again and was about to start a rundown of all surface contacts being tracked by radar and sonar, when the Sonar Supervisor’s voice came over the net. “USWE — Sonar, request clear-or-foul, bearing three-zero- seven.”

Cooper slapped his palm on the CDRT’s trackball and slewed the cursor over to three-zero-seven. His heart skipped a beat. There were no surface symbols on the plot anywhere near that bearing; the SPY-1 radar had no contacts. But it might still be a small craft. Sometimes wooden boats, especially those with low profiles, didn’t show up very well. He keyed his mike. “Bridge — USWE, request a visual clear-or-foul, bearing three-zero-seven.”

The reply came back in less than ten seconds. “USWE — Bridge, your bearing is clear. Lookouts report no surface contacts to thirty degrees either side. Mast-mounted sight shows negative visual and negative infrared.”

Ensign Cooper swallowed. Instantly awake, his fatigue and boredom were forgotten. He keyed his mike. “Sonar — USWE, bearing three-zero-seven is clear. Tag it, bag it, send it to fire control, and then call it away.”

A few seconds later, speakers for the 29-MC announcing circuit crackled to life all over CIC. “All stations — Sonar has passive broadband contact off the port beam, bearing three-zero-seven. Initial classification: POSS-SUB, confidence level low.”

Even before the contact had popped up on the CDRT screen, Ensign Cooper was punching the button that patched his comm headset into Navy Red. The sync pulse warbled crazily in his ear for a second until the ship’s encryption system synchronized with the encryption system aboard Antietam. He cleared his throat before keying the mike. “SAU Commander, this is Towers. Contact report to follow. Time, seventeen fifty-one Zulu. My unit holds passive broadband contact, bearing three-zero-seven. Initial classification: POSS-SUB, confidence level low, over.”

Less than a second later, Captain Whiley’s voice came over the scrambled radio net. “SAU Commander, aye. Your contact designated Gremlin Zero One. My unit will launch Samurai Seven-Nine in approximately five mikes. Alert status of your aircraft, Firewalker Two-Six upgraded to Ready-Five, over.”

“SAU Commander, this is Towers, roger, out.” As soon as he punched out of the