under the ice. Every time he needs to make a report, he has to break off his track of the submarine and come out to open water, where he can drive to the surface. With transit time and everything, our first fix is already nearly twenty minutes old.”
Chief McPherson grimaced. “Damn! I forgot about that. What about the beacon? Did he attach it to the submarine’s hull?”
“Yes,” Ann said. “Your beacon is in place, and waiting to be triggered.”
“That’s one piece of good news,” Chief McPherson said.
“We need to bring the Captain in on this,” the TAO said. “Get whatever information you have punched into the CDRT so I can call it up on the screen. Then we can try to figure out the best way to tactically exploit this situation.”
The chief nodded. “Aye-aye, sir.” She looked at Ann. “Let’s go see what you’ve got.”
Five minutes later, they were gathered around the TAO station again, joined by Captain Bowie and the Executive Officer.
The big Aegis display screen depicted a highly-magnified view of the tactical situation. The water and landmasses were shown in the same weird shades of blue and brown, and the ice appeared in white.
Seen at this scale, the southern border of the ice pack appeared to be carved and fissured with irregular inlets, like the fjords of Norway cast in ice. Some of the larger passages wound and twisted for miles into the ice, before ending suddenly in blind cul-de-sacs. Ann knew that the ice fjords had a name, but she couldn’t remember what it was. Polly-something.
The display showed a red rectangular symbol representing one of the submarine’s prepared launch positions. The rectangle was not crossed out by diagonal lines. This launch position hadn’t been used up, or disarmed. It was still active. The other four launch positions, all now defunct, did not appear on the map at its current resolution.
A few inches to the left of the rectangle was a red circle, enclosing a downward-pointing arrow. This was the
Mouse’s green triangular icon was south of datum, an inch or so below the border between ice and water. A half inch below that was the circular green symbol that represented the ship.
Captain Bowie’s eyes were locked on the screen. “This is not an easy call to make,” he said. “We can’t prosecute the contact if all of our reports are twenty minutes time-late.”
“Or more,” Ann said. “Every time he breaks off contact to report to us, Mouse is going to have to search for the submarine again. He’s smart enough to calculate an intercept point, based on the sub’s last observed course and speed, but that’s only valid if the submarine doesn’t maneuver between search runs. Mouse may not always find the contact easily.”
The captain nodded gravely. “For that matter, there’s no guarantee that your robot will reacquire the submarine at all.”
“That’s true,” Ann said. She didn’t voice the other thing on her mind. Every time Mouse had to go through the search and acquire process, he would have to make the shift from
The Executive Officer frowned. “I understand that we need real-time tracking information. But as Ms. Roark has reminded us, no one has actually verified that her acoustic transponder system is covert. Which means there’s a chance that the submarine will detect our signals.”
“It’s a risk,” Ann said. “I can’t pretend that it’s not. You just have to decide if you need real-time data badly enough to take the chance.”
“Captain, we need the tracking data,” Chief McPherson said. “I don’t see how we can prosecute this submarine without it.”
“We don’t have a lot of choice,” Captain Bowie said. He pointed toward the screen. “The target is heading for the launch position. If COMPACFLEET is right, the sub is going to shoot as soon as he gets there.”
The Executive Officer nodded without speaking.
The captain looked at Ann. “Enable your robot’s underwater transponder system, and try to get him into an intercept position
He turned to the Executive Officer. “Nick, I want you to go up to the bridge and assume the Conn. You’re the best ship driver I’ve got.” He pointed toward the Aegis display. “See that big polynya, to the southeast of the launch position?”
Ann followed his finger to a winding passageway that led miles into the ice.
“Get us as far up in there as you can,” the captain said. “We need to get within torpedo range of the submarine, or all of this is for nothing.”
The Executive Officer studied the screen. “Sir, there’s not going to be much room to maneuver in there. If we need to run, we’ll probably have to
“I know,” the captain said. “And you’ll be sailing in the dark, without radar. So use the infrared cameras on the mast-mounted sight, and make sure your forward lookouts have night vision goggles.”
“We’re going to bump some ice, Nick,” he said. “No way to avoid it. But try not to hit too much of it, and try not to hit it too hard.” He smiled. “I don’t think our ship’s band knows how to play
Ann registered the last sentence as a joke, but she didn’t get the reference. Maybe it was some Navy insider thing.
The captain turned to Chief McPherson. “Chief, we can’t use ASROC in there, so make sure we’ve got port and starboard torpedo tubes prepped for urgent attack. We don’t know when we’re going to get a shot, and I don’t want to miss our window.”
He looked at the TAO. “We’ve been operating just across the fence from those MiGs and helicopter gunships all night. We’ve been lucky so far, but now we’re going to climb over the fence and go right into their backyard. Sooner or later, they’re going to notice us and start shooting. When that happens, the jig will be up. Forget about EMCON, and forget about stealth. Get the radars up as fast as you can, so we can shoot back. Engage inbound missiles first, and
Finally, he turned to Ann. “I appreciate your assistance,” he said. “We couldn’t do this without you.”
Ann nodded, and felt her stomach take a turn. She wondered if this might be a good time to throw up all over Combat Information Center again.
The captain regarded the little group. “Any questions or suggestions?”
No one had any.
“You’ve all got your orders,” he said. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 56
Seaman Apprentice Richard Melillo — better known to his shipmates as
