and crashing waves, Axis frigates pinged. They dropped depth charges at random, and launched torpedoes at random, and Challenger struggled to hide. Here the freezing Nordic Current ran deep, under the last dregs of the warmer Gulf Stream from the Dover Strait. As a result the thermocline was drastic, the sonar layer almost impenetrable. Challenger's out-of-phase emissions, from her active wide arrays and piezorubber tiles, helped suppress hull echoes. Enemy helo-borne dipping sonar probed deep, but too far away to be a threat — the helos lacked the electrical power, so their transducers lacked the punch, the effective range.
The LMRS was being recovered, to get another battery charge; the ship slowed to four knots. Kathy's people tried to use acoustic illumination from surface noise now, to detect mines ahead of Challenger. It might work, it might not. They might still be in an Axis safety corridor, they might not.
Ilse jolted. She heard an awful scream.on her headphones.
'Torpedo in the water!' Kathy shouted. 'Incoming torpedo bearing two four zero!'
'Fire Control,' Jeffrey snapped, 'stand by on the anti-torpedo rockets. Sonar, what's the weapon?' Had they tripped a CAPTOR mine after all? Had they crossed a fiber-optic listening grid too close, and vectored in a 212 or a Pubis?
'Gas-turbine-powered, strong tonals, a heavyweight… A Russian export wide-body Series sixty-five!'
'Deutschland,' Jeffrey stated, 'here. She's the only thing the Germans have that fires a sixty-five.' Dammit. Jeffrey's mind raced.
'Sixty-fives are nuclear-capable,' Bell said — Jeffrey didn't need the reminder. Ambushed. Out-psyched by that bastard already. Was Eberhard ruthless enough to go nuclear so close to neutral Sweden?
'Captain,' Bell said. 'Urge snap shot and turn away.' Antitorpedo rockets were useless against a nuclear fish — their motors burned out well inside the atomic warhead's kill radius.
Jeffrey gave the snap shot orders for a high-explosive ADCAP fish. He had Bell launch a brilliant decoy, too. The 65 ignored the decoy.
'Helm, ahead flank smartly, make your course two four zero.' Jeffrey wasn't turning away.
'Sir,' COB said, 'advise LMRS has not been recovered.'
'Jettison the recovery gear.'
The ship accelerated hard.
'Captain,' Bell said, 'we're aimed right at the inbound weapon. Jeffrey smiled. 'I know, XO.' The ROEs forbade a nuclear countershot here, and running away toward Sweden was a losing proposition in more ways than one. Bell knew it, too — he gave Jeffrey a quick glance, but it showed a predatory eagerness for battle, not disapproval. Bell had clearly learned a lot in independent command of Challenger; his run into the Baltic on the surface was as 'cowboy' as anything Jeffrey had ever pulled.
'Sonar, do you hold contact yet on Deutschland?' The ride began to get rough as Challenger built up speed.
'Negative, Captain. No tonals or flow noise.'
Jeffrey had Bell fire another high-explosive ADCAP snap shot, straight ahead on two four zero; Challenger could launch weapons from any point in her speed envelope — but so could Deutschland. Jeffrey told Bell to have his first ADCAP go active.
'Unit is pinging…. No target return.'
Jeffrey forced himself to count to ten. He glanced at Bell.
'Still no target return, sir. No Doppler whatsoever.'
'Then Deutschland's hovering bows-on to us, canceling the echo.' Challenger reached thirty-two knots, on her way to fifty fast. 'He must have swum out his weapon at stealth speed on a random starting dogleg.' The pump-jet shook, but held together; the worst of the shaking died down.
'Concur,' Bell said. 'Inbound torpedo range now ten thousand yards. Net closing speed one hundred twenty knots.' The torpedo's speed plus Challenger's. Jeffrey picked up the intercom mike for Maneuvering. 'Push the reactor to one hundred twelve percent.'
'Captain,' Bell said, 'unit from tube one still holds no target.'
'Reload all empty tubes, conventional ADCAPs.' This would take a while, and Challenger had very little time. Bell acknowledged.
'Oceanographer, match the gravimeter display with our most fine-detailed nautical chart. Find me something on the bottom that's not supposed to be there.'
'Aye, aye,' Ilse said.
'Hurry. Show me what you've got.'
'Two mass concentrations, possible wrecks or SSNs, here and here.' Ilse's light-pen markings showed on Jeffrey's and Bell's screens.
'Fire Control, when ready aim an ADCAP at each point.' The ship's slow rate of fire was really hurting now. Still, Challenger charged at the incoming 65.
'One minute to incoming nuclear sixty-five lethal range if set on maximum yield,' Bell said.
'Still no contact on Deutschland,' Kathy said. This is getting dicey. Is that 65 nuclear?
'Sir!' Ilse said. 'One mass-con fading! Conjecture it's in motion now!' The gravimeter couldn't track a moving object.
'Concur,' Kathy said. 'Broadband contact bearing two five zero, range fifteen thousand yards. Designate as Master One…. Mechanical transient, reactor check valves. Master One is Deutschland, going to flank speed.'
But they'd need time to accelerate from a dead stop and then reverse course. That's what Jeffrey was counting on.
'Maneuvering, Captain, push the reactor to one hundred fifteen percent…. Helm, put us in Deutschland's baffles if you can. Try to stay right on her ass.' Deutschland knew the safe corridors, and at flank speed she'd act as minesweeper for Challenger — if Challenger survived long enough to get that close. If Challenger didn't survive, the closer Jeffrey could get to Eberhard, the more likely Deutschland might be damaged by her own atomic fish….
Jeffrey watched his tactical plot. Both his ADCAPs converged on Master One, pinging, getting echoes off the back of Deutschland's pump-jet. The kill radius of the incoming 65 would touch Challenger any second… but it also still touched Deutschland. The 65 kept closing.
'Fire Control, show me the kill zone at their minimum yield, one-tenth KT.' Bell typed; the circle shrank by half, to a diameter of less than five thousand yards. At that yield-setting, Eberhard was safe; Challenger wasn't. Jeffrey watched the screen. Challenger charged at fifty-three knots, the fastest she'd ever gone. The deck vibrated roughly. Console mountings jiggled; spring-loaded fluorescents bounced and squeaked.
'Incoming weapon is in one-tenth KT lethal range.' If I've guessed wrong…
'Master One is launching noisemakers;' Kathy reported. 'Second torpedo in the water, same bearing as Master One. Incoming, another sixty-five.'
'Stand by on the AT rockets.' There was nothing more Jeffrey could do…. The first 65 kept closing and closing. Jeffrey held his breath — was it nuclear? It got so close Bell destroyed it with two antitorpedo rockets; Challenger was pummeled by the blasts. It was conventional after all, but its high-explosive load was triple an ADCAP's. More than enough to kill us all if just one 65 connects. How many does Deutschland have?
The sea was rent by gigantic detonations, both close and further away, as more AT rocket warheads burst and set off torpedoes sympathetically. Challenger shimmied and rocked.
Deutschland and Challenger kept exchanging salvos, even as Deutschland fled and Challenger chased; both ships defended themselves with antitorpedo rockets. Again and again the ocean heaved.
Both ships charged northwest as fast as they could, following the Trough around the southern coast of Norway. Deutschland would soon reach her own flank speed. Jeffrey knew from Intel her top quiet speed was faster than Challenger's — was her flank speed faster, too? Jeffrey tried to herd Deutschland toward the left side of the Trough, the nearer side.
The ships were separated now by barely two thousand yards, too close for Deutschland to go nuclear even if Eberhard wanted to.
Deutschland launched four more 65's. Challenger fired another nonnuclear ADCAP — Jeffrey was down to only two remaining.
Two 65's veered left and hit the wall of the Trough intentionally. They blew and started an underwater landslide. Boulders disappeared from the gravimeter as they fell. They threatened to hit Challenger, and her AT rockets were no help. That clever bastard.
