shoot back with nukes. Ernst Beck returned from using the head. A messenger brought him a fresh mug of tea. He savored the drink, the sweetness of the sugar on his tongue, the way the hot liquid dispelled the stale, metallic taste in his mouth. Deutschland fishtailed again, and he almost burned himself. He put the mug in his cup holder.
Eberhard sat at the command console next to Beck, drawing arcs and measuring distances with his light pen. 'This is most unsatisfactory, Einzvo.'
'Captain?'
'I need some way to lengthen the odds in our favor, or this action may become a double kill. Deutschland is far too valuable an offensive weapon to be expendable in exchange for Challenger.'
'Concur, sir.' What else could Beck say?
'At this rate it will still be hours before we're far enough away from Fuller to hit his ship down her throat from a safe distance. Before we can, he'll have separation for a lethal shot at us with his lower-yielding weapons…. It's unclear if we'll gain the separation we need to open fire before we both gain the Arctic Circle, at which point Fuller gets the ROE freedom he needs.'
Beck knew the American captain and executive officer had to be thinking the same things. All either ship could do was pour on the speed. If and when the water got much deeper, slight differences in pump-jet efficiency might reveal themselves, due to greater sea pressure, and colder water going through the steam condensor cooling loops.
Secretly, Beck prayed their stern chase did reach the Norwegian Sea. He thought of what the fallout from an atomic blast could do this close to Norway, with the water less than three hundred meters deep. The tons and tons of radioactive steam. The effect of iodine 131 on children and expectant mothers. The effects of unfissioned uranium, and plutonium by-products and worse, on innocent people's lungs and bones and blood…. There were German citizens in Norway, too, and occupation forces, caught in this terrible conflict. Beck's country didn't need more casualties for military hospitals' overcrowded radiation wards.
But what was the alternative? If they reached the Norwegian Sea before achieving good separation, Challenger could sink them.
Eberhard told Beck to take the conn. The captain was going to his stateroom for a quick smoke and a piss.
Beck sat morosely at the command console, asking himself how this situation could ever have arisen. Not the fight between Challenger and Deutschland, but the whole war. What madness could ever tempt self-appointed national leaders to risk destroying the world, just to satisfy grandiose, self-referential dreams? All the people had to do was say No. Hadn't they learned that the hard way, in self-immolation under the Nazis?
Obviously not. Perhaps those who'd shared those awful memories firsthand couldn't pass on the warning strongly enough. Perhaps with the passing away of so many veterans, widows, orphans, and Holocaust victims, Germans forgot too much.
Beck shook his head to try to clear his mind of such troubling thoughts. He wished he could have another private talk with Jakob Coomans, to cheer himself and regain perspective, but he knew that wouldn't happen till the confrontation with Challenger was resolved. Beck almost wished he could share Eberhard's hate of this Jeffrey Fuller — it would make the needed mental savagery come to Beck much easier. Beck knew himself too well: He was a man who found it hard to hate.
Beck called up the navigation charts, to lose himself in shop talk in his mind. He watched the gravimeter, as the left wall of the Trough raced by. He eyeballed the different system status screens. He thought of old battles fought near here, Nelson at Copenhagen two centuries ago, Dogger Bank and Jutland in the Great War, the destroyer fights in the fjords at the outbreak of World War II, then the German attacks on the Russia-bound Allied convoys. Deutschland fishtailed again.
Beck had an idea. It was his duty to report it, though now he hated himself, and did so all too easily.
Eberhard came back.
TWO NOUNS LATER, ON CHALLENGER
After a quick snooze and a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs, Ilse sat at her console. She was sifting through Cold War-era data from the Navy Meteorology and Oceanography Command. If the situation weren't so scary, it would have been fun — quite a switch from the tropics at Durban. For one thing, up here past 60° north latitude, there was little bioluminescence — the water was too cold. Ilse and Kathy had discussed using the ship's photonics sensors to trail the glow of Deutschland's wake if Challenger lost contact. It wouldn't work.
The seafloor was getting much deeper — one thousand feet and dropping to twelve thousand over the next few hours — but the sound speed profile prevented strong convergence zones and deep sound channels from forming. Again, the water in the top few thousand feet was just too cold. Again, the search to recapture a contact once lost would be hard — and Deutschland, if lost, might well find Challenger first. Ilse knew they'd get no help from NATO's North Atlantic SOSUS hydrophone nets; the Axis had nuked the SOSUS at the very start of the war.
Ilse listened on her headphones for a moment. The gale raged topside. It would probably reach force tenfifty-knot winds and fifty-foot waves — as they approached the winter Icelandic standing low-pressure weather system. This gale infused the sea with acoustic illumination, and encouraged both ceramic SSNs to hug the bottom for stealth; the seafloor here was smooth. The strengthening gale would also make it harder and harder for surface and airborne antisubmarine forces to function effectively. If Deutschland won the duel with Challenger, she'd escape Allied retribution — in the Norwegian Sea, Eberhard could vastly outdive any steel-hulled sub sent to attack him.
'The magnetic storm is getting worse,' Kathy said.
'I know.'
'NASA needs a new category,' Kathy said. 'G six.' — 'Beyond 'extreme.' Try 'cataclysmic.' '
Kathy hesitated. 'I keep thinking about Roger.' 'Your boyfriend?'
'He died up where we're headed. Last summer. The battle for Jan Mayen Island.' Ilse nodded grimly. The island was a nuclear wasteland now.
'Vaporized. His whole ship was vaporized. A cruise missile from Deutschland. I started having nightmares about it. I keep seeing him on the bridge, and then there's a flash, and his body boils away.'
'Stop,' Ilse said. She hesitated. 'I know it hurts. I'm having nightmares, too.' That was one main reason why she hated having to sleep.
Something appeared on the broadband waterfall display.
'Overflight,' Kathy called out. 'Low altitude, west to east. Mach point-eight-five turbojet, assess as an Allied ship-launched Harpoon.'
'Very well, Sonar,' Lieutenant Bell said. He had the conn while Jeffrey got some rest. More Harpoons went by, also launched in the shallow North Sea off to port, aimed at something amid the Norwegian islands and fjords to starboard. 'The shooting's started again,' Ilse said.
More transients appeared on the waterfall, slanting sharply in the opposite direction.
'Overflights, supersonic, east to west,' Kathy said. Ilse listened. Each transient sounded the same, a sonic boom followed by a roaring, tearing noise that surged, then faded.
'Rocket-assisted projectiles,' Kathy called out. 'Norwegian coast artillery. Assess as Bofors rapid fire one- twentymillimeter guns.' Manned by German crews.
'V'r'well,' Bell said. 'Surface forces skirmishing around our stern chase with Deutschland again.'
Ilse knew no major warship afloat could keep up with their sustained fifty-three knots, especially in such rough seas. She knew none dared launch an undersea weapon for fear of hitting the wrong SSN. It was as if the ships and planes above Ilse were fighting a separate war.
The sonar tech next to her sat up straighter, and spoke to Kathy on a private circuit. Kathy sat up straighter, too.
'Aspect change on Master One. Master One is turning right!'
'Helm, don't lose them.' Bell grabbed an intercom mike. 'Captain to Control.' Jeffrey showed in seconds.
