atomic Sea Lions gained on Challenger's tail by the second. Both Sea Lions went active.
Beck watched the tactical plot in morbid fascination: Challenger's in-extremis turning radius, versus Deutschland's acceleration and the kill zone of the eels. Which outcome meant that Beck would win, and which that he would lose? What did he want endangered more, his body or his soul? 'Separation now inadequate for nuclear weapons!'
'Einzvo, safe the warheads! Sever the wires! Pilot, maintain flank speed! Port thirty rudder, cut across Challenger's wake as she turns! Make your course three three zero.' Toward the left side of the Trough.
Beck safed the weapons. He felt relief, then felt doubled inner shame, both for what he'd tried to do and for his gladness that it failed — but throughout, he'd done his duty.
'We're inside Deutschland's self-kill zone!' Bell shouted. 'His weapons have to be safed!' COB and Meltzer had barely recovered from the snap roll; the most immediate crisis had passed.
'Sorry, Captain,' Meltzer said.
'Jesus,' COB said, 'that was close.'
'Master One separation now forty-six hundred yards,' Bell said.
'He-regained his lead and then some,' Jeffrey said. 'He's also learned his turning radius is better than ours.'
'We're all out of conventional torpedoes, too. Eberhard has to know that, sir — else you'd've launched a third one at the wreck along with the other two chasing those decoys.' Bell was smart, and fast — Jeffrey hadn't seen that last point quite as quickly; he drew some comfort from Bell's capable backstopping. We've come a long way together since that argument we had.
'Concur, XO, and we're much too close to Norway to use any nuclear fish…. Eberhard holds all the cards. Our options just keep getting narrower and narrower.'
SIX HOURS LATER
At the command console, Jeffrey belched. He'd eaten lunch too fast, and gotten acid stomach. His bruised chest and his old leg wound still ached, and his face still hurt from the burns received in the Sound.
Good. The last thing he wanted to be was relaxed. The discomfort kept him on edge, kept him focused.
Ilse had grabbed another catnap, then eaten with Jeffrey, alone in the wardroom together. Now she was back at her console, too. The sexual tension between them during the meal — their first private time since they had both believed they'd die on the missile lab raid — had been electric, unspoken but unmistakable. Mutual desire and anticipation for the future, though intangible, seemed very real. For this, too, Jeffrey was glad. It helped him stay wide awake, and reminded him he had something to live for. Could Ilse become the soul mate he'd never before thought he might have, a fellow warrior of the opposite gender, the two of them a couple who braved the fires of battle side by side?
Now, in public, he and Ilse were strictly business — a lot had to happen before they could get back to such daydreams. Jeffrey pondered his screens; the relentless stern chase continued. As he watched, Deutschland and then Challenger dashed out of the north end of the Norwegian Trough. Both ships still hugged the bottom, in water thirty-three hundred feet deep. They were down in the Shetland Channel now, entering the Norwegian Sea, forced to head north-northeast at this point by a line of ancient volcanic ridges to port. Eberhard was undoubtedly using echoes off the closest ridge to keep tabs on Jeffrey behind him.
Over the last few hours, Deutschland had slowly widened her lead to six thousand yards. Jeffrey eyed the on-line nautical chart. This was the moment he'd waited for. The gale above now blew northwest, toward the ice cap and northernmost Greenland. The surface currents here formed a slow counterclockwise gyre. Airborne fallout would blow to a desolate wilderness. Seaborne fission waste would circulate with the gyre, as lighter elements floated and aged and heavy ones fell to the seafloor.
'Captain,' Sessions called from the nay console. 'Advise we are now two hundred nautical miles from Norway, the nearest friendly or occupied land.'
'Captain,' Bell recited formally, 'advise rules of engagement now leave us weapons free with atomic warheads.'
'Very well, Nay. Very well, Fire Control.' Jeffrey and Bell went through the procedures to arm tactical nuclear Mark 88's and have them loaded in all four working torpedo tubes, the starboard-side tubes, odd numbers one through seven.
'Preset warhead yields, all weapons, to maximum yield.' Bell acknowledged and relayed commands.
'Make tubes one, three, five, and seven ready in all respects.' Jeffrey decided to wait. Much as he wanted to get in the first salvo, he also wanted just a bit more target separation. He was very far from home, and any further damage to his battered ship could well mean total ruin.
'Captain,' Beck said, 'advise separation now is fifty-five hundred meters.' Beck called the master weapons status page onto his main console screen. Nuclear Sea Lions were loaded in tubes one through eight, and armed — the port-side autoloader had gotten jury-rigged repairs at Trondheim; the starboard-side tubes still needed manual loading by chain fall.
'Very well, Einzvo. Set weapon yields, odd-numbered tubes, to minimum.' Defensive, antitorpedo shots. 'Set weapon yields, even-numbered tubes, to maximum.' Offensive shots, against Challenger, who any moment would go weapons free by Allied ROEs. Beck repeated the orders for confirmation, then relayed commands to the weapons officer. He confirmed to the captain when the orders were carried out. Beck shuddered to think of the cataclysm to come: Any detonation in deep water was fifty times as destructive as in air — water was very rigid, and had a much higher speed of sound. At close enough range, a one-kiloton Sea Lion could do to Challenger what the Americans had done to Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Challenger's warheads, one tenth the size of Deutschland's, were deadly enough.
'It's time to finish Challenger off,' Eberhard said. 'Make tubes one through eight ready in all respects.' 'All tubes ready, Captain.'
'Fuller won't hear it behind us. Open all outer tube doors.'
'Outer doors are open.' Beck was much happier now; they'd reached an isolated, unpopulated area, with ecologically favorable currents and winds. A good choice for the final battleground. The target separation for Deutschland's weapons was still narrow, but aggressive warshots followed by skillful tactical maneuvers might make up for that.
'Tube two,' Eberhard ordered, 'target Challenger, load sonar bearings, and los!' Ilse listened on her sonar headphones, while she studied data on the Norwegian Sea, and tried to refine Kathy's ray traces.
Ilse heard it; Kathy said it. 'Torpedo in the water! Inbound torpedo bearing zero one five, a Sea Lion!'
It's started, Ilse told herself. The final confrontation, deep and with atomic weapons. Everyone in the CACC felt the tension mount.
Jeffrey ordered a nuclear countershot, then a turn away, due east. Meltzer had to use the rudder gently, so they wouldn't break the wire at flank speed — which didn't help them any to evade the inbound torpedo. This countershot had better be telling. Jeffrey had to husband his ammo carefully; Challenger's rate of fire was dangerously slow. Bell launched noisemakers and jammers, which were also running low.
Ilse heard the two torpedoes, one Axis and one friendly, their nerve-jarring racket Dopplered up or down as they came at her or receded. She heard the gurgling hiss of the chemical noisemakers, too, and the undulating siren scream of acoustic jammer pods. How can we possibly win? Deutschland has twice as many working tubes. Kathy reported that Deutschland had fired another Sea Lion. Deutschland changed course west, still making flank speed, and launched noisemakers and jammers. Jeffrey fired another fish, this one aimed at Deutschland. Bell launched more noisemakers and jammers, then Jeffrey ordered another turn, south. Deutschland launched a Sea Lion to intercept Jeffrey's incoming fish, then launched another to intercept Challenger.
Deutschland launched another weapon at Challenger, then made a hard turn north. Jeffrey.watched the tactical plot. There were seven nuclear torpedoes in the water, tearing in all directions. Some chased Challenger, some chased Deutschland, some chased each other's torpedoes as nuclear counter-shots.
A sharp crack sounded through the hull. Jeffrey felt a big shove from astern, and the ocean all around was filled with terrible rumbles.
