'That was a salvo of rockets,' Bell said. 'A broadside, depleted-uranium buckshot…. No apparent damage, sir.' 'A ranging shot, to scare us.' Deutschland and Challenger danced their ballet. On the gravimeter Ilse watched the ridge crest turn in a dizzying circle beneath her. Challenger hit fifty knots. Jeffrey ordered COB to blow high-pressure air into the sail trunk. Ilse heard compressed air roar, then a rushing whistle as water was forced out through the leaks in the flooded trunk. The noise changed to a gurgle.
Jeffrey ordered Meltzer to reverse his rudder, hard, and follow the ridge slope down, back the way they'd come.
It took a moment for Deutschland to react. She tried to follow.
Jeffrey ordered COB to flood ten tons of variable ballast. Ilse knew that trick would help them build speed down the slope. Sonar tracked Master One behind by echoes off the ridge flank.
Challenger leveled off, racing northward in the canyon.
Jeffrey told COB to secure the high-pressure air — Ilse realized they'd blown the trunk dry to prevent another snap roll; the sail trunk flooded again. Jeffrey told COB to restore neutral buoyancy.
The close-in flank-speed stern chase resumed, the roles now reversed: Challenger in the lead, with Deutschland hard on her tail. The canyon floor got gradually deeper.
'Target separation eighteen hundred yards,' Bell said. Too close for a Mark 88 on lowest yield without self- damage. Deutschland gained on them slowly.
Jeffrey grabbed a spare sound-powered phone, and yelled through his mask. ' Maneuvering, Captain, push the reactor to one hundred twenty percent…. Yes, I know Admiral Rickover would turn over in his grave. Do it, Enj, or we'll join him.'
FOUR HOURS LATER
Kathy came back from another catnap and sat down next to Ilse; Jeffrey and Bell had also taken turns with snatches of sleep. All around Ilse, things in the CACC bounced and jiggled. Her backside was numb from the constant vibrations, and from sitting in concentration. At least the crew was out of their respirators now. Ilse glanced at the speed log: 53.3 knots.
She busily sifted through her METOC data files, and typed. She worked hard to help refine the models and numbers for Kathy's people. This constant drill under pressure was giving Ilse a whole new appreciation of her work and the ocean around her. She felt a facility and skill level she never imagined possible.
What she was doing was critical. The slightest change in Master One's noise echoes would give clues to Eberhard's intentions and equipment status, if detected quickly enough. It was difficult, but vital, to sift out Challenger's flank speed flow noise perfectly. The water depth was now almost nine thousand feet; the water temperature was a steady 34° Fahrenheit.
'We're matched to the tenth of a knot down here,' Bell said. The greater pressure and lower temperature helped the propulsion plant slightly. 'But time's on Eberhard's side.' Ilse knew Bell was right, After all their discussion before, Jeffrey was heading for the polar ice cap anyway…. Oh. South toward the GIUK Gap the water got much shallower — there, Deutschland could use her high-explosive Series 65's, and Challenger had nothing nonnuclear to answer with, and precious few AT rockets and noisemakers left as well.
Ilse thought about the enemy right behind them. There were over a hundred men inside Deutschland, living and speaking and moving around, intent on killing Ilse and Jeffrey and everyone else on Challenger. Ilse pictured Kurt Eberhard, at a command console like Jeffrey's — she knew Eberhard's face, from that newsreel. Jeffrey and Bell, seemed to like and trust each other more and more; Ilse tried to picture Deutschland's XO. What sort of man was he? How did he feel, reporting to Eberhard?
At once, a machine-scream filled the air: the sonar speakers.
'Inbound torpedo in our baffles!' Kathy shouted. 'A Sea Lion, screw count and Doppler indicate closing rate twenty-two knots!'
'He's doing it,' Jeffrey said. 'Trying to break our pump-jet by collision with a safed Sea Lion…. Once he cripples us he can bash away at our sonar arrays with more Sea Lions and AT rockets, then draw off when we're blinded and finish us with a weapon that isn't safed.'
Bell cleared his throat. 'Impact in three minutes.'
Beck controlled the Sea Lion himself. Sonar, and the weapons techs, fed his console data on the eel and Challenger's pump-jet. With his joystick he tried to keep the eel icon on his screen centered on the pump-jet bull's- eye. The weapon pinged continually. The range dropped by ten meters per second, as the Sea Lion overtook Challenger from behind with a speed advantage of twenty-two knots: the weapon's seventy-five compared to the target's fifty-three. There was no way to vary the weapon's speed; its only other setting, for stealth attack, was much too slow.
'Intermittent blue-green laser illumination,' the weapons officer said. 'Challenger has activated stern photonics sensors.'
The Sea Lion closed steadily, but it began to buffet in the enemy's wake, the flank-speed turbulence. Challenger whipped her stern away, and the Sea Lion ran up her starboard side: Beck had missed.
'Bring it around for a reattack,' Eberhard said.
Beck tried again to ram. He was better at handling the turbulence this time. He waited for Challenger to turn. Her stern began to swing right. He followed. Fuller's rudder turned hard the other way, and her stern-planes tilted as she banked. The Sea Lion missed again, glanced off the target's starboard quarter, and ran on beyond. Challenger resumed course.
'Pass control to me,' Eberhard said. 'We need to get this over with.'
'Sir, I'm starting to get the hang of it.'
'You've had two tries already'
'Sir, recommend we launch another weapon. Let's both try, together. We can catch him in a pincers, and he's ours.
Eberhard and Beck rushed their safed torpedoes at Challenger in sync, to box her in, to smash her propulsor.
At the last moment Challenger's bow reared up sharply, and her pump-jet dipped. Beck and Eberhard tried to follow with their joysticks. Challenger's bow nosed down, her pump jet lifted. Both Sea Lions passed under her, scraping along her hull, then veered away.
'Lost the wire, tube two,' a weapons tech called. Eberhard's eel was wasted; he cursed. There was no change in Challenger's speed or trim.
Eberhard ordered another weapon launched. Again
Beck looped his back for a coordinated try. Beck had to admit he was enjoying this strange little contest: bludgeon Challenger till she was paralyzed and blind, then sneak off to a safe distance and deliver a good one- kiloton coup de grace.
'Two inbound torpedoes overtaking again,' Bell called. 'One from port and one from starboard…. They're closing in more smoothly than before!'
'Practice makes perfect,' Jeffrey said. 'I want to try something else, hit their torpedoes with AT rockets.'
'Sir, this deep their motor exhausts barely function.'
'They won't need to. Once they're launched they'll fall back toward our wake. Set their warheads to blow at the right moment, and the depleted uranium buckshot ought to hurt the Sea_ Lions or their wires…. Besides, what choice have we got? We can't let them take us alive.'
The Sea Lions bore in steadily. Beck and Eberhard watched for Challenger's next evasive move. Beck's heart pounded, but it exhilarated him. Up or down? Right or left? He tried to anticipate.
'Rocket motors!' Haffner shouted. 'Antitorpedo rockets.' The noise was muffled, choked. There was a double boomf.
Eberhard's Sea Lion engine noise grew ragged; it lost speed. He moved it out of Deutschland's way just in time. Beck's weapon lost its wire but not velocity. It crashed into the seafloor with a drawn-out crunch.
'This is useless,' Eberhard said.
'Concur, Captain. We're just wasting ammo.' 'Damn him for his clever tricks.' Beck hesitated. 'Sir, we need
