sink.
'Chief of the Watch, pump all variable ballast!' At this depth it would take forever. 'Deploy the bow-planes!' 'Bow-planes are jammed! Bowplanes will not deploy.' 'Sir,' the phone talker said, 'Engineer reports main steam-loop vapor lock.'
Challenger began to slow. The ship and everyone on it were about to be broiled alive, or worse, entombed and baked within the pool of glowing lava.
'Switch all battery power to propulsion.' The fans stopped, and nonessential consoles darkened. 'Helm, put stern-planes on full rise.'
It was close, but they just made it, past the bowl and into somewhat cooler water. The ship's depth stabilized.
'Oceanographer, I thought we were going to predict these things!'
'Sir, we have outstanding data now. The next event won't take us by surprise.' Main propulsion came back. Jeffrey felt almost giddy with relief. He admired Ilse's outward calm — but had he done the right thing relying on her expertise like this?
'Oceanographer, I need your prognosis.'
'Something big should happen soon. This lake refilling so fast is a positive sign of it…. Based on the pattern of seismic activity, and underground magma movements beneath the central cone, I predict another powerful outburst from Middle's western flank, in an hour.'
'And after that?'
'They'll probably recur, at more or less regular intervals, at least for a while.'
'Okay,' Jeffrey said. 'I think we're as ready as we'll ever be. Let's hope this gives the datum on Deutschland we need, without boiling us like lobsters. Helm, bring us close to Middle's western flank, and position us with the starboard wide-aperture array facing out.'
SIMULTANEOUSLY
'Still nothing, Captain,' Beck said.
'Time is on our side, Einzvo. Fuller's coming here is like him playing Russian roulette. Every time a lava vent acts up, he pulls the trigger again, and makes another acoustic holography datum along some sector of the volcano field. Sooner or later he'll chamber the loaded round — with us in the right position to detect his transient — and then we have him cold.'
Beck studied the nay charts. Deutschland continued her search.
'Now that we're sitting against a time bomb, Captain,' Bell said, 'may I ask your plan?'
'I've revised my thinking, XO, given our paltry ammo supply. I intend to find Deutschland by letting him find us. Next time this lava vent blows, we'll be acoustically backlit nicely on a broad arc off our starboard side. Eberhard'll think we blundered. I'm betting he'll let loose some snap shots. Then we strike.'
'What if he's somewhere else when the magma outburst hits?'
'We'll try again. What's the rush?'
'Sorry, Captain, I just want to get this over with.'
'So does Eberhard, believe me. That's what I'm counting on. That's why I tried to piss him off before, on the phone, and I'm betting he called for the same reason, to goad me.'
'I'm worried, sir,' Bell said, 'that this magma explosion may finish us before Eberhard does.'
'I'm not disagreeing, XO, but with hardly any useable weapons left, what choice have we got?'
Kathy requested permission to go active again on the ground-penetrating sonar — Ilse wanted to update her information on the pressure buildup in the underlying magma chamber. She'd obviously heard Jeffrey and Bell talking; everyone in the control room had.
'Permission to go active,' Jeffrey said. 'Update at your discretion…. Fire Control, we need to put our weapons out there now, so we catch Eberhard by surprise, inside the defensive ring of his own atomic counter-shots. That's the only way we'll have a prayer of scoring a hit.'
'Sir?'
'I want to launch all four working tubes, and loiter our weapons at stealth speed, like a smart mine field, halfway between us and the volcano to the west.'
'Er… concur,' Bell said. 'He has to come through there eventually. Whether he's heading north or south at the time won't matter from our perspective.'
'Exactly. The mobile mine field's our tactical trip wire.' 'Captain, four torpedoes doesn't make a very big mine field.'
'I know.'
Outside Challenger's hull, the sounds of rumbling and gurgling grew louder and louder. ONE HOUR LATER.
Deutschland rounded the north face of Middle, heading southwest.
'Contact on acoustic holography!' Haffner shouted. 'Definite SSN hull, beam on to us, silhouetted against west face of Middle!'
Beck sat up straighter. 'Confirmed! Clear picture of noise field near Middle is forming on port wide-aperture array. Challenger backlit against seismic rumbling from west face of central cone.'
'Achtung, Einzvo,' Eberhard said in triumph. 'Snap shots, tubes one through four. On bearing to Challenger, los!'
'Torpedoes in the water!' Kathy shouted. 'Two, three — four inbound torpedoes in the water!'
'It's too soon,' Bell said. 'The magma hasn't blown yet. Our weapons are out of position.'
'Inbound torpedoes bearing three one seven,' Kathy said. Northwest. 'Range nine thousand yards, closing fast!'
'Pull our units back and use them as countershots?' Bell said.
'Inbound torpedoes are diverging,' Kathy said. 'Assess he's trying to get us in a pincers. Captain.' 'There's no point in using our eighty-eights defensively. Let his Sea Lions get closer. Oceanographer, how soon till that magma blows?'
'Any minute,' Ilse said. 'I think.'
'Sir,' Bell said, 'advise we move away from the cone flank smartly.'
'Not yet. Deutschland is probably beam on to us, using her wide-aperture arrays. Don't ask me how she found us, the point is that she did…. Sonar, go active on the bow sphere. Ping. Give Fire Control the target range and bearing. Tell me which way Deutschland's stern is facing.'
There was a high-pitched eeeee. It fluctuated wildly in strength and frequency, to make it hard for the target to actively suppress.
Kathy waited for the echo. 'Deutschland's course is one eight five.' Eberhard's baffles pointed north.
'Okay. Okay. Fire Control, send our weapons at Deutschland in two pairs. The eightyeights furthest from her, go right at her bow at maximum attack speed now. Sneak the closer units in behind her stern in a stealth approach.'
'What if Eberhard goes to flank speed?'
'He'll think he doesn't need to and it would put him at a tactical disadvantage. We might track his noise on passive without giving him pings to track us, and he has his own wires to protect.'
'Understood.' Bell went to work. 'But what about the incoming torpedoes?'
'Hold your fire.'
'We have nothing to fire.'
'Eberhard doesn't know that.'
'Two Mark eighty-eights inbound from directly ahead,' Beck called out. Eberhard launched the Sea Lion in tube five as a defensive countershot. Beck reported the inbound weapons were diverging, closing in on Deutschland from her port and starboard bows.
'They're still under wire control?' Eberhard said. 'Apparently, Captain.'
'Then he hasn't reloaded either tube.'
