'Concur.'
Eberhard launched another countershot, the Sea Lion in tube six. 'Send one at each Mark eighty-eight.' 'Understood.'
'Status of our salvo from tubes one through four?' 'Good wires. All units approaching Challenger in a fan spread. Bypassing the lava lake now.'
'Challenger's response?'
'None yet, Captain. Not since that ping.'
'Well, he certainly knows where we are. Either he's-waiting for our units to get closer, or he's had a bad equipment casualty. Either way he's doomed. Keep tubes seven and eight in reserve, just in case.'
'Understood.'
'I want to check our baffles. Pilot, starboard twenty rudder.' In Challenger's CACC, the noise of torpedo engines was drowned out by a double blast. Deutschland's two anti-torpedo torpedoes went off simultaneously, so that neither one would suffer warhead fratricide. Because of the geometries involved, the concussions arrived at Challenger one half-second apart.
'Lost the wires,' Bell shouted, 'units from tubes one and three. Assess both units destroyed. Good wires, tubes five and seven, stealth approach in Deutschland's baffles.'
'Update our firing solution. Sonar, go active.'
There was another ping, with a different random pattern of strength and pitch.
'Aspect change on Deutschland. Deutschland turning to starboard.'
'Send units from tubes five and seven at maximum attack speed.'
'Captain,' Bell said. 'Four Sea Lions are inbound at us at maximum attack speed.'
'Sit tight, XO. We can't move till we break all Eberhard's weapon wires.'
'What's Fuller doing now?'
'Nothing, sir,' Beck said. It didn't make sense.
'He's panicked, or they're arguing what to do. Crew discipline's collapsed on Challenger. It's beautiful, mental torture before they die.'
'Torpedoes in the water in our baffles!' Haffner screamed. 'They're close! Near-field effects!'
'Flank speed ahead,' Eberhard bellowed. 'Snap shot, tube seven, minimum yield, into our baffles. Los!' Deutschland picked up speed.
'Damn him,' Eberhard said.
Beck stared at his tactical screen. 'It's impossible, sir. Challenger's just sitting there.'
'Has Fuller lost his mind? He used all four tubes at us. Our Sea Lions are so close he'll never intercept them now, even if he launched more units.'
Deutschland hit twenty knots.
'Inbound torpedoes diverging,' Beck said., –
'Snap snot, tube eight, minimum yield, into our baffles, los!' Deutschland fishtailed, hitting thirty knots.
'Inbound torpedoes still closing, sir.' They were much too deep for noisemakers or decoys.
'That madman. He's committed suicide, just to get at me.
'Captain,' Beck said. 'Challenger's weapons are too close. With their maximum yield, or our minimum yield, we'll take heavy damage either way.' He's clever, this Fuller. The two weapons off our bow were ones he meant for us to see. They were a ploy, to lull us, while he snuck two more behind our stern. It worked: We were blindsided.
'Pilot, stern-planes on full rise! Emergency blow on hydrazine!' The bow nosed for the surface. The hydrazine roared as it forced seawater from the main ballast tanks.
'Lost the wires, tubes one through four!' Beck watched Deutschland's depth decreasing rapidly — but the American 88's still overtook. If Eberhard ordered the last two Sea Lions detonated now, Deutschland would destroy herself. The ship hit forty knots.
'Cavitating!' Haffner shouted. The pump jet was making noise, even this deep, because of dissolved volcanic gases in the water.
Fuller's weapons began to ping in range-gate mode. Sonar conditions were disturbed, but sound rays took the same path coming and going. The inbound torpedoes would follow the twisting path of each ping's echo, right up Deutschland's stern. Yes, this Fuller is a clever one.
By rote Beck called out the ever-closing distance to the two weapons. The ship hit fifty knots. Coomans kept reporting Deutschland's depth. The climb from three kilometers down was taking an eternity. The 88's would be in lethal radius long before Deutschland reached the surface.
Jeffrey watched the data feeds. 'I think we have him, XO.' 'Sir, unless you do something, Deutschland has us, too.'
'Helm, ahead two thirds. Left standard rudder, make your course due east.' Meltzer acknowledged.
'Captain,' Bell said, 'that takes us right at the live volcano. Inbound torpedoes' range is four thousand yards, overtaking us by fifty knots!'
'Helm, thirty degrees up-bubble. Take us through Middle's central crater plume.'
'Sir,' Bell said, 'do you know what you're saying?' 'The lava lake was a dress rehearsal.' Ilse heard more distant blasts.
'Units from tubes five and seven have detonated!' Bell said. 'Solid hits on Deutschland!' The blast force of the 88's reached Challenger. The inbound Sea Lions pinged.
'Helm, ahead flank!'
'Sea Lions in lethal range at one KT any moment!' Challenger entered the volcano plume.
In a flash, Ilse realized what Jeffrey was doing. The rising, dispersing heat and chemicals of the plume created a giant acoustic diffuser. The vertical sound-speed profile would refract all sound rays up, far more sharply even than normal in the bottom isothermal zone. The plume would also cause the sound rays to diverge — to spread and weaken — in the horizontal direction, because sound speed was highest at the central axis of the plume. When Challenger was well into the plume, the Sea Lion pings would weaken drastically, and the weak echoes would diffuse even more while bouncing back. The Sea Lions, their wires snapped, would seem to lose the contact. Their blue-green laser target discriminators wouldn't sense a noisemaker or decoy. They'd assume the target had put on a burst of amazing speed and escaped, or turned hard out of their search cone, or that the weapons themselves had suffered a hardware or logic flaw. They'd either rush off in a different direction, to try to regain contact, or detonate, in a last-ditch try to kill their receding target. When they detonated — outside the immediate zones of the fireballs — the shock wave would act like sound: It was sound. It, too, would be bent up and diffused, as it passed through the plume, and with luck would deflect harmlessly above Challenger; the extent of ray refraction was independent of sound intensity.
Sometimes, Ilse had to admit, Jeffrey amazed her. The one big question was, would it work?
Then there was the wild card: the magma outburst, now overdue.
ON DEUTSCHLAND
Deutschland was dying even as she drove for the surface. All the hours of chase and searching, all the plans and strategy, had given way to these last few savage seconds of guessing and outguessing — and Deutschland had lost. Beck manned his station grimly. Along both sides of the Zentrale men sat broken-necked or stunned; only Beck's headrest, as he faced forward, prevented whiplash from the Mark 88 A-bomb blasts astern.
Damage reports came in from all over the ship. There was bad flooding in Engineering and in the torpedo room. There was a bad electrical fire in equipment near the enlisted mess. Eberhard ordered Coomans aft, to take charge at the fire. The Leutnant zur See copilot took over the helm; the relief pilot was dead.
'Sir,' Beck said. 'We're losing positive buoyancy. We're losing the ship.' They were sinking, still far below the surface, despite the completed emergency main ballast blow. Eberhard ran to the copilot's station. He worked the controls for the conformal hangar.
'Einzvo, use the minisub. Save as many men as you can.”
'Captain?'
