First Strike

the escape hatch and begin desperately twisting the heavy wheel, hoping against hope that he could somehow manage to get it opened, get inside, and get out before he was trapped. The other tried to follow what he was doing, but got in the way. While the senior rating might have had time to get the inner hatch open, it was almost certain he would not have had time to climb inside the escape chamber, shut the hatch behind him, and reseal it. Even if he had time, the pressure and forces acting on the hull would probably have warped the chamber itself, either preventing the hatch from securing or keeping the outer hatch from opening.

In any event, the others had forgotten to grab emergency egress breathing devices and would have drowned as the chamber filled.

As it was, the sea broke through suddenly, slamming into the compartment and flooding it instantly. The youngest seaman was slammed into a bulkhead and his neck snapped. He had a few seconds of fading consciousness, but not enough time to feel the cold, clear panic and fear flooding the other two.

The senior petty officer, the one who had climbed the ladder, was knocked off his perch. He took a deep breath, held it, and moved through the compartment, hoping to find an air bubble trapped there. The man in the middle panicked. He became completely disoriented. In trying to emulate the other in the complete pitch darkness and cold water, he swam for the stern of the ship. By the time oxygen starvation forced his mouth open in an instinctive insistence that he could indeed breathe seawater if he just tried hard enough, he had realized his mistake.

The third man lived — at least for a few more minutes. He had time to realize what was happening, to watch the water rising around him, to hear the sudden crack as the hull gave way. He was completely conscious as the water quickly rose, the cold leeching the heat almost immediately, the water filled with oily debris. He could not see the water rise, but followed its progress as it crept up his body, the heavy pressure on his chest, the icy oil against his skin, seeping into his tightly closed mouth and invading his nostrils.

He knew the submarine better than his own house and he tried to make his way forward. He pounded against the first door he encountered, but the man on the other side rightfully refused to doom the rest of the ship by opening the hatch. Finally, as he verged on unconsciousness from oxygen starvation, his mouth opened and he breathed in seawater.

Those in the forward compartments who were strong and acted quickly survived. As they heard the torpedo hit, they ignored their standing orders, opened their hatches and streamed forward. They secured the hatches behind them as the went, moving forward against the flood, struggling against the ever deepening inclination on the deck. Eventually, they reached the control room.

Inside the control room, utter chaos prevailed. The captain had roared out a hasty abandon-ship order that was not necessary. Every one of them instinctively knew that to stay in the submarine would be to die. No damage control effort could begin to staunch the flood.

At the bottom of every watertight hatch is a port, known as the telltale. Because there are no windows between the watertight compartments, the telltale provides a way of determining whether the other side is flooded or not.

The control room crew heard the frantic pounding of the others on the hatch, and, in an act of superhuman courage, one of them stayed behind and popped open the telltale. When he saw no water, he opened the hatch and helped drag the rest of the crew through it. After the last one was in, as he saw water seeping into the compartment they’d just vacated, he slammed the hatch shut and twisted the wheel. Except for the captain, he was the last man to leave the dying submarine.

USS Jefferson

CVIC

0308 local (GMT-4)

“Come on, Jeff,” Coyote said softly. He wasn’t sure if it was an order or a prayer.

Beneath his feet, the deck was now tilted as hard over as he’d ever felt it. He had to give her credit, the old girl was strong, but she just couldn’t maneuver like the smaller boys could.

On the screen in front of him, the torpedo symbols inched closer and closer, their positions reported by the Lake Champlain from the cruiser’s sonar detections.

No time, no time. We’re not even all buttoned up — if it hits directly under the keel, we’re in serious trouble.

Outside the compartment, Coyote could hear feet pounding down passageways as sailors scrambled for their general quarter stations. The damage control crews were the most critical part of the entire evolution, since they would be the ones who determined whether or not Jeff stayed afloat.

If it hits. Just turning now — we may be able to confuse it.

Evasive maneuvers worked — at least in theory. How well depended on what type of torpedoes had been fired. The acoustic homers would have no difficulty tracking her, although a straight wake homer might be confused by a sudden change of course.

Suddenly, Lake Champlain skipper’s voice came over the circuit, ferocious joy in his voice. “Jeff, Champlain—they’re gone! My sonarmen said they simply slowed down then stopped. Massive explosions under the water, too, sir, immediately before. They were probably still on wire guidance, the Seawolf took out the submarine, and the torpedoes went stupid.”

Cheers broke out in TFCC, and Coyote drew in a deep, shuddering breath. So, the Seawolf was on the job — and just how had she accomplished this? Everything Coyote had read said that the Seawolf was tasked only as an intelligent asset pending relief on station.

The details spelled out in the P4 had been far more alarming. Coyote had whistled softly as he read it, unable to believe that the submarine’s watch section had gotten her underway without the captain or the XO on board. In fact, the senior line officer present on board was a lieutenant commander.

Coyote folded up the message and tucked it into his shirt pocket. “Good on you, Seawolf,” he said. He shuddered at the thought of being shorthanded so far below the surface of the ocean, while marveling at the man who had managed to pull it off. No, they weren’t aviators — but, for the first time in his career, he was awed by someone whose max speed was just over thirty knots.

USS Seawolf

0500 local (GMT-4)

Forsythe stood stunned, watching the silent death unfold on the sonar screen in front of him. All around him, the sonarman and the sailors mouthed quiet cheers, arms pumping vigorously in the air, pounding each other lightly on the back. Even in the midst of their exhilaration over a successful war shot, they remembered the first rule of life below the surface: Silence is safety.

The sonar chief jabbed Forsythe in the ribs. “Get with it, sir.” The chief stared at him with a silent intensity, as though willing Forsythe to read his mind. He let Forsythe see him glance around room, taking in the sailors and their silent celebrations, and then returned his gaze to Forsythe’s face, eyes narrowed, shoulders back.

Suddenly, Forsythe understood. The chief was doing the job that all chief petty officers do in the Navy, although under somewhat different circumstances. He was training a junior officer — the officer commanding the Seawolf, true, though only by a quirk fate, but a junior officer nonetheless.

The crew needed him, Forsythe realized. He had to show he approved of what they’d done to make the killing of the other submarine something that they could live with. Because, at some level, each of them knew what happened was not just pixels on a sonar screen. It was the death of the ship and her men, men very much like themselves. Russian, yes. Diesel-propelled instead of nuclear. But within the double-hull construction there were men with families who would miss them, sons and husbands who would never go home. And that, Forsythe realized, his own men must not be allowed to think about. Not now. Not yet.

Maybe someday, when they left the depths and were back on the surface, when they could look at what happened again in the sunlight, consider it without thinking immediately that it could have been them.

But, how to do that? Forsythe’s mind raced furiously, and he saw the chief’s face relaxed as he realized he’d made his point. How would Lieutenant Commander Cowlings have handled it?

Forsythe stood a little straighter, feeling the weight of command on his shoulders. He lifted his chin, braced slightly, and said, “Good job. Now let’s nail those other bastards.”

Otter and Pencehaven nodded in unison. “We’ll get them, sir,” Otter promised. “We’ll get them or I’ll