“Well, why don’t you say, ‘Engineer, elevate reactor limits to 200 percent.* Then, when you’re ready to give it the gas, order the helm to go to emergency flank.” Phillips gave the order,
Hornick vanished aft, still puffing on the cigar. Phillips walked into control, briefing the O.O.D on what the engineer would be up to. As the ship accelerated to emergency flank, the velocity indicator passing forty-five, then fifty, fifty-five knots, on to 59.8, slowly increasing to sixty, topping out at 60.6 knots, the deck shook steadily. Everywhere that Phillips walked, the ship trembled, the vibration irritating but then, who cared as long as the ship could make the speed? He peered over the chart flat panel and calculated the time to the Oparea. With their newfound speed they would be in the Oparea in slightly over eighteen hours. Hornick showed up on the conn, the deck still trembling. “Anything you can do about the vibration, Eng?” Phillips asked. “Sorry, sir. I made sure it wasn’t the thrust bearing or the drive train. I think the shaking is from the Vortex missiles. Some kind of turbulence from hauling them through the water at the speed of a torpedo. Plus we’re unbalanced with the first one gone.”
“Think the shaking will hurt the ship?”
“The electronics should handle it,” Hornick said. “It’s the crew I worry about. Bad for crew fatigue.”
“this is the captain,” Phillips said into the circuit one microphone, his voice booming through the ship. “WE ARE RUNNING FOR THE OPAREA AT EMERGENCY FLANK. YOU’LL ALL BE HAPPY TO KNOW WE’RE BREAKING A US SUBMERGED SPEED RECORD AT OVER SIXTY KNOTS. THAT IS WHAT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DECK VIBRATIONS, WHICH COULD LEAD TO CREW FATIGUE. FOR THE NEXT EIGHTEEN HOURS ALL OFF-WATCH PERSONNEL ARE ORDERED TO THEIR RACKS. GET SOME SLEEP, GENTLEMEN. ONCE WE’RE IN THE OPAREA THERE WON’T BE MUCH SLEEP FOR ANY OF US.” Phillips clicked off, looked at Hornick, then at his watch. “Eng, I think I’m going to follow my own advice.”
“Aye, sir. I’ll be aft. I want to make sure the protection circuitry modifications go down okay.” Phillips was asleep within thirty seconds of hitting his pillow.
northwest pacific south OF shikoku island SS-810 Winged Serpent Tanaka walked into the crew messroom. All fourteen junior officers and Hiro Mazdai were now present. In a corner of the room the Second Captain displays rotated through the navigation, sensor, ship control and weaponsstatus panels. There was no one in the control room during the briefing — the Second Captain had complete control. While they were in the waters where Tanaka expected to see contact with the enemy submarines, he would need to brief his officers, and the sooner the better.
The officers stood at attention as he walked into the oblong room, its central feature the long narrow conference table. Tanaka waved the men to their seats and poured himself a cup of tea, then sat at the head of the table, consulted the notes on his personal computer pad, looked up.
“Officers, I will be brief. Item one — the history to date. The Three-class ships sent into the deep Pacific have experienced success. The surface-action groups being sent here have been attacked successfully. Three aircraft carriers and their associated ships have been put on the bottom. I believe few of the Destiny III submarines survived the encounters, the escort submarines are assumed to have sunk them. So at this point we have only Two-class submarines to defend the waters of the Home Islands.
“Item two — our history of encounters with the American attack submarines. The information received to date shows that the only submerged encounter between a Two-class ship and an American submarine was our own attack of the vessel that torpedoed the supertanker. Either the Americans are at a severe disadvantage or that ship was poorly trained. For now I want to remind each one of you that our success against the first American could have been more from luck or a bad day for the Americans than our own skill or ship quieting. So we will maintain absolute ship silence in our future encounters, and whenever we detect an American we will assume he has detected us.
