Ghost Sub полностью

“Sir, it’s 0600,” said the Chief of the Watch. Jabo had asked him earlier to announce it, although that felt pointless now, everyone on the boat was staring at his watch, waiting to see if Jabo was right or wrong.

“Aye,” said Jabo. He looked expectantly toward sonar, waiting for them announce the pinging.

Another five minutes went by.

Jabo exhaled loudly. “Maybe it’s our depth.”

“How’s that?” snapped the captain.

“We always heard her at a much shallower depth,” said Jabo. “Maybe we’re in a sound channel down here, away from the signal.”

“Is there a channel?” said the XO. “Did you shoot an XBT?” An XBT was essentially a tiny torpedo with a thermometer on it, attached to the ship by thousands of feet of copper wire as thin as a human hair. It was shot out of the signal launcher and the temperature of the ocean at every depth was recorded as it fell to the bottom of the ocean.

Jabo’s face was turning red; he hadn’t even thought to look at the acoustic profile when he ordered that odd depth of 720 feet. He was about to confess when V-12 appeared at his side with a long scroll of paper.

“This is from six hours ago,” he said. “Van shot it. Almost completely flat. No sound channel.”

The captain looked at the paper while Jabo silently thanked V-12 with a relieved nod.

“Alright,” said the captain. “Let’s stay here for now.”

Five more minutes went by without a word in the control room.

In sonar, they all stared at their consoles, focused on the noise coming in their headsets. It was a whirring they were all familiar with, the sound of an empty ocean, a rushing noise like wind. They’d been trained to pick noises out of that sonic haystack, and they were all good at it: that’s why they were the battle stations team. While their brains were focused on their ears, their eyes were focused on their consoles, which had a digital clock in the lower corner: 0610, and the minutes continued to tick by.

Then, from the cold, unknowing noise of the ocean in front of them came a high, watery ping, each pulse lasting one second with a second between. It faded, then disappeared for a beat, but then it was back, as distinct and regular as a metronome.

Jabo heard the sonar supervisor key his microphone before he said a word.

“Sonar conn, we have an active submerged contact at three-four-zero relative, designate Sierra One.”

Thank God, Jabo said to himself. He looked at his watch: 0615. They had fifteen minutes to prosecute the target.

The supervisor was in control. “It’s faint!” he said. “May not be due to range, may be due to our depth. But we’ve got her. Recommend we come shallow.”

“No time,” said Jabo. “I’m going to do one TMA maneuver. That’s all we’ll get. I want to confirm range, then we’re doing the procedure.”

“Aye, aye sir,” said the supervisor, trotting back to sonar.

“Do it,” said Jabo to V-12. “Like we discussed.”

“Left ten degrees rudder!” said V-12. “Steady on course two-four-zero.”

The helm acknowledged the order and the ship swung left. On the console in front of them, bearings were starting to stack up, each ping from the Boise, one green dot for every ping that sonar heard. The fire control operator adjusted the solution he had in the system to keep the dots in a straight line. The straighter the line, especially after the maneuver tested their solution, the more accurate their estimate of the Boise’s course, speed, and range.

“What have you got?”

“Looks like she is on two-five-zero, five knots, about a thousand yards in front of us,” he said.

Jabo looked at his watch, they had ten minutes left. He waited one full minute, to verify that their solution still stacked up.

“Captain, we’ve got her. Inside a thousand yards. Recommend the special procedure.”

“Concur,” said the captain.

Jabo picked up the 27MC microphone, a link to sonar and the torpedo room. “Fire water slug from tube one!” he said.

Instantly, he felt the whoosh beneath his feet and his ears popped as the torpedomen ejected a tube full of water toward Boise. Had there been a torpedo in that tube, instead of just water, it would have sped toward the target on an intercept course determined by fire control.

“Ten seconds!” said the XO, stopwatch in hand.

“Fire water slug from tube two!”

Again, he felt the rumble in his feet and felt the pressure change in his ears. He’d been on the receiving end of these, in previous exercises, and he knew how loud the sound would be to the Boise, less than a half mile away.

“Ten seconds,” said the XO.

Jabo picked up the microphone for the UT, or underwater telephone, a transponder that broadcast voice directly into the water.

“Boise, this is Louisville, do you read? Boise, this is Louisville, do you read?”

They waited, but there was no response. Jabo’s heart was pounding, he felt excitement that they’d located their target, but was deeply certain that her lack of response was bad news. He looked down at the captain who was continuing to watch her dots stack up in a straight line.