Ghost Sub полностью

Danny wondered where the captain was going with his story. Like many Naval officers, the captain was a history buff, and Danny wondered if he was lost in this story, or delaying the revelation about the Boise.

“We decommissioned her, along with hundreds of other good ships, at the end of the war. In 1951 we gave her to our friend Juan Peron in Argentina, and he named her Diecisiete de Octubre, the date of “Peoples’ Loyalty Day,” a holiday he created to honor himself. When a coup threw his ass out of office in 1955, they changed her name to General Belgrano, to honor one of their founding fathers.”

He paused for a moment, and looked over the room. “So most of us had heard of the General Belgrano, right?” They all nodded their heads. “But no one knew that was a US ship, right?”

They all nodded again. “That’s because she wasn’t a US ship anymore. When men and officers like all of us, from the cities and towns of the United States, left her and stopped caring for her, she stopped being a United States Ship.”

He ran his hand across his smooth scalp. “Gentleman, I guess all of us in the military at one point hope that we’re going to make history. Or at least participate in history. Tomorrow morning, we’re going to do that, although not in a way any of us thought we ever would. Tomorrow morning at 0600, we’re going to sink the USS Boise.”

A murmur went through the room. Jabo made eye contact with V-12, who didn’t seem surprised. The captain continued.

“The Boise left port shortly before we did. Soon after, she dropped out of contact, but, as we have seen, she has continued her journey, presumably on autopilot. The exercise we just participated in was designed to prove that no one is onboard, that she is a ghost ship, with no one alive. And she is continuing to steam westward, toward both friendly and not-so-friendly nations in Asia, and we have to stop her. Just like some of our comrades in arms might have to someday shoot down a passenger plane that is heading toward a populated target, out of control, we have to stop the Boise.”

“What’s wrong with her, captain?” It was Perez.

“We don’t know for sure. Or at least we didn’t when they briefed us in Pearl. Could have been a massive atmospheric problem, a radiation casualty, who knows. But the powers that be have decided that she has to be stopped, and we’re the ones to do it. I’ll be telling the crew as soon as I’m done here.”

The faces around the table were stunned and quiet. “We expect to go to battle stations tomorrow, just like we did this morning, and this time, instead of shooting waterslugs, we’ll shoot Mark 48 torpedoes.”

Jabo knew what they were going to do, and even so hearing the words, and seeing their effect on the wardroom gave him pause. Especially since he would be the OOD — he would be the one with his finger on the trigger.

But not really, he thought. Shooting a torpedo was not like firing a missile from a fighter jet, or throwing a hand grenade — it was a group effort. A complete team effort, with every man on the boat doing his part. Sonar would acquire the target, Jabo would give the order, a team of men in the torpedo room would align the valves that actually shot the weapon. If necessary, a fire control tech in the control room would steer the weapon toward the target. A dozen men, easily, would be able to rightfully tell their grandkids that they sunk the Boise. And that, thought Jabo, was why the captain was right for telling them all. They did have a right to know.

The wardroom had fallen quiet. Jabo wanted to break the silence and keep them focused on the task at hand. “What’s our attack plan, captain?” said Jabo.

The captain looked up, a little startled.

“You tell me,” he said. “You’re our battle stations OOD.”

Jabo thought hard for a minute. “I don’t think a standard two shot salvo is the way to go. That pattern is designed to account for evasion tactics, and to make it harder to detect us, the shooter. We don’t have to worry about either one of those.”

“So you want to go with a single shot? Be economical with the people’s million dollar torpedoes?”

“No sir. I think we should fire two shots, but closer together than the normal spread. Maybe offset just twenty degrees. Hopefully we’ll have thirty minutes or so to acquire her and get her solution entered with a high degree of accuracy.”

“What about active?” asked the XO. “Will we use that again?”

“If we have to,” said the captain. “But as we saw today, we can’t rely on it.”

“What about range?” said Burkhardt. “We were close when we found her this morning, right? Inside a thousand yards? Do we want to be firing warshots at that range?

“And how many do we want to load?” said Perez. “Should we put warshots in all four tubes? Just in case we need to shoot again?”

Soon the wardroom was engaged in a lively, productive debate about how to best acquire, prosecute, and sink a submerged target.