“Bottomed out, Officer of the Deck,” McGuire reported from the ship control console. “Depth, thirteen hundred and five feet.”
“What is Master One doing?” Seagraves asked Sonarman Mercer.
“Looks he was spinning around to check out the ice, Captain.”
“Good thing we got out of the way of his under-ice sonar,” Vevera said.
“Ask yourself, Mr. Vevera, would we even know if he counterdetected us on his under-ice unit?”
“He’d probably have hit us with his active sonar, Captain,” Quinnivan said. “Just to distinguish us from a chunk of ice or a near-field sonar blur.”
Seagraves nodded. “Still, you should put yourself into the shoes of the Omega captain. Always be thinking about what
“Master One has started back up,” Mercer said. “He’s making twenty-five RPM on both screws. I have bearing rate left and diminishing SNR. Bearing three five one.”
“We still have him on the scope?” Seagraves asked Vevera.
“He’s fading, Captain.”
“Get us off the bottom and put on turns to follow him,” Seagraves ordered. “And close the range. We can’t lose him amid all this ice noise.”
“Pilot, insert a positive depth rate, forty feet per second and mark depth twelve hundred.”
The list and incline came off the deck as the ship lifted off.
“Twelve hundred feet, sir,” McGuire called.
“All ahead one third, turns for six knots, steer course three five one, and make your depth two hundred feet,” Vevera ordered. To himself he muttered, “Follow that fuckin’ BUFF.”
“Watch Officer, stop here and spin us left to three zero zero,” Alexeyev ordered.
Alexeyev looked at Lebedev. “Pressure ridge must have shifted and opened up the ice canopy.”
“Sonar Officer, what’s the ice thickness at the thin ice?” Alexeyev asked.
“Less than one meter, Captain.”
Lebedev murmured in Alexeyev’s ear. “Sir, if that ice wall continues, we could hit it with a Gigantskiy torpedo. We don’t know how thick it is. There might be a passage on the other side of it.”
“We don’t have nuclear release authority on the Gigantskiy units,” Alexeyev said. God alone knew why they’d been sent with the nuclear units, if not to break through an ice wall like the one they faced. But that was in keeping with the rest of the stupidity of this mission, he thought.
“I know, but that’s the reason they loaded us up with them,” Lebedev said. “I suppose we could try a Futlyar torpedo or two. See if that does anything.”
“I have another idea,” Alexeyev said. “Watch Officer, drive us to the thin ice and prepare to vertical surface. Sonar Officer, light up the upward-looking under-ice sonar and chart the size of the thin ice. Let’s make sure it’s big enough to allow us to surface.” Alexeyev stepped back to the command console and motioned Lebedev to join him there. In a quiet voice, he said to her, “Let’s call home and see if we can get nuclear weapon release authority. If they say no, we can throw Futlyar units at the wall. But that pressure ridge? I’m guessing we could toss the whole torpedo room at it and it would just laugh at us. One megaton blast on direct contact? It will open up like a door.”
“We could still backtrack, Captain,” Lebedev said. “Turn around and find another way through the ice.”
“I’m not interested in going backwards,” Alexeyev said, a tone of annoyance in his voice. “Besides, if we radio Northern Fleet HQ, maybe they’ve got new orders for us.” Maybe, he thought, they might have called off this fool’s errand.
“Master One is shut down again, Officer of the Deck,” Mercer reported from the number one sonar stack. “Turn count zero.”
“All stop,” Vevera ordered. “Now what the hell is he doing? Sonar, do you have thruster noises again?”
“No, sir, but he’s stopped. He’s dead in the water. Wait. Wait. Officer of the Deck, I have blowing noises. He’s blowing variable ballast or even main ballast. I’m showing D/E getting higher.” D/E was deflection / elevation, the angle to the contact. Mercer was seeing the Omega rising out of the sea. “I’ve got a loud collision noise. Master One has hit the ice overhead.”
“He’s surfacing,” Seagraves said, glancing at the periscope view. “We’re under thin ice. Mr. Vevera, close Master One slowly. Mind your periscope. See if you can drive us underneath him, but take us down to three hundred.” He looked at Quinnivan. “This is it, XO. Mobilize Mr. Fishman and the
