Pacino squinted at the command console display. Master One, the BUFF, was visible on IR on the periscope display — or more accurately, his reactor and engineroom components were. The rest of his outline was a blurry cloud generated by the slight difference in his skin temperature from the surrounding icy waters.
“Speed zero, hovering, depth two one zero feet,” Dankleff called.
“What the hell is he doing?” Seagraves asked Pacino and Quinnivan. Lieutenant Commander Lewinsky joined them as they crowded the command console. Lieutenant Commander Styxx at the weapon control console to starboard was listening intently to their conversation.
“He’s spinning, sir,” Pacino said. “I’d say to his left. He’ll be seeing us soon on his under-ice sonar.”
“Range guess, Coordinator?” Seagraves asked Quinnivan, who at battlestations was the firecontrol coordinator.
“Close, Captain. Inside five hundred yards.”
“Do you want to take her to the bottom again, Captain?” Pacino asked.
“Sounding?” Seagraves seemed deep in thought.
“Nav-E.T., take a secure sounding,” Pacino called.
“Sir, ninety fathoms. Five hundred forty feet,” the navigation electronics technician reported.
“Take us down slowly, Officer of the Deck,” Seagraves said. “I want to minimize our transients from the depth excursion.”
“Pilot, negative rate, twenty feet per second,” Pacino ordered.
“Negative twenty, Pilot, aye.”
“Sonar, is he still thrusting?” Pacino asked Albanese. He stared at his periscope display, trying to make sense of the red shapes of the hotspots of the
“Thrusters still on, OOD.”
“Report the second his thrusters shut down,” Pacino said.
“Depth four hundred,” Dankleff reported.
“OOD, thrusters have stopped. Master One may be hovering,” Albanese reported.
It was then the piercing shriek blasted through the hull.
“Captain, ship’s heading now two seven zero, west,” the boatswain reported from the ship control console.
“Boatswain, secure thrusters and hover,” Alexeyev said. “Sonar, do you have any obstructions directly in front of us on this bearing?”
“No, Captain,” Sonar Officer Palinkova said, still intensely staring at her under-ice sonar display.
“Weapons Officer,” Alexeyev said to Captain Lieutenant Sobol at the port side sonar console, “are you lined up for an active sonar ping?” With the sonar officer at the under-ice sonar set, it fell to the weapons officer to run the active sonar suite with her senior enlisted technician.
“Active sonar is ready, Captain,” Sobol said in her high-pitched cartoon character voice. Alexeyev shared a momentary glance with Kovalov, who smirked. Behind closed doors, they’d both marveled at that odd voice.
“Transmit active,” Alexeyev ordered. “High frequency first, then low.”
“Ping active, aye, sir, high frequency first, then low.”
Sobol lifted a protective cover over the sonar mode selector switch for the spherical array and twisted it to the “ACTIVE” position. She lifted a second protective cover over the transmit button for high frequency, then one over the low frequency button. She mashed the high frequency button, and a piercing high-pitched scream reverberated through the room. The high frequency radar-style circular plot of bearing versus range glowed green, a bright green circle growing outward from the center. She hit the low frequency key, and a roaring low-pitched growl shook the room. As she released her finger, the noise stopped. A similar plot for the low frequency sonar lit up, a blue circle growing from the center and moving outward.
“Captain!” Sobol squealed. “I have a submerged contact! Bearing west, range close, a quarter nautical mile!”
“What?” Alexeyev said, hurrying to the active sonar display in front of Sobol. The contact flashed in both high frequency and low frequency plots. “Do you have broadband contact?”
“No, Captain, but we’ve been searching all through the azimuth. I can train the spherical array beam to center on west with a narrow search cone.”
“Do it. Do you have narrowband contact?”
“No tonals, Captain.”
“Focus your narrowband search in the westward cone,” Alexeyev said.
“Weapons Officer, line up your transient module,” Lebedev said, standing to Alexeyev’s right.
“Understood, Madam First, and the transient module is engaged, also narrow cone at bearing two seven zero.”
“Weapons Officer, send the contact bearing and range to the navigation plot and battlecontrol. Navigator,” Lebedev said, glancing at Navigator Maksimov. “Plot the contact on your nav plot and show our past course and the target ice position.”
“I’ve got transients,” Sobol reported. “Sounds like his hull is compressing. He must be going deep. Hull pops and water noise, maybe flooding a tank. I have a thump, Captain. Water noise stopped, hull popping is stopped. He may have hit the bottom.”
“Depth here?” Lebedev asked.
“Shallow. Two hundred fifteen meters, Madam First,” Maksimov said.
