“I hold Master One on the scope,” Pacino said. “He’s bugging out heading west. But my image is fading. We follow him now or lose him, Captain,” Pacino said.
“Officer of the Deck,” Seagraves said. “Take us up and get back in trail of Master One.”
“Pilot,” Pacino commanded, “take us up, forty feet per second positive rate, report depth six five zero feet.”
As Dankleff acknowledged, Pacino looked at the periscope display. He could barely make out the hot spot of the Omega.
“Depth six five zero feet, sir,” Dankleff said.
“Pilot, all ahead two thirds, turns for six, steer course two seven five.”
For ten long minutes the
“Sonar Officer, what’s the path ahead westward look like?” Alexeyev asked.
“I have a clear path ahead,” Palinkova reported.
“Calculated range to the ice target?” Alexeyev asked the Navigator Maksimov at the chart.
“Four point six nautical miles behind us, Captain.”
“Keep going west, Watch Officer,” Alexeyev said to Captain Lieutenant Shvets.
They waited tensely, the range to the ice pressure ridge opening up as they steamed away from it.
“Five nautical miles from ice target, Captain,” Maksimov said.
“Do you think we’re good at this range?” Alexeyev said quietly to Kovalov.
Kovalov shook his head. “The hull might survive, but we’d be in bad shape.”
“At least the explosion will open up a polynya overhead. There’d be open water. We could surface if we had to,” Alexeyev said. “Ping active, Weapons Officer. Let’s see how much room we have ahead.”
The dual blasting active sonar pings sounded.
“I’ve got pressure ridges ahead, Captain,” Sobol said, sounding disappointed.
“Range to the pressure ridges?” Alexeyev was annoyed. Sobol should have reported that automatically.
“Two nautical miles, Captain.”
“Watch Officer, slow to two knots and approach the pressure ridge ahead of us,” Alexeyev said. The room was silent for several minutes as the ice ridge became closer.
“Pressure ridge ahead is at half a nautical mile,” Palinkova finally said.
“Watch Officer, when under-ice sonar has us three hundred meters from the ice wall, stop, hover and spin us back to the east.” Alexeyev looked at Kovalov, who was frowning over the navigation display.
“Boatswain, all stop. Slowing, Captain,” Shvets said. “Boatswain, hover at this depth, take control of your thrusters and twist the ship to the right to heading zero nine zero.”
After a long moment, the boatswain reported the ship hovering at the new heading of due east.
“Range to the ice target, Navigator?” Alexeyev asked.
“Six point nine nautical miles, Captain,” Maksimov reported.
Alexeyev looked at Kovalov and Lebedev. “Almost seven miles. Do you two think this is safe standoff?”
Lebedev took a deep breath. “It’s close, sir. It’s a risk.”
“Captain Kovalov?”
“I don’t like it, Captain,” Kovalov said. “The shock is going to be severe.”
“I guess we’ll find out how well Sevmash Shipbuilding did their job,” Alexeyev said. “Weapons Officer, ping active.”
Back on the bottom for the third time, the USS
Albanese spoke up from the sonar stack. “Master One’s hovering and his thrusters are back. He’s spinning. Definite aspect change.”
“What’s your interpretation of the periscope image, OOD?” Seagraves asked Pacino.
“He’s turning to face us again. This time we got to the bottom before he could catch us with a sonar ping.”
“This is turning into a PCO waltz,” Seagraves said to Quinnivan.
“What’s that, Captain?” Quinnivan said.
“I forget, you haven’t attended the U.S. Navy’s Prospective Commanding Officer school. A ‘PCO waltz’ is when two submarines are engaged, both know the other guy is out there, and the simulated battle turns into a chaotic melee. There’s no such thing as a dogfight between submarines — too much information on the opposition’s location, course and speed is unknown, and it changes too fast to get a hit with a torpedo. You shoot a torpedo into that fog of war? Odds are, the weapon will come back to hit
Quinnivan smiled. “Why, Captain, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard you swear. It sounds good coming from you.”
Seagraves smirked and nodded.
The high-pitched sonar ping shrieked again, followed seconds later by a low frequency ping. Pacino’s ears were still ringing when Albanese said, “Master One’s thrusters are shut down, and he’s started back up. Revolutions increasing, Captain. He’s at two zero RPM.”
“Bearing?” Pacino asked.
“Two seven zero but I’ve got near-field effect. He must be right on top of us. Bearing is shifting rapidly. Contact is in our baffles now, Captain. I only have him on the rear-facing sonar on the rudder and he’s faint. He’s now bearing… zero eight five.”
“He’s going east again,” Pacino said.
“But why?” Seagraves asked.
