Panic Switch полностью

“Sir?” Shvets said, astonished. “Captain, if we do that, we’ll not only have no atmo control but no oxygen. And we’re under thick ice, sir!”

“I know, Shvets. Now follow your goddamned orders.”

Alexeyev didn’t blame young Captain Lieutenant Vilen Shvets for his outburst. The younger generation of officers were taught not to take orders blindly, but to think and contribute. Except in emergencies where “immediate actions” were called for. And ice or no ice, the immediate action for an oxygen fire submerged was to dump the oxygen overboard. No oxygen, no fire.

“Sir, we’re set up to blow oxygen overboard,” Shvets said hesitantly.

“Watch Officer, jettison oxygen,” Alexeyev said. He turned to Lebedev and leaned in close to her. “Well, that’s it,” he said quietly. “That’s the end of the mission.”

“Commencing O2 blow overboard, Captain,” Shvets said. The sound of rushing gas could be heard in the room, the sound continuing for half a minute. Alexeyev felt a mourning for all that life-giving oxygen leaving the ship. That meant he’d need to return to open water, where the first Gigantskiy had detonated and opened up a polynya, and where the second one was headed. But making turns toward open water would take him closer to the second Gigantskiy’s detonation point. But it couldn’t be helped. If the hull could hold up to the second detonation and maintain some kind propulsion, he could radio for help and save the crew.

All that assumed, of course, that the American — Hostile One — was on the bottom in pieces.

It was quiet in the control room of the USS New Jersey. It was also crowded, with watchstanders at every console. Captain Seagraves stood between the command console and the navigation plot. Not far from him, XO Quinnivan stood behind the attack center of the BSY-1 battlecontrol system. At the end of the row, the weapon control console was manned by Weapons Officer Styxx. Behind the command console, Officer of the Deck Pacino stood, rotating the display from navigation to weapons control to sonar. On the sonar screen for broadband, there was no sign of Master One. They could no longer hear him on narrowband and there’d been no transients. The Omega had disappeared.

“Attention in the firecontrol party,” Seagraves announced. “Firing point procedures, aim point number one for Master One, VPT door two, tube eleven, Tomahawk SUBROC, depth zero detonation.”

“Ship ready,” Pacino reported.

“Weapon ready,” Styxx called.

“Solution ready and input as aim point number one,” Quinnivan said.

Aim point number one was the opening of the rectangular ice wall area where Master One had withdrawn to, and from where he’d fired the supercavitating torpedo. Odds were, he was no longer there, Pacino thought, and had driven out the way he’d come, on a northward path, but aim point number two was ahead of him by five miles. Between the two detonations, they’d definitely do some damage.

“Shoot on generated aim point,” Seagraves ordered.

“Tube eleven, fire!” Styxx shouted as she rotated the trigger lever from the nine o’clock position to the three o’clock position.

The sound of the tube firing vibrated the deck, but wasn’t the ear-slamming explosion of a torpedo tube firing. A few moments later, the sound of the rocket motor ignition could be heard faintly from above them.

“I have Tomahawk SUBROC normal launch,” Senior Chief Albanese called from the sonar stack.

“Firing point procedures,” Seagraves announced, “aim point number two for Master One, VPT door two, tube twelve, Tomahawk SUBROC, depth zero detonation.”

The launch reports and actions were repeated, until the second Tomahawk SUBROC had lifted off from the open water overhead.

Pacino walked to the navigation chart and joined Navigator Lewinsky. “You have aim points one and two drawn in?”

“Inputting them now,” he said. A red circle appeared at the entrance to the ice-wall box. Lewinsky drew it to be a quarter mile in diameter. The blast damage zone would be bigger, certainly. A second red circle appeared five miles north of aim point one, also a quarter mile in diameter.

“Time of flight, XO?” Seagraves asked.

“Two minutes thirty seconds, Captain,” Quinnivan said. “Two minutes to go for unit eleven.”

“Torpedo in the water! Bearing two six one!” Albanese’s voice cracked as he made the announcement.

Pacino turned his command console display to sonar’s transient module, then to the broadband display. Streaking down the broadband waterfall was a loud trace, at constant bearing 261. Which meant it was coming right for them.

“Classify the torpedo, Sonar,” Seagraves snapped.

“It’s another Magnum, sir. A Gigantskiy.”

“Fuck,” Quinnivan said.

“Snapshot tube three in countermeasure mode, bearing two six one, immediate enable, high-to-medium active snake!” Seagraves ordered.