Armageddon

Chapter 15

The Japanese Type 89 torpedo produced by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was a wire guided, active/passive homing torpedo with a 267 kilogram warhead. It could dive to 900 meters, well below the crush depth of most submarines, and had a range of 50 kilometers at 40 knots, or 74 KPH. It was going to have to go all of twenty kilometers if it was to find the Russian sub, and so it was going to be another fifteen minutes before it reached the hot zone where it might get a definite lock on the target to make its final run.

The wire trailing out behind it allowed two-way communication with the Firing Control Officer on the White Dragon, who was still receiving more refined location data on the contact from sonar. The squeaky bearing may have given away Kazan’s initial location, but engineers were quick to the scene with lubricants as an expedient measure to quash the noise again. Yet now that the Russian sub had fired, the additional sonic information helped the Japanese get a better ear on its general location.

Countermeasures in the water there fired by Kazan bloomed like a rose in the sound field, but a well trained human ear could recognize those sounds and feed instructions to the torpedo via the wire to ignore them. The enemy would not be there in the middle of that rose, but elsewhere, lurking off the bearing or speeding away, leaving the noise at its back in an attempt to outrun the torpedo. The contact had been heading south, and so the Fire Control Officer made a course correction, sending his fish to a place he expected the enemy should be in another fifteen minutes.

The Russian javelin was the Big Type 65 torpedo, heavier and faster than its adversary with a 450kg explosive warhead and a speed of 93KPH. It also had a good long range of 50 kilometers, which is why Gromyko had selected it as opposed to his Type 53 weapon, which maxed out at 22 kilometers. At a firing range of 20 klicks, the Type 53 had little margin for error where fuel was concerned, and it was also slower at 83KPH.

The Captain’s weapon of choice was also going to make a difference in the engagement. It could fire farther, hit harder, and was quicker to the target zone than the Japanese torpedo. The Type 65 was going to be in the hot zone well before the enemy’s weapon became a threat, heating up Nakamura’s day at the critical time when his own torpedo was attempting to lock on to the Russian sub. To make matters worse, Gromyko had turned on a bearing that was taking Kazan away from the pursuing Type 89s, and he had the speed and power to nearly match the torpedo.

The bottom line in all of this was that the Russian torpedoes had a distinct advantage. Their target was well located and it was approaching them. The Japanese Type 89s were bearing fired and being nudged to the expected target zone by the best guess of a human operator. As Kazan sped away, it was also beginning to put the rising volcanic seamount that became the Ulleung-do island between it and the oncoming torpedo. As the minutes passed it soon became obvious that the Japanese fish were not going to find their quarry that day. The question now was whether the Russian torpedoes could effectively locate the target, for the Japanese sub was also gliding away off its firing axis and attempting to become a hole in the water that would make it disappear.

The big torpedoes came in twelve minutes after firing, and while one elected to go after White Dragon’s noisemakers, using its passive sensors to home in, the other went active and soon found what it thought was a possible contact. It adjusted its course and ran true, and forced another frantic round of countermeasures aboard the White Dragon that barely saved the boat.

The second Type 65 had a choice of a fairly robust sound signature or a quiet echo behind it, and it chose the former, exploding about 50 meters ahead and devouring the noisemakers. The resulting concussion shook up the Japanese boat severely and, in the ensuing wild minute after, they lost their tenuous sonic leash on Kazan, which had now put the undersea volcanic mound between itself and the White Dragon. The boat keeled to one side, lights flickered, and equipment rattled throughout the ship. Men were thrown from their feet, and anything lose went flying through compartments all over the boat. Fragments of the warhead raked the hull like buckshot, one larger piece of shrapnel lodging in the nose of the boat, but the hull was not breached.

Nakamura was lucky to be alive, and the sweat on his brow was ample testament to the tension. One look at his chart told him what had probably happened. The enemy was still running south, through the west gap on the other side of the island. There was no way his slower boat was ever going to catch up now, and he did not think he would get a second shot. That decided, his only play was to turn south now himself, and take the eastern gap between Ulleung-do and the Anyongbok seamount. If nothing else, he would be moving to a position to better coordinate with Kuroshio, which was moving northwest at that very moment from a position well south of the island.

Word was being flashed to Sato’s surface action group, and the Seahawks were ready to take wing and join the fray. Far to the east, the Mississippi was hearing it all as well on their own excellent passive sonar systems, and Captain Donahue decided it might be nice to join the party.

“Looks like we found our bad boy out there,” he said to his XO.

Chambers nodded in the affirmative. “They’re well west,” he said. “Probably running down the other side of Ulleung-do. Any chance the Koreans can bird dog for us?”

“PACCOM says they’re a little more than edgy with the way the North Koreans are stacking up on the border. No, I don’t think they want a piece of this. To be honest, the Japanese would rather not tangle with the Russians either. They were supposed to flush this bird for us, and that’s what they did. I think we’d best get Mississippi west before this boat slips away.”

“It’ll go dark while its behind that undersea massif,” Chambers pointed at the map. “There’s a lot of shadow there in the sound field.”

“Which gives their skipper a number of choices. He can pull an about face and head north again. If he does, we’ll lose him, which is fine by me in this situation. As long as we keep them away from our planned operations to the south we’ve done 90 % of our job.”

“What if he stays on a heading south?”

“Then game on. In another hour he should be about 10 klicks southwest of the island unless they’re running full out. If we push it we just might get close enough for a decent shot. Let’s steer about 262 degrees and crank it up. The Japanese will have a diesel boat off our port side and another to our north. We should have Seahawk support from their destroyers as well. If this contact insists on pushing south, we’ll have one hell of a picket line moving in to nail the bastard.”

“Very well sir, 262 it is. Shall I run in Wiki mode or put it on overdrive?”

“Ahead full battle speed,” said Donahue. The Virginia class had a publically advertised speed that anyone could look up on Wikipedia, but its real numbers were never revealed. It was time to move, and Mississippi had the speed to get into the action, which is exactly what she did.

“Admiral, we are going to be in a situation if we stay on this heading much longer.” Gromyko decided he had better give Volsky the bare knuckled truth. “I don’t think we’ll be bothered by that last sub again, but it will have signaled our position, course, and speed to anyone else nearby, and we could be visited again soon. They might have a P-3 up, and that surface action group is obviously heading our way. They’ll have helicopters.”

Chernov had been listening intently as they slipped behind the imposing undersea flanks of the Ulleung-do volcano. He soon heard the telltale sound of surface ships approaching, and they knew these were most likely Japanese ships on ASW patrol, most likely part of a screen to guard the approaches to the Tsushima Strait.

“What is the situation with your reactor engineer?” Gromyko wanted to know the score.

Fedorov had been in contact with the reactor room at Volsky’s request and relayed the news. “Dobrynin says things have cleared up considerably, sir. We’re well south now. I think he could run the procedure any time, but that would mean we could use no more than two thirds power.”

“Is that acceptable, Captain Gromyko?” Volsky was obviously concerned given the current situation.

“How long does this procedure take?”

“About an hour,” said Fedorov. “It took longer aboard Kirov, but Dobrynin says he has to alter the tempo of the retraction process to achieve the harmonics he’s after.”

“Then do it now. Our only other option is to turn about and head north. But if we have to come south again for any reason, I think the other side will be much better prepared. I can give you an hour while we’re behind that volcanic massif. After that we’ll be in the basin and that is fairly open water. It would be good to have speed if they should find us there again.”

“Alright,” said Volsky. “I don’t think we want to reverse course now only to find out Dobrynin reports this sound he hears again. Go, Mister Fedorov. Tell the Chief to begin, and you may keep us informed.” The Admiral turned to Gromyko as Fedorov sped away for the reactor room.

“Captain,” said Volsky, “some years ago I took my young nephew with me to Paris and we toured the Disneyland park there.”

Gromyko raised an eyebrow, wondering what this was about.

“He wanted to ride the runaway train on Big Thunder Mountain, but when he got a look at the train cars at the end of the ride, and the astonished look on everyone’s face, he began to get cold feet. Well, I told him what I must now tell you. We came all this way and you just bought the ticket. Now you’re going to take the ride.”

Gromyko smiled. “I’ll try to keep the train on the tracks for you for a while, Admiral.”

“That is good to hear. But what I must also tell you is this…” Volsky lowered his voice. “We aren’t really sure this will get us where we hope to go. Rod-25 has had a fondness for the 1940s. Dobrynin believes he can hear the music-that is how he puts it-some kind of nuclear song that will control the displacement if he can achieve the same harmonics during the procedure. But we could end up anywhere.”

“I understand, sir.”

“I’m glad someone does, because even after bouncing back and forth five or six times I’m still not sure I can believe what happened. Let us hope we have good luck in the next hour.” Yet no sooner had he finished saying that when another voice called a warning.

“Con, sonar. Undersea contact, possible submarine. Confidence high. The bearing is 150.”

It was the last thing Gromyko wanted to hear just then. Volsky gave him a wide eyed look. “I can countermand that order, Captain. Just say the word.”

“No…I think we can proceed,” said Gromyko. “What is the heading on that contact Chernov?”

“Listening… Listening… I make it 262 southwest, sir. Moderate speed, perhaps no more than 12 knots, but this is an approximate reading. I will need active sonar to verify that, or a lot more time if we stay passive.”

The Captain folded his arms, as if he might be wrapping himself in a cape, lost in his own inner muse for a moment. Something was creeping across his intended path southeast of his present position, most likely another Japanese diesel boat.

“Does this sound like a turtle, Chernov?”

“Yes sir. I think it is.”

“Very well, keep listening and feed data to the Fire Control Officer as before.”

“Very well, sir.”

“A turtle?” Volsky did not understand what he had just heard.

“That’s what the Japanese call their older diesel boats, Admiral, Dongame, which means languid turtle. Their officers have a self-deprecating way of talking about their work, and they call themselves ‘Turtle Boat Captains.’ We’ve got one paddling our way at 12 knots, but if he sticks his neck out too far he just might get a nasty surprise.”

For the next ten minutes they drifted silently through the quiet undersea world, each man lost in his own thoughts, listening to something whispering at the edge of infinity, or so it seemed. Chernov was listening to the subtle disturbance of a very quiet submarine moving stealthily through the water somewhere in the darkness ahead. Gromyko was listening to his boat, and hoping he would not soon hear the dry squeal of a bad bearing again anytime soon. Volsky was listening to the voice of his wife in his head, imagining her face as she would sit at the table stirring honey into her tea, and he missed her dearly. Now he was about to vanish again, or so he believed, and leave her just that extra measure away from him, long years, long decades this time if they were successful.

And down in the reactor room Dobrynin raised his hand and signaled his technicians to begin the rod retraction, while Rod-25 waited above in its containment canister, ready to be dipped into the soup. He did not know whether he should choose an odd or even rod this time, but decided in the end to match his exact selection for the shift they made to 1908 aboard Anatoly Alexandrov. That was an odd number, always associated with a backward shift. He had just brought them all home by replacing rod number eight on the Anatoly Alexandrov, so now he chose rod seven here on Kazan, lucky seven. Then he listened, waiting for the sound to become the familiar vibration he had heard so many times before. It would take thirty minutes to withdraw the number seven rod, and all the while Rod-25 would be moving in tandem into the open rod position in the reactor core.

The procedure was a slow game, centimeter by centimeter as one rod lifted while the other descended. As soon as Rod-25 began to move, he heard the song. It was a high chorus of angels singing from above, and their voices deepened, spiraling down and down, ever so slowly. Then there came another voice, as though someone in the audience of the theater had decided to sing along with the choir. He heard the odd harmonic, and decided to try and vary the speed to see if it would be affected. Yes, he could hear the voice change as he sped the process on, and then change in tone when he slowed it down again.

What to do? He had never heard this voice in his choir before. Should he stop the procedure? No, that was impossible now. Once the music began they had to see it through the entire score. So now he closed his eyes, concentrating, trying to shut out all other sounds but the song of this reactor. He had listened to twenty or thirty similar machines in his day and this one was no different, except that it was deep under water, and it was not cooled by pumps to mute the sound a reactor on a ship would naturally make.

Yes! That was it! There was an entire section of his orchestra missing here, that was all. The pumps! He could hear where they were supposed to be playing in his mind, but there was silence in those intervals now. Of course! This was a natural circulation reactor, which is why it was so very quiet. The voice he was hearing had always been there before, but it was overlaid by the sound of water pumps before. If he could just add those sounds back in his mind, and hear what his reactor should sound like with the pumps thrumming like a section of brass behind his strings… Yes! That was what he had to do, and so he closed his eyes again, settling deeper into his chair as he listened.

“Increase to mode three,” he said calmly to his technician.

“Mode three, sir.”

“Note your flux level and tell me the instant you read anything in the yellow meter spectrum.”

“Aye, sir. We are reading green.”