Debt Of Honor by Clancy, Tom

thought, like real combat, even. Was the new Japanese torpedo really that

good, had it really just ignored the decoy and the knuckle? “We recording

all this?”

“You bet, sir,” Sonarman i/c Laval said, reaching up to tap the tape ma-

chine. A new cassette was taking all this in, and another video system was

recording the display on the waterfall screens. “There go the motors, just

increased speed. Aspect change … it’s got us, zero aspect on the fish, screw

noises just faded.” Meaning that the engine noise of the torpedo was now

somewhat blocked by the body of the weapon. It was headed straight in.

Kennedy turned his head to the tracking party. “Range to fish?”

“Under two thousand, sir, closing fast now, estimate torpedo speed sixty

knots.”

“Two minutes to overtake at this speed.”

‘ ‘Look at this, sir.” Laval tapped the waterfall display. It showed the track

of the torpedo, and also showed the lingering noise of the decoy, still gener-

ating bubbles. The Type 89 had drilled right through the center of it.

“What was that?” Laval asked the screen. A large low-frequency noise

had just registered on the screen, bearing three-zero-five. “Sounded like an

explosion, way off, that was a CZ signal, not direct path.” A convergence-

zone signal meant that it was a long way away, more than thirty miles.

Kennedy’s blood turned a little cold at that piece of news. He stuck his

head back into the attack center. “Where are Charlotte and the other Japa-

nese sub?”

“Northwest, sir, sixty or seventy miles.”

“All ahead flank!” That order just happened automatically. Not even

Kennedy knew why he’d given it.

“All ahead flank, aye,” the helmsman acknowledged, turning tin- cmmd

ator dial. These exercises sure were exciting stuff. Before tin- engine order

was acknowledged, the skipper was on his command phone again:

“Five-inch room, launch two, now-now-now!”

The ultrasonic targeting sonar on a homing torpedo is too high in fre-

quency to be heard by the human ear. Kennedy knew that the energy was

hitting his submarine, reflecting off the emptiness within, because the sonar

waves stopped at the steel-air boundary, bouncing backward to the emitter

that generated them.

It couldn’t be happening. If it were, others would have noted it, wouldn’t

they? He looked around. The crew was at battle stations. All watertight

doors were closed and dogged down as they would be in combat. Kurmhio

had launched an exercise torpedo, identical to a warshot in everything but

the warhead, for which an instrument package was substituted. They were

also designed not to hit their targets, but to turn away from them, because a

metal-to-metal strike could break things, and fixing those things could be

expensive.

“It’s still got us, sir.”

But the fish had run straight through the knuckle . . .

‘ ‘Take her down fast!” Kennedy ordered, knowing it was too late for that.

USS Asheville dropped her nose, taking a twenty-degree down-angle,

back over thirty knots with the renewed acceleration. The decoy room

launched yet another bubble canister. The increased speed degraded sonar

performance, but it was clear from the display that the Type 89 had again run

straight through the false image of a target and just kept coming.

“Range under five hundred,” the tracking part said. One of its members

noticed that the Captain was pale and wondered why. Well, nobody likes

losing, even in an exercise.

Kennedy thought about maneuvering more as Asheville ducked under the

layer yet again. It was too close to outrun. It could outturn him, and every

attempt to confuse it had failed. He was just out of ideas. He’d had no time to

think it all through.

‘ ‘Jesus!” Laval took his headphones off. The Type 89 was now alongside

the submarine’s towed-array sonar, and the noise was well off the scale.

“Should turn away any second now …”

The Captain just stood there, looking around. Was he crazy? Was he the

only one who thought-

At the last second, Sonarman i/c Laval looked aft to his commanding of-

ficer. ‘ ‘Sir, it didn’t turn!”

21

Navy Blue

Air Force One lifted off a few minutes sooner than expected, speeded on her

way by the early hour. Reporters were already up and moving before the

VC-25B reached her cruising altitude, coming forward to ask the President

for a statement explaining the premature departure. Cutting short a state trip

was something of a panic reaction, wasn’t it? Tish Brown handled the jour-

nalists, explaining that the unfortunate developments on Wall Street com-

manded a quick return so that the President could reassure the American

people … and so forth. For the moment, she went on, it might be a good idea

for everyone to catch up on sleep. It was, after all, a fourteen-hour flight

back to Washington, with the headwinds that blew across the Atlantic at this

time of year, and Roger Durling needed his sleep, too. The ploy worked for

several reasons, not the least of which was that the reporters were suffering

from too much alcohol and not enough sleep, like everyone else aboard-

except the flight crew, all hoped. Besides, there were Secret Service agents

and armed Air Force personnel between them and the President’s accommo-

dations. Common sense broke out, and everyone returned back to the seating

area. Soon things were quieted down, and nearly every passenger aboard

was either asleep or feigning it. Those who weren’t asleep wished they were.

Johnnie Reb’s commanding officer was, by federal law, an aviator. The stat-

ute went back to the 19308, and had been drafted to prevent battleship sailors

from taking over the new and bumptious branch of the Old Navy. As such,

he had more experience flying airplanes than in driving ships, and since he’d

never had a command afloat, his knowledge of shipboard systems consisted

mainly of things he’d picked up along the way rather than Iroin a mutter of

systematic study and experience. Fortunately, his chid engineer was a

black-shoe destroyer sailor with a command under his bell. The skipper did

know, however, that water was supposed to be outside the hull, tioi inside.

“How bad, ChEng?”

“Bad, sir.” The Commander gestured to the deck plates, still covered

with an inch of water that the pumps was gradually sending over the side. At

least the holes were sealed now. That had taken three hours. “Shafts two and

three are well and truly trashed. Bearings shot, tail shafts twisted and split,

reduction gears ground up to junk-no way anybody can fix them. The tur-

bines are okay. The reduction gears took all the shock. Number One shaft’s

okay. Some shock damage to the aft bearings. That I can fix myself. Number

four screw is damaged, not sure how bad, but we can’t turn it without risking

the shaft bearings. Starboard rudder is jammed over, but I can deal with that,

another hour, maybe, and it’ll be ‘midships. May have to replace it, depend-

ing on how bad it looks. We’re down to one shaft. We can make ten, eleven

knots, and we can steer, badly.”

“Time to fix?”

“Months-four or five is my best guess right now, sir.” All of which, the

Commander knew, would require him to be here, overseeing the yard crews,

essentially rebuilding half the ship’s power plant-maybe three quarters. He

hadn’t fully evaluated the damage to Number Four yet. That was when the

Captain really lost his temper. It was about time, the ChEng thought.

“If I could launch an air strike, I’d sink those sunzabitches!” But launch-

ing anything on the speed generated by a single shaft was an iffy proposi-

tion. Besides, it had been an accident, and the skipper really didn’t mean it.

“You have my vote on that one, sir,” ChEng assured him, not really

meaning it either, because he added: “Maybe they’ll be nice enough to pay

for the repairs.” His reward was a nod.

“We can start moving again?”

‘ ‘Number One shaft is a little out from shock damage, but I can live with

it, yes, sir.”

“Okay, get ready to answer bells. I’m taking this overpriced barge back to

Pearl.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Admiral Mancuso was back in his office, reviewing preliminary data on the

exercise when his yeoman came in with a signal sheet.

“Sir, looks like two carriers are in trouble.”

“What did they do, collide?” Jones asked, sitting in the corner and re-

viewing other data.

“Worse,” the yeoman told the civilian.

ComSubPac read the dispatch. “Oh, that’s just great.” Then his phone

rang; it was the secure line that came directly from PacFltOps. “This is Ad-

miral Mancuso.”

“Sir, this is Lieutenant Copps at Fleet Communications. I have a sub-

marine emergency beacon, located approximately 31-North, 175-East.

We’re refining that position now. Code number is for Asheville, sir. There is

no voice transmission, just the beacon. I am initiating a SuBMiss/SusSuNK.

The nearest naval aircraft are on the two carriers-”