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  "Very well, Helm," Wilson said.

  "Incoming torpedoes drawing left to right," Sessions said. "They're in passive search mode, sir."

  "What kind are they?" Jeffrey said.

  "Modified Russian propulsion systems, their export model VA-III Shkvals."

  "Nuclear-capable platforms," Jeffrey said.

  "We'll try to sneak away fast as we can," Wilson said, "see if our decoy draws them off. Helm, top quiet speed. Ahead two thirds, make turns for twenty-six knots and do not cavitate."

  Wilson gave Meltzer a moment, then picked up the

  MC. "Maneuvering, Conn, this is the captain. Stand by for high-speed operations." Ilse watched two bright lines cascade down Sessions' waterfall displays, gradually getting thicker. She could see a third line run between them, thinning out. Those are the torpedoes, she realized, theirs and ours.

  "Unit from tube seven has detonated!" Jeffrey said.

  "Did those contacts launch their missiles?" Wilson said.

  "Not yet, sir," Sessions said.

  "Chief of the Watch," Wilson said, "on the sound-powered phones, collision alarm." COB acknowledged.

  But there was nothing, and Ilse was confused. Then she understood. The fiber-optic signal, through the wire, came at the speed of light. The shock wave traveled at the speed of underwater sound

  Challenger rocked, shaking Ilse against her seat belt. A thunderous blast pummeled the ship, heard right through the hull. The mike coils jerked crazily from the overhead, and navigation instruments flew. A heavy brass divider crashed to the floor, one sharp point sticking in the fleshy part of Commodore Morse's ankle. Snow danced across the sonar screens.

  "Loud explosion bearing three five nine!" Sessions said.

  "No kidding," Ilse mumbled.

  "Status of incoming torpedoes?" Wilson said. "Impossible to tell."

  "Navigator," Wilson said. "Sounding."

  "One three five zero zero feet, sir," the navigator said.

  "Helm," Wilson said, "doctrine for our steel-skinned boomers says run shallow, but I want to take her deep. Make your depth ten thousand feet smartly." Ilse thought she'd heard wrong.

  "Aye, sir," Meltzer said. "Thirty degrees down angle on the diveplane functions." Ilse gripped her armrests as the deck nosed down. Meltzer called out the numbers every hundred feet. They kept coming faster and faster and started getting much too large.

  "Relax," Sessions said. "More depth helps squelch the blast." Ilse caught her own reflection in a console screen—her eyes were popping and she couldn't make them stop.

  "Our hull's ceramic-composite alumina casing," Jeffrey said. "We're designed for this, Ilse. I guess now you need to know."

  But knowing didn't help much, Ilse thought.

  "Chief of the Watch," Wilson said, "disengage shallow water valves and pumping hardware, line up abyssal suite."

  Another shock wave hit, not as hard but more drawn out.

  "The surface echo from our weapon," Sessions said. Then another one went by, sharp but weaker still. "Bottom echo that time."

  A third concussion hit, this one soft but snappy. "Fireball throbbing," Sessions said, " hydrostatic oscillation, damping coefficient is dot nine."

  "I want to make another knuckle," Wilson said. "Keep those inbound torpedoes on our quarter, starboard side instead. Let's confuse them with some bearing rate. Helm, hard right rudder, make your course two zero zero." Again the ship banked hard. Sessions whispered, "That'll force their seekers to keep leading us. They can't just ride up our wake turbulence and then we get it in the ass."

  "But aren't we blind that way," Ilse said, "without the towing sonar?"

  "We've got partial baffles coverage from the wide-aperture arrays."

  "Fire a noisemaker," Wilson said. "Fire another decoy onto our previous course." Jeffrey relayed orders to Weapons Control to launch the decoy in tube six.

  "Fire an acoustic jammer, starboard side," Wilson said. "Reload tubes five and six, more brilliant decoys."

  "Reverb is clearing somewhat," Sessions said. "One incoming torpedo, bearing three four five and constant, depth three thousand feet. It's ignoring the countermeasures. Doppler says it's gaining on us."

  "What's the range?" Jeffrey said.

  "Fourteen thousand yards."

  "Fire Control," Wilson said, "fire two more noisemakers."

  "Sir," Jeffrey said, "we're too deep now for noisemakers."

  "Then fire another active decoy, shallow running on a reciprocal course. Program hullpopping and cavitation sounds, with a ten-decibel step-up from nominal." Once more Jeffrey went to work.

  "How close is too close?" Ilse whispered.

  "If it's dot one KT like ours," Jeffrey said before Sessions could answer, "at this depth and with our hull, at two thousand yards of lateral separation we're a mission kill for sure, outright dead if you believe the pessimistic calculations."

  "Time to lethal range?" Wilson snapped.

  Sessions punched more keys. "Eight minutes if we can't lose it, less if it's a larger warhead. . . . It's got passive lock, it stopped wigwagging!"

  "Locked on us or on the decoy?" Jeffrey said.

  "On Challenger, I think. . . . Yes, confirmed, our initial decoy's failed, a machinery implosion."

  "How's that torpedo tracking us?" Wilson said. "Do we have a sound short?"

  "Negative, sir," Sessions said. "It must be catching re-verb off our stern. It's still incredibly noisy out there. . . . Torpedo's first-stage pump-jet has switched to end-game speed!"

  "Then we're committed to a dead heat now," Jeffrey said.

  "Helm, ahead flank smartly," Wilson said.

  Meltzer reached for the engine-order dial and flicked it several times. More transients appeared on the sonar screens, making Ilse jump.

  "That's us," Sessions told her as he forced a smile. "The reactor coolant check valves just slammed into their recesses."

  "Chief of the Watch, flood negative," Wilson said. "Add some weight to pick up speed." The ship continued diving. Ilse eyed her screens. Fifty-one knots downhill through the water. Fifty-two. The ride was rough.

  "Sonar," Wilson said, "did we get those two 212 boats?"

  "Can't tell yet, sir. No flooding or implosion sounds were heard above the blast."

  "Captain," Jeffrey said, "recommend we go active, search for metallicity inside the bubble cloud."

  Wilson nodded. "One ping, maximum power. The whole sector knows we're here." Ilse heard a double buzz, and several crewmen held their ears. Then there was a sharp and high-pitched eeeee, deafening, not at all what she expected. Yet the sonarmen in headphones once again seemed unconcerned. Automatic amplitude filters?

  The echoes came back in several seconds. Sessions put the data through his signal algorithms. "Commander Fuller! We have two distinct clouds of falling matter, diffuse, well separate from each other. I assess both targets as destroyed!"

  "Status of incoming torpedo?" Jeffrey said.

  "Range twelve thousand yards, depth decreased but now it's diving again. . . . It went right past the latest decoy."

  "The blue-green laser target discriminator," Jeffrey said. "It's even better than we thought."

  "Concur, sir," Sessions said. "Axis hardware's good."

  "And we can't use our antitorpedo rockets this far down," Wilson said. "We could go the rest of the way to the bottom, try to twist and turn inside the canyons, and risk being buried alive when the warhead blows. Or we could head up toward the surface, shoot some underwater rockets, and gamble the depleted uranium buckshot'll have the range."

  "Commander," Sessions shouted, "the torpedo's going active. . . . It's in range-gate mode!"

  "Put it on the speakers," Jeffrey said, "and filter out our flow noise." Ilse heard a hard and eerie dingggg, above a constant whining.

  "Depth of the weapon?" Wilson said.

  "Steady at three thousand feet."

  "That must be its limit," Jeffrey said, "or its preset floor." The dingggg repeated, slightl
y louder.

  Wilson frowned. "Can't we actively suppress?" Sessions hesitated. "It's not working, sir."

  "We must have damage to our aft transducers," Jeffrey said, "and we're so deep the piezo-rubber hull coating won't function from the pressure."

  "Torpedo booster rocket's firing," Sessions shouted as a not-so-distant rumbling came over the speakers. "It's gone to supercavitating speed inside the vacuum bubble! . . . One hundred knots and accelerating!"

  Jeffrey eyed the sonar console. "Can we outdistance the weapon's final sprint?"

  "Negative, sir," Sessions said. "We'll be in lethal radius when the warhead blows at endof-run."

  "And we can't hit something that small with an AD-CAP," Jeffrey said. "Captain, recommend we fight fire with fire."

  "Concur," Wilson said. "Load tube eight with another Mark 88. Set it for low, repeat low, yield, dot zero one KT, a snap shot on the incoming torpedo's bearing." Ilse watched as Jeffrey watched his console screens. Again lights blinked as he replayed his special weapons litany. "Security alarm!"

  "Handling authorized," Wilson snapped.

  "Armed guard is in position," Jeffrey said, talking faster and faster. "Electronic locks are bypassed, mechanical locks are broken. Weapon loaded in tube eight. A-wire is connected, special weapons enabler tool connected."

  "I've relayed the PAL code," Wilson said.

  "Green light!" Jeffrey said. "Breach door closed! Recommend a preset running depth three thousand feet."

  "Concur," Wilson said. "We'll command-detonate through the fiber-optic cable."

  "Sir," Jeffrey said, "we'd better launch bows-on. We can't afford to lose the wire."

  "Concur," Wilson said. "Cut the wire, tube seven. Close muzzle doors and drain the tubes, tubes one through seven. Shore up the inner door tube eight." Jeffrey confirmed and then relayed the instructions, his voice clinical and clear. "Sonar, we need your absolute best estimate of that torpedo's range and speed. This is going to be close."

  "I'm passing them to Combat Systems now, sir," Sessions said, "but that thing's hard to model. It's still accelerating, now two hundred knots!"

  Wilson grabbed the 7MC. "Maneuvering, Conn. Stand by for severe control surface movements. Lock down the hydraulic ram relief valves." Wilson paused for the acknowledgment. "Expect a sudden back flank engine order. When it comes, give me everything you've got, but for God's sake don't trigger a reactor scram." He paused again. "Yeah, that's good, take it to a hundred eight percent." Wilson hung up the mike. "Helm, hard right rudder, make your course zero two zero. Make your depth three thousand feet smartly."

  Challenger pitched up and banked into the turn, trading velocity for altitude. Ilse was pressed into her seat. Her console showed their speed was dropping fast, as their heading swung through 180 degrees. The visceral rumbling from aft got louder. The rumbling over the speakers got louder too, as did the awful dings. A relentless robot'

  s coming for us, Ilse told herself. Those men we killed are reaching from beyond the grave.

  "How many?" she said out loud.

  "What?" Sessions said.

  "How many did we kill?"

  "Two dozen on each boat."

  "XO," Wilson said, "when should we fire?"

  "The sooner the better, Captain," Jeffrey said. "The Mark 88s are rated to our test depth."

  "We can't risk a failure," Wilson said.

  "Six thousand feet, then, sir?"

  "Four thousand," Wilson said. "Let's make really sure." Wilson glanced at a depth gauge.

  "Chief of the Watch, pump negative. Pump variable ballast to bring the boat up faster." Ilse felt a repetitive labored clunking from below. Their rate of climb increased but only slightly.

  "Sir," Jeffrey said, "recommend retract the foreplanes—they might snap off or jam from shock."

  "Helm," Wilson said, "retract the foreplanes."

  "Recommend we level off at three thousand feet before our weapon detonates," Jeffrey said. "It's best to take the blast bows-on, show a minimum profile, protect our side arrays and pump-jet."

  "Concur," Wilson said.

  "Three thousand's the depth of minimum danger this close in," Jeffrey said, "the tight part of the hourglass. Higher up the blast cone spreads as it lifts the surface; deeper down the counterpressure widens as it hammers toward the bottom."

  "Concur," Wilson said.

  "Depth six thousand feet," Meltzer said. Ilse looked at a pressure gauge: a metric ton for each square inch of hull.

  "Range to the incoming torpedo?" Jeffrey said.

  "Five thousand yards," Sessions said. "Too close," Ilse heard him mumble.

  "If it's got a proximity fuze," Jeffrey said, "it's set real tight."

  "Back full," Wilson said.

  "Back full, aye," Meltzer said. "Maneuvering acknowledges back full."

  "Watch the trim as we slow down!" Wilson said. "The blast catches us from off the level, we'll be knocked out of control."

  "Adjusting the trim, aye," COB said. Ilse heard pumps gently whirring.

  "Back flank," Wilson said.

  "Back flank, aye," Meltzer said. "Maneuvering acknowledges back flank." Ilse watched their speed mount up again as they fled in reverse from the enemy torpedo. Meltzer was sweating in concentration, his fingers bloodless white as he worked the control wheel.

  "Make tube eight ready in all respects," Wilson said, "including valve lineup for a punchout with a water slug. Tube eight, firing point procedures on the incoming torpedo."

  "Solution ready," Jeffrey said. "Ship ready. Weapon ready."

  "Chief of the Watch," Wilson said. "On the 1 MC, rig for depth charge."

  "Rig for depth charge, aye."

  Ilse saw Jeffrey glance at Commodore Morse. The

  Brit winked back and gripped a handle on the overhead. "Depth four four zero zero feet," Meltzer said.

  "Very well," Wilson said, "match sonar bearings and

  shoot."

  "Unit from tube eight fired electrically!" Jeffrey said. Sessions tried to clear his throat. " Unit is running normally, sir."

  Jeffrey looked up from his console and again met Ilse's eyes. "Thirty seconds to intercept! Incoming torpedo should exhaust its fuel and blow any moment!" Jeffrey turned to Captain Wilson. "Unit from tube eight has,,

  With a deafening wham, pile drivers slammed the bottom of Jeffrey's feet and spine. His entire skeleton rattled. Challenger—still moving in reverse—lurched sternward violently. Jeffrey was thrown against his seat belt, his skull bouncing off the headrest. Commodore Morse went flying.

  Red shadows shifted wildly as the CACC's spring-loaded fluorescents jiggled crazily in their mounts. But the lights and shockproof monitors didn't flicker once. Then Jeffrey's ears registered a painfully loud sssss and the air began to fog. He ran his tongue along his lips and blinked. Good, it wasn't the blinding salt spray of ambientpressure seawater. Instead a compressed air leak, cold as it expanded through some failed pipe joint or valve, was condensing the moisture in the CACC atmosphere. The force of the leak blew dust and papers everywhere. Jeffrey saw COB work his panel, bypassing the fault.

  "Nav gyros have tumbled," the assistant navigator called. "Reinitializing now" Another shock wave hit as the giant gas bubble of the fireball fell in upon itself and then rebounded hard,

  trading kinetic and potential energy back and forth. Jeffrey eyed a depth meter. The boat was falling slowly, rocking badly in the disturbed water all around.

  "Chief of the Watch and Helmsman," Wilson said, "watch our buoyancy but do not let her broach. If we can play dead now convincingly, it'll make our next job easier." Wilson grabbed the red handset for Damage Control, located back in Engineering.

  "Fire, fire, fire in the ESM room," a sound-powered phone talker said. Probably a short in one of the electronic support measures consoles, Jeffrey told himself, or maybe one of the multiband receivers kept warmed up on standby. That might impair Challenger's intelligence-gathering ability later, and her detection of enemy radar. As fi
re fighters hustled along the after passageway, someone opened the ESM door from inside. "It's out, it's nothing," the technician said, holding up a CO, extinguisher. Thin smoke drifted out of the small compartment and was sucked into the overhead vents. Jeffrey, now standing, was doubly relieved: the air-conditioning meant the boat couldn't be in such bad shape. The Enj wouldn't run the fans on batteries, he wouldn't waste the power. So the reactor and heat exchangers had to be okay, along with at least one shipservice turbogenerator. The speed log on Jeffrey's digital display told him both steam sides survived and Challenger's propulsor jet still worked.

  Then Sessions shouted, "Flooding sounds! We're taking water somewhere!"

  "Localize it," Jeffrey ordered.

  "I'm getting flooding forward!"

  "Phone Talker," Jeffrey said, "have all compartments near the bow check in."

  "Sir," the phone talker said a moment later, "torpedo room does not respond."

  "No feeds from the torpedo room," Jeffrey stated, studying his screens.

  "We're taking water forward," COB confirmed.

  A messenger arrived. "Sir," he said to Jeffrey, "Weps reports torpedo room is taking water. We looked through the hatch port. It's impossible in there." COB stopped juggling the variable ballast and safety tanks, reaching instead for the fore and aft emergency blow handles. He flipped up the protective plastic covers and looked meaningfully at the captain.

  Wilson nodded. "Chief of the Watch, emergency blow on high-pressure air, do not use the backup chemical gas generators." There was a great roaring sound. "Start to vent again at four hundred feet. I don't want us surfacing a leaky boat right under a pair of mushroom clouds."

  "Vent at four hundred, aye," COB said.

  "How bad's the flooding?" Jeffrey said. The enlisted talker relayed the question on his big chest-carried mouthpiece, then listened on his headphones as the damage control party reported back.

  "Bad, sir. Water's gaining on the bilge pumps fast, rising over a foot a minute. The spray's still taking paint right off the bulkheads."

  "XO," Wilson said, listening on the damage control handset, "that's our biggest problem now. You head down there and take charge, get Weps in here as Fire Control." Wilson picked up the 7MC with his left hand. "Maneuvering, maintain back flank. We need speed for depth control and the pump-jet's got lousy pickup in reverse." Wilson turned to Meltzer. "Helm, how are the waterfoils?"