Barracuda: Final Bearing

“Very well. Nice recovery, Eng. You’ll get a medal for this.” If they survived, Phillips thought.

Five minutes later full propulsion was back online and Piranha was back.

“Master Chief. What do you hear?”

“Sir, the news is mixed. The Destiny is gone, but the Barracuda did an emergency blow to the surface.”

“Damn. How far, XO?”

“Geo plot shows them about six miles from here, Skipper. Bearing one one five.”

“Helm, all ahead flank, right full rudder, steady one one five.” The deck rolled as the large rudder order was followed, the ship’s speed accelerating to forty-three knots. “What are you thinking. Captain?”

“If the Barracuda is on the surface they could be in trouble, especially if the Japanese come to call. Helm, all ahead emergency flank.” It took six minutes to reach the Barracuda’s position. Phillips came shallow and slow, cleared his baffles and ascended to periscope depth at the walking pace of five knots. When the periscope cleared, he could see the Barracuda rolling in the waves, no men on her deck. “Conn, Sonar, new contact, submerged Destiny II class, bearing one nine zero, contact is distant, designate Target Seven.”

“And we’re fresh out of Vortex missiles.”

“What now, Skipper?” from Whatney. “We surface and get the Barracuda crew out of there,” Phillips said. “But sir—”

“But nothing.

Admiral Pacino’s aboard. You ever consider what would happen to us if he got taken prisoner? Mr. Court, take us up and bring us alongside.”

The next hour was like a drunken memory to Pacino.

The Piranha surfaced almost right next to them, thrusting up against their hull, lines coming over, men with safety harnesses crawling over the hull. Pacino ordered the hatches opened, and the Piranha boarding party came aboard. He felt himself getting dizzy as they carried out the men. He sat at the pos-two control seat and put his head on the console, the dizziness overwhelming him. Finally he felt strong hands drag him up by the arms, and he was lifted up the ladder, feeling himself go more limp.

In a blur he found himself carried aboard the Piranha and lowered down the ladder into the hull, conveyed to a pile of blankets in the crew’s mess. He saw a face hovering over his, a voice saying Good Lord, he looks white, must be internal bleeding, and he sank in the cold and the dark and knew no more.

USS PIRANHA

“Diving Officer, submerge the ship to eight zero feet.”

Phillips was on the periscope, watching the empty Barracuda.

He knew what he had to do now, with the incoming Destiny II submarine. There was little choice.

It seemed to take forever for the ship to get down.

Once it did, he was ready. The torpedoes in tubes one, two, three and four were flooded, open to sea and warmed up, all of them programmed with the location to the Barracuda. There was no way he’d let the Japanese have such a prize, a technological wonder. He would sink it before he’d allow that to happen.

“Conn, Sonar, Target Seven, Destiny II-class submarine, continues inbound, signal-to-noise level increasing.”

“Sonar, Captain, does he know we’re here?”

“Don’t think so, sir.”

“Let me know.” Phillips took his face from the periscope.

“Attention in the firecontrol team. I intend to put four torpedoes into the Barracuda to keep it out of Japanese hands, then hightail it out of the Oparea and head to the deep Pacific. With luck we can be gone before Target Seven, the next Destiny, knows we’re here. We’ll be doing a periscope approach on the Barracuda.

Firing-point procedures, tubes one through four, Target Eight, surfaced US submarine.”

“Ship ready, sir.”

“Weapons ready, sir.”

“Solution pending, sir.”

“Final bearing and shoot, USS Barracuda.”

“Ready, Captain.”

Phillips pressed a red button on the periscope grip.

“Bearing mark.”

“Two seven six.”

“Range mark, three divisions in high power.”

“Range fifteen hundred yards.”

“Set,”

“Standby.”

“Shoot one,” Phillips commanded.

“Fire one.”

“Tube one fired electrically.”

The other three torpedoes were launched then, Phillips’s eye on the periscope lens. The torpedoes hit one after the other, the black rising clouds of spray and smoke from the explosions spectacular. There was not much of the ship to see on the surface to start with, only her sail and the top of her hull normally exposed, 90 percent of her below the water, but after four torpedo hits, the ship settled and sank quickly.

Nothing was left of the Barracuda except a white foam on the surface.

“Dive, make your depth six hundred feet. Helm, right five degrees rudder, steady course east, all ahead emergency flank. Lowering number-two scope.”

Phillips stood and leaned on the conn rail. He stayed and watched the chart and listened to Gambini’s reports on the Destiny II class. Target Seven, but the Japanese submarine had apparently never detected them. He seemed to be heading for the sound of the explosions coming from what used to be the Barracuda, but by the time he got there, the Piranha was long gone.