Piranha: Firing Point

“Sonar, Conn, Vortex launch!” Gustavson yelled, warning the sonannen to rip off their headsets or they would burst an eardrum.

“Three, two, one, igni—”

The rest of the weapons officer’s countdown was cut off by the earthshaking roar of the huge Vortex missile solid-rocket fuel igniting and blasting the rocket away from the ship.

“Tube ten, target two, firing point procedures.”

The same litany came again. The crew was a tightly orchestrated team, each with their own say in the sequence, until the computer was handed the task of coordinating the final weapon launch.

Ten seconds after receiving the Nestor radio information, Bruce Phillips had three Vortex missiles attacking three of the Rising Sun-class ships.

He pulled a fresh Havana cigar from his coverall breast pocket. “Now we’re cooking,” he said to no one in particular. He lit it with his USS Greenville lighter.

The cigar came to life, and as he stoked it, the cloud from it grew a yard in diameter.

The first explosion seemed as if it had come from just next door. The second was more distant, the third farther out. After each explosion, a small cheer rose up in the room. Phillips did nothing to dampen the enthusiasm.

His ears rang from the noise of the launches and the explosions. But this once he didn’t care.

The ship had remained at periscope depth, and Phillips grabbed the red phone.

“Ricky, this is Lucy, over.”

“Ricky, over.”

“Three packages in the mail. You got receipts?” Did we hit the bastards?

“Lucy, this is Ricky, affirmative.”

The roar of the crowd drowned out the next announcement on the Nestor.

SS-403 ARCTIC STORM

“What in heaven’s name was that?” Chu asked.

“And where did it come from. Navigator?” Lo Sun joined in, his voice tinged with anger. Why hadn’t either the explosions or the loud transients preceding them been detected by Lieutenant Commander Xhiu at the sensor panel?

“Yes, sir, checking now. The display is coming up, loud transients from bearing one one two. I have sonar blueouts on the bearings to the Volcano, Lightning Bolt, and Tsunami, Admiral.”

How quickly the tide could turn, Chu thought bitterly.

He’d just lost three of his ships, and his damned sensor operator was clueless.

“Navigator, feed the bearings to weps. Weps, program Nagasaki’s 24, 23, and 22 for submerged targets ST15, 16, and 17, all at bearing and range of transient starts.”

Xhiu worked his panel frantically. LT Sun leaned over Chu’s shoulder and whispered, “Admiral, why three torpedoes?”

“Might be three ships,” he answered.

“Sir, we only have eighteen fish left. You shoot three, we’re down to fifteen. And if we lost the three ships, our squadron weapon load is lower. Do we really need three weapons?” Chu glared at Lo. “Yes,” he said, and Lo shut his mouth.

“Gas-generator high-impulse launches, highspeed search to the targets,” Chu commanded.

It took six and a half minutes to get the three torpedoes out. Completely unsatisfactory, Chu thought. They were beginning to make mistakes, forgetting to flood tubes, apply torpedo power. The sooner the mission was over, the better. Only now, if he had lost three submarines, and he was fairly sure he had, he might be down a hundred Nagasaki torpedoes.

At least the weapons were away, he thought. Now on to the next nagging problem, and that was, how had three loud weapons been launched from a submarine that he was not able to detect? He plotted the bearing to the transients on the chart pad. Then he made a decision.

He’d drive down the bearing line to the Americans, confirm the kill, then get set up on the convoy.

“Captain, Sonar, we have multiple torpedoes launched by the eastern Rising Sun toward the Piranha.”

Pacino sat up, startled. He found Patton standing outside the attack-center eggshell canopies. “We’ve got to warn Phillips,” Pacino said, reaching for the Nestor handset himself.

“Lucy, this is Ricky, over!”

There was no reply.

“Lucy, this is Ricky, come in, over!”

Beads of sweat broke out on Pacino’s forehead and ran down, one droplet hitting his eye and making it sting.

“Goddamn it, Bruce, pick up the phone,” he said to no one.

USS PIRANHA, SSN-23

Phillips lit up his second cigar of the night, or the first of the day, since the local time chronometer had just clicked past midnight on the wee hours of Friday morning.

“Thank God it’s Friday,” Phillips mumbled to himself.

“Captain, two more in range,” Whatney called, excited.

Phillips narrowed his eyes and addressed the crew.

“Firing-point procedures, tube three, target three,” he said, puffing the stogy.

“Lucy, this is Ricky, over.”

Phillips rolled his eyes in annoyance. The radio blared insistently in the room. He kept giving orders and listening to reports as he reached distractedly for the phone.

“Ship ready,” Gustavson called.

“Solution ready,” Whatney reported.

“Weapon tube three, target five, and launch auto-sequence start. Computer has the countdown—”

“Ricky, this is Lucy, I copy, over,” Phillips said to the phone, concentrating on the Vortex launch.