SSN

    He would have liked to make a speed run up the Taiwan countryside to Taichung. There was a place there, Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, that served the most amazing four-inch-thick steaks. But he couldn't do that-not now, anyway.

    A number of Portsmouth's crewmen were exiting the forward escape trunk aft of the sail. Three of them had sound powered phones dangling from their necks. Watching them, Mack could tell that the Portsmouth CDO had already passed the word belowdecks, "All line handlers lay topside. Prepare to take USS Cheyenne alongside to starboard."

    Mack waved to the Portsmouth CO and CTF 74, who were waiting topside on Portsmouth for him, and left the bridge to go on deck himself. Before doing so, he granted the OOD permission to secure the maneuvering watch when he was ready, and to take on shore power and shut down the reactor.

    As he had been trained, Cheyenne's OOD took care of Cheyenne's delicate landing alongside Portsmouth, gently nudging the camel between the two SSNs. Captain Mackey was completely satisfied with his OODs' abilities to maneuver Cheyenne in tight quarters without his having to look over their shoulders; and the maneuvering watch OOD was the best of the best.

    When Cheyenne's lines had been doubled, the OOD secured the maneuvering watch, passing the word on the 1MC, then ordered over the 7MC, "Maneuvering, conn, take on shore power and shut down the reactor." His last official maneuvering watch duties completed, the OOD laid below to the control room to turn over the officer of the deck dudes to the in-port duty officer, Cheyenne's CDO for the rest of the day.

    Mack had left the ship as soon as the brow was over, and was heading for McKee officer country. He expected to meet up with the COs of Pasadena and Portsmouth and to hear the details of the attacks.

    Once aboard, but before reaching officer country, Mack expressed his pleasure to CTF 74 and the Portsmouth captain at hearing that all hands were uninjured. That was all he or anyone else said about the attacks until they were within the privacy of the McKee captain's stateroom. Mack was a big believer in keeping his crew informed, but that didn't mean he wanted to discuss what could be highly classified information in front of unauthorized personnel.

    The chief mess specialist on duty in the McKee captain's stateroom departed as soon as Mack and the others arrived. When he had gone. Mack exchanged greetings with the captain of Pasadena and again expressed his pleasure at the lack of injury aboard.

    Once seated around the table, with cups of fresh coffee at their elbows, the COs of Pasadena and Portsmouth attempted to explain what had happened, but there simply wasn't much hard information they could provide. The first clue either of them had that they were in trouble was when they found torpedoes in their baffles. In both cases, neither of the torpedoes had gone active until it was too late, and they had detonated at a standoff distance. The skimpy bit of sonar data that had been collected over their towed arrays was only enough to determine that tonals from their attacker could not be correlated to any specifically known submarine.

    Mack wasn't surprised at that. The standard tonals that correlated to nearly every Russian, Chinese, and Third World country ships were little help in differentiating submarine classes. Plus there was no screw-blade information.

    Mack said, "Sounds like what saved you was a fire-control placement or detonation planning error. That would fit with Cheyenne's recent experiences: newly built submarines with newly trained Chinese crews sent to attack experienced U.S. submarine crews."

    CTF 74 agreed with Mack's assessment, but he had a further question: If the crews were so inexperienced, how did they detect Pasadena and Portsmouth! And in an aspect that allowed passive torpedoes to home undetected, for a while at least, on what must have been a reasonably good solution.

    "I hate to suggest it, Admiral," Mack said, "but maybe someone needs to go back and re-evaluate our position on non-acoustic ASW. Were their any unusual Chinese or Russian aircraft in the area around that time?"

    It was a sobering thought for every officer in the room, and the CTF 74 admiral promised to get right on it. He would see what he could iearn, and hoped to have an answer before any of his SSNs put to sea.

    Mack hoped the admiral could turn something up. He knew that the submarines would not wait for an answer before returning to their patrols. There was a threat out there, and Cheyenne and her sister ships would have to deal with it, whether they could put a name to it or not.

    While Mack was at his debriefing, discussing Cheyenne's recent patrols and learning what little information was available about this new threat, his officers and crew were overseeing Cheyenne's refit.