SSN

    The sonar men on Pasadena and Portsmouth brought their last sonar tapes leading up to and following the torpedo explosions. These tapes were fed to Cheyenne's sonar consoles and her BSY-1 computer consoles, while the sounds were played over both the sonar room and control room speakers. This was not virtual reality. It was in situ reality, stark reality of a new foe-a chilling new foe.

    Cheyenne's sonar operators and BSY-1 operators put seven different computer consoles, four in sonar and the three in control, to work analyzing the sparse data. They played the tapes over and over again, enhancing them with the computers each time and then starting the cycle again. They were even able to merge the tapes from both SSNs, a feat made possible by the accurate timekeeping systems on U.S. submarines, but they weren't able to leam anything useful.

    Then they slowed the tapes, and got their first break. When the tapes were slowed enough to produce sub-harmonics of the main electrical frequency line, the chief sonar man noted a warbling that could not be attributed to slowed tapes, or even merged tapes. The chief sonar man had never heard that particular sound before, but he knew what it was: the sound of a previously unknown submarine. More than that, he knew that it had to be an anomaly of the new submarine's signature, which was masked at higher frequencies, even at the base frequency.

    In order to be certain, the chief sonar man, along with Cheyenne's executive officer and the sonar men from Pasadena and Portsmouth, applied this same technique to previous Cheyenne recordings of other Chinese and Russian submarines. They found no matches. This anomaly was new, and it was unique. Even better, it was a low, low frequency, something the TB-23 thin line array would thrive on if they let it search that low.

    When Mack was informed of the anomaly, he immediately dubbed it, "a slowly varying constant." He'd picked up that term in a "pure math" class, and it seemed more than appropriate for this war with the Chinese.

    It was several days before the McKee captain notified Mack that the next war patrol briefing would again be at the naval base headquarters. Mack had expected that. He had been alerted earlier that Cheyenne had been selected as the obvious choice for this next-and hopefully last- mission: to move President Jiang into Zhanjiang Naval Base.

    Prior to the briefing, Cheyenne was moved next to McKee as planned, except that she didn't actually swap locations with Portsmouth. CTF 74 had decided to move Portsmouth outboard of Pasadena on the other side so that there would be one less move when Cheyenne was finally loaded and ready to sail for southern China with President Jiang aboard.

    With all Cheyenne's preparations completed prior to this briefing. Mack decided to make it a nearly *'all hands" evolution. All officers definitely needed to be there, and with the promise of information on the new foe lurking out there, somewhere, waiting to take on the famous Cheyenne, the entire sonar division also needed to be present. And with President Jiang and his two heavies taking up berthing space, Mack invited the COB to meet the space intruders.

    The chief of the boat also needed to figure out how to keep the president and his heavies out of sensitive spaces. Being on good terms with them would be easier than trying to force the cooperation of the heavies, especially since no one aboard Cheyenne could match the sheer bulk of Jiang's bodyguards. The COB already had formulated an initial plan: lots of food, desserts, and movies in the "goat locker."

    Mack had informed the executive officer to take care of the president himself. The executive officer's stateroom had two bunks, and so he would share his space with the Chinese leader. The second bunk had been used by the NSG OIC, but he and his detachment had been off-loaded prior to this last trip, acting as the couriers to Yokosuka with Mack's latest war patrol report under their guard.

    It had been difficult for Mack to agree for the detachment to be transferred prior to this patrol. He was concerned about possible non-acoustic ASW aircraft, and had agreed mostly because he knew that if Cheyenne remained fully submerged for the entire transit they wouldn't be able to detect ESM contacts anyway. But he did add Cheyenne's ESM operators to the list of briefing attendees, just in case.

    The briefing turned out to be one for the books. It started off dramatically when the briefing officer opened the meeting with, "Captain Mackey, our commander-in-chief sends his greetings." Then he dimmed the lights and nodded for the video tape recorder to be started.

    Mack had half expected the briefing officer to be kidding, or to be referring to someone else, but he wasn't. As Mack and the assembled officers looked on, the face of the President of the United States filled the screen.