SSN

    Mack frowned. That wasn't what he'd wanted to hear. He'd wanted to remain silent until he launched his missiles, but that was no longer an option. Not with two Chinese Alfas racing to destroy Ingraham. There were few circumstances where Mack would have stood by and watched an American ship come under fire, and this wasn't one of them. He needed Ingraham. He needed it to guide Cheyenne's missiles over the horizon. Without Ingraham, Cheyenne's mission was likely to fail.

    "Increase speed to flank," he ordered. "I want to intercept those Alfas. Come right to course 025."

    "Increase speed to flank and come right to course 025, aye, sir."

    Cheyenne's message, rapidly turned around at CTF 74 headquarters, galvanized Ingraham's officers and crew. The SH-60 crew members ran toward their helicopters, strapping their gear to their flight vests as they ran.

    "Launch both helos," the Ingraham captain ordered.

    In the operations center on the frigate the sonar room was silent, listening. They had detected the two Alfas, bearing 310 and 320 from them, as soon as the Chinese submarines increased their speed to flank.

    "Captain, sonar, we just detected what must be Cheyenne, bearing 235. She's running at flank speed also. It looks like she's trying to put herself in between us and the Chinese submarines."

    "Way to go, Mack," Ingraham's captain said softly.

    But the frigate wasn't out of the woods yet. The Chinese Alfas could accelerate up to forty-three knots submerged. On a good day, with a clean hull, Cheyenne maxed out at nearly forty knots which meant that the Alfas were going to arrive first.

    Not if I can help it, the Ingraham captain thought to himself. "Helm," he ordered, "come left to 235, all ahead flank." He planned to head toward Cheyenne at his frigate's top speed. With luck and a strong tail wind, Ingraham just might have a chance.

    Even running at flank speed, Cheyenne's sonar was able to detect Ingraham's maneuver. The bearing indicated to Mack that she was on station where she was supposed to be. It didn't take Mack long to figure out what her captain had in mind. On the 1MC, Mack himself ordered, "Man battle stations."

    According to the BSY-1 computers, the range to the Alfas was closing fast. The Chinese submarines were heading southeast at forty-two knots, and Cheyenne was heading northeast at 38 knots. Mack would have liked to stay silent, but flank speed was Cheyenne's only hope of heading off the Alfas. Besides, at forty-two knots, the Chinese submarines had no chance of hearing Cheyenne's approach.

    When the range to the closest Alfa, Master 37, reached 30,000 yards, Mack ordered tubes one and two made ready in all respects. He also ordered the outer doors opened. The range to the second Alfa, Master 38, was just under 33,000 yards.

    "Sir," the fire-control coordinator reported, "we're in range of the first Alfa, Master 37. We'll be in range of Master 38 in three minutes."

    Mack nodded, but he did not give the command to shoot. "I want to wait until they are within 28,000 yards," he said. "Tell me when Master 37 comes within that range. Firing point procedures, tube one, Master 37."

    Travelling at this speed, Cheyenne was relying on her BSY-! computers to give her any information she required on the positions of the sonar contacts. Because of her speed, sonar was not able to hear much beyond the water rushing by the hull.

    As Cheyenne's BSY-1 computed range neared 28,000 yards, and the Ingraham's CIC (combat information center) reported the range to the Chinese submarines as 25,000 yards, the SH-60 Seahawks from Ingraham came into play, laying down lines of sonobuoys one after the other in an effort to determine the exact location of the Alfas. Once they had that information in their onboard computers, they could drop their own torpedoes on the Alfas.

    The fire-control coordinator informed Mack the moment the range had decreased to 28,000 yards. Without hesitating, Mack ordered, "Back full. Match sonar bearings and shoot, tube one, Master 37."

    With Cheyenne's, headway quickly killed by the backing bell, Mack ordered, "Ahead one third."

    "Conn, sonar, unit one running hot, straight, and normal."

    If the Alfa continued on its present course and speed, the torpedo would reach it in seven and a half minutes.

    The crew of the lead Alfa was excited. They had been chasing their quarry for some time now and were finally closing in for their first kill-against an American warship, no less. For all their excitement, though, they had no idea that there was an American Mk 48 headed their way.

    A hundred feet above the surface, one of Jngraham's SH-60 LAMPS III helicopters detected Cheyenne's first torpedo within moments of its launch. The helos each had a single Mk 50 on board, which were smaller than Cheyenne's torpedoes. The Mk 50's hundred pound warhead was less than a sixth the weight of the explosive packed into Mack's Mk 48.