SSN

    Captain Mackey, his executive officer, and Cheyenne's navigator all knew that this would introduce additional hazards to their mission. At the very least, they would have to contend with the neutral shipping and the oil rigs situated off the northern slopes of the Macclesfield Bank. Cheyenne had managed to avoid those problems during the last patrol by staying south of the banks, but that was no longer an option.

    After relaying that information, the briefing officer brought up some older intel, emphasizing the information contained in Cheyenne's latest message traffic. In particular, he reminded them that the Akulas were not manned by inexperienced Chinese crews, but had come complete with their normal Russian crews, experienced with their own submarines. And, the briefing officer continued, since the protests from Washington were falling on deaf ears in Russia, Cheyenne was being tasked as an instrument of diplomacy: sink the Akulas and Russia would probably stop supplying assets, ships, and men to the Chinese.

    Mack spoke up at that. With the dwindling supply of torpedoes aboard McKee, the tender was practically rationing them. For this foadout, Cheyenne was receiving only twenty Mk 48s, and while he understood the rationale for it, that amount was far short of a full complement, and not enough to go against all seven Akulas.

    CTF 74 agreed, but he did not authorize more torpedoes for Cheyenne. Instead, he said that if she sank four of the seven Akulas, they would be successful. Losing four new submarines and nearly four hundred of Russia's best submariners, CTF 74 said, might just fulfill Washington's diplomatic needs nicely.

    Mack was disappointed. He'd been hoping for a more complete load-out. After all, the Seabees were already at work. Resurfacing the runway at Cubi Point would solve the weapons-reload problem and remove the need for rationing. In the long run, of course, it would do more than that. In the long run, it would solve the whole base resurrection problem.

    Before the briefing was terminated, the executive officer asked about "RuLings" (Russian linguists). The briefing officer replied that the NSG (naval security group) in Yokosuka had provided two RuLings to supplement the "ChiLings" (Chinese linguists) currently with the NSG detachment aboard Cheyenne. They were brought to Subic Bay by Area. With "hot bunking" the rule for 688s, they were prepared to hot-bunk with their counterparts.

    As the briefing came to an end, the executive officer's moment arrived. He was preparing to follow Mack and the other officers back to Cheyenne when the CSS 11 commodore stopped him and told him that it was time for his qual for command board.

    This was even better than the executive officer hoped. He was prepared, and he felt he was qualified, but he hadn't been looking forward to a long and difficult board. And with Cheyenne already stationing the maneuvering watch in preparation for getting under way, there simply wasn't time for an extended board.

    The board turned out to be even shorter than he'd dreamed. It consisted of the commodore relaying a message from the chief of naval personnel designating him "qualified for command." The executive officer hadn't known it, but Cheyenne's successes and the respect that Washington had for her captain had allowed the chain of command to take a few shortcuts in protocol. The commodore could have placed this on the earlier broadcast, but he hadn't because he had wanted to surprise the executive officer.

    This didn't mean that the executive officer was ready to leave Cheyenne for a command of his own. They needed to finish this war with China first so that he could start the command schooling route-which was one protocol that would not be circumvented.

    Cheyenne got under way in a rainsquall. The weather had little effect on the SSN other than limiting visibility during her surface transit to the dive point west of the eighty-five-degree water of Subic Bay. Cheyenne's navigation radar had been tweaked and peaked by the navigation ETs in order to handle this event-providing that no Chinese warships were around to detect the radar's emissions.

    Mindful of the danger, Mack decided to limit the power on the navigation radar, keeping it to only what was needed to detect the nearby landmasses. That meant that Cheyenne would have to rely on ESM to detect any incoming surface ship radars. Mack was counting on the fact that Subic Bay had become a ghost town, with almost no traffic in and out.

    Subic Bay, it seemed, was about the only place in the area that had little traffic. During dinner that night, as his officers ate quickly, Mack said to them, "We once again have our work cut out for us. With that many quiet Aku-las staring us in the face, we'll need to be innovative in our attacks. We may have to learn how to flush them out. And we won't have much chance to rest before it's time to man battle stations."