SSN

    But Mack didn't have much choice. If he was to accomplish his mission, he had to take Cheyenne along this route. He just hoped he had better luck than the unfortunate Kilo's captain.

    Eight hours later, Cheyenne was still running at four knots and had her TB-16 towed array deployed to the short stay. Eight sonar contacts had been evaluated as non-threats.

    "Conn, sonar, after clearing our baffles, we've got two more contacts bearing 004. Sounds like surface warships, Captain."

    "We're working on range to the contacts right now, Captain," reported the fire-control coordinator.

    Mack immediately began moving Cheyenne to a position where they could more easily triangulate the range to the two sonar contacts.

    "They're two Luda I destroyers, the kind without the helicopter. The computer just identified their screw characteristics," one of the sonar operators said to the sonar supervisor.

    Since the naval war with China began, Cheyenne's library of sonar contacts, used to identify sonar signals received while on a mission, had grown tremendously. This was due largely to Cheyenne's stellar performance during her undersea operations and her resulting contacts with just about every class of Chinese warship operated by their navy-which allowed Cheyenne to record their sound characteristics and correlate to hull type. Without this library, the sonar operators would have little idea what types of targets they were tracking.

    Mack ordered the Mk 48s from tubes one and two removed and replaced with Harpoons. This took some time, but it greatly improved his attack options-Several long minutes passed before the BSY-1 computers were finally able to calculate a range to the two destroyers. "Range to the closest Luda, Master 121, is 22,000 yards," the fire-control coordinator reported. "Range to the second one, Master 122, is 28,000 yards. They are both running at sixteen knots." "Very well," Mack said.

    The Harpoon was Mack's weapon of choice for this situation. Not only would it save his multipurpose Mk 48s for future operations, but it also allowed Cheyenne more of a chance to escape once they had launched their missiles.

    The Mk 48s were seeker-type weapons. After launching them, Cheyenne continued to provide them with targeting data until their seeker heads had acquired the target. Only after they had acquired could Mack cut the wires to them and withdraw from the area.

    The Harpoons, however, were essentially "launch and leave" missiles. Once they were loaded with their flight and target data they didn't need any further assistance. Following their launch, there was nothing for Cheyenne to do except get back to deep water and move out of the enemy's way. The Harpoons were also ten times faster than an Mk 48, giving the surface ships less time to react. Order by order, step by step, Mack readied the Harpoons. When they launched, the noises of combat firings could be heard throughout the submarine.

    "Tubes one and two fired electrically, Captain." After being ejected from Cheyenne's torpedo tubes, the Harpoon canisters floated toward the surface. As the two buoyant capsules, pointed in a forty-five-degree up angle, reached the surface, they jettisoned their nose caps and aft bodies. The missiles' boosters ignited, sending the missiles out of the water.

    The missiles emerged from the water, fast and sleek as they entered their element. Once airborne, their booster rockets continued to burn, as they were designed to, for approximately three more seconds before the Harpoons' main turbojets fired, sending the missiles onward- toward the two unknowing Chinese Ludas.

    Mack didn't stick around to admire their flight. As soon as he received word that the missiles had left his submarine, he ordered the OOD to increase speed to ten knots and exited the area, hoping no other submarines were around.

    The two UGM-84 missiles made their way quickly toward the two Ludas. As soon as they had closed to within one nautical mile, the Harpoons began their terminal maneuver. Instead of the regular "pop-up" maneuver, Mack had ordered that these two missiles be programmed to drop from cruising altitude to the sea-skimming height of five feet before sneaking into the two destroyers.

    The Harpoons' terminal sea-skimming trajectory worked perfectly and the Chinese Ludas did not even know that the missiles were heading toward them. The missiles were flying so low that the Chinese destroyer's "Eye Shield" and "Bean Sticks" radars-the NATO designation for the Russian-derived radars on board-did not even detect the oncoming missiles.

    Cheyenne was still relatively close to the two destroyers when the sonar room report came in.

    "Conn, sonar, we have two explosions, sixteen seconds apart, bearings 002 and 006…"