Phoenix Sub Zero

“Conn, sonar, all the Mark 50s have shut down. The Destiny must have outrun them.”

“Any sign of the firing submarine?” Kane asked. There was no answer. Kane repeated the call. Still no answer. Kane had taken two step off the conn in the direction of the door to sonar when Sanderson’s voice came over the circuit.

“Conn, sonar, torpedo in the water bearing zero four five.

It looks like a Nagasaki and it’s increasing speed even as I’m making this report.”

Kane ran back to the conn and grabbed the Circuit Seven microphone hanging from the overhead.

“Engineer, Captain, get the reactor and main engines up fast. We have a torpedo in the water.”

“GOING TO EMERGENCY HEATUP RATES NOW, CAPTAIN. BUT I CAN’T DELIVER IN LESS THAN FIVE MINUTES EVEN WITH EVERYTHING SHE’S GOT,” Schramford reported.

If there were a medal for most time spent on the wrong end of warshot torpedoes, Kane thought, Phoenix would win it hands down. He looked at Mcdonne. For the first time in the entire run Mcdonne’s face was a study in unconcealed fear. Kane wondered how his own warface was holding up.

In the end, he thought, it wouldn’t matter. The Nagasaki torpedo would get them, there was no evading it. Trying to get the reactor restarted to evade was almost just something to do to occupy the crew’s time while they waited for the end.

Well, it had been a good run, they had almost made it— “Conn, sonar, the incoming torpedo is close, damned close. If we don’t put on some turns we’re not going to make it.”

“Eng, what’s the status?”

“WE’VE BARELY GOT STEAM COMING DOWN THE HEADER NOW. IT’LL BE AT LEAST TWO MINUTES BEFORE I CAN GET EMERGENCY WARMUPS DONE ON THE TURBINE GENERATORS, ANOTHER TWO BE FORE I CAN GIVE YOU THE MAIN ENGINES.”

“Keep going, Eng.”

The overhead speaker clicked twice. At least, Kane thought, the engineer and the crew aft could stay busy, their minds occupied. All the control-room crew could do was wait.

Kane listened as the room grew suddenly quiet. Outside the hull he could hear the sound of the incoming Nagasaki’s propulsor, the high-pitched noise turning from a whine to a scream. He could hear the clicking of its under-ice sonar.

The noises now seemed loudest through the deck, as if the weapon were coming in from below.

The wait seemed interminable. Kane was almost relieved when the torpedo detonated.

CNFS HEGIRA

A distant rumble sounded through the hull, its direction indiscernible.

“What was that?” Sharef asked, standing behind the Second Captain consoles, leaning heavily on his makeshift cane, fatigue hanging on him like a hundred-pound weight.

“Nagasaki torpedo detonation at the bearing to the suspected second intruder. Commodore. And, wait a minute … I’m getting the sounds of flooding and something else. Maybe compartment bulkheads collapsing. A very loud rushing noise.”

Rouni turned to Commander Tawkidi. “Commander, you should hear this.”

Tawkidi listened, shook his head. He handed the headphones to Sharef. The noise was terrifying, a high-pitched shrieking and a deep shaking growling noise, the two sounds weaving in pitch and rising and falling, the sound of a monstrous beast dying. As Sharef listened he wanted nothing more than to take off the headset and never hear the awful sounds again, knowing now that the screaming would haunt him to his last day. Finally the noise seemed to weaken, to give way to the frigid waters and die. Sharef handed back the headset.

“I’m not certain, perhaps it was a thermal shock, a rupture of their high-temperature reactor equipment leaking to the cold of the sea.” What could he say about the sounds of a ship dying? The anger he had previously felt at the Americans for sinking his Sahand and for the weapons they had shot at the Hegira had been dissipated. He realized now that their attempts to sink the ship had been blind and frantic, that now Hegira would prevail and rain down death on their capital city. But it was a victory distinctly empty to him. He had no desire to do this, to have this mass murder be connected to his name. Perhaps, in his way, the general had the right idea, that launching the Scorpion would hold back the West and allow his people to live in a united Muslim world, gaining a new recognition from the rest of the world, a new respect. Though hard to believe that killing on the scale they aspired to would earn them that, it happened at the end of the second world war when the Americans themselves had leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Perhaps it was oddly appropriate that they would now be on the receiving end of the destruction from a missile called the Hiroshima.

Sharef became aware that his thoughts were rambling and tried to plug back into the tactical situation developing around him.

“What is the status of the first-launched Nagasakis?” he asked.

“Still on their run to the target, sir.”

“Same course? Is he evading to the south?”

Tawkidi frowned. “Strangely, no, sir. The torpedoes are now bearing southwest.”

“The American has perhaps lost his navigational ability.