Warshot (The Hunter Killer Series Book 6) by Don Keith (top ten ebook reader TXT) 📗

for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate.’ We will soon see if he is familiar with this quote.”

Ψ

Joe Glass stood back and watched all the activity that surrounded him, yet he took no part in it. This was an entirely new position for him. He was in the back corner of the USS George Mason’s control room. All of the high technology and the highly trained team were working like a well-tuned race car engine. But Glass was all too aware that they were not his team. At least not directly. Nobody turned to him with a question or report. Those were all directed to Brian Edwards, the skipper of this boat, who was standing next to him. Glass’s only role was to observe and evaluate.

“We’re at the launch point, Skipper,” LCDR Jim Shupert, George Mason’s navigator, called out. “Range Control reports that the range is clear, COMEX in two minutes. Launch helo is outbound.”

Glass glanced at the electronic navigation chart. Only the Navy would saddle it with a name like “Electronic Chart and Navigation Display System,” ECDIS for short. The chart showed that they were located about ten miles west of Kauai and equidistant from Niihau to the south, almost in the center of an area marked off as the Barking Sands Tactical Underwater Range. The BARSTUR range was in deep water, safely far enough away from shipping channels, but close enough to the island to heavily instrument the bottom of the sea so as to accurately track submarines and surface ships operating there.

Glass glanced up at the large-panel command display in the center of the control room set to show the photonics mast view. The deep-blue Pacific water melted into the brilliant blue Hawaiian sky. A haze-gray CH-53 helicopter suddenly cut across the scene, bright orange torpedo dangling on a long cable below the big bird. As they watched, the chopper transitioned into a hover and the torpedo dropped away.

Almost immediately, ST1 Joshua Hannon, the on-watch sonar operator, called out, “Torpedo in the water, best bearing zero-six-five.” Within a couple of seconds, he called out, “Classified YU-9, Chinese submarine launched torpedo. Zero bearing rate. Best bearing, zero-six-five. Best range five-five-hundred yards.”

Brian Edwards nodded and turned to LCDR Aston Jennings. “Weps, launch the CRAW from the port dihedral.”

Jennings swiped through a couple of screens on the BYG-1 Payload Control System and made a selection. Almost immediately, Josh Hannon called out, “Detection of launch from the port dihedral.” The sonarman paused for a second and then reported, “CRAW did not transition to SCEPS power. Loss of contact on the CRAW.”

The CRAW, or Compact Rapid Attack Weapon, was a small, lightweight, very fast torpedo designed for close-in fights where range was not important but speed was. The torpedo was only about six inches in diameter and weighed nearly one hundred pounds. It was propelled by a sophisticated SCEPS engine that got its energy by dousing a block of lithium with a sodium hexafluoride bath. The resulting heat from that highly exothermic reaction was used to create steam from water to drive a turbine. The chemical concoction was very volatile, so the evasion-device launcher shoved the CRAW well away from the submarine before the SCEPS engine started, or “transitioned to SCEPS power.”

“Weps, launch the CRAW from the starboard dihedral,” Edwards ordered.

As Jennings manipulated the Payload Control System, Hannon called out, “Torpedo bearing zero-six-five, range four-two-hundred yards.”

Joe Glass did not need a computer to figure out that the dummy torpedo was coming directly at them at better than sixty-five knots. Even if it was an exercise fish, it had the mass of a full-size pickup truck. It would certainly give them a headache if it hit.

Aston Jennings called out, “Starboard CRAW launched.”

Hannon followed with, “CRAW launched, transitioned to SCEPS power. Best bearing zero-one-six, drawing right.”

Edwards and Glass watched the sonar tracks on the command display. The route for the torpedo was a dead straight line pointing right at them. The CRAW’s track slewed across the screen as it converged on the torpedo’s bearing.

Hannon called out, “Torpedo and CRAW on the same bearing, zero-six-five, range two-one-hundred yards.”

Just as the sonarman completed his report, a loud explosion shook the George Mason. The sonar screen blossomed in a burst on the bearing to the torpedo and then all contacts disappeared completely.

Glass turned to Edwards and smiled.

“I’d say that was a whole lot easier than some of the torpedoes we’ve run away from together, Skipper. I think I like this ‘CRAW fish.’ We just need to make it a bit more reliable.”

Edwards nodded, pleased his former shipmate and skipper—now big boss—was pleased. And especially happy this test had gone reasonably well. Still, would the day come when the lives of his crew and his submarine depended on this newly developed technology?

Maybe. Maybe not. But he knew he had to assume it would.

Ψ

The research vessel Deep Ocean Explorer bobbed easily in the calm, ink-black sea. The stars put on a brilliant display of light, stretching broad swaths of twinkling points from horizon to horizon and making deck lighting superfluous.

Dr. Rex Smith leaned on the ship’s rail and stared into the night sky, deep in thought. How many more nights would he be able to enjoy this view? How many more days could his team continue their research before the fat cats back on the mainland finally pulled the plug? His rushed trip to Los Angeles had been a limited success. The shareholders were not happy with his report on the status of their research. Investors are rarely complacent with vague promises of future finds. This was particularly true of the group who had decided to back his efforts. After some fancy footwork with interpreting the data and not a little old-fashioned groveling, Smith had convinced them to put forward enough funds to support another month. But he knew without a doubt that any return visit to this nearly dry well would be a waste of time.

Now there was only time