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

so he was required to keep a close eye on them. Especially as they tailed the Chinese boats. As a result, he had remained in the control room almost continuously, trying to catch cat naps as he sat on the low stool on the port side of the periscope stand. That was exactly what he was attempting to do when one of the crew spoke up with something new.

“Possible contact zig, Master Two-One and Two-Two.” The fire control coordinator was hunched over a screen reading bearing rates on the two ambling contacts. “Shift in bearing rate from left-point-four to right-one-point-one.” Allison was now fully awake. After a few seconds, the fire control coordinator called out, “Confirmed zig Master Two-One, set anchor range one-eight-thousand yards. Confirmed contact zig Master Two-Two, set anchor range one-six-thousand yards.”

More idle rambling, or were they finally going someplace?

“Conn, Sonar,” the 21MC speaker blasted. Allison recognized the voice of his leading sonarman, Chief John Vincent. Vincent was the one man in the crew that Allison felt had the experience to allow his skipper to totally rely on him. “Master Two-One and Two-Two bearings are merging with new broadband noise source bearing three-four-six. Captain, I don’t know what the source is, but it’s blanking out most everything over a ten-degree sector. It’s nasty. We’ll lose these two for sure unless we maneuver.”

Allison quickly glanced at the plot and calculated his next move. He measured off the distances with his fingers. There was no way to move far enough to keep from losing these two before they merged with this new noise source and disappeared. The only maneuver was to dash out around it and hope he caught them when they came out the other side. If they came out the other side. He measured the distances, again using his fingers.

“Officer of the Deck, come to course north and ahead full.”

“Come to ahead full and course north, aye,” the OOD, Lieutenant Juan Esteban, echoed.

Just then, Boise’s executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Henrietta Foster, walked into the control room and quickly stepped back to the plot table where Allison stood. She glanced down at the plot and studied it for a few seconds, then glanced sideways at the skipper.

“Well, I think I know what your noise source is,” she said. “There was a Notice to Mariners message on the last broadcast. It said that some Chinese oil firm was working on their Panyu gas wells a couple of hundred miles southeast of Hong Kong. You’re listening to the sound of somebody setting up a deep-water drill rig.”

Allison shook his head. It was incomprehensible that they had received a NOTAMS hours ago and it still had not been plotted on the submarine’s ECDIS charts. And what was really bothersome was that this particular risk was only a few miles away from their position. They could easily have run right smack into whatever it was without ever knowing.

Allison, face flushed, looked around the control room. The navigator, Lieutenant Jeremy Chastain, was doing his best to melt back into the radar repeater.

“Nav, what the holy hell is going on?” Allison growled. “Did you not see the NOTAMS?”

“It…I…it was on list for today,” Chastain stammered.

“It takes thirty seconds to download and check,” Allison shot back. “That NOTAMS has been onboard for twelve hours. Nav, that is simply not acceptable. Get the damn NOTAM plotted and evaluated immediately. Then, if it’s not too much trouble, plot a twenty-mile safety circle around it. And get your Leading Nav ET up here. You two better sort out your navigation division’s priorities.”

“Conn, Sonar. Captain, we have lost Master Two-One and Two-Two. They are both masked by the noise source.”

Allison nodded to no one in particular as he tapped the tabletop with a finger. Then he turned to the OOD.

“Officer of the Deck, stay outside the safety circle and come around to here.” He pointed to a location to the north and east of the blaring drill rig. “We’ll catch those two as they come around the other side.”

The XO moved over to where she could talk with Allison without being overheard.

“Skipper. Suggest you take a deep breath and count to ten,” she whispered. “Nav screwed up, but you know you shouldn’t tear his head off out here in front of the crew.” She glanced around the compartment. Everybody was busy, out of earshot. “Look, why don’t you go lie down and get a couple of hours sleep? I’ll stay out here and keep an eye on things while we re-position. Then I’ll give you a call when we regain contact.”

Chet Allison closed his eyes and willed his breathing back to normal. His XO was right, of course. She usually was. Henrietta Foster was one of the first women to rise to such a high position in submarines. One of the first African Americans, too. She would have her own boat before long, and deservedly so. That would check a bunch of boxes in support of diversity in the Silent Service. And nobody deserved that signal honor more than she did.

“You’re right, XO,” Allison said wearily.

Foster all but shoved the exhausted captain out of the control room and in the direction of his stateroom.

“And while you’re at it, take a shower. You positively stink.”

That was another reason Henrietta Foster would make a fine sub skipper. She called it the way she saw it.

Ψ

Six hours later, Chet Allison emerged from his stateroom, hair still wet and glistening from the shower. He walked back to the chart table where Foster stood. Gauging from her expression, she was still apparently studying the same problem.

“Thanks, XO,” he told her. “I needed that. You regain our Chinese friends yet?”

Foster shook her head. “Not a squeak. I don’t understand it. Those two made more racket than a fleet of garbage trucks. If they come out of that noise anywhere within thirty thousand yards, we should have them again.”

“Well, much as I hate to, let’s go report lost contact. Tell the boss they got away. One