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

Allison could tell that the pilot was floating face up, but did not seem to be aware that somebody was attempting to rescue him. He was almost certainly unconscious. Maybe worse.

The skipper looked back to see men emerging from the open hatch on the main deck. The COB was the first man topside, quickly followed by a pair of rescue swimmers and the corpsman.

“Ahead one-third,” Allison ordered. He waited until he could just feel the boat move ahead, then ordered, “All stop!”

Such stop-and-go maneuvering was a delicate operation. Submarines had no brakes. Boise smoothly slid to a stop with the pilot a mere twenty feet off the beam. The man was still floating face up, his life vest inflated. The two rescue swimmers quickly hauled him back to the boat and then the team lowered him down the hatch, which swung shut as the last man headed down.

“Nav, best course to the other guy?”

“Captain, plot holds the second pilot bearing one-five-five, two miles. Do not hold him visually.”

Allison did not like this. Two miles away when the best speed they could do was four knots. Thirty more minutes on the surface. Every additional minute increased the chances of their being shot at.

He pushed up the clamshell and locked it before dropping through the upper hatch. He shut and dogged it, then slid past the phone talker and down the ladder into the control room. Foster met him at the bottom, ready to give him an update. But Allison held up his hand for her to wait a second. Seeing a “straight board”—all indicator lights showing green, which meant all hatches were closed and it was safe to dive—he ordered, “Diving Officer, submerge the ship to six-zero feet. Nav, head for the other downed pilot. Okay, XO, what do we have?”

“The pilot is unconscious. Doc is moving him to the wardroom to see what his problems are. His flight suit has a Taiwanese flag on it. And we have orders to immediately clear the area and make best covert speed to Guam. And our weird, all-seeing, all-knowing friend says that we sound like a trash can full of rocks rolling downhill anytime we run above four knots.”

“Any word on that Aussie who’s supposed to relieve us?”

“CTF-74 says that he is still two days away. We are not—and they repeated, we are not—to stick around until the Aussie shows up. If I had to guess, I’d say things have gotten really janky in our part of the world all of a sudden.”

“Well, let’s find the other guy and then we’ll get the hell out of this garden spot.”

“You sure you want to do that? Boss was pretty adamant about us blowing this pop stand. I don’t think us sticking around to offer rides to some fighter pilots was what he meant.”

“XO, I’ll tell you the same thing I told the Eng. If we don’t pick this guy up, there’s no one else out here to do it. At our current top speed, a few minutes spent pulling someone out of the drink is not going to affect our ETA to Guam.”

“Yes, sir,” Foster answered. “Then let’s get over and get this guy aboard before someone up there objects.”

The short cruise over to the second site was uneventful. They found him floating a few yards away from the remnants of his parachute. They surfaced and repeated the process that had worked for the first pilot. Chet Allison brought the Boise to a halt only a few yards away and a short swim for the rescuers to reach the pilot. The sun was sinking below the western horizon and it was getting difficult to see, though, as the swimmers brought the man back to the sub.

“Skipper, planes inbound!” the phone talker yelled. “Nav sees them on the scope.”

Allison dropped down from the bridge and slammed the upper hatch closed. He yelled, “Get everybody below decks and the hatch shut!”

Just as he slid down the ladder, he could feel the blast of jet engines close aboard.

“Diving Officer, dive the ship to six-two feet!” he ordered as he dropped down the ladder into the control room.

“But...but...I don’t have a straight board,” the flustered man responded. “The escape trunk hatch...”

“Open the vents,” Allison ordered.

The chief of the watch reached up to flip the switches that opened the main ballast tank vents. The boat immediately started to go down, the deck tilting noticeably.

“By the time the decks are underwater, the hatch will be shut. If we wait for a straight board, we’ll still be on the surface when those guys swing back around, and they will probably be shooting when they do.”

“Depth three-eight feet,” the diving officer sang out. “Answering ahead one-third.”

Allison grabbed the periscope and swung it around in the direction the jets were going when they passed over while Boise was still mostly on the surface. The skipper watched as the two fighters made a wide sweeping turn and headed right back, directly toward the submarine. The aircraft were down on the deck and they were coming fast.

“Depth four-zero feet. Full dive on the planes. Still open on the upper escape trunk hatch.”

The two jets had moved to the left and right to put a little more space between them. Allison was no jet jockey, but this appeared to him to be a firing pass. He looked aft through the scope and said, as calmly as he could muster, “Deck’s awash.” Then, “Deck’s under.”

“Depth four-four feet. Intermediate indications on the escape trunk hatch.”

“Flooding, flooding in the mess decks,” the 4MC Emergency Announcing System blared. “Flooding from the forward escape trunk!”

Allison watched in fascination through the scope as he saw twinkling lights from the nose of each jet. It took him only a second to realize that they were shooting. At him and Boise.

“Shut indication on the forward escape trunk hatch,” the chief of the watch reported, the relief in his voice evident. Obviously, he did not realize the influx of seawater was not their