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

But—and the orders were quite specific on this point—the most important thing was to make the report.

The submarine commander’s first reaction to the orders was consternation. Sinking an American vessel would have ramifications the Chinese skipper did not want to contemplate. But he also knew that whatever Yon and the wolf pack were doing out here was of utmost importance. And the Americans clearly could not be allowed to crash the party, even to the point of starting a shooting war if they appeared bent on doing it.

He would follow the orders.

The Shiba was still setting up, acclimating to the new patrol area, determining just how safe it was to patrol even closer to the harbor mouth, when the commander spied a small, gray warship steaming out of the harbor. And the vessel—clearly US Navy—was heading very nearly straight at him, proceeding rapidly and on a collision course.

Was it possible that the Americans had already discovered the Shiba? Did they have remote bottom sensors that the submarine may have tripped? Of course, they did!

More importantly, and of greatest urgency for the commander to determine, was it possible that this warship planned to attack and sink his submarine?

The commander hurriedly lowered the periscope and ordered his submarine to go deep. They were to rapidly maneuver away from the on-rushing warship. But the oncoming vessel was already so close, the range was so short, that the commander knew it would be impossible to evade even the most primitive ASW ship. And the American ASW ships were anything but primitive. Plus, he was now convinced sensors had already revealed their presence and position.

He would have to act quickly. Even as they diverted and went deep, the approaching vessel made a turn to apparently follow his submarine. The captain could only assume that the Americans had him in their sights. That they were preparing to drop hell on him and his ship.

The only option now was to attack immediately and hope his torpedo destroyed the American warship before they had a chance to launch their own weapons. Let the politicians and diplomats sort out the mess later.

It took a little more than one minute for the Shiba’s fire control system to spit out a solution on the American warship. To upload the solution to the YU-6 torpedo in the Number One torpedo tube. To launch the torpedo.

The weapon whooshed out of its tube. Its otto-fuel-powered engine ignited and quickly came up to speed, racing in the general direction of the US vessel.

After the torpedo had traveled about five hundred meters from the submarine, its active acoustic sensors started searching for its quarry, finding it almost instantly.

Once located, it would take little time at all to reach the target and do its maximum damage, almost certainly before the American ship and its crew knew what hit them.

Ψ

The Canberra cleared Breakers Point and came around to a course that would point their bow directly for the gold fields. Their orders were to get there fast, and speed was one of this type of warship’s primary advantages. The skipper ordered up a flank bell.

The two big General Electric 2500 gas turbines whined up to full speed, pushing thousands of gallons a minute of seawater through a pair of LJ150E Wartsila pump-jets while the two MTU diesels pushed the two LJ160E pump-jets. Crewmembers held onto whatever they could find as the LCS shot ahead, quickly coming up to her maximum speed of better than forty-five knots and doing so within a distance of only a couple of ship lengths.

The Canberra raced past where the Shiba lay without ever knowing the Chinese submarine was there. The US littoral combat ship was moving so fast that the PLAN YU-6 torpedo, even with a fifteen-knot speed advantage, could not catch up before it ran out of fuel.

The lethal torpedo soon slowed, then stopped, and immediately sank into the depths.

The LCS raced on, oblivious to anyone having just shot at her with the intention of sinking her.

Ψ

Yon Ba Deng was once again in a quandary. The reports from his brother, Yon Hun Glo, had so far been promising. He and his little armada were on their way out to the gold fields. There did not appear to be anything in his way. Nothing to hinder him from beginning to pull the stunning riches of Croesus from the ocean depths. And the world’s attention was now focused on Taiwan, with no interest at all on the Tonga Trench. Yon Ba Deng allowed himself a smile as a weak but appropriate metaphor came to mind: all appeared golden on that front.

But on the home front, just as he was so close to unimaginable wealth and power, events were not proceeding so much in his favor. He had not even moved into his new, well-appointed office in the Forbidden City. He had not yet met his new staff or called his first meeting to establish his power. And already things were falling apart.

All of his submarines that had managed to get to their patrol stations, to begin the execution of his crafty embargo plan, as approved by the president, had been immediately detected and attacked. Even those boats that had been delayed by one excuse or another had been found. So far, he had been unable to blame this debacle on someone else.

He, of course, had someone in mind. The perfect foil. But he needed that foil to do important work at the moment, out there in the Pacific.

Right now, he needed to solve a couple of vexing riddles. The submarines had been detected—every one of them, including those that were way off schedule and plan—when such a breach of stealth was almost impossible. Even a spy could not have predicted the positions of the submarines that had suffered mechanical troubles, yet the Taiwanese had located every single one of them.

Then, once detected, every sub had been damaged, not destroyed. It seemed as if the Taiwanese were taunting him, showing him