By Dawn's Early Light (34 page)

1615 GMT
SEAWOLF

“I have three…make that four high speed screws in the water.” Zimenski's voice came down the passageway from sonar. He hadn't bothered with the phone.

Dillon stepped around the corner. “Chinese?”

“From sierra thirty. Sounds like SET-sixty-five Es.” Zimenski adjusted a display. “Time to impact just under four minutes.”

“The other three submarines will be firing at any moment. Let me know when it happens.”

“Yes, sir,” Zimenski said. He was flying. He was in his element.

Dillon walked back into the control room. “XO, match bearings and shoot tubes one, five, six, and eight,” he ordered.

Bateman repeated the command, and started the firing procedures.

Dillon went to the chart table and glanced at the situation as Brown was plotting it.

“Chief of Boat, come right to new course zero-zero-five. Move smartly now.”

“Aye, skipper, turning starboard to new course zero-zero-five.”

Dillon reached up to brace himself. “Weaps, do you have solutions on sierra twenty-eight through thirty-one?”

“Yes, sir. Tubes two, three, four, and seven are ready in all respects.”

Bateman looked over from the firing console next to Jablonski. “Tubes one, five, six, and eight have been fired.”

“Firing point procedures, please, on tubes two, three, four, and seven, and then match bearings and shoot,” Dillon said. “Cut all wires.”

“Aye, skipper,” Bateman responded.

“We won't get them all, Marc, so as soon as we have reloads I want those four boats retargeted,” Dillon ordered.

Zimenski was on the growler. “Cap'n, I have many high speed screws incoming. I estimate at least twelve, possibly as many as sixteen fish heading for us.”

“Keep an eye on sierra twenty-six and twenty-seven. I want those frigates out of action.”

“Yes, sir. Time for the first fish from sierra thirty to impact is now three minutes and stretching,” Zimenski said.

The rate of closure had been over six thousand yards per minute with the
Seawolf
heading directly for the Chinese submarines at twenty-five knots, into the torpedoes incoming at forty knots. By turning away, the closure rate was decreasing, stretching the time to impact.

The problem was the new course. They were now heading directly toward the Soho that was already starting to drop depth charges.

“Tubes two, three, four, and seven are away,” Bateman reported. “Time to impact on our first two fish on sierra twenty-six and twenty-seven is now two minutes thirty seconds.”

“Very well,” Dillon said. He called sonar. “I'm going to duck in behind Soho just before she's hit, to shield us from the Chinese torpedoes. Let me know when I have the angle.”

“Yes, sir. Time to impact now two minutes forty-five seconds.”

It would be close. Dillon turned to his COB. “Chief, bring us to periscope depth.”

“Raise to periscope depth, aye, skipper,” Young responded.

Dillon leaned against the periscope railing and watched his crew doing their jobs. Everything was in place now. His tactics would either work or they wouldn't. With the odds stacked against them they had only this one chance.

1616 GMT
HAN 405

The American captain was actually fighting his boat rather than running away. Lt. Peng Fei was right. The
Seawolf
meant to get past them all even if it resulted in destroying the ships that were legally correct to be in their home waters.

It was astounding.

“Captain, evaluate the incoming torpedoes as Mark forty-eight ADCAPs,” the chief sonarman said. “One of them has locked on us.”

“Time to impact?” Hua asked. This had suddenly become anything but the academic exercise in geopolitical realities that he had been told it would be. It was turning into a worse-case scenario. He felt a sense of detachment.

“Two minutes.”

Hua held the phone against his ear. He stood at the chart table looking at what he had plotted.
Seawolf
had fired what were probably Tomahawk missiles at the frigates, and two Mark 48s at the nearest pair of North Korean patrol boats.

The American captain was trying to blast his way clear of the harbor. But that would have put him directly in the path of Hua and his flotilla.

Hua shook his head in vexation. He had fired too soon in his eagerness. He had given away his tactical advantage of surprise.

“Captain, suggest we deploy noisemakers,” his XO, Tsu-Lin, said.

Hua looked up out of his daze. He wasn't going to simply throw away his command because an American warship had fired at him. “Deploy the noisemakers immediately. Come to all-ahead flank, turn right to a new course of—” He did the rough calculation by sight on the chart. Submarines 404 and 402 were to starboard. But they were just far enough away to give him the needed turning radius. “New course one-nine-zero.”

Tsu-Lin gave him a double take, but issued the proper orders. Turning to that course would place them behind 404, which would then become the target for two of the four American torpedoes.

If there was time.

“Firing point procedures for tubes five and six,” Hua ordered. His two remaining loaded torpedo tubes were targeted on the
Seawolf
.

“Firing point procedures complete. Tubes five and six are ready in all respects.”

“Match bearings and shoot tubes five and six,” Hua said triumphantly.

He called the torpedo room commander. “This is the captain, how are the reloads coming?”

“As you would expect, Captain,” the lieutenant, whose name Hua could not remember at this moment, shouted. Han class submarines were equipped with poorly engineered reloading equipment.

“Hurry up, you bastard. Our lives depend on it,” Hua screamed. He braced himself and looked around.

“Fire five,” Tsu-Lin reported. “Fire six.” He looked up. “Both torpedoes are running hot and normal, Captain.” He glanced at the weapons console display, which showed that they now had no weapons ready to fire.

“Now we shall see,” Hua said.

They all heard the distant explosions, four of them in close order, as
Seawolf
's weapons found their marks against the North Korean navy.

Hua's flotilla was next.

1618 GMT
SEAWOLF

“We have four solid hits,” Zimenski reported. “Sierra twenty-four and twenty-five have been obliterated. Sierra twenty-seven is sinking fast. I'm hearing breakup and compression noises. Sierra twenty-six is also sinking, but slowly.”

The depth charge attack had stopped. Sierra 26 was the Soho.

“Do we have the angle yet, Ski?” Dillon asked.

“Cap'n, we have the angle now. Soho is five thousand yards off our portside.”

“Chief of Boat, come to all stop. Rig for silent running,” Dillon said. He got on the 1MC. “This is the captain. Silent running now.”

All noises aboard
Seawolf
ceased. The normally quiet submarine became suddenly very quiet. The only noises they could hear were the crashing sounds of machinery breaking loose aboard the sinking Najin and Soho frigates.

They heard three distinct explosions in the far distance.

“We have three hits. Sierra twenty-seven and sierra twenty-eight,” Zimenski called. “Stand by—”

The Mark 48s were considerably faster than the Chinese SET-65Es. They had reached their targets first.

“Sierra thirty turned behind sierra twenty-eight…I think. The first and second fish both hit sierra twenty-eight. Number three is a clean hit on sierra twenty-seven. But number four shut down. I've lost contact.”

“Two-to-one odds. That's better,” Bateman said.

“Stand by…stand by…” Zimenski called. His voice rose an octave.

The hydraulic shockwaves from six powerful explosions, one almost right on top of the other, hammered the
Seawolf
.

Something broke loose forward, several circuit breakers popped and reset themselves. Chief Young jumped up to shut off a powerful jet of water that suddenly appeared above the ballast control panel. The control room lights flickered a couple of times and then steadied down.

“All hits on sierra twenty-six,” Zimenski reported. “There's almost nothing left of her.”

“What about the other incoming torpedoes?”

“They've passed us. Three are heading for pieces of sierra twenty-seven, the rest are shutting down.”

They heard three distant explosions as the sinking wreckage of the frigate Najin was hit again, and then silence.

Dillon called the torpedo room. “Doolittle, how are my reloads coming?”

“One through six are done, skipper. Give me two minutes and you'll have seven and eight.”

“Good job,” Dillon said. It was some kind of a record. He switched back to sonar. “Ski, what are the North Koreans doing?”

“Scattering, Cap'n. All of them are heading back into the bay.”

“What about the Chinese?”

“Stand by,” Zimenski said.

Dillon turned to his crew. “Chief, stand by to get us out of here with as much speed as you can give me on the same course out as before.”

“Aye, skipper,” Young replied.

“Cap'n, you're not going to believe this,” Zimenski came back. “Sierra twenty-nine and thirty are intact. They're turning toward us and making lots of noise. They've put the pedal to the metal. And they're reloading. Sounds like they're in a big hurry.”

“Are there any other threats?” Dillon asked.

“Negative, Cap'n, just sierra twenty-nine and thirty.”

“Marc, I want TMAs on sierra twenty-nine and thirty. Make tubes one through four ready in all respects, two torpedoes on each target. I'm going to fire one and three first.”

“Aye, Captain.” Jablonski repeated his orders and set to his task.

“Get us out of here, Chief,” Dillon ordered.

Chief Young turned
Seawolf
to starboard, the long way back to their original course in order to avoid the debris from the destroyed Soho frigate. Her right shoulder dropped as she accelerated.

Dillon reached up and braced himself.

Winning this fight—and he felt that a win was now a foregone conclusion because the Chinese Han class submarines simply could not match the
Seawolf
's speed of reload—gave him no satisfaction. A lot of good men, ordinary sailors and officers simply doing the jobs their bosses had ordered them to do, had lost their lives tonight.

More were going to die in the next few minutes.

It was a waste. Because of what? he asked himself. Arrogance? Stupidity? Or, simply a blind hatred of America's success as a nation and as a people?

It was Poe, the one poet who Dillon had introduced to his wife. Poe's mood was dark, just like Dillon's mood at this moment.