The Demon Plagues (19 page)

He didn’t understand why he hadn’t. As soon
as Pacific Command had lost contact with the nuclear-powered
ballistic-missile submarine UGNS
Nebraska
, the strike group
had turned toward its last reported position and raced to find it.
They had gotten there within twenty hours.

At first they had thought it was some kind of
accident; there was supposed to have been a rescue drill with the
Frank Cable’s
submersible, but the boat wasn’t where it
should have been. Then they thought perhaps it was enemy action,
though no explosions had been recorded by the passive sonar
installations scattered about the sea floor, or by other subs
listening.

Then the rumors from Fiji had turned out to
be true; for the first time in naval history, a submarine had been
boarded – boarded! – at sea and apparently hijacked.

The captain of the
Nebraska
should be
court-martialed for negligence. But the coward and the rest of his
men were claiming asylum in the Free Republic of Fiji, and the
Australian Navy was deployed to defend that island nation. He
really didn’t want to tangle with the Australians. They were the
only one of these namby-pamby Free Communities he could halfway
respect. They were the only ones that would stand up and fight
instead of hitting and running, spreading their inhuman disease and
corrupting the minds and morals of everyone they touched.

He shuddered.
Unionists like me are the
only things standing between the world and the complete anarchy and
neo-communism of these infected Sickos.

It didn’t matter. It wasn’t time to tangle
with the Australians yet. They should have been nuked early on,
when everybody was hollering but nobody was willing to do anything.
If those pussified French and British and Japanese hadn’t
threatened to start retaliating with nukes for the strikes, they
could have brought the Sickos to their knees, wiped them out once
and for all. The Japanese, for God's sake! Who’d have thought they
could put together nuclear weapons so quickly, and ditch their
alliance with the US in favor of working with the Chinese? At least
the South Koreans had stayed more or less loyal.

So now the Pacific Fleet was stretched to the
limit – the same as ever – countering the Japanese and Chinese and
Australian navies, protecting its trade routes, not to mention
suppressing rampant drug smuggling from South America and dealing
with the constant guerilla war from Free Community commandos.

But none of that mattered right now. He was
just delaying the inevitable, which was to go down to the flag
bridge and tell Rear Admiral Halston that he still had nothing. Not
a clue. The
Nebraska
had just…vanished.

Pacific Command was coordinating two other
CSGs and several independently- operating attack subs, sweeping the
most likely lanes. They had positioned a few of their
hunter-killers and several detached destroyer escorts between the
hijacked sub's last known position and the Australians, and he
didn’t think the
Nebraska
could have slipped through. From
the reports, there were only a few commandos aboard. There was no
way they could slink through the holes in their antisubmarine net
the way a full trained crew could. His submarine liaison officer
had assured him all they could do was point the boat in one
direction and go, and hope to get away.

He took one more look at the map display set
into the smart table. They had everything westward covered. The CSG
centered around the UGS
Gerald Ford
had the east, barring
the way to any run toward the South American Coast or the Straits
of Magellan. So where did that leave them?

South?

But that made no sense. There was nothing
south. The pirates didn’t have the manpower and expertise to skirt
the Antarctic shelf and escape close around the frozen continent.
That took sonarmen and helmsmen and nuclear engineers and a host of
others. What else would they do? What would he do if he were them?
He slid his fingers across the touchscreen, setting the field of
view just as he wanted it. He plotted angles, speeds, circles of
maximum distances traveled.

It all depended on how much of a hurry they
were in. If they were patient, if, say, they gently grounded the
boat on the bottom in the trackless southern latitudes, a handful
of men could stay down for years. They might go stir-crazy, but
they could do it. Then they could reemerge at any time. It would be
a constant threat.

Maybe that was their game. A deterrent. Maybe
that insight would redeem him somewhat in the eyes of the hawklike
Admiral Hanson. He shrugged silently. What could they do to him?
Deny him his flag? He didn’t care about that. He just wanted to get
to kill some Sickos. And maybe, just maybe, if they turned the CSG
southward right now, they could catch these sons of bitches.

He gave such orders as were within his
authority, extending the battle group’s perimeter southward. He
then issued a fleet advisory that noted the possibility of the
enemy running south. Perhaps that would prompt the independent
attack subs to look harder in that direction. The UGS
Tucson
was closest; Captain Absen was one of the best. He might read
between the lines. It was all he could do right now.

He hurried to brief the Admiral, that weasel
Political Officer Stimson following silently behind.

Jill Repeth saw that Colonel Nguyen had
dragged Alkina with him into the control room and bound her into a
seat with liberal use of duct tape. A couple of turns around her
mouth ensured her silence. She was still out cold from the trank.
She wondered how long that would hold the woman; it had only kept
Jill out for fifteen minutes or so, and it was an eight-hour dose
for a normal non-Eden. Thus the tape. “All right, sir, what’s going
on? Where is the rest of the team?”

“No one is answering their comms. It looks
like we are all that are conscious. Unfortunately we do not have
time to find out. The missiles show they are ready for firing, and
our launch window opens in four minutes and closes in ten. One of
you will have to turn Alkina’s key.” The Colonel pointed at the
chain around Alkina’s neck.

“Not me, thanks,” answered Bitzer. “You’re
going to need me to keep the boat at proper firing depth. When
those things all launch they’ll shake us something fierce, and
change the specific gravity of the boat, a thousand
tons
of
missiles and counterflooding. Unless you want us rolling over and
the latter half of them misfiring, you and Reaper will have to do
it.”

Nguyen wasn’t sure if Bitzer was exaggerating
or not, but there was no time to argue. No point in forcing him
when he was the only one who could drive the boat. “Very well.
Jill, you will have to do it. Can I count on you?” His eyes bored
into hers.

Her return gaze was steady. “Of course, sir.
I’m a Marine. Just tell me what I have to do.”

“Thank you. The codes are already programmed
in. All you have to do is turn your key when I do, first left to
arm, right to fire. I will count as follows: one, two, three, arm;
one, two, three, fire; one, two, three, neutral. Then we select the
next missile, and do it again. Eighteen missiles, six in reserve.
We have to do it fast and precisely to fire them all in six
minutes; then we dive, we run, and we hope we are not killed.”

“One minute, sor,” called Bitzer. “Opening
missile hatches.”

Repeth grabbed the key from Alkina’s neck,
snapping the chain. The bound woman’s eyes were already half-open,
hazy, wandering.

“All right, there’s your station. Here’s
mine. Open the cover. Insert the key. Select missile number one.
Ready?”

She nodded.

“Remember, it’s toward the left to arm, right
to fire, center to neutral reset. Ready to arm: one, two, three,
arm.”

They turned their keys together; Trident
missile one indicator changed from ‘ready’ to ‘armed.’

“Thirty seconds.”

Alkina moaned, rolling her eyes.

“Bitzer, trank her again, will you?”

“Can’t sor, not if you want to launch on
time.” His hands gripped the helm controls, sweat breaking out on
his brow.

“Never mind. Call out at five seconds.”

Jill’s heart hammered in her chest, her palms
sweating. She let go of the key for a moment to reach under her
tunic, wiping her hands on her undershirt.

“Aye, sor. Five seconds…now.”

“Ready to launch, Gunny?” Nguyen’s voice was
preternaturally calm.

Jill put her hand back on the key,
nodded.

Captain Henrich J. Absen was not a man to
fret. Affable, cheerful, slow-talking and deep thinking was how his
crew would describe him. But today, he was as far from his usual
demeanor as they had ever seen. Today, and for the last several
days, he was wound tight, concentrating. Today he was hunting.

“Helm, right fifteen degrees rudder, steady
on course one seven six.”

“Right fifteen degrees rudder, steady on
course one seven six aye…my rudder is right fifteen.”

“Dive, Make your depth two three zero.”

“Make your depth two three zero aye, sir.
Stern planes two-degree down bubble.”

Sonarman Leslie Morton looked up at the Chief
of the Boat, the most senior enlisted man on board, who was holding
a cup of coffee perched on his ample gut. “We’re still heading
south?” he whispered. “Aren’t we almost to Antarctica?”

The COB shrugged, took a sip of his
ever-present brew—what submariners called ‘lifer-juice’. “The Old
Man knows what he’s doing. Just keep your ears on.” He felt a lot
more relaxed, even in combat conditions, since that damned
Political Officer had his fatal ‘accident’. Thinking of it made him
smile to himself.

Morton reached up to put the other headphone
on his right ear. The one on the left never came off when he was on
watch. Computers would alert him, but he liked to hear any contact
live and right away, no matter how good the equipment was.

Ten minutes later he got his wish. “Conn:
Sonar, submerged narrowband contact, possible sub, bearing two zero
five, range…computer estimates thirty to sixty nautical miles by
bottom bounce ranging.”

The Captain’s voice was steady. “Helm, all
ahead flank. Right fifteen degrees rudder, steady on course
two-zero-five. Sonar, go active sector search with minimum power.
Man battle stations.

The men in the control room glanced at each
other as they complied. “Maneuvering answers all ahead flank,
steady on course two zero five.” The submarine, so usually silent,
now hummed with a machine vibration, a sound that made everyone
nervous, set their teeth on edge, like laughing in a library.

“What the hell is he doing?” Ensign James
Cooper whispered to the COB. “They’ll hear us, we’re cavitating at
flank speed!” He meant the boat’s screws, or propellers, were going
so fast that they formed bubbles of water vapor in the water, and
with those bubbles came noise. “And they’ll hear the sonar
pings!”

The COB looked at the green young officer
with a mixture of condescension and patience. “If they had a crew,
son, you’d be right. But the reports said these pirates only have a
couple of bubbleheads, max. Think about it – a handful of men to
capture a boat, you send SEALs or suchlike mostly, not sub drivers.
So the Old Man’s taking a chance going to flank speed, catch up
with them. The sonar is for the ice. Be kind of pointless if we run
into an ice keel and kill ourselves.”

The devil was listening. “Conn: sonar, active
sonar contact ice, dead ahead six thousand yards, depth three three
zero.”

“You see?” The COB chuckled.

Captain Absen called, “Dive, make your depth
five zero zero.”

“Make my depth five zero zero, aye.” As the
helmsman angled the bow planes slightly down the powerful steam
turbine engines drove the boat to the target depth of five hundred
feet, plenty of room to miss the mountain of ice looming above
them.

Six hours later the contact was still
intermittent but strengthening. It had moved around, echoes thrown
here and there off the sea floor and the floating mountains of sea
ice, but it was still generally to the south-southwest.

Ensign Cooper handed the captain a secure
computer tablet. “ULF message from Fleet, sir.”

Absen looked at the decoded print. He turned
the screen over, face down to the console. “Thank you, Ensign.”

“Any return message, sir?”

“That will be all, Mister Cooper.”

The junior officer swallowed. “Aye aye, sir.”
He nodded and walked back to the Chief. He really should be asking
the Executive Officer questions like these but the COB was a lot
more tolerant of his inquisitiveness. “Master Chief, he’s not doing
anything. The orders tell us to turn west.”

“Sir.” The honorific dripped with
barely-concealed sarcasm. “Neither of us is qualified to
second-guess the Old Man. If you want that little gold bar to ever
turn silver, I suggest you watch and learn.” The Chief of the Boat
stared at his nominal superior, then relented. “Look, Ensign, we
know the situation out here better than Fleet. They say look over
there, but we know we got something over here. What’s more
important, following orders or completing the mission?”

“Sure, but what if he’s wrong?”

“Then he pays for it. Not you, not me. Be
happy you’re not him. But someday you might be, and there’s a lot
of worse commanders than him to be your example.”

Morton squeezed his sonar headset abruptly
with his hands, staring at his displays. “Contact firm, screws
bearing two two zero, Ohio class making turns for fifteen knots,
range approximately twenty thousand yards.”

Captain Absen’s gaze narrowed. “Helm, come
right and steer two two zero. Fire control, to torpedo room: Load
tube one with a Special, two with Mark 48 ADCAP. Make tubes one and
two ready in all respects, including opening outer doors.”