Authors: Joe Buff
Beck’s latest phase orders, like those before, were couched in the dry, precise terms he’d long since learned to expect from Berlin. Well-composed naval orders gave wide discretion to commanders at sea to exercise initiative while adapting to real-world conditions as they unfolded on the spot. But formal naval orders routinely ignored the human emotions their dictates would surely evoke in those whose duty it was to carry them out in a life-or-death global struggle.
Beck sighed.
The crisply worded orders always sidestep the tension of waiting, the chaos and confusion of actual battle, the crew’s grinding fear or terrified panic, the agony of wounds. The orders never touch upon the constant dread of escalation of the wider war. And they never address the crushing load they put on a captain’s shoulders: the near-inhuman demands for brutal, decisive ruthlessness and always-mounting tactical innovation—to deceive or slaughter the enemy in clever and subtle new ways.
Someone knocked on Beck’s door.
“Come.”
Karl Stissinger entered. “Good morning, Captain.”
“It’s time,” Beck said. He gestured at his laptop screen.
Stissinger nodded. “Shall we fetch our mysterious guest, sir?”
“He asked to be called Baron von Loringhoven in public, by the way.”
Stissinger raised his eyebrows. “Oh, a
baron,
is he?” Stissinger chuckled. “The way he’s been hiding and having messengers bring all his meals, there’s wide speculation he might even be a count. You know, Captain, as in Count Dracula?”
“Not so loud,” Beck said. “He’s right next door.”
“In what should be
my
cabin, with him sharing it as our guest.”
“He said privacy was needed, for security.”
“I believe it. The messengers say he’s always huddled over papers and maps and documents, and keeps scribbling on a thick notepad. Each time they bring a new meal tray, he turns everything upside down before asking them in. The previous meal, the leftovers, sit shoved in a corner. Besides his computer, he just has the reading light on, day and night. Never uses the overhead fluorescents, and the men swear his bed looks completely unslept in.”
Beck nodded. “He seems to take what’s going on very seriously.” He pointed at the door into the head, the bathroom he shared with von Loringhoven. “I’ve heard him take a shower a couple of times. And I know he pisses and shits like any mortal.” Beck grinned lopsidedly. “You can tell the men I seriously doubt he’s a vampire.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Anyway, let’s see if our baron wants to join us in the Zentrale for the latest excitement.”
The
von Scheer
was at battle stations, running deep. Beck and Stissinger sat at the command console. Von Loringhoven stood, wedged in behind them, so he could look between their shoulders at their status plots. Way over their heads, the surface Gulf Stream current ran northeast, back the way they’d come. The air and water temperatures were well above freezing here; there was rain and wind and heavy seas, but no ice.
“Sonar,” Beck ordered, “put passive broadband on speakers, volume low.”
Werner Haffner acknowledged from his console, past Stissinger’s seat on Beck’s right. Now Beck heard the sounds of biologics—lobster and herring that had so far survived the heavy oil spills of war—and the gentle murmur of bottom currents flowing along rough terrain. He also heard a steady eerie mechanical pulsating throb: the two submerged Russian submarines that concealed
von Scheer
from above.
Beck kept one eye on the tactical plot and the other on the gravimeter. His orders told him exactly which route to take. Ordinarily Beck would not have liked such restriction. But now, with the need to move in formation with the pair of Russian Sierra IIs—yet remain undetected himself—he understood the requirement for things to be organized in advance.
“This is good,” Beck told Stissinger. He knew von Loringhoven would be in the conversation too, simply by his physical proximity. “This is exactly what I would have done.”
“Jawohl,”
Stissinger said respectfully.
“Explain,” von Loringhoven said.
Beck glanced at the diplomat for a moment, then pointed at the gravimeter display. “Our two friendly Ivans are taking the deepest part of the gap, right between the northern tip of Scotland and the Faroe Islands. The water here goes down a thousand meters plus, in most places. This valley between the European continental shelf, here, and the Faroes Rise, here, is ideal for us to hide in by hugging the bottom.”
“I see that,” von Loringhoven said. He gave Beck a look as if to say,
Don’t you think I can read a nautical chart?
Beck decided to ignore his irritating attitude. Otherwise, this could be an extremely long cruise. “It’s all a very neat bluff. This route is shortest for the Russians to get from their home port to the Atlantic, so it’s natural they’d come this way, just as if they’ve nothing to hide. Plus, after we pass Scotland we go right down the west coast of Ireland, which is the last thing the Allies would expect the
von Scheer
to do. They’re much more likely to be looking for us way up near Greenland or Iceland.”
The two Russian submarines pinged on their sonars again. They were continuing to signal their presence as neutrals—to invite inspection by Allied antisubmarine forces and avoid accidental attack.
“We’re about to see how well this works,” von Loringhoven stated. “We don’t know how thoroughly the Brits will probe beneath the two 945A boats.” His tone was distant, almost sarcastic.
Is he really such an arrogant bastard,
Beck asked himself,
or is he just scared and won’t admit it? Either way, doesn’t he have the common sense to behave better in my control room, in front of
my
crew?
The Russians slowed to seven knots. Beck ordered the pilot to slow the
von Scheer,
to keep station. Then he ordered that one of his ship’s two nuclear reactors be shut down to reduce the
von Scheer
’s noise signature. In an emergency, it would take several minutes to bring the reactor fully back on-line. This would sacrifice a lot of the ship’s propulsion power when it might be needed most. But the
von Scheer
was truly boxed in—by dry land to north and south, and by minefields and enemy forces in other directions.
Absolute stealth, not escape speed, counts the most.
Beck ordered that the air-circulation fans, and other nonvital equipment, also be turned off. To further save amperage demand—and remind everyone to make as little noise as possible—lighting shipwide was cut to dim red.
The air in the control room quickly grew stale and humid and warm—from the people and from electronic gear. The repeated bass and high-pitched sonar tones from the Russians filled the control-room speakers every minute or so. It made Beck feel as if he were one of several vessels on the surface in thick fog, feeling their way half-blind in the days before radar.
Beck ordered Stissinger to launch two remote-controlled undersea probes through two of the
von Scheer
’s eight oversized torpedo tubes. These battery-powered, reusable probes would check out the bottom rocks and muck ahead for antisubmarine detectors that could be problems for the
von Scheer
.
Stissinger whispered with his weapons technicians and relayed orders to the torpedo room. Rapidly, the unmanned undersea vehicle probes were launched, attached to fiber-optic tethers; Beck windowed their sensor readouts on his console.
“Isn’t that risky?” von Loringhoven said.
“To not use the probes and trust to blind luck is riskier,” Beck mumbled. “And please keep your voice down.”
The ship’s copilot took control of one probe to gain cues to help the pilot steer Beck’s vessel. One of Stissinger’s senior-chief weapon technicians controlled the other probe. The darkened Zentrale grew hushed.
“Einzvo,” Haffner called out in a forced whisper. “New passive sonar contacts. Airborne contacts, approaching from east, assess as Royal Navy helicopters possibly based in the Orkneys or Shetland Islands.”
“Captain,” Stissinger murmured, “the Brits have sent their inspection team to take a good look at the Russians.”
Beck nodded. In a few minutes, he could barely hear the beating of rotor blades and the whine of engines coming straight down through the sonar layer, playing over the speakers.
“Aircraft are hovering near the Russians,” Stissinger said.
“Sounds of dipping sonars,” Haffner reported softly. The Royal Navy was using high-frequency pings, above the range of human hearing—for better image resolution of returns off the Russian hulls. “New surface contacts, weak, closing. Warship tonals.”
“Traces of blue-green laser light also now,” Stissinger said. “Assess helicopters making close inspection with line-scan cameras…And Royal Navy frigates, distant, approaching.”
“Fine,” von Loringhoven said. “They’ll see two Russian submarines.” The Zentrale crew became even more hushed.
“Our own acoustic masking routines continue to function nominally,” Stissinger said. “Line-scan cameras are too shallow to pick us up down here in the bottom terrain.”
“Very well, Einzvo.” Beck tried to sound calm, but he couldn’t allow himself to relax. He saw several crewmen hunch closer over their consoles, as if they were literally ducking to hide from the enemy undersea cameras way overhead.
Beck understood better than any of them how savagely fast this delicate ballet of deception could all come unglued.
“Captain,”
the copilot said.
The urgent call hit Beck like an electrical shock. “What is it?” he snapped in an undertone. “Give me a proper report.”
“New contact on off-board probe.”
“Concur,” Haffner said. “New passive sonar contact by one of our unmanned undersea vehicles.” The vehicles had hydrophones and other mission sensors. “Strong contact. Range is short.”
“Classify it,” Stissinger ordered.
“Nuclear submarine. On the bottom. Same depth as us!”
“Quiet,” Beck snapped. He looked at Stissinger. “A nuclear sub at a thousand-plus meters? Identify it.
Seawolf
class?
Dreadnought
? Either way we’ve got big trouble.”
“New contact signal strength increasing,” Haffner said through clenched teeth. “Contact is approaching our location.”
“Copilot,” Stissinger ordered, “pass control of the probe to me.”
“Jawohl.”
The copilot was a junior officer. His voice now sounded very tight.
Stissinger gripped the joystick on his console. Through the fiber-optic guidance wire, he directed the probe in a wide arc around to the side of the hostile deep-running nuclear sub. Beck saw Stissinger’s hand was white knuckled on the control stick. He knew his XO was aiming for a better acoustic profile of the hostile contact.
Using folds in the terrain and rubble from ancient undersea earthquakes, Stissinger snuck the probe nearer and nearer the inbound submarine. Then his senior chief reported that the other probe’s cameras had spotted a line of acoustic-and magnetic-anomaly sensors freshly emplaced on the bottom just ahead.
The tension in the control room rose sharply.
Beck told himself there was no reason to think the
von Scheer
had been spotted, yet. Maybe this was just routine Allied procedure to guard the gap and also keep an eye on Russian submarine movements.
Don’t kid yourself. They know the
von Scheer
is on the prowl, somewhere.
“Good tonals now,” Haffner said in an almost yell. “Inbound contact is definitely nuclear-powered, definitely American.”
Stissinger turned to Beck. “Probe’s magnetic-anomaly sensors confirm unidentified vessel is steel-hulled, not ceramic, sir.”
“A
Seawolf,
” von Loringhoven said. “But she’s practically at her crush depth. Or below it. Something doesn’t make sense.”
Beck shot him a disapproving look. “Quiet in the Zentrale.” Baron or not, this guest had to learn to keep his mouth shut.
“Better tonals now,” Haffner hissed.
“It’s
NR-One,
” Stissinger said disbelievingly. The one-ofa-kind
NR-1
had been a pet project of Admiral Hyman Rickover years ago.
“What’s
NR-One
doing
here?
” von Loringhoven said.
“I said be quiet,” Beck snapped. “We’ve got difficulties, Einzvo. That little sub out there may be unarmed, but she’s optimized for deep-sea surveillance and recon.”
“Concur, Captain.” Stissinger sounded extremely worried. The aged
NR-1,
with her eight-man crew and powerful sensors, could find the
von Scheer
and unmask her…and then, by acoustic comms or radio buoy, call in overwhelming firepower.
In a pinch, those two Russians will flee for their lives, and we’ll be naked down here, and damned to destruction.
“Do something,” von Loringhoven said. He’d read Beck’s mind, and now was almost pleading.
A coward, under the facade?
Beck stared hard at the gravimeter and a nautical chart. This bluff of hiding under Russian subs was about to unravel completely.
NR-1
moved closer and closer. The stale air in the Zentrale grew stifling, suffocating. Crewmen squirmed in their seats; sweat-soaked backsides squeaked on vinyl.
“Arm nuclear torpedoes?” Stissinger prompted.
Beck thought fast.
This is my first real test as captain. And an awful test indeed.
“Negative. Make no mechanical transients…. Pilot, bring the boat up to one hundred meters.” The two Russians were moving slowly, above the layer, at fifty meters. “Rise on autohover, get us up there quickly. Cut the wires, jettison both probes.”
Beck watched as
von Scheer
’s depth decreased. On the gravimeter display, the local terrain receded beneath the ship.
“What are you doing?” von Loringhoven demanded.
“Upping the ante,” Beck said. “I told you to be quiet.”
The diplomat bit down whatever he was going to say next.