SSN - Tom Clancy [128]
Cheyenne's underway was uneventful, and the M-14s Mack had on the bridge stayed safely in their racks.
After submerging, Mack ordered the OOD to stream the floating wire. He also ordered the TB-23 towed array deployed far enough to ensure that the 960 feet of hydrophones were clear of their housing. After that, Cheyenne headed for the three hundred-fathom curve, which she would follow at the established six-knot SOA until she was due east of the Zhanjiang Naval Base. Then she would have nearly three hundred miles of westerly transit across the widest part of the continental shelf, all in less than one hundred fathoms of water.
The Chinese Alfa, Chung, was presumably in board of Cheyenne, where it belonged, more than 20,000 yards away according to its sector restrictions. And Los Angeles was outboard in the deeper water to the east, where she would remain until the turn to the west. Then Los Angeles would watch Cheyenne's 180, as President Jiang had quipped earlier.
Mack's biggest concern was the Mao. The TB-23 was their best bet for detecting it, and if they didn't encounter the unknown submarine before they had to switch to the TB-16 towed array, they could be in trouble.
Cheyenne, Los Angeles, and Chung heard nothing but fishing fleet and other merchant traffic. All three captains were relying on their contingent to do what and when they were supposed to do.
A day and a half later, as Cheyenne was nearing the turning point, sonar reported several conformal-array submarine contacts to the northwest, two at high speed on converging bearings. Mack manned battle stations and launched one of several SSIXS buoys, with pre-arranged reports just in case something like this were to happen. That was the safest way to communicate events to Los Angeles-SSIXS to CTF 74 for turnaround to Los Angeles for copying on her floating wire.
By the time battle stations were manned, sonar had four sonar contacts to the northwest. Only one was Chung, as determined by the Alfa tonals. The other three were Akulas. Chung was also communicating by underwater telephone, which was being answered by only one Akula.
Without a Chinese linguist aboard-or a Russian one for that matter-Mack could only guess at what was being said, but he assumed that the Chung captain was trying to talk himself out of a bad situation. The Chinese captain's answer came in the form of three torpedoes, one from each of the three Akulas, which were tracking on the bearing of the still-squawking Chung.
Mack shook his head. The Chung captain had not been inept. He had been ambushed by three of his fellow commanding officers, who were under the command of the still-at-large General Yu Quili, and he had done the best he could against them. His talking with the Akulas on the underwater telephone may have given his position away, but it also gave his Alfa submarine fire control system the ranges and bearings of the Chinese bullies.
He managed to launch two of his ET-80 torpedoes before Chung was hit by three 65cm torpedoes.
The Cheyenne control room and sonar room were in total silence as they witnessed the carnage. They had seen their share of enemy ships destroyed, but there was something about the spectacle of Chinese submariners killing themselves that made this especially poignant.
Five explosions and four submarines had been involved in the fray, and only one Akula survived it unscathed.
After the explosions, Mack turned to the south to head for the five hundred-fathom curve, where he could fully deploy the TB-23. He hoped that the rapid turnaround promised by the CTF 74 communicators had happened by now. The SSIXS buoy instructions were for moving haven changes to the south for both Cheyenne and Los Angeles.
Los Angeles had received the instructions and had executed the turn as directed, not knowing that she was heading toward the Mao. The Sino-Russian sub was laying in wait thirty degrees