SSN - Tom Clancy [51]
Six nautical miles away, or about 12,000 yards from Cheyenne's current position, the Chinese Kilo submarine was operating in its silent mode-running on its batteries. With no noise coming from their own ship, the Chinese sonar operators listened carefully to their low frequency sonar, searching the waters for the sound of any American vessels.
They heard nothing.
The Chinese had been loitering here, running silently on their batteries, for seventeen hours, keeping their depth shallow at 45 feet and their ears open. The captain was waiting for the Americans to walk into his trap.
After seventeen hours, however, the captain of the Kilo grew impatient. He'd had enough of this waiting. Slowly the Kilo pulled out of its hiding spot and began to pick up speed. Its captain had decided to make a run at six knots, slowly and quietly circling Discovery Great Reef, searching for any American naval vessels.
As soon as the Kilo moved, it lost its protection against American sonars, and Cheyenne heard it.
"Conn, sonar, we just reacquired Master 48. It's a Kilo, single six-bladed screw. It just increased speed to six knots and it's heading north."
A short time later a BSY-1 operator reported the Kilo's range, and Mack knew Cheyenne was in trouble. The Chinese submarine was only 11,000 yards away, which meant that Mack had unknowingly brought Cheyenne well within weapons range of the Chinese Kilo and her TEST-71 homing torpedoes.
"Make tubes one and two ready," Mack ordered. "But do not open the outer doors! He emphasized that. They were too close, and he didn't want to give the Kilo any chance of detecting their location.
"Make tubes one and two ready but do not open the outer doors, aye, sir."
Mack had a problem. He had the drop on the Kilo, but he didn't have much maneuvering room. If the Kilo got off a return shot, Cheyenne could be in trouble.
And that was the least of his worries. His bigger problem was his lack of intel. Were there other Chinese submarines out there? Naval intelligence said no-but they'd missed one already. Who was to say they hadn't missed more?
This was a problem because he would give away his position as soon as he fired on the Kilo-and even if that submarine didn't fire back, there could be others hiding in the shallow water waiting to pounce.
Captain Mackey ordered Cheyenne rigged for ultraquiet. He wanted every effort made to ensure that nothing alerted the Kilo to their location. Word was quickly passed to all compartments over the sound powered phones. Non-vital equipment was quickly secured. The crew whispered when they spoke, wondering what would be next.
On board the Chinese submarine, the captain was growing frustrated. He was assigned to keep watch for American submarines, but he knew that he would never hear them unless they were close enough to fire their Mk 48s. Even under ideal circumstances his passive sonar was never up to par with the American BSY-I system, but in these shallow waters his Russian passive sonar performance was even worse.
Frustrated, he ordered his sonar room to use their active sonar and ping the area, hoping to even out the playing field and get a better fix on his surroundings. He had no idea that the USS Cheyenne was attempting to close in on his position.
"Conn, sonar, the Kilo just went active on its fire-control sonar. He painted the entire area for us."
Mack knew immediately that this was good news as well as bad. It was bad because the Kilo now knew where Cheyenne was and had also received a firing solution. The good news, however, was that the active ping had given the same data to Cheyenne. Even more important, that one ping had lit up the murky waters of Discovery Great Reef like a flashlight. Thanks to that ping, Mack now knew that the Chinese Kilo was all alone.
Mack had the upper hand, but he wouldn't have it for long. He had to act fast-and act first.
He initiated the firing point procedures to attack the Kilo, Master 48. "Open the outer doors on tubes one and two," ordered Mack.
"Open the outer doors on