SSN - Tom Clancy [77]
At daylight, McKee slacked its mooring lines to Arco for the flooding down of the drydock and the "dead stick" move of Cheyenne to outboard of McKee. For safety reasons, the two captains agreed not to load weapons while Cheyenne was still inside the drydock.
When the drydock was flooded and seawater systems were once again flooded and vented of any entrapped air, Cheyenne received the word "prepare to snorkel" and passed it along, internally, over the 1MC. With no current to contend with, this move went smoothly and safely. Cheyenne's diesel generator provided power to the emergency propulsion motor (EPM) and to the ship's vital electrical loads, which remained energized during "rig ship for reduced electrical power." Had this been done in San Diego, without Cheyenne's reactor power and steam in the engineering spaces, it would have required at least one tug, and maybe two if Cheyenne had needed to make the move at other than slack tide.
When Cheyenne was positioned properly, the combat systems officer, engineer officer, and their other division officers remained on board Cheyenne to take care of the weapons loading and reactor start-up preparations. Captain Mackey, along with his executive officer, operations officer, and navigator, proceeded to McKee's war room for their pre-underway briefing.
There was a new face at this meeting: the CSS 11 commodore was present-which, Mack knew, could mean major changes, or it could mean nothing. Either way, he'd know soon enough.
Once the formalities were out of the way, the briefing officer again took control of the meeting. He informed Mack and the other officers of Cheyenne that, with McKee no longer requiring air protection from the Carrier Battle Group, CINCPACFLT had decided to move Independence and his other surface forces to an area west of the Spratly Islands. USCINCPAC, with JCS approval, had concurred. Which meant that there would be a change in the location of Cheyenne's next patrol.
Mack's earlier orders had been to patrol south of the islands, but those orders were no longer valid. His new orders were for Cheyenne to transit to a patrol area located about four hundred nautical miles to the north- deep waters with which Cheyenne was now familiar. However, the briefing officer went on, if the inbound Akulas were detected heading for the Paracels, Cheyenne was expected to cut them off before the three Akulas from the North Fleet could resupply.
Captain Mackey, his executive officer, and Cheyenne's navigator all knew that this would introduce additional hazards to their mission. At the very least, they would have to contend with the neutral shipping and the oil rigs situated off the northern slopes of the Macclesfield Bank. Cheyenne had managed to avoid those problems during the last patrol by staying south of the banks, but that was no longer an option.
After relaying that information, the briefing officer brought up some older intel, emphasizing the information contained in Cheyenne's latest message traffic. In particular, he reminded them that the Akulas were not manned by inexperienced Chinese crews, but had come complete with their normal Russian crews, experienced with their own submarines. And, the briefing officer continued, since the protests from Washington were falling on deaf ears in Russia, Cheyenne was being tasked as an instrument of diplomacy: sink the Akulas and Russia would probably stop supplying assets, ships, and men to the Chinese.
Mack spoke up at that. With the dwindling supply of torpedoes aboard McKee, the tender was practically rationing them. For this foadout, Cheyenne was receiving