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Whoever Steinman and Donchez had sent would be coming from the south to attack the Destiny. It was just as well, he thought. His crew was bone tired — the ones still alive. The crew and ship were ready to go home. The boat would need about a year in the dry dock, maybe two if the shipyard moved up their next scheduled overhaul. Which meant that this would be his last trip with Phoenix. He had a year before being slated for relief, something that had seemed sufficiently distant that he had not given it much thought, but now it was becoming obvious that he was approaching one of the crossroads in his career. He had to decide what his future plans were. Should he remain in the Navy or leave for civilian life? With no more sea duty the equation came down to which desk job. He still felt he was too young to say goodbye to the sea, but—

“Conn, sonar, multiple torpedoes in the water! Bearing south!”

USS SEAWOLF

It seemed forever for the second batch of Mark 50s to warm up. If the ship had gone into combat without the Vortex tubes and had the old four Mark 50 tubes on the starboard side, the second volley of four torpedoes would have gone out immediately after the first. The ship could have a weapon out every forty-five seconds until all fifty were gone. Now there could be only twenty-four launched, in uneven batches of four at five-minute intervals. But he had cursed the Vortex system enough, Pacino thought.

“Tubes two and four ready, sir.”

“Firing-point procedures, tubes two and four,” Pacino commanded, listening to the sequence of reports as the battlestations team did their individual interlocking jobs.

Within ten seconds the tube launched and the smash of high-pressure air clanged throughout the ship, and fifteen seconds after that tube four sent its torpedo out into the sea. Pacino’s ears rang as Court announced that tubes six and eight were ready.

The launch litany was repeated for those two tubes, making eight torpedoes sent down the line to Target One.

“Mr. Court, get the port bank reloaded ASAP. Sonar, captain, what’s the status of Target One?”

“Impossible to say. Captain,” Holt’s voice said through the intercom circuit. “He’s completely masked by the Mark 50s. We have zero bearing separation. I’m calling loss of contact on Target One.”

“Conn, aye. Watch for a counterfire.”

Vaughn looked up at Pacino from the desk in front of the attack center.

“I don’t know. Skipper. It’s not like this guy to take four torpedoes and not shoot back. Maybe we should clear datum on general principles.”

“Hold on, XO. Phoenix launched a whole room against this guy. Granted only three fish locked on, but he still lived.

I want to unload as many weapons his way as I can. Court, what’s the status?”

“Still loading, sir.”

Still, Pacino thought, Vaughn was right. And he hadn’t mentioned the fact that Pacino had put the ship in a launching position so that the torpedoes were transiting down the line of sight. If he’d planned it he would have driven off the track so that the bearing to the torpedoes in transit would be separated from the target bearing, allowing him to monitor both during the attack. But there had been no time for that. Still, it was a tactical failure. Pacino wondered if they’d even be able to hear a counterfired Nagasaki torpedo through the noise of their own Mark 50s. At this point, it came down to how good Petty Officer Holt’s ears were.

CNFS HEGIRA

“The torpedoes could get here any moment. General. We must evade. And counterattack. Then we can shoot your Scorpion, there will be plenty of time …”

Colonel Ahmed looked at General Sihoud, hopeful that he would finally put the insubordinate commodore in his place, but to his disappointment Sihoud nodded, finally realizing he had no choice if they were to launch the missile and survive.

“Very well. Commodore. Evade the weapons and shoot back at the intruder. But be quick about it.”

“Tawkidi, abort the launch, evade to the north and warm up the Nagasakis in tubes ten and twelve,” Sharef said, thankful for at least a brief reprieve.

“Ship control,” Tawkidi ordered. “Emergency ahead, depth 400 meters, turn to course north. Sublieutenant al-Maari, power up the weapon in tubes ten and twelve. Sensor control, do we have a function report from the Second Captain on the SCM evasion sonar?”

Sublieutenant Rouni, on the sensor console, flipped through several graphic screens on the Second Captain display.

The longer he took, Sharef thought, the more certain it was that the SCM ventriloquist modules were down. Sharef might not even have thought to check, based on how heavily the aft damage had been from the initial American torpedo.

The deck rolled from the maneuver, then inclined downward.