Arabian Storm (The Hunter Killer Series Book 5) by George Wallace (different ereaders .txt) 📕

problems. All systems are performing within parameters. They request permission to dive and to begin submerged trials.”

Arman Dirbaz nodded and smiled as he listened to the report. The test schedule was going very well. As far as he could tell, the submarine was performing extremely well for a brand-new design.

“Very well,” he responded. “Signal Boz-Manand to submerge to periscope depth and conduct initial submerged tests. Report tests completed before going below twenty meters depth.”

Godonov smiled. “You are like a mother hen. You are hesitant to allow your baby chick out of your sight.”

“Were it only possible to directly observe submerged trials!” Dirbaz responded. His eyes never left the sub’s sail as it began to disappear.

A kilometer away, the Iranian submarine was sliding below the waves for the first time. And as it did, it passed over a second acoustic detector. The analysts in Dam Neck listened intently in near real time to the noises of the boat diving.

But then the acoustic data subtly changed. Astern of the submarine, a pair of small UUVs rose from the sea floor and maneuvered so they were less than a meter from the Boz-Manand. At that point, they each fired what looked like small cannons. The 20mm super-cavitating projectile that each one had unleashed used sheer speed and mass to blow a one-inch-diameter hole right through the submarine’s thick pressure hull.

One of the projectiles then tumbled through a series of electronic switchgears. The other blasted into the crew’s mess compartment, spraying deadly molten shrapnel.

Seawater, shoved by its own immense pressure, poured in through the two holes at more than a hundred gallons per minute. Electronic equipment, switchboards, and controllers, unexpectedly doused in saltwater, arced and sparked before tripping offline, causing fires to break out. The inexperienced crew, in one awful, unanticipated instant, faced both fire and flooding, the two worst fears of any submariner. In panic, most of them had no idea what to do. So they did nothing but cower hopelessly where they were, waiting for someone to tell them.

A few of the slightly more experienced—or braver—attempted to stop the flooding or put out the fires. Others tried to help their wounded shipmates.

The captain, taken off guard as much as his crew, shakily ordered the ship to emergency surface. But he was a half second slower than the chief standing by the control panel who had already hit the emergency surface actuator.

In seconds, the Boz-Manand bobbed out of the sea. A few seconds later the pumps started. The submarine was no longer in danger of sinking as long as there was power for the pumps. But the fire and water damage had destroyed the controllers for the main motors. The boat sat motionless on the glass-calm sea, unable to move under its own power. Smoke poured out of the bridge hatch as it was opened from inside.

Shaken and scared, the captain grabbed the radio microphone and screamed, “We are under attack! The Americans have attacked us!”

Dirbaz stood at the tug’s rail, aghast at the scene playing out a few hundred yards away. He could only watch and wonder what catastrophe had befallen his pride and joy. He slammed his fist against the wood even as he came to the same knee-jerk conclusion as the submarine’s captain. “They will pay! The damned Americans will pay for this with blood!”

As this drama on the other side of the world played out, the acoustic sensors recorded it all, faithfully and impassively conveying the information back home.

Ψ

Admiral Tom Donnegan grabbed the red phone before the second ring. It was never good news when the red phone rang. He listened for a few seconds before exploding.

“God almighty! What the hell do you mean ‘attacked!’ Who the hell attacked an Iranian submarine on sea trials inside their own territorial waters! Damn! Damn! Damn!”

Donnegan slammed down the phone hard enough to crack it.

“But we sure as hell know who’ll get blamed for it,” he muttered. Then, he yelled to his aide, “Get me the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and SECDEF on the red phone right now!”

Ψ

The Motor Vessel Jia Yang, at almost two hundred thousand tons displacement, was a floating, self-contained city. The world’s largest deep-sea research ship, ostensibly designed and operated by the Shanghai Ocean University, the Jia Yang could perform many missions in which knowledge about the world’s ocean depths could be discovered. More than two thousand of China’s brightest, most promising engineers and scientists called the massive ship home for many months at a time, though few knew the full scope of the ship’s responsibilities.

Her huge, almost five-story-tall diesel engines could drive the ship at better than twenty-five knots around the world without refueling, while her dynamic position-keeping system could hold the Jia Yang over one specific spot on the ocean floor for months at a time. And it could do this to within centimeters of accuracy in almost any sea state.

The Jia Yang had been utilizing that dynamic position-keeping system for the last several weeks while operating deep in the Arabian Sea. At fifteen degrees, fifty-four minutes north latitude and sixty-two degrees, twenty-seven minutes east longitude, the Jia Yang was located almost equidistant from Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula and Goa, India. She was almost a thousand miles from either. More importantly to the Chinese, geologic research had revealed strong hints of vast mineral resources hidden in the earth’s crust beneath these deep waters. Despite strong protests from the Indian government through the usual diplomatic channels and impassioned speeches before mostly empty seats at the United Nations, the Chinese economic machine remained doggedly intent on investigating and exploiting this promising find. Jia Yang would not be disengaging her position-keeping system anytime soon as it continued to make measurements to confirm the “advance of global climate change,” its stated reason for being there.

The ship had actually been dispatched to map the extent and true nature of the mineral find. Her deep-water UUVs and ROVs spread out thousands of fathoms