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

To get closer to where he had just seen the helicopter pick up some warriors while others hurried to hide themselves from whatever birds might be passing overhead.

Lord, he thought, I hope Abdul remembers to get onions on my Big Mac.

And then he prayed that his partner did not accidentally encounter those dangerous-looking thugs he had just watched get lost among the outcroppings and boulders.

Ψ

Joe Glass stood at the forward door to USS Toledo’s Machinery One compartment. It was a mess. The pungent, acrid odor of smoke mixed with the normal amine smell that still hung heavy in the air. The lighting was very dim, the fixtures heavily discolored from the smoke and fire. Temporary lights hanging from the overhead gave the space a surreal look.

The engineer in Glass’s nature was more than the CO could suppress. His ship was hurt. Injured while they were at sea. Damaged as they were performing an important mission. There was no thought of turning back toward Diego Garcia and the waiting tender that could fix what was broken. No, they would do their best and heal the ship themselves. Fight hurt if they needed to.

But right now, Glass knew he had to see that his crew had everything they needed to repair her.

Chief Johannson had set his team of machinist mates to work. Their priorities were clear. The emergency diesel generator was first on the list. Chief Johannson put three of his best people to the task of carefully disassembling and inspecting the big, smoke-streaked machine. The diesel completely filled the center part of Machinery One with only a narrow passage on either side. There was hardly room for the men to work, let alone for anyone else to squeeze past them. Inspection covers had been removed, allowing access to the machine’s deepest innards. The machinists meticulously inspected every component from the injectors to the turbocharger. It was maddeningly slow and dirty work, disassembling, measuring, and then re-assembling the complex contraption.

Over on the after-port side of the tiny space, Chief Gromkowsky let loose the occasional colorful expletive as his electricians slowly worked to take apart the fire-ravaged CO-H2 burners. Without them, maintaining breathable air inside the big vessel would be difficult. Number one burner was badly charred and appeared to be beyond repair. But at least there was a sliver of hope that they might be able to fix—or at least jury-rig—number two and get it back into operation. But it was going to require time and effort. The complicated electronic controls were in bad shape from the fire, but the seawater used to douse it had done its own special kind of damage, too.

Voltmeters, oscilloscopes, and pages of schematic drawings littered the small amount of horizontal space. Chief Gromkowsky was reading from an electronic tech manual screen, calling out voltages and wave forms that were supposed to be present at various points within the electronics. One of his electricians, dangling almost upside down and contorted around the piping, succeeded in getting the probes to the right test points, but it took another electrician to read and call out the results.

A young seaman stepped into Machinery One and approached Glass.

“Captain, Officer of the Deck sends his respects and reports that sonar has regained contact on Sierra Three-Four on towed array broadband. He requests you come to control.”

Joe Glass reluctantly nodded, squeezed his way out of the compartment, and hopped up the ladders to the control room. There he burst into another quiet hive of activity. Jerry Perez, the Nav, was standing watch as the officer of the deck and was busily supervising the section tracking party from where he stood on the starboard side of the periscope stand. Master Chief Wallach, the chief of the boat, sat in the diving officer’s chair, calmly sipping on a cup of coffee as he kept an eye on his ship control party. XO Billy Ray Jones was in the aft corner of Toledo’s control room, watching the well-practiced choreography play out as he spoke with Doc Halliday.

Perez saw Joe Glass walk in and quickly stepped over to where the CO had stopped to flip through the sonar displays on the control room BQQ-10 display. Glass, eyes on the monitor screen, did not even look at him.

“What you got, Nav?”

“Captain, on course north, speed twelve. Hold sonar contact Sierra Three-Four, bearing three-zero-seven, drawing left. Classified possible heavy warship. Minimum cross-bearing range is ten thousand yards. Best solution range forty thousand, course two-nine-zero, speed fifteen. I intend to maneuver to course west and then spiral in behind him at best covert speed.”

Glass nodded and half grinned. This agreed precisely with what he was seeing on the display. Perez had just given him a precise, accurate, and professional report, exactly as he had been trained to do. That was one reason Joe Glass trusted the man with his own life, as he did most of the other members of the submarine’s crew.

“Keep an eye on the relative speed in the line-of-sight,” Glass advised. “Unless he is on a broader course than your solution, you’ll have to speed up to close if you are only holding him on the towed array.” Glass glanced at the recommended solution on the fire control system. It looked pretty good. But he well knew that there were an infinite number of solutions that would “look good.” Only one of them would be correct. Choosing the wrong answer could allow the quarry to slip away. Or even worse, turn the hunter into the hunted.

“Come broad on him at something like two-two-zero. Get a leg and lock in a good solution. Then let’s sprint in until we hold him on the sphere,” Glass directed. “Then it’ll be a whole lot easier to spiral in and track this guy.”

Perez understood his skipper’s suggestions perfectly.

As Glass walked aft to the navigation stand, he heard Perez order, “Left full rudder, steady course two-two-zero.” Then the CO felt the big boat heel ever