Warshot (The Hunter Killer Series Book 6) by Don Keith (dark books to read TXT) 📕

real quiet to be careful, or they are nearly to their destination and are going quiet to sneak in. Either way, we need to be extremely careful.” He pointed at the circle he had just drawn. “That circle has a ten-thousand-yard radius. We won’t go inside it without contact on them. The last thing we need is to go bumbling into their little party and get counter-detected. Or worse, have a fender-bender in the parking lot.”

“Skipper,” ST1 Hannon interrupted. “My guys just reported that the TAR board checked out fine. The twenty-nine is out of commission.”

The TB-29 towed array sonar used hydrophones attached to a cable trailing behind the submarine and was over a mile long. The design allowed the sensors to be distant from the noise of the submarine to enhance its ability to detect and track very faint contacts, but the wiring was complex and delicate. An engineer once described it as the same as taking a cell phone apart, stuffing it in a garden hose, and then expecting it to work when towed behind a ski boat. TB-29A system did not enjoy a reputation for high reliability.

“Great!” Edwards said, frustrated. “Damn thing is great when it works. It only decides not to work when we really, really need it to.” He turned to Wilson. “Mister Wilson, open out from our friends another ten thousand yards and come to periscope depth. We need to tell the boss the bad news.”

Ψ

CDR Chet Allison was standing on the conn on USS Boise. He watched as Lieutenant Juan Esteban worked with his watch section. There really was not a lot going on, but Allison knew the value of being out and about, “walking the deck-plates.” It was a practice he had learned from skippers under whom he had served. It was especially important right now. His inexperienced crew had been shot at, hurt, and then had successfully rescued the two pilots in a tense situation. Then they had been shot at and damaged again. It was important the crew saw that their commanding officer was not particularly worried about things, and above all, that he was calm and in charge. They needed to see that life was reasonably normal aboard the submarine. And that their performance during the whole episode had been completed successfully, just as they had been trained to do it.

CTF-74 had been decidedly unhappy when Allison told them that he took the time to pick up a couple of passengers. Evidently putting a US nuclear submarine at risk in the midst of someone else’s shooting war was something a CO should not do. That was especially egregious if that skipper had already put some dents in that boat by steaming her into the middle of that war.

His orders were curt and direct. He was to “immediately and without further delay” make best speed for Guam. And higher command would get to work trying to unscrew what Allison and Boise had so wonderfully screwed up.

Henrietta Foster stepped into the control room, her expression signaling what she was about to report.

“Skipper, we have a problem.”

“You have to be more specific, XO. Which problem are you talking about?” Allison shot back. “Problems, we got in abundant supply.”

“It’s those two pilots. Doc is in over his head,” Foster told him. “He has the Taiwanese pilot stabilized. He’s sedated and stable. Doc has him in stateroom one with one of the EMTs watching him. It’s the Chinese pilot that’s the problem.”

“Well, of course it is. Okay, let’s go talk to Doc and see what’s going on.”

The two made their way along the forward passageway and then down the ladder to middle level before heading back to the wardroom. When they got there, they saw that the space had been completely transformed from its normal function as a meeting room and dining area for the boat’s officers. It was now an emergency examination room, complete with powerful lights hanging over the wardroom table, transformed into an operating table. Medical supplies were lined up along the shelves while IV bags and tubes hung all about. A green oxygen bottle sat on the outboard lounge, its tube leading over to the injured pilot lying on the wardroom table.

Doc Hugh stood over his patient, a worried expression claiming his round, usually jovial face.

“Skipper, something’s wrong here. Something’s very wrong. He’s just not exhibiting the responses that I would expect based on what I know to be his injuries. His respiration is irregular, shallow and short. He keeps slipping in and out of consciousness. And he is not responding to the treatments I have been trying.”

Doc held up a tablet and swiped over to a particular screen.

“His symptoms keep pointing me here,” he said, tapping the page. The paragraph he indicated started out: “The meninges are the three membranes that encase the brain and spinal cord, the pia mater, arachnoid, and the dura mater.”

“I think he has either a subdural hematoma or a subarachnoid hemorrhage. Neither is good. This is a list of symptoms here. I discounted the headaches and nausea. After all, he did punch out of a jet at six hundred knots and swallowed a lot of seawater when he landed in it. But his motor responses are showing partial paralysis of the right arm. And to top it off, the language barrier isn’t helping and I don’t think he especially likes us.”

“What’s your best guess, Doc,” the XO asked him.

“I can’t tell from the symptoms which problem we have. I don’t have the equipment or training to tell them apart. Now look at this.” Doc Hugh pointed at the final paragraph of the explanation for subarachnoid hemorrhage. It said: “About one-third of all patients die from the initial hemorrhage, and a further fifteen to twenty percent die within the next month. It is therefore necessary to locate the area of bleeding as quickly as possible. Neurosurgery may repair the damage.”

“Truth is, I need to talk to a neurosurgeon and find out what to do,” Doc