Charles Taylor - Boomer

Simonds picked up a set of headphones and pulled them over his ears. “Can I hear it?” he asked, his voice an octave higher.

“How about it, Billy? You got anything on that contact for the XO?”

“A little faint, Chief,” the sonarman responded, “but it’s there.” He looked over his shoulder. “Got it, sir?”

The XO pushed his glasses up again. “You’re yanking my chain.” He glared over the top of his glasses at the chief before looking back down at the sonarman named Billy. “Am I really supposed to be hearing something?”

“Actually, XO, that’s pretty clear, considering how long we’ve been dry. I’d bet we had a sudden change in sonar conditions — maybe when we rose above three hundred feet — and that’s what made it so unusual. It may not mean anything to you, but we’ve been in outer space for so long in here that this contact sounds like a bell to us.”

“What’s our depth now?” Simonds asked.

“Two hundred eighty feet. We’ve been level for about the last thirty minutes.”

“Keep at it, Chief.” The XO was already out into the control room. “Hold your depth,” he said as he passed the OOD. “I’m getting the captain. And don’t change a goddamn thing. Just thread the needle like you’re doing as long as sonar’s holding him.”

Ben Steel had eventually decided it was unbecoming to display his growing anxiety in any other space on Manchester. His solution had been to hide in his stateroom, perhaps catch up on paperwork, or that had been his excuse to Peter Simonds. When the XO raised his hand to knock on the bulkhead, he heard, “Come on in. I’ve been sitting here with my thumb inserted, staring at all this paper and wondering when someone was going to tell me to switch.”

“Looks like your idea to reverse the search pattern paid off. Contact off to port. Chief says sonar conditions appear exceptional right now.” The excitement mirrored on his face was contagious.

Steel slapped the top of the desk with the flat of one hand, then lifted it up with both and slammed it shut. There was a clatter as the contents fell inside. “What is it, Peter? Our boomer, I hope.”

“Could be, Captain. Sonar’s positive it isn’t biologicals. Moroney seems to think it’s a submarine.”

“Where’s my cap?” Steel pushed the chair back and stood up, his eyes searching for his baseball hat.

Simonds pushed his glasses back and grinned. “Don’t need one, Captain. Anyway, I think it fell in there.” He pointed at the closed desk. “I wouldn’t open that now if I were you.”

“You got a deal.” Steel rubbed his hands together excitedly. “Let’s hit it.” He placed a hand on Simonds’s arm and smiled broadly. “They will let me into sonar now, won’t they?”

“I’ll give you the password if they do ask, Captain.” He stepped into the passageway ahead of Steel. “But Moroney’s so excited now he’d probably invite the mess cooks in.”

They entered the control room and made the sharp left to sonar without a word to the OOD or the watch standers. The sonar room was no different than before. The bluish glow revealed Chief Moroney and his duty sonarmen concentrating quietly on their equipment. Their passive listening devices swallowed a profusion of sounds from the ocean — Manchester’ s, the sea life around them, and that of the contact. The unpracticed ear would have heard nothing unusual. But that specific sound they had searched for was separated electronically, the background sounds filtered out. As it became isolated for their analysis and fed through computers for identification, it was also recorded. Skilled sonarmen with unique auditory and technical abilities were required for such exacting work. Their silence, their intense concentration in the midst of the sounds they were analyzing, was a measure of this special talent.

Chief Moroney remained unaware that anyone was behind him. The sonarmen communicated with their hands. Touch was a means of drawing attention. Pointing at a graphic display where the sound indeed appeared as a waterfall, or a switch, even tapping their own headset to indicate there was something coming through that required more than one set of ears, was a part of their silent language. The chief was the conductor, orchestrating the capture of these sounds neither the captain nor the executive officer could hear.

Steel resisted an overwhelming urge to ask questions.

Moroney reached behind to turn on a switch and instead found his hand resting on Simonds’s belly. Even then he was preoccupied, reaching around the XO to flip the switch. Only then did he recognize Steel. “Oh, didn’t know you were here, Captain.”

Steel resisted the urge to ask for one of the headsets. He wasn’t sure what to say. “We might take a shot at whatever you have, Chief, if it’s one of the bad guys. Within range yet?” he added lamely.

“Limited target motion right now, sir. I think it’s just good sonar conditions. It’s not strong enough to be that close.”

“You still think you’ve got a submarine there?”

“Has to be.”

“Our boomer?”

Moroney looked up at Steel thoughtfully and shook his head “I don’t think so, Captain.”

“There’s only one other choice then,” Simonds muttered. “The bad guy that’s after him.”

“Why don’t you move into control, Peter, and set up for an attack—”

“Captain,” Moroney interrupted, his voice strangely tense. “I can’t identify a Russian sub here. It’s far enough away so only the computer could possibly identify it, so I’ve been comparing this to the tapes we’ve got, and it’s definitely not one of their latest — not an Akula, or Sierra, and I don’t think it’s an Alfa or Victor either. Billy’s been running it against the best we have for an Akula signature, and I don’t think so….” His voice drifted off as he replaced the headset. “I’ll run them all again to be double sure.…”

Simonds hadn’t yet gone into control. “It has to be one of them, Captain. No one else is operating out here, and there’s no reason anyway for any of our friends to be near our boomers.”

Steel put a finger to his lips. He could sense the strain on Moroney. “Where’s David?” he asked the XO.

“Right outside by the console.” David Hall was the sonar officer. “He stuck his head in when you were talking with the chief and said he’d stick out there until there was more space in here.”

“Go on out there and get set up, and send David in. He’s spent a lot of time on these tapes. Maybe he can come up with something that the others have missed.”

Chief Moroney looked up as Hall slipped into the tiny room. “Here, Mr. Hall.” He stood up and handed the headset to the officer. “You take a shot at this. I’ll bet my left nut that’s no Russian boat out there. Shit, I’ll put ‘em both on the line.”

“What do you think you got, Chief?”

“Please, sir, just tell me I’m right about the Russian thing first.” Moroney’s forehead was knit in a frown.

The sonar officer operated exactly as his chief had, playing the recording of their contact again and again for his own benefit. Then he fed it into the computer for analysis against their tapes of comparable Soviet submarines.

Steel fidgeted, folding and unfolding his arms, then shifting his weight from one foot to the other. It was pure frustration to be a fifth wheel on your own ship. Most of this time, Hall’s eyes were closed in concentration, opening only when he flipped switches. At one time Steel was sure he heard the other whisper to himself—”You’re right, Chief — but he knew it wasn’t his place to ask any questions then. Moroney, who was standing right behind the sonar officer, seemed oblivious to the captain.