Sea of Shadows eBook - Navy Thriller.com

USS TOWERS (DDG-103)
NORTHERN ARABIAN GULF
TUESDAY; 22 MAY
0328 hours (3:28 AM)
TIME ZONE +3 ‘CHARLIE’
CHAPTER 50
The noise was incredible. Steaming at her maximum (damaged) speed
of twenty-three knots, the Towers was generating an unholy racket. True
to the Chief Engineer’s prediction, the port screw was howling like a
banshee, but the damaged propeller wasn’t the only voice singing in the
choir. Every pump, every fan unit, and every piece of engineering
equipment was running at maximum speed. And (where possible) the
acoustic suppression systems had been disabled. On the bottom of the
hull, the masker belts, which were designed to inject low-pressure air into
the sea to acoustically decouple the ship’s engine noise from the water,
had been turned off. The prairie air system, which performed a similar
function for the ship’s propeller signature by injecting air through tiny
capillaries in the propeller blades, had also been turned off. In the galley,
the garbage disposal was running continuously, as were the paper
shredders in Radio Central. The decibel level was so high that the Chief
Hospital Corpsman had asked the captain to issue an order requiring all
crew members to wear earplugs.
The noise levels in CIC were slightly lower, but only slightly.
“So much for that stealth bit,” the TAO said.
The captain cupped a hand to an ear and shouted, “What?”
The TAO opened his mouth to repeat himself, but the captain held up a
hand. “Just kidding. I heard you.”
“Do you think this is working?” the TAO asked.
The captain shrugged. “Hard to say. We haven’t gotten our asses
blown off, so I guess that’s a good sign.”
“That’s what I keep telling myself, sir,” the TAO said. “And then I
catch myself straining to hear the sound of high-speed screws. Sometimes
I think I can hear a torpedo approaching, but it always turns out to be my
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