Sea of Shadows eBook - Navy Thriller.com

322 JEFF EDWARDS
The Officer of the Deck began punching buttons rapidly, programming
the mobile decoys as his kapitan had ordered. His hands trembled as he
worked. Five knots? They should be racing away at flank speed, not
waiting for the torpedo to catch them!
“The American torpedo is too close,” Gröeler said. “There is no time
to run. It will catch us before we go a thousand meters. Our only chance
is to fool it.”
“Launching mobile decoys, now!” the Officer of the Deck reported.
There was another pair of hisses and thumps as the second set of
countermeasures was ejected.
“Excellent,” Gröeler said. “Diving Officer, ten degrees up-angle on the
bow planes. Make your depth twenty-five meters.”
“Diving Officer, aye! Sir, my bow planes are up ten degrees. Coming
to new depth two-five meters.”
“Steady on new course three-one-zero,” the Helmsman called out.
“Very well,” Gröeler said. He looked at his Officer of the Deck. “We
give the torpedo two static noisemakers to activate its anti-countermeasure
algorithm.” He spoke in a quiet, unhurried voice, as though unaware that
death was rushing toward them. “Then we give it a pair of mobile
decoys—not so easily identifiable. The torpedo is faced with two invalid
targets and three possibly valid targets. Two of them move slowly and do
not seem to be actively evading. The third moves away at high speed.”
The American torpedo was close enough now to be heard with the
naked ear. The growling whine of its high-speed screws resonated through
the hull of the submarine like the buzzing of an insanely powerful electric
razor. The sound grew rapidly louder as the torpedo approached.
The Officer of the Deck’s eyes darted frantically around the control
room, as though searching for somewhere to run. There was, of course,
nowhere to go. “The torpedo …” His voice came out in a squeak. He
stopped himself and tried again. “The torpedo will acquire the high-speed
decoy and attack it instead of us?”
Utterly calm, Gröeler turned back to the tactical display. “I estimate
that we will find out the answer to that question in approximately one
minute.”