Dragon Fire (The Battle for the Falklands Book 2) by Peter von Bleichert

the
Squalls anxiously screamed through the water.
    Some
150 meters below the Squalls, two Type 53-65KE heavy wake-homing torpedoes
snaked their way through the darkness.   They had been released first, pushed from the San Luis II ’s tubes by high pressure air and spat into the
ocean.   The export version of the Type 53
heavy torpedo used HTP—a concentrated solution of hydrogen peroxide.   Once a catalyst was introduced, HTP decomposed
into a high-temperature mixture of oxygen and steam.   The oxygen allowed the weapon’s kerosene
turbine to breathe, with the steam vented outside the weapon’s casing.   This made the ‘53 a high-speed threat, and added
to the torpedoes wake of bubbles, created lots of noise.   (It also made the weapon very dangerous
should it start-up in the submarine’s tube.) Western navies had abandoned HTP
as a propellant for this very reason.   Despite these worries, however, San
Luis II ’s ‘53s worked as they should, and their contra-rotating propellers
accelerated them to some 44 knots.   All
the while, the sensors in the torpedoes’ noses got to work.
    Designed
to snake back and forth within the vee presented by
the wake of an enemy ship, the ‘53s would approach a target, and when proximate,
explode.   San Luis II ’s ‘53s hunted as designed, running straight and true
toward the hunk of steel they were programmed to hunt and kill: HMS Dragon .   They fell in behind the destroyer and began their meander up her wake.
    In
the pitch black beneath the ruckus of missile and torpedo launches, San Luis II was pointed down in a crash
dive.   She had released a second noisemaker
and would soon pass 180 meters, the depth at which San Luis II had released her wake-homing torpedoes.
    “Enemy
torpedo at three-zero-zero degrees.   Bearing:
one-zero-three degrees.   Weapon is
diving.   Rapid change in bearing and
depth indicative of a helical search pattern,” San Luis II ’s sonar technician reported.   “Screw pitch suggests it’s a Stingray acoustic
homing light-weight torpedo.”
    “Hotel
1,” Ledesma added.   “The Merlin…”
    “Bow
planes at 20 degrees,” a voice came from the shadows of the Control
Center.
    “Two
hundred fifty meters.   I am headed for
300 meters,” another added.
    “Sir,
batteries now at nine percent.”
    “ Mierda ,” Captain
Matias mumbled.   Three decks down, in the
confines of the battery deck, Raton scurried about on his sled.   Using the hull’s down angle, he slid along over the tops of the battery cells, braked over the
bank that had been soaked by salt water, and locked his sled in place.   The last of the water had drained into the
bilge and then into one of the boat’s starboard tanks.   He made his way to the shunt and, swallowing
hard, snapped the disconnect switch.
    “Sir,
batteries back at 17 percent” shouted a voice from above.
    “Bravo,
Raton,” Ledesma stated, with a pump of his fist.
    BANG, San Luis II complained.
    “Approaching
three hundred meters.”
    “Planes
to five degrees.”
    “Aye,
sir, my planes are at five degrees down,” the planesman reported.
    THUNK.   CRACK.   Everyone except Ledesma and Matias squirmed as San Luis II ’s high-tensile steel shell adjusted to the squeeze of
the ocean.
    “A
deadly hug,” Matias quipped with a crooked smile.
    “Three
hundred.”
    “Planes
to zero.   All stop, both turbines,” The
captain ordered.   Ledesma echoed the
words.
    “Answers
all stop, sir,” said the helmsman.
    Captain
Matias looked around the confines of San
Luis II ’s Control Center.   Our tomb .   He studied the red-lit
tangle of wires, pipes, dials, and lights.   Matias cursed the narcissism of those who believed they had all the
answers.   He swore at the sociopathic
tendencies of his leaders—the leaders that had ordered him to engage in this
folly—and he cursed those who had sent his son to death.   As these thoughts played out in his mind, his
outward appearance remained one