Submarine Warriors: The Enemy Beneath by Rob Tiffany Page A

slowly picking himself up off the deck.
    “ I’m on it, sir,” replied the Chief.
    A minute later, backup lighting flickered to life.
    The Admiral picked up his sound-powered phone since it didn’t need electricity to work. “All sections send in casualty and damage reports,” he uttered into the receiver, as he dialed up every compartment on the sub.
    One by one, reports came in from all over the sub. There were a number of bumps and bruises, but no serious damage to the ship. Then the report the Admiral most wanted came over his sound-powered phone.
    “ Conn, Maneuvering, the reactor’s fine and I’m bringing propulsion back online,” the Eng reported.
    “ That’s music to my ears, Eng,” replied the Admiral.
    After what seemed like an eternity of silence, the welcome hum of the turbines was felt throughout the sub, bringing with it electricity and a spinning propeller to move the Alaska forward. Clapping and a little whistling could be heard by the delighted crew.
    “ Granddad, whatever was pulling us down before isn’t doing it anymore.” Caroline looked back at the Admiral.
    “ It appears that our torpedo did its job and took out that magnetic tractor beam,” Admiral Connery said with a smile on his face.
    “ This is so awesome!” yelled out Mike. “We’re on a real submarine and we just blew something up. This is better than the movies.”
    “ No doubt,” Nick echoed. “My friends are going to freak out when they hear we took out a tractor beam without the help of Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

    USS Seawolf
    “ Did you hear that?” a Sonarman asked the Chief next to him. “I’ve locked on an underwater explosion whose coordinates match the ones that we’re heading to.”
    The Chief picked up the sound-powered phone.
    “ Conn, sonar, reporting an explosion at our target coordinates,” the Chief announced.
    “ Sonar, Conn, aye,” replied the Officer of the Deck.
    “ Chief of the Watch, float the buoy,” the Officer of the Deck ordered. “We have an important transmission to make.”
    “ Float the buoy, aye,” replied the Chief of the Watch.
    “ Radio, Conn, when the buoy is at transmit depth, contact the Abraham Lincoln and tell them we have a submerged explosion at the same coordinates as our target destination,” the Officer of the Deck said. “Tell them to have the battle group make their best speed to this location. Something’s going on down there and there’s no time to waste.”

    The White House
    “ Mr. President, I just received a message from Pearl saying that SOSUS nets and sonars from multiple Pacific fleet submarines have detected a significant underwater explosion at the same coordinates as the original unidentified heat anomaly,” the NSA announced. “The last known track of the USS Alaska, plus the NCIS confession report from the Hood Canal Bridge co-conspirators, leads us to believe that the sub was headed to the same location. The Abraham Lincoln battle group is en route to the coordinates as we speak.”
    “ First a cruise ship, then the Omaha Beach and now the Alaska.” The President sounded exasperated. “I met those so-called co-conspirators at a staged funeral for their husbands in Arlington. Things are starting to unravel around us.”

    Ocean Floor
    The explosion rocked the Underworlder’s crystalline structure. In the containment cell near the tip of the pyramid, the immobilized submarine sailors felt the same underwater shockwave that had tossed their children around in the Alaska.
    “ I wonder if someone’s trying to fight for us?” Lieutenant Wyatt thought to himself.
    USS Alaska
    “ Sonar, how deep is the ocean here?” asked Admiral Connery.
    “ Pretty shallow, just a thousand feet, sir,” the Sonarman replied after taking a sounding.
    “ Use the downward scanning sonar to give me a map of the ocean floor and let me know if you detect anything unusual,” Admiral Connery added.
    The Alaska stopped moving and used its hovering computer to stay