They were bad enough that tracking the ship had been near impossible. They’d lost contact again and again. At last, when the weather showed signs of abating, they had her-and the chance of taking her down.
“You know, Mr. Grey,” Willet mused, “we may not have to bother with this after all. Mother Nature might just do our job for us. It looks to me like the Dessaix is struggling.”
“Better safe than sorry, ma’am,” her XO cautioned.
“Of course. It was just a girlish whim.” She smiled, then her features took on an altogether somber cast. “Weapons?” she said crisply. “Confirm target lock and torpedo status.”
“Aye, ma’am. Both confirmed. And we’ve reached firing depth.”
“Well, then, let’s not drag it out. Open tubes.”
Though she couldn’t actually hear or feel it, she knew instinctively when the giant submarine had bared its fangs.
“Tubes three and four open, ma’am.”
Willet did not hesitate. “Fire.”
“Firing three. Firing four, skipper. Clean shots. Tracking now.”
The Combat Center was normally a hushed environment, but when a warshot was loosed, a preternatural stillness came over the dozen men and women working there. In the bad old days a sub captain would have followed the torpedoes to their victim by watching through a periscope. Just two years ago Willet herself would have observed the killing stroke on the ship’s holobloc, where the action would play itself out as a ghostly, three-dimensional image. But now all she had was a crude computer-generated simulation as her last pair of Type 92 torpedoes accelerated toward the hijacked French vessel that was struggling through the waves.