Unheard, Unseen... An Excerpt

Here is an excerpt from the exciting novel, Unheard, Unseen…

“Okay Brad, let’s give her a few moments and be sure.” Mike was confident that the noise generated by Salt Lake City’s escape was probably confusing the surface ship’s sonar and he hoped that by going quiet, the escorts might just chase after their own submarine.
The thick acoustic tiles covering Corner Brook’s hull would not reflect sound waves from anyone at a distance, and he was hoping they hadn’t lost any of them on the voyage down here. Someone had to come up with a better adhesive for those things. Worse of all, the holes created by any missing tiles created noise at almost any speed as the water flowed over them.
“Fredericton has changed course. She’s heading after the other boat sir!” Brad nearly fell out of his chair turning towards the captain. He was excitedly watching the line representing the Canadian frigate start to grow fainter on his scope. Too bad for her sonar team, but they should have known better. Skimmer ears, he thought. Sad bunch. Maybe someday he’d go over and offer to teach them a few things. More likely he’d find himself treading water in Halifax harbour if he did.
“Brad, how far to the carrier?”
“A bit over twenty-one hundred yards sir. Solution is locked in. He’s ours.”
“Weapons, open outer doors on one and two. You have the solution.”
This was it, Mike thought. All their hard work and the best engineering minds in the navy had come down to this moment. He listened and watched as Brad made sure his headset was perfectly adjusted over his ears, avoiding the tendency to push them down lest he start hearing his own pulse amongst the sounds coming through the microphones arrayed along the hull and down the ‘tail’.
“Nothing sir,” Brad whispered, looking to his right to make sure the CO heard him.
They had worked. The outer doors on the bow of the submarine had opened without a sound on their newly designed hinges, while the updated complex plumbing had allowed the tubes to fill with water without a single swish of noise. In the past, the sound of water flooding a submarine’s torpedo tubes or the opening of the tube doors were easily picked up by sonar operators anywhere in the area.
The weapons officer was watching the displays in front of him and noted the green lights flashing on the panel just above his head.
“Tubes one and two, ready sir. Connect test on both ‘fish’ positive,” he informed the captain. It was crucial that the computer ran a quick test to make sure the tiny wires attached to the torpedoes were connected properly, or a very expensive piece of hardware would be totally useless the moment it left the tube. Down these wires would travel the control signals from the submarine, giving the torpedo its course to target as it tore through the water.
“Sonar, one hundred percent power! Hit her!”

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