"Torpedo No. 1 is still circling and searching. It should have moved from bottom to top. Torpedo No. 2 has locked onto us again. It will arrive in about three minutes, bearing 170."
"Keep the course, continue to move forward at full speed, and don't stop searching with active sonar." Academician Wang is determined not to give up and still wants to get under the ice floe. He still hopes that the sonar can find some opportunities. One thing is true.
Under the current situation, unless something is found on the ice floe or the bottom of the sea, the Taishan will not be able to pass the three torpedoes with just one decoy bomb.
No one in the command module spoke anymore, just waiting for Su Qin in the sonar room to report.
"Torpedo No. 3 bearing 040, 60 seconds." Unfortunately, what awaited was not good news.
"Torpedo No. 2 arrived in 110 seconds, bearing 155. Torpedo No. 1 broke away from circling, bearing 165, and the estimated arrival time is three minutes."
"Stop active sonar scanning!" Academician Wang had to give up. Continuing to use active sonar to search was not so much about continuing to try his luck as it was about indicating the target for the torpedoes.
Fortunately, the Taishan has basically passed through the area covered by ice floes. If it drives forward for about a minute, there should be no ice floes above its head.
What to do next? In fact, Academician Wang has a good new idea.
"I'll steer the ship." Academician Wang kicked Xu Siqi out of the helmsman's position.
"Go to the sonar room and replace Su Qin. I have a task for him."
"I don't know how to operate sonar at all." Xu Siqi, who was a little relieved just now, was immediately startled and declared quickly.
"Captain! Do you want to activate this?"
"Yes! You prepare first, and then suddenly start at the last moment!" What else can provide better maneuverability than a spacecraft core that can ignore inertia?
It seems that inertia cannot be completely ignored without opening the protective cover? But there is always nothing to say about the strong motivation.
"Torpedo No. 3 bearing 045, 30 seconds." The computer has been continuously calculating and marking the torpedo's track, but now it has been changed to Xu Siqi's verbal announcement.
Xu Siqi's voice sounded smooth and steady. For a pilot, 30 seconds is a long time, even if he has just experienced a torpedo attack.
"Prepare the bait bombs! Fill the torpedo tubes with water." Academician Wang immediately called the forward torpedo room.
"Open the outer cover of the torpedo tube and start filling with water." Zhao Rongguang answered almost immediately.
"Torpedo No. 2 has a bearing of 145 and a distance of 70 seconds. Torpedo No. 1 has a bearing of 160 and a distance of 100 seconds." Xu Siqi simply took the second as the distance unit on his own initiative, which is quite intuitive.
It seems that although the three torpedoes did not arrive together this time, it can still be regarded as a wheel battle. It is absolutely impossible to survive with just one decoy bomb, but Academician Wang does not intend to admit defeat.
He felt that he should at least try to use decoy bombs to throw off a torpedo. Besides, once the core of the spacecraft was activated, although its maneuverability was superior, who knew whether it would have any impact on the sonar.
Don't be blind again by then, so Academician Wang decided to strive to have one less torpedo around when the core of the spacecraft is activated.
"Target No. 3's position will remain unchanged for 20 seconds." Xu Siqi's voice finally became a little nervous.
"Decoy bomb, launch." This time Academician Wang did not deliberately point the bow of the boat in the direction of the torpedo attack. He decided to play a less risky but precise operation.
The decoy bomb rushed out of the torpedo tube, advanced at high speed for a certain distance, then slowed down and began to play camouflaged audio to the surroundings.
It was only then that Academician Wang turned the rudder all the way to the right, and at the same time issued an order to the aft cabin.
"Double car park, and bubbles! As many bubbles as possible."
As the order was given, the deck beneath his feet began to tremble slightly.
Finally, Academician Wang turned to Su Qin.
"Can you use that thing to give a small boost? Don't care about the direction. It's just pushing from back to front. It doesn't matter if you don't. We can slide hundreds of meters just like this."
Academician Wang has directly issued a stop order at this time, but he actually hopes that the Taishan will continue to move forward. As long as it is quiet enough and if there are enough air curtain bombs, he will not order the motor to stop. Fortunately, there is another option now.
But before Su Qin could answer, the boat suddenly shook violently, followed by a feeling of weightlessness, and then a voice on the intercom exclaimed loudly.
"The depth has increased dramatically! We may have encountered a sea cliff! Captain, what should we do?" Before Academician Wang could answer, the voice immediately began to make its own decisions again.
"Drain all ballast water tanks and refloat urgently!"
"Don't be nervous, the water here is not deep." The seabed of more than 300 meters actually exceeded the diving limit of the Taishan, but Academician Wang still had confidence in his old buddy, but when he took a look Depth table, still shocked.
Isn’t the fixed depth 50? It’s almost 100 all of a sudden.
But there's something more wrong! That feeling of weightlessness is still there! But why don't the numbers on the depth gauge move?
"The depth gauge is out of order!" The person in charge of controlling the diving depth in the mechanical and electrical department of the back warehouse didn't know who he was, and he was really panicking now.
"It feels like the depth is still increasing. Captain, what should we do now? All ballast tanks are being drained and are basically empty now."
How is this possible? unless……
Academician Wang turned back to look at Su Qin, who looked innocent.
"The core of the spacecraft hasn't started yet."
"If it doesn't start, then start it quickly. Now we can only rely on it. There is no time to find the fault." Academician Wang made a prompt decision. He felt that this was enough to solve the problem, so he immediately turned his attention back to the torpedo.
"Report the location of the incoming torpedo!" Academician Wang is now at the helmsman's position, and he cannot see the battle display.
"The sonar has no signal." Xu Siqi answered honestly in the sonar room.
"How is that possible?" Academician Wang was shocked, but he still endured it for a while. Seeing that Su Qin had already started operating at the chart table, he stood up and rushed into the sonar room, grabbed a pair of headphones and put them on his head.
There was a crackling sound in the earphones. It didn't sound like electronic noise or equipment malfunction. It sounded like the sound of bursting bubbles, especially to a submarine officer like Academician Wang who had used air curtain grenades in drills. , simply inexplicably familiar.
"Is the electromechanical warehouse still exhausting?" Academician Wang had to grab the intercom and ask. This was like a ghost. Where did so much compressed air come from to make them buzz, but the effect was pretty good.
"It stopped a long time ago. We are busy draining water now. Do we need to continue to vent?" The voice over there suddenly became nervous, probably because of the incoming torpedo.
