"Just backed off on the power, sir, blade count is coming down."

"Yeah, he knows there's nothing after him, now. We'll give him a call on the Gertrude."

"That dumbass! Doesn't he know that there may be an Akula around here?" the Commanding Officer of USS Omaha growled.

"We don't show him, sir, just a bunch of fishing boats."

"Okay. Secure from general quarters. We'll let Maine have her little laugh." He grimaced. "My fault. We should have been trolling along at ten instead of fifteen knots. Make it so."

"Aye, sir. Where to?"

"The boomer ought to have a feel for what's north of here. Go southeast."

"Right."

"Nice reaction, Nav. We might have evaded the fish. Lessons?"

"You said it, sir. We were going too fast."

"Learn from your captain's mistake, Mr Auburn."

"Always, sir."

The skipper punched the younger man's shoulder on the way out.

Thirty-six thousand yards away, the Admiral Lunin was drifting at three knots just over the thermocline layer, her towed-array sonar drooping under it.

"Well?" her Captain asked.

"We have this burst of noise at one-three-zero," the sonar officer said, pointing to the display, "and nothing else. Fifteen seconds later, we have another burst of noise here ahead of the first. The signature appears to be an American Los Angeles class going to full power, then slowing and disappearing off our screens."

"An exercise, Yevgeniy the first transient was an American missile submarine an Ohio-class. What do you think of that?" Captain First Rank Valentin Borissovich Dubinin asked.

"No one has ever detected an Ohio in deep water "

"For all things, there is a first time."

"And now?"

"We will hover and wait. The Ohio is quieter than a sleeping whale, but at least we know now that there is one in the area. We will not chase after it. Very foolish of the Americans to make noise in this way. I've never seen that happen before."

"The game has changed, Captain," the sonar officer observed. It had changed quite a lot. He didn't have to say 'Comrade Captain' anymore.

"Indeed it has, Yevgeniy. Now it is a true game. Noone need get hurt, and we can test our skills as in the Olympics."

"Critique?"

"I would have closed a little before shooting, sir." the weapons officer said. "Even money he might have evaded that one."

"Agreed, but we were only trying to shake him up," Ricks said comfortably.

Then what was the purpose of that exercise? Dutch Claggett wondered. Oh, of course, to show how aggressive you are.

"I guess we accomplished that." the XO said to support his captain. There were grins all around the control room. Boomers and fast-attack subs often played games, mostly pre-planned. As usual, the Ohio had won this one, too. They'd known that Omaha was around, of course, and that she was looking for a Russian Akula that the PSS had lost off the Aleutians a few days before. But the Russian 'Shark' class sub was nowhere to be heard.