by Scott W Cook
There was a pause. I didn’t know this guy at all, but from what I’d seen the other night on Mallory Dock, he didn’t strike me as either patient or understanding. He tried to give that impression… but what kind of man fed prisoners to zombies?
“Understood,” Banks finally replied, “Damn fine work, Decker.”
“Thank you sir,” Sam replied, “What’s the status on your bogey?”
“Haven’t seen or heard anything in two days,” Banks said, “If I had to guess, they’re probably headed up the Keys and maybe up the east coast of Florida. Keep your ears open.”
“Roger that, sir,” Sam replied, “We’re below maximum quiet speed. They’d have to virtually bump into us before they even knew we were here.”
Banks chuckled, “True… but still, without a crew, you’d find it impossible to fight that ship.”
“Indeed,” Sam said, “But I’m sure we can evade until we reach the squadron.”
“Good. Well, I’ll let you get back to depth. I look forward to seeing that boat sail into the harbor, Banks out.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Sam said after the channel had been closed.
“All good?” I asked him.
He scoffed, “We’re done here, if that’s what you mean. But as for turning this boat over… well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. Let’s get back to depth. How deep is it here, Andrea?”
“About fifteen hundred feet,” Mom replied.
Sam looked over at the digital chart table behind me. It was a five foot by five foot screen that displayed an active chart and our course. He consulted the plotter, “Looks like we’re right in the stream. Good. Andy, bring us down to five hundred. No hurry, though. Need a level countertop in the galley.”
“Five hundred, aye,” I said with a grin, “Lower all scopes and masts. Helm, five degrees down bubble. Make your depth five hundred feet.”
“How long will that take, Andy?” Sam queried.
I frowned and started doing the math in my head. I remembered that at five knots, we were moving forward at eight feet per second. Also, five degrees was about one-sixteenth of a full ninety degree pitch. So we were moving forward at thirty-two feet per second, and downward at about two feet per second… I did the math and said, “A little over two minutes, I think.”
Sam nodded, “Just about. Okay, good. I’ll be in the galley. Tara, you want to help?”
They left and it was just me, the Gunny and mom. I took a seat at the empty diving station.
“So how does it feel, kid?” Mom asked, “Being in command of this beast?”
I grinned at her, “That’s sir to you, helmsman.”
Mom grinned, “Aye-aye sir. Now passing one-hundred feet, sir.”
“It’s crazy,” I replied to her original question, “I never would have seen this coming in a million years.”
“Me either,” Julie said, “A few days ago I was just another jarhead attached to the carrier’s marines. Pretty much security detail. Along with any number of dirty jobs that enlisted marines and squids have to do.”
“And now look at you,” Mom said with a smile, “Hanging out on a nuclear submarine with a hole in your arm.”
“It’s like a dream come true,” Julie laughed.
“It’s astonishing to me,” I said, “How many smart asses there are in the world.”
“Yup,” Tara said as she walked into the con carrying a tray of mugs, “Can’t even get away from em’ underwater.”
“True dat,” I quipped.
“And you’re one to talk, sir?” Julie eyed me with a smirk.
“Oh, no,” I said, “I’m definitely one too. Just look at how I tease Tony. Watcha got there, cutie?”
“Fresh coffee,” Tara said, “Anybody need a cup?”
We all needed a cup. She fixed each one for us with cream or sugar and handed them out, “Sam’s grilling up the steaks now and he’s making another surprise, too. I think you guys will like this.”
“Can’t wait,” Mom said, sipping her coffee, “Now passing three hundred feet.”
Tara took her tray and headed aft again.
Julie eyed me for a moment, “I’ve noticed that you guys like to kid each other a lot. Sam and Tony do it, and even Andy and Tony go back and forth… and some of it is racial… but nobody seems to mind.”
Mom laughed, “Sam and Tony have known each other since basic. And Andy and me just blended in. There’s definitely no malice, though. We all love each other.”
“Yeah,” I replied, “I owe Tony a lot. Sam too, of course. But Tony has always tried to teach me anything he can and he’s kind of like a cool uncle.”
“A cool black uncle!” Came Tony’s voice over the 2MC, the direct circuit to propulsion which we’d left open and on the overhead so we could talk back and forth easier.
“that’s racist, Tony!” Mom pretend-scolded.
“Nuh-uh,” Tony replied, “Some of my best friends are uncles!”
There was a moment of silence after we all laughed.
“It seems like the captain isn’t all that excited about turning this boat over,” Julie said casually as she sipped her coffee.
Mom exchanged a glance with me. I think she was worried about saying too much. Rivers was and had been under the command of Banks the whole time, and her loyalty was probably with him.
I shrugged, “Hard to say. What do you think of the Admiral?”
Rivers said nothing for a long moment. It looked like she was trying to decide how much to say to us. Finally she sighed, “You met Freddy. He’s a good guy.”
Mom nodded, “He doesn’t seem to like the so-called weekly entertainment very much.”
Julie nodded, “No… he puts up with it. Like all of us, he doesn’t have much of a choice. I hate it and refuse to go. Did he tell you that I bought him?”
Mom scoffed, “Yeah. We found out about the human trafficking thing. Tara and I were surprised to learn it worked both ways.”
I frowned, “I thought Freddy said you guys met the old fashioned way.”
Julie nodded, “Yeah, we met that way, but he was kind of in a bad way financially. It was a way to help him out and kind of keep him under my protection, if you will. It was a formality only, we were already seeing each other.”
“Mom and Tara and another one of us didn’t approve of the way a certain Sergeant treated his… purchases,” I added.
“Levelling off at five hundred,” Mom said, “Yeah, this asshole was mistreating two women.”
Julie scoffed, “I know who you mean. Master Sergeant Roger Krupp. A nasty bastard if there ever was one.”
“So can I take it you’re not a fan of the current situation?” Mom asked.
Julie nodded, “No, ma’am. I am not. In fact… I was trying to convey that to the Captain when I dropped him and Andy off at your boat the other day.”
“Neither are we,” Mom replied, “and Sam isn’t happy about what’s going on. And the idea of turning over this boat isn’t sitting well with him. But it was either take this mission or he and Andy would’ve been facing zombies in the cage.”
“I wonder how Vicky feels about it,” I pondered.
She was suddenly in the forward entryway. The main sonar room was on the lower level near the torpedo room, but there were sonar stations in the con as well, “she’s not happy either.”
“Surprised,” Mom said, “You’ve all had it pretty good since the world went to hell. Banks has at least made sure of that.”
Vicky nodded, “yeah… but it’s still fucked up. Why I was happy to stay with the Orion crew. I keep busy and stay out of the politics or whatever.”
I grinned at her, “You’re away from your station, Commander.”
She smiled at me, “You’re really getting into this, huh?”
I nodded, “I’m at this very moment responsible for this entire ship… hard not to.”
She smiled at me, “Well, there are no acoustic contacts on towed array or the wide aperture array, we’r
e a thousand feet off the bottom and I’ve got a monitoring program running. I can also take one of these six sonarman stations right here. Plenty of time to step in and see what you guys are up to and hit the head.”
“Shit,” Mom added, “Now that you say that…”
“Christ,” I mumbled, “Anybody else?”
All of them. All three women had to potty all at once. I just laughed.
“Don’t worry, sir,” Julie said, “We won’t all go together.”
“I just went,” Vicky said, ‘I can spell each of you.”
Mom waved at Julie, “Go ahead, Gunny. I can set the autopilot here.”
Sam stepped in just as Julie stepped out, “What’s going on? Potty break?”
“Yes, sir,” Vicky said, sitting at Julie’s station.
“Good,” He said, “Dinner is just about ready. Why don’t you ladies do your business and then head to the wardroom with Andy? You five eat and Tony and I will take the deck. Then we’ll switch off.”
“Aye, sir,” Vicky said with a smile, “What’s for chow?”
“Steaks, French fries and steamed vegies,” Sam said proudly. Oh, and there’s strawberry, vanilla, chocolate or butter pecan ice cream for dessert!
“Awesome,” Mom said.
It was around one in the morning when Sam said we were somewhere off the coast of Daytona or a little south. He knew that we were all dog tired and that sitting in the control room in shifts was probably not going to work out. He had mom change course and head us just a little south of west until the bottom started to come up. We were maybe eight miles offshore when the bottom was less than fifty feet under our keel.
“All stop,” Sam ordered.
“Answering all stop,” Mom replied.
“Sounding?” He asked.
“Five hundred and sixty feet,” Mom replied.
Sam checked a few displays, “Looks like good sandy bottom. Okay, I’m gonna let the air out of this thing. Everybody stand by. Helm, all stop. Put vessel on auto hover.”
He went to the diving console and began adjusting knobs and soon he had mom calling out depths. We were slowly sinking. He must have adjusted our buoyancy to be slightly negative. Within a minute or so, we’d bumped to a stop on the bottom.
“Looks good,” he said, “Let’s get some shut eye. Six hours and then we’ll proceed on course.”
There was plenty of room aboard. Aside from the enlisted bunks, there were several cabins for the sixteen officers who normally staffed the ship.
Sam and mom took the captain’s cabin, Tara and I took the XO’s since it was just about as large as the captain’s and we could both fit in the bunk. Vicky and Julie shared a double cabin meant for the junior officers and Tony took the one set aside for the chief of the boat.
We were quite comfortable. The sheets were clean and the temperature aboard hovered somewhere around seventy-two. Tara and I snuggled up together and lay quietly for a few minutes.
“It was so awesome seeing you take command,” she said to me as she stroked my chest, “I was so turned on.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked with a smile.
She cooed softly and began to stroke lower, “Oh yeah… you really know a lot of this military stuff.”
“I have good teachers,” I said, my voice getting husky.
“So what’re you gonna teach me, sailor?” She asked as her hand closed around my already stiff mast.
At zero eight hundred we all got up and headed into the wardroom. Sam was the first one there and got a couple of pots of coffee going.
“Who’s on breakfast duty?” He asked.
“Not you?” mom asked back.
Sam shook his head, “Nope. I got dinner last night. Besides, this ship has a well-stocked sickbay and I’d like to take a good look at Julie’s wound.”
“Damn,” Julie said as she sipped her coffee, “You know I almost forgot about it. Not the wound, it’s definitely sore… but that we were aboard an advanced ship with some medical equipment.”
“It’s not like the carrier,” Sam said, “Where they’ve got several doctors and nurses and everything a city hospital would have… but there’s some things here that we should take advantage of.”
“I’ll do breakfast,” I volunteered.
Sam frowned, “Hmm… that’d be great, but I think I’d like to have you assist me with the Gunny. Continue your field medical training.”
“It never ends, huh kid?” Mom said wryly.
“Guess not,” I said with a shrug.
“I’ll handle it,” Tara said, “Least I can feel useful.”
“And I’ll help,” Vicky put in, “How’s pancakes, sausage and cinnamon rolls sound to everyone?”
“Awesome,” I said, “Is that stuff on board?”
“Oh sure,” Vicky said, “I ducked into the galley and poked around a bit. They’d just re-provisioned before the world went to shit.”
Sam and I went aft and took an x-ray of Julie’s arm. The image showed that the bullet hadn’t hit the bone. We were able to redress the wound and give her more antibiotics and a mild pain reliever.
After breakfast, we were all in the con, except Tony, who went back to maneuvering to nursemaid the turbines and the reactor. Once again, Sam fiddled with the diving station and pumped water from the ballast tanks and gave us positive buoyancy until we were about a hundred feet off the bottom. He then got us back on neutral buoyancy.
“Helm,” he said, “Come left to course one-four-zero. All ahead two-thirds. Maintain four hundred depth.”
We were off again. After a few hours, Sam altered course a little more southerly and increased speed to twenty-five knots. We were somewhere off the coast of Miami when things got interesting.
“Sir,” Vicky said from her new position at the first control room sonar console, “Faint submerged contact bearing thirty degrees relative. Eighty thousand yards.”
“Identity?” Sam asked.
“Checking,” Vicky replied, “Signal is faint. Computer is attempting to I.D. now. But from what I’m getting already, the machinery signature looks familiar. I think it’s our mystery boat. My guess would be a Russian Victor, Sierra or Akula.”
“Sonar,” Sam said after a moment’s thought, “Designate target as master one. If we’ve picked them up from twenty miles away, then they aren’t running silent. What’s their heading?”
“Three zero degrees.”
“Right for us,” Sam said, “Probably a coincidence. No way they can detect us. Even with hole in ocean sonar… not from that far away. Helm, come right to two-two zero. Reduce to one-half.”
A few minutes went by. Vicky spoke again, “Sir… Master one is CBDR.”
“What the hell?” Sam asked, “There’s no way they’re detecting this boat. Range?”
“Thirty thousand and closing at… thirty knots,” Vicky said, “Good tonals now, master one is a Russian Akula two.”
“Shit,” Sam cursed, “I’ve got four fish in the tubes… but without a torpedo crew… Sonar, plot me a firing solution. Helm, full stop.”
Mom looked at him for a moment and then turned the speed dial. We sat silent for a long moment. The ship was basically a hole in the water. No engine noises, no nothing.
Sam told me that the Seawolf class was so quiet that even at twenty-five knots, she was more silent than an improved Los Angeles class attack boat tied to the pier.
And then it happened. It started as an almost imperceptible noise but quickly grew as a high-powered sonic wave approached and slammed into the steel hull of our boat.
“Akula has gone active!” Vicky exclaimed, “Ten thousand yards and closing.”
“Sonar, engage active out of phase emmissions,” Sam growled, “There’s no goddamned way that ship detected us. No way. It’s just not possible unless…”
“Unless what?” I asked.
“Sam what the Christ is going on?” Tony exclaimed as he rushed into the con.
“Unless somebody on that boat was forewarned
that we would be out here,” Sam grumbled, “We’ve just been pinged by an Akula two, Tony”
“Shit…” Tony said, “Should we man battle stations?”
Sam sighed, “With seven of us? I’ve got a firing solution now on the weapons board… but we can’t fight this ship with this small of a crew.”
Tony scowled and manned the weapons console.
“Make tubes one through four ready in all respects,” Sam ordered him, “including opening outer doors.”
“I thought you weren’t going to fight,” Tony said.
“They don’t know that,” Sam replied.
“Making tubes one, two, three and four ready,” Tony said, “Opening outer doors.”
“Captain,” Vicky said a little more excitedly, “We’re getting an incoming message on the Gertrude.”
“No shit,” Sam said, “Put it on the 1 MC, sonar.”
There was a crackle of static as the underwater telephone came to life. It took a few seconds and then a man’s voice came over the overhead speakers.
“U.S.S. Connecticut,” The voice said, “U.S.S. Connecticut, come in please. This is the submarine K-152 Chakra. Do you read me, Connecticut?”
Sam and Tony looked at each other in bewilderment. I didn’t blame them. For one thing, the voice wasn’t Russian. It sounded American or maybe Canadian but certainly not eastern European.
“That boat was sold to India…” Tony muttered in confusion.
“This is Connecticut, Connecticut one speaking,” Sam said, “I have many questions. The first is to identify yourself. And please be advised our torpedoes are ready to fire and we have you locked into our fire control system. I advise you to stop your engines.”
There was a laugh, “Captain Decker, I presume? No need for weapons. As I’m sure your sonar officer will tell you, we have not opened our doors. We’re not here to fight, Captain. We’ve come here to talk, which I think we should do before you go any further south. Would you be willing to surface and meet in person?”
