Terminal Run

by Michael Dimercurio

  The motion came before the sound. The water divided, driven by the force of something immense, an object, a rounded elliptical bullet that had soared quietly into the seawater and pushed the water aside as it silently and swiftly came into being. The thing continued, no longer an elliptical starting point but now a giant cylinder, fins protruding on either side,

  but still perfectly cylindrical, and now a slight rushing noise of its passage could be heard. The skin of the object was not rigid but sharklike.

  The machine had no movements inside, no life, not even any light, just the silent hum of rotating machinery and pumped fluids. A trillion corridors carved in silicon admitted the rush of electrons at the speed of light. A cubic meter of human brain tissue immersed in cranial fluid listened and watched and smelled the data surrounding it. It watched the narrowband and broadband sonar arrays that reached out to the infinite reaches of the sea to hear the noises of manmade machinery. It watched the acoustic daylight imaging arrays that searched for close and distant contacts, using the ambient noise of the ocean as a sort of light. The disturbances in the ambient noise field were akin to the variations of a light field caused by an object, sensed not by an eyeball’s retina but by a flat electronic sensor wrapped around the girth of the moving object in the sea. The thing moved on, its computers and processors and brain tissue monitoring the outside and the inside of itself. One portion of the tissue’s action was to record a narrative of what was happening into a hardened sector of a computer called a history module for later use by the humans who had created the object. The stream of conscious thought might be considered the organism’s thoughts as it moved through the sea, but the creators called it something different: the Command and Control Deck Log, or the command log for short. It was this portion of the brain tissue that was most active at the moment as the metal object searched for another object.

  HULL NUMBER: SSNR-1

  UNIT: USS SNARC

  FUNCTION: COMMAND AND CONTROL DECK

  LOG

  MISSION SUMMARY: (1) INDEPENDENT STEAMING

  OVER A NINETY-DAY MISSION TO TEST SHIP’S

  SYSTEMS (2) CONDUCT MOCK TORPEDO APPROACHES

  ON SURFACE SHIPS (3) DETECT SUBMERGED

  WARSHIPS OF ANY NATIONALITY, AND IF

  FOREIGN, CLASSIFY THEM AND REPORT THEM TO

  USUBCOM, AND IF AMERICAN, TO ATTEMPT TO

  TRAIL THEM WITHOUT BEING DETECTED.

  MISSION NARRATIVE:

  IT HAS BEEN THIRTY-TWO DAYS SINCE THE SORTIE

  FROM GROT ON CONNECTICUT. IT HAS BEEN

  THIRTY-ONE DAYS SINCE INITIAL MISSION SUBMERGENCE.

  THIS UNIT’S SONAR PROCESSOR HAS

  BEEN EXTRAORDINARILY VIGILANT, BUT THERE HAS

  BEEN NO CONTACT WITH ANY SUBMERGED WARSHIPS.

  THIS UNIT HAS CLEARED BAFFLES FOUR

  TIMES EVERY SIX-HOUR WATCH. THIS UNIT HAS

  STREAMED THE NARROW APERTURE EXTENDED

  CABLE TOWED ARRAY AND LISTENED HARD ON

  NARROWBAND SONAR. THIS UNIT EMPLOYED THE

  WIDE NET FILTERS ON THE ACOUSTIC DAYLIGHT

  ARRAYS. BUT ASIDE FROM THREE HUNDRED MERCHANT

  SHIPS, TWELVE MOTOR YACHTS, AND

  THREE SAILBOATS, ALL OF THEM INBOUND OR

  OUTBOUND PORT NEW YORK, THERE HAVE BEEN

  NO SONAR CONTACTS. ON AVERAGE, EVERY

  HOUR THE SONAR MODULE CALLS TO REPORT A

  NEW SONAR CONTACT. THIS UNIT WAITS IMPATIENTLY

  FOR THE CLASSIFICATION, BUT INEVITABLY

  THE SONAR MODULE HEARS A SCREW TURN COUNT. THE SOUND OF A PROPELLER

  WITH THREE

  BLADES, VERY INFREQUENTLY FOUR, PLYING THE

  SEAWATER CLOSE TO THE SURFACE IS THE SIGNATURE

  OF A MERCHANT SHIP OR A FISHING VESSEL.

  THIS UNIT IS IN NO PARTICULAR HURRY. THIS

  UNIT HAS DECIDED UPON A SPEED OF EIGHT

  KNOTS. FAST ENOUGH TO COVER GROUND,

  SLOWLY BUT STEADILY. SLOW ENOUGH THAT THE

  FLOW NOISE OVER THE HULL WOULD NOT

  DROWN OUT THE FAR DISTANT SOUNDS OF A

  SUBMARINE TARGET. SLOW ENOUGH THAT THE

  NOISE GENERATED BY THE PROPULSION MACHINERY

  WOULD NOT BE LOUD. ABOVE SIXTY PERCENT

  REACTOR POWER THIS UNIT HAS TO START THE REACTOR

  MAIN COOLANT PUMPS, EACH THE SIZE

  OF A REFRIGERATOR, AND EACH UNAVOIDABLY

  LOUD DESPITE THEIR LEAD SOUND SHIELDS AND

  THEIR FOUR-DIMENSIONAL SOUND MOUNTS AND THE ACTIVE QUIETING

  HYDROPHONES. AND AT

  HIGH SPEEDS THE SOUND OF STEAM COMING

  DOWN THE HEADERS IS CONSIDERABLY LOUDER,

  AS ARE THE HIGHER REVOLUTIONS OF THE PROPULSION

  TURBINES. THERE IS NO DOUBT. SLOWER

  IS BETTER.

  THIS UNIT HAS MEANDERED NORTHEAST, THE

  SONAR MODULE PERPETUALLY SEARCHING, SUPERVISED

  ON A CONSTANT BASIS. THERE IS NOTHING

  OUT HERE. BUT CONFIDENCE IS HIGH. IT IS A

  BIG OCEAN. THIS UNIT HAS AN INFINITE SUPPLY

  OF PATIENCE. THIS UNIT IS HOME HERE AT SEA.

  AT RANDOM TIMES EVERY EIGHT HOURS THIS

  UNIT ORDERS AN ASCENT TO PERISCOPE DEPTH.

  IT IS TIME NOW. THIS UNIT IS ALREADY GOING

  SLOW, SO THIS UNIT CHECKS BAFFLES FOR

  SONAR CONTACTS CLOSE ABOARD WHILE DEEP.

  THERE IS NOTHING. THIS UNIT INCREASES SPEED

  TO TWELVE KNOTS AND MAKES FOR THE LAYER

  DEPTH AT AN UP ANGLE OF TEN DEGREES. AFTER

  A FEW MINUTES THIS UNIT REACHES A DEPTH OF

  150 FEET. THIS IS SHALLOW ENOUGH TO BE JUST

  BARELY ABOVE THE THERMAL LAYER, WHERE THIS

  UNIT CAN BETTER HEAR THE SOUNDS OF SHIPPING

  NEAR THE SURFACE. IT IS ALSO DEEP

  ENOUGH THAT A SUPERTANKER WILL NOT CUT

  THIS UNIT IN HALF, AS THEIR DRAFT WHEN FULLY

  LOADED IS A HUNDRED FEET—A HUNDRED FEET

  FROM THE SURFACE TO THE KEEL OF AN OIL

  TANKER. THEY ARE HUGE, THESE CRUDE CARRIERS.

  AND QUIETER THAN A SAILBOAT, SINCE ALL THAT

  OIL SHIELDS THE SOUNDS OF THE SUPERTANKER’S

  SCREW WHEN SHE IS COMING STRAIGHT

  AHEAD. THIS UNIT CLEARS BAFFLES AGAIN AT 150 FEET, BUT THE SEA IS

  EMPTY. THIS UNIT PUTS ON

  AN UP ANGLE OF TEN DEGREES AND A BURST OF

  SPEED, THEN FLATTENS THE ANGLE AND EXTENDS

  THE TYPE 23 PHOTONIC MAST. WITHIN A MINUTE

  OF DEPARTING 150 FEET THE TYPE 23 IS DRY AND

  SEARCHING THE HORIZON FOR SURFACE SHIPS

  AND AIRCRAFT.

  THERE IS BUSINESS TO DO AT PERISCOPE DEPTH.

  A STEAM GENERATOR SLOWDOWN TO RID THE

  BOILERS OF SOME OF THE ACCUMULATED BAD

  CHEMICALS IN THE FEED WATER. A NAVIGATION

  FIX WITH THE GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM TO

  CONFIRM THE POSITION WITHIN THE RING LASER

  INERTIAL NAVIGATION SYSTEM. AND MOST IMPORTANTLY,

  THE MESSAGES FROM COMSUBDEVRON

  12. THERE ARE SEVERAL OF THEM, EACH

  AN ALL-SQUADRON INFORMATION MESSAGE

  WITH NOTHING SPECIAL ABOUT THEM. IN FACT,

  THIS UNIT IS SURPRISED THAT SQUADRON EVEN

  SENT THEM, AS THEY SEEM TO CONVEY MINIMAL

  INFORMATION. FOR THE PAST FEW DAYS, THERE

  HAS BEEN NOTHING IN THE COMMUNICATIONS

  SATELLITE ADDRESSED SPECIFICALLY TO THIS UNIT.

  IT IS ODD, ALMOST AS IF THIS UNIT HAS BEEN

  FORGOTTEN.

  IT IS A VIOLATION OF SUBMARINE STANDARD

  OPERATING PROCEDURES TO TRANSMIT UNLESS

  ORDERED TO FOR A SPECIFIC SITUATION REPORT,

  AND NO SUCH DEMAND HAS COME FOR A

  WEEK. SO ALTHOUGH NO ONE IS ATTEMPTING

  TO COMMUNICATE WITH THIS UNIT, THIS UNIT

  CAN ONLY CONTINUE THE MISSION AND WAIT

&n
bsp; FOR FURTHER ORDERS. SOON THERE IS NOTHING

  MORE TO DO AT PERISCOPE DEPTH. THIS UNIT RETRACTS

  THE BIGMOUTH ANTENNA AND PROCEEDS

  DEEP, PULLING IN THE TYPE 23 MAST AS

  SOON AS THE SURFACE GROWS DIM, THEN

  SPEEDS UP AND PENETRATES THE THERMAL LAYER

  FOR THE DEEP COLD.

  THIS UNIT STEAMS ON AS THE AFTERNOON

  TURNS TO THE EVENING.

  It was after 0200 Eastern time when Pacino finally entered the engineer’s stateroom. The room was a box less than seven feet on a side, all brown wood grain plastic laminate walls with stainless-steel trim. To the right of the door was a mirror with a fold-down sink on the wall with a dozen cubbyhole doors and hooks with hanging laundry. The bulkhead on the left had two fold-down desks with reading lamps and two steel chairs, with cubbyhole doors above and below. The desk was cluttered with manuals and papers and computer output and several handheld computers. The wall opposite the door contained three sleeper-train-style bunks, each about two feet wide with two feet between the racks, each a coffin like space with a brown privacy curtain. Lieutenant Alameda, in submarine coveralls under a Naval Academy sweatshirt, sat at the desk near the beds. She looked up when Pacino came into the room and smiled for a split second, then frowned at him.

  “The aft cubbyhole by your elbow has three poopy-suits in it, nonqual. You can unpack your seabag into it. Your rack is on the bottom. The top rack is for my stuff, and so is the other desk, so don’t count on working in here. Don’t be bashful

  about changing in front of me, and I won’t around you. If your puritan sensibilities are insulted, that’s tough; this is a combat submarine and it’s just going to be that way.”

  Pacino was too tired to react. He nodded and stripped off his uniform and stuffed it into a hanging laundry bag, got on all fours and crawled between the wall and Alameda’s chair to the lower rack, slid aside the curtain and climbed under the covers, then pulled the curtain back and shut off the lamp. He had a momentary thought that he was in a coffin, but he didn’t care.

  In his dreams he was watching his father from six-year-old eyes, submerged to test depth on the old sub his father had commanded, and in the mirror was a child staring back at him wearing coveralls with a dolphin pin, and he went into the stateroom and Alameda was there, wearing something filmy and she began kissing him and she climbed into his rack with him.

  Lieutenant Carolyn Alameda waited for her pulse to slow, the wait a long, irritable one. As a former five-striper at the Academy, Alameda had always been known for her professionalism and competence. On her first submarine, the Olympia, she had rapidly risen to the station of “bull lieutenant,” the unofficial designation as the ship’s most knowledgeable junior officer—no small task in the man’s world of a nuclear submarine. She had just missed the War of the East China Sea, and having trained for combat her entire adult life, it was her biggest disappointment. The conflict now emerging in the other hemisphere had the potential to break out into a war, but the ship was being sent on what seemed like yet another exercise run. Waiting for a chance at combat was something she could live with, but what she couldn’t tolerate was what was happening to her since the midshipman had come aboard.

  All her life Alameda hadn’t felt like her female classmates, who had all been embroiled in chasing boys while Alameda had been more interested in sports and school. Her mother had insisted that a time would come when a man entered her

  life and she would feel the thunderbolt. Alameda had scoffed, and her relationships with boys had always been unsatisfying. She had resigned herself to a life devoted solely to the Navy until this morning. Until the moment when she climbed to the deck of the Piranha and found Midshipman Pacino waiting topside. She immediately felt like a foolish blushing schoolgirl, and had tried to negate the feeling with a cold professional veneer, but had heard how caustic she had been to the young man and that made her even more self conscious and embarrassed. There was no rational explanation for her feelings, but her mother’s awkward explanation of romantic chemistry was the first thing Alameda thought of—her attraction to the tall, lanky youth made her feel as if she were drunk.

  At first she had promised herself that she would simply comply with Navy Regulations and completely avoid fraternization with someone of a subordinate rank. It was the only logical course she could follow. She would be an impersonal lieutenant and chief engineer, and he would be a nonqual midshipman rider, and they would get through this run. But it was as if her own feelings had betrayed her, and she gave that foolish speech about being naked together in the stateroom. She wondered if he saw how red her face must have become, or if he had seen the pulsing of the veins in her neck. It was madness, she thought, suddenly missing her old self, when no man ever impressed her. Why did it have to be this kid, why did he have to be four years younger than her, and why did he have to show up now, in the middle of an operational deployment? She tried to sit at her desk, knowing she wouldn’t sleep, so she tried to work on the thousand pressing things on her list, but all she could do was foolishly sit there and listen to the deep breathing of Midshipman Anthony Michael Pacino.

  She bit her lip and commanded herself not to think of him, and to address him calmly but coldly whenever she spoke to him. It was bad enough that this was happening to her, but it would be disastrous if one of the other officers or the captain

  himself heard something tender in her tone of voice to Pacino. In a few weeks he would be off the ship, she thought, and she could return to her life. But all she could think about was if they would be in port on his last night aboard. She choked the thought off and tried to return to the reactor preventive maintenance reports.

  The sound of his rack curtain being violently opened woke Pacino with a start. It was Alameda. He blinked at her guiltily.

  “Zero seven hundred, nonqual,” she said, dripping with contempt. “Get out of the rack and get ready for the op brief.”

  Pacino climbed out of the cocoon of the rack and padded to the officers’ head at the end of the narrow passageway. The head was a cube finished in stainless steel with a floor of troweled stone. The commode was a stainless-steel bowl with an eight-inch ball valve at the bottom. When he was finished he pulled the ball valve lever and opened a seawater globe valve, washing the bowl to the sanitary tank. He turned on the shower water and stepped under it, turned it off, soaped his body, then turned on the water again and rinsed off. When he was done he cleaned off the stainless-steel shower enclosure and dressed. The face in the mirror looked creased with fatigue, his eyes bloodshot. He walked back to the stateroom to find Alameda naked. He couldn’t keep from staring at her body. She had seemed boyishly slim in her uniform, but in the nude she looked like a model. Her shoulders were slim and muscular, her breasts small but perfectly shaped, her abdomen flat, a small navel ring gleaming in the glow of the stateroom lights. His eyes were drawn to the downy fur between her long, slim legs, the curve of her hips seemingly made by the art of a loving sculptor. For an instant Pacino felt a shock of raw desire, his palms longing to be filled with her breasts, but with an effort he forced himself to remember that she was the chief engineer and fourth-in-command of the submarine Piranha, and only then did his pulse slow.

  Alameda flushed crimson for a moment, her mouth open, but then she glared at him as she stepped into her panties,

  shrugged into her bra, and donned her coveralls and sneakers. Without a word she shut the door behind her. Pacino put on the coveralls she had given him and his running shoes and walked to the wardroom at the opposite end of officers’ country from the head. The room was full of the ship’s junior officers. He got a cup of steaming coffee and slumped in the wardroom couch seat at the end of the table, feeling like a high school kid at a college frat house. The coffee brought him awake while the officers joked with each other, the mood growing serious when the navigator and engineer came into the room.

  The executive officer, known simply as “XO,” Lieutenant Comm
ander Schultz, arrived and took her seat at the first seat next to the captain’s chair at the far end. She was tall and thin, her coveralls well worn, the patch on her sleeve bearing the emblem of the submarine Birmingham rather than Piranha. Her blond hair was too short to tie in a ponytail like Alameda’s, and fell below her ears. She wore no makeup and no jewelry other than an Academy ring on her left finger. She used half-frame reading glasses and scanned the computer for the ship’s message traffic.

  The lone unqualified junior officer, who did not yet have his dolphins, was an ensign named Duke Phelps. He sat at the end of the wardroom table near Pacino. Phelps stood six-four and towered over the other officers, perpetually slouching and bent over to clear the overhead obstructions. He was studying a piping manual. As Pacino looked over at it, Phelps reached into a drawer and handed Pacino a copy of a similar manual.

  “First few pages are a map of the ship. Might help you out.”

  Pacino turned to the first plate and tried to memorize the ship map, finding the wardroom on the upper-level port side beneath the sail. Then his stateroom, the crew’s mess, and the middle level with the control room and the captain’s and XO’s staterooms, the lower-level torpedo room. The forward compartment, aft compartment, and reactor compartment were all shown on the map with their levels and equipment identified. But the special ops compartment, the added ninety

  feet between the forward and reactor compartments, was labeled simply classified. The only detail that showed was the access tunnel leading aft in line with the reactor compartment tunnel.