Barracuda- Final Bearing

by Michael Dimercurio

  “Come on, it’ll put hair on your chest,” Phillips said, squinting. He plugged one of the cigars into Hornick’s mouth, lit his own, then put his lighter to Hornick’s cigar. Hornick mechanically puffed the cigar to life, cringing at the smoke in his eyes. “Now, where was I? Oh yeah, risk. Now Eng, you’re more senior than Court, right?”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “So that makes you third in command, right, after me and Whatney?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Good, good.” Phillips took a puff of the Cuban and looked at Hornick, dipping his head in encouragement. Hornick took a puff, frowning, blowing the smoke out.

  “Now, you being third in command, I can tell you things that I couldn’t really tell kids like Katoris, right? I mean, you’re not gonna go blab them to your stateroom mates after watch, right? Okay, then here’s the deal. How’s that stogie?”

  “Not too bad, sir,” He took a puff. “Okay, picture this, Walt. This ship is doing a Coast Guard kind of mission.

  You know what the motto of the Coast Guard is?”

  “No, sir.” Phillips still had his arm around Hornick’s shoulders, walking him to the forward end of the space. “The Coast Guard motto, if I remember it right, is this—’You have to go out. You don’t have to come back.’ That sound familiar?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, here’s why I thought of that, Walty-boy.

  Pretty good cigar, I think.” Phillips puffed a smoke ring at the overhead. Hornick had the cigar clutched between the knuckles of his fist, looking like an old pro. He took a puff and blew it into the overhead, squinting slightly at the smoke, but the expression of pleasure winning out over a frown. Suddenly Phillips dropped his arm from Hornick’s shoulder, clenched the cigar between his teeth, and with both hands grabbed Hornick’s shirt and brought him in close, his eyes wide open. “Walt, this ship ain’t likely coming back. Those Vortex missiles might open up the hull. Or the Japs may be able to run from them. Our own torpedoes may not work so hot against those Destiny-class boats. But I don’t have any plans for next month, Walt. If we come back with a ship under us, that’ll be like winning a sweepstakes. If we come back, or half of us do, and the boat’s on the bottom of the Pacific, I’d call that a good day. If this ship becomes our coffin, you and me and the crew in Davy Jones’s locker, that’s going to be shooting par. If it’s a bad day, we don’t even make it into the Pacific and we get stuck under the icecap and stay there. And if it’s a totally bad week, we blow up the core on initial startup. So do you see what the game is looking like, Walt?”

  “I see your point. Captain.” Phillips dropped the maniac act and straightened out Hornick’s shirt, then stood off to the side and puffed the cigar, looking down at the deckplates for a moment as he collected himself. “So, Walt, what do you say? You only have 95 percent estimated reactivity inserted into the core. I think you should crank it up to 100 percent. I need power and I need it an hour ago. Once that god damned needle comes out of the startup range, you can heat this bitch up and we can be in a full-power lineup in five minutes. Yeah, it may blow up, but you know what? I won’t even put that in your fitness report, I promise. You’ve got total amnesty today, Walt. So I’m not going to order you to do this, it’s your call, it’s your plant. But I would sincerely like to get reactor power this century. Can you do it for me?” Phillips looked up at Hornick, a sad expression on his face.

  “Skipper, it would be my pleasure,” Hornick said, clamping his own cigar between his teeth. “You give me a half-hour and I’ll give you main engine shaft horsepower, all fifty-seven thousand of them.” Phillips clapped Hornick on the back. “Good man, you let me know.” He winked at Hornick and ducked through the tunnel hatch and vanished. Hornick smiled, shaking his head, then walked quickly aft to the maneuvering room. The reactor tunnel’s forward hatch opened out into the forward compartment middle level. After the bright lights of the engineering spaces, the forward compartment’s red lights seemed strange. Phillips followed a dogleg in the passageway to a central passage that went past his and Whatney’s staterooms to port, the electronics rooms—radio and countermeasures—to starboard, the passageway stopping at a door labeled control ROOM—AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Phillips Went in, the space crowded with watchstanders, and hot. The room was larger than the Greeneville’s control room, but even though Piranha’ control space was the full width of the ship, over forty feet wide, it still seemed cramped. “Navigator, sounding please!” Phillips shouted, the cigar still clamped in his teeth. “Forty-nine fathoms, sir.”

  “Close enough.

  Offsa’deck, where’s the officer of the deck?”

  “Here, sir.” Meritson’s voice was muffled as he was hugging the thick periscope module of the type-twenty periscope, the scope extending from the overhead all the way to the well in the deck of the periscope stand. The module would be hot, at least 105 degrees from the electronics it bristled with. An hour at the periscope would leave the front of a man’s shirt wet with sweat—the reason periscope time was known as “dancing with the fat lady.”

  “Status, please.”

  “Yes sir, the bridge is rigged for dive, control is in the control room, I have the watch, ship is rigged for dive with the exception of the forward escape trunk hatch. I have two men topside ready to cast off the tug line on your orders.”

  “Very well, coordinate with the tug, come to all stop and cast off the tugline.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Phillips was beginning to smell progress now. It took five minutes, but finally Piranha was officially on her own, on her diesel engine, her reactor still in a coma, but without tugs.

  “Offsa’deck, submerge the ship to snorkel depth,” Phillips called. The order began a flurry of activity. A phone talker called for Phillips.

  “Captain, Engineer on the one-jay-vee phone.”

  Phillips reached for the phone. “Captain.”

  “Engineer, sir. Reactor’s critical, performing an emergency heatup now.”

  “Excellent, Eng. How did it go? Any overpowering?”

  “No, Sir, it came right up to one decade per minute, just like you said.”

  “I didn’t say anything, Eng, that’s your startup. Remember that, Walt. Now, how long till you’re answering bells on the mains?”

  “We’re at thirty degrees per minute, that’s about twelve minutes to the green band, then we’ll warm the steam plant. I’d say another twenty minutes.”

  “Battery?”

  “Holding up, but don’t give it more than four knots.”

  “Aye. Hurry up, Eng.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Phillips found a seat in the captain’s chair aft of the periscope stand, the “conn,” from which the ship was controlled. It would be a long night, he thought.

  Submerging without the reactor! The last thing he thought he’d be doing with the newest ship in the fleet, but then, if it kept him from being peeked at by the Galaxy satellites so much the better. He settled back into the chair and watched Meritson submerge the ship, the vessel sinking slowly into the Atlantic as the main ballast tanks gave up the air. Soon, he thought, he’d be driving on nuclear power. He waited, puffing the cigar.

  northwest pacific USS Barracuda The deck trembled with the power of the main engines at flank speed. Capt. David Kane walked into the wardroom, crowded with officers waiting for his briefing.

  Kane was taller than average, slim, with a full head of dark hair and a tan. When the ship was in port, he would be on the beach, running, walking his dogs or hanging out with his wife Becky and his daughters. He was famous for being the Pacific Fleet captain who worked smarter, not harder. His face was chiseled, the high cheekbones set above thin cheeks and a strong square chin. When he had been at Annapolis he had been the six-striper, the brigade commander. He had met his wife while a first-class midshipman, when he and his friends had written to a Playboy centerfold model, the letter written as a prank, but after two months she had written him back. After t
hey corresponded for a few weeks they decided to meet, choosing a Georgetown bar. After that it had been all over for Kane. He had proposed to her on that first date, and she had just laughed. During their spring break they had flown to Bermuda, and on the beach one twilight he had popped the biggest ring he could finance into her hands, and this time she didn’t laugh. In fact, she had cried. They had been engaged for two months when Kane had been interviewed for the nuclear-power program by Admiral Rickover, the famed father of the nuclear navy. Rickover had managed to shoehorn a nuclear reactor into a submarine, an engineering task that should have taken fifteen years, but Rickover had done it in three at a fraction of the cost of the estimates, and with an impeccable safety record.

  When his USS Nautilus, the first nuclear submarine, went under the polar icecap, his nuclear navy had been the envy of the world. He had pledged to Congress that not a single naval officer would be admitted to his program unless he personally approved of him. Every single candidate would be interviewed personally. Once Rickover flunked someone, there was no appeal.

  Rickover had called a very nervous Kane into the office.

  Submarine duty was all he wanted to do in the Navy. Airplanes held no fascination, and surface ships made him seasick, many of them stinking of diesel fuel, the amphibious fleet a flotilla of rustbucket ships that carried unwashed Marine troops into combat. Aircraft carriers particularly irritated him, since it was the worst of two worlds, a surface ship that acted as a bus for a bunch of arrogant pilots. He had gone into Annapolis for the free education and the status, but as graduation approached he could only see himself being a sub driver.

  Now that he was finally in Rickover’s office, it sank in that Rickover could easily say no to him, as he had done with 40 percent of the applicants. The man who had the interview two before Kane had left the office with glazed eyes.

  “What happened?” Kane had asked him.

  “Rickover told me I’m too shy,” the midshipman had said. “He told me I had thirty seconds to piss him off.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I stood on a chair. I was going to piss on his desk but he looked at me like I was an idiot, and I couldn’t even do that. I couldn’t get the piss to come out. Rickover said that even my cock was too shy, and he told me to get the hell out.”

  “That was it?”

  “No. He has this four-foot-long shiny model of the Nautilus on his desk.

  I picked it up and smashed it into a thousand pieces. One of the fragments broke and nicked his hand. He was bleeding onto his shirt.”

  “Holy shit! You broke the admiral’s ship model? What did he do?” “He said, ‘Get the hell out of here,’ but then he stopped me. I turned around and he looked at me like he was going to kill me, and he says, ‘Goddamnit, you’re hired!’ I guess I pissed him off enough.” Kane had wondered what test Rickover would have for him. He was ushered into the office and told to sit in a wooden chair in front of the admiral’s desk.

  He found it was true—the front legs were truly shorter than the back legs. Kane had felt the bile of nerves rise in his stomach. Rickover was short, slight, wrinkled and old. He mumbled over at Kane something Kane didn’t understand. “Excuse me, sir?” “Why, did you fart?” the admiral said. “I said, your class standing sucks. Your grades suck. You’ve been showing a flat or declining trend since your youngster year. Yet they appoint you brigade commander second set. And I notice that you’re ever so pretty. That must be why. It certainly isn’t your wits, is it, Mr. Kane?”

  “I think I—”

  “Oh, you don’t fucking think at all, that’s your problem. Look at this. Look at it! Would you accept you into my program?”

  “Sir, yes, I have a 3.78 grade point average in ocean engineering—”

  “Ocean engineering. What do you study, fishies? Good Lord, what’s the academy coming to? Okay, Kane, I’ll just make this easy on both of us. I don’t like jocks and I don’t like stripers. You sit in your admin offices and drink coffee and put midshipmen on report and carry a sword and get the girls, yessir. You have a girlfriend, Kane?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Are you engaged to her?”

  “Yes sir, we’re supposed to get married the week after graduation.”

  “Show me her picture.” Rickover looked at Becky’s photo. He showed no enthusiasm. “Well, you call your little girlie friend—I’m sorry, your fiance—and tell her you’re going to put off your wedding until after you pass all the way through my program.” Kane looked at Rickover. The training pipeline was over a year long, and Becky and he had made their plans. “Here’s the phone. Go ahead. Call her. Tell her you’re putting off the wedding to make sure you won’t be distracted in my program.”

  “Yes sir.” Kane dialed. Becky’s voice came on. “I’m putting you on the speaker phone,” Rickover said. He punched a button and Becky’s silky voice came over the speaker. “David?

  What’s going on?”

  “Honey? I’m here with Admiral Rickover right now, and you’re on the speaker phone.” Kane waited, Rickover glared. “Becky?”

  “Yes?”

  “How are the wedding plans going?”

  “Great, David. You know that.

  Why?” Rickover hit the mute button, and whispered, “Go ahead, tell her.”

  He punched the button again. The connection was back. Kane could hear Becky breathing. “Oh, nothing, sweetheart,” Kane had said. “Listen, Becky, I was just calling you up to tell you that I’m going Navy air. I decided to be a pilot after all. Nuclear subs are for the birds. That’s all, honey. Bye.” Kane hung up the phone and stood up, assuming the interview was over. The decision had not been that difficult. A choice between Becky and his career was not a choice. He’d take Becky any day.

  He’d swab the decks of an aircraft carrier’s heads if it meant marrying Becky. Rickover could shove it. He walked to the door. Admiral Rickover didn’t say a word until Kane had put his hand on the knob. “Oh, Midshipman Kane?”

  “Yes, Admiral?”

  “You’re hired. I expect you’ll prove yourself to be one of the best nuclear officers who’s ever been in the program. Good luck to you, sir.” Rickover’s tone was almost fatherly.

  Kane was stunned. He just stood there, looking at Rickover as if he’d been frozen to the spot. Suddenly Rickover looked up from his work, surprised to see Kane still standing there. “Get out! Get the fuck out of here!” Kane opened the door and ran all the way to the debriefing room. Kane had gone on to be the youngest submarine captain in Squadron Seven in Norfolk, commanding the Phoenix, which had been torpedoed in the Labrador Sea during Operation Early Retirement in the Muslim War.

  With the help of an unmatched crew, Kane had managed to get Phoenix back with most of the men still alive. For his acts during the war he had been awarded the Navy Cross and offered the new ship Barracuda, the second Seawolfclass ship to roll out of the building yards at Electric Boat. After nursing Phoenix back to where she could be towed out of the northern waters, Kane was ready to quit the Navy. The admiral who had offered him command of Barracuda had looked stunned when Kane had said! “I don’t think so. Admiral. It’s over. I’m done going to sea.” But the sea was not yet done with him. Maybe it had been Phoenix’s outstanding luck. Or maybe it was Admiral Rickover’s blessing. I expect you’ll prove yourself to be one of the best nuclear officers who’s ever been in the program. Or perhaps it was Admiral Steinman’s request that he take command of Barracuda. But for whatever reason, Kane missed the sea, missed submarine duty, and found his life had less weight, less meaning without a ship under his feet. In spite of the separation from Becky, the element of risk, there was just something about it he couldn’t live without. He couldn’t stand the idea that he’d never again hug a periscope module as the ship swam out of the deep and approached the silvery bottom sides of the waves, the view out the scope foaming and clearing, the horizon coming into focus after hours of living in darkness. He even missed the smell, the lack of
sleep, the dirty sheets.

  It was crazy, but finally even Becky couldn’t stand it any more, insisting that Kane’s mooning over the lack of a submarine command was driving her crazy. She had given him a phone and said, “Call Admiral Steinman, right now, and tell him you’re taking command of that submarine, or else you’re out of my program. You got that, mister?”

  Steinman had laughed so hard he could barely breathe. When he recovered, he told Kane it had only been a matter of time, that he had kept the commanding officer slot open for him. Kane had hung up, feeling the tiny bites of wetness at the corners of his eyes. Becky had jumped right on it. “David! You’re crying!”

  “I am not,” he’d insisted. “There’s dirt in my eyes.”

  “Yeah, just like there was dirt in your eyes when Vicky was born. Come here and give me a hug. Captain Kane. What’s the name of the ship?”

  “The Barracuda. Nice name, huh?”

  “Only the best for you,” she had said, holding him. Kane stood now in front of the gathered men in the wardroom, his crew, aboard his submarine. They were the best crew at sea, even better than he had had aboard the Phoenix. “Good morning, gentlemen,” he said, his favorite opening for a briefing.

  northwest pacific USS Ronald Reagan

  “Well, Patch, it’s time,” Donner said, staring out to sea with his binoculars.

  The sun had set an hour before, the last traces of twilight fading now. The carrier was closer to Japan, but there had been no time to coordinate or set up the blockade.

  “The interdiction effort begins in the Sea of Japan,” Donner said. “There’s a Russian supertanker coming in from South Korea loaded with oil and heading for the oil terminal at Niigata on the western coast of Japan.

  We’re scrambling four F-14s to fly out to her and keep her from crossing into the Japan Oparea.”

  “Mac, you really think that supertanker’s going to pull back because of some F14s?”

  “If he doesn’t he’s going to get a hull full of torpedoes.