Ghost Sub

USS Louisville

The Louisville’s executive officer was in the ship’s tiny office, using their sole photocopier to duplicate the watch bill he’d just authored. He picked one up as it came off the machine and suppressed a narrow smile as he looked over the page, still warm from its creation.

He was the second-in-command of the boat, charged with many administrative responsibilities, including the approval and publication of the watch bill. Commander Michaels had even less patience than most captains for administrative drudgery, and was happy to delegate it all to his meticulous XO, who was skilled with spreadsheets and PowerPoint in a way he would never be with torpedoes. He read the watchbill again, to make sure Lieutenant Danny Jabo was exactly where he wanted him.

You may have a Navy Cross, he thought to himself. And maybe the admiral knows you by name. But I still control the watch bill. Once it was published, the captain wouldn’t second guess him on this.

The XO had been solidly in the middle of the pack at every early stage of his career: 253^rd in his class at the academy, barely in the top half at nuclear power school, and slightly worse at prototype. But this is why he had made it to XO, clawing ahead of so many peers that had once been deemed more promising. And this is why he would make it to captain: he was good at this. He had the careerist equivalent of good eye-hand coordination, a sense for which way the wind was blowing, a knack for saying what superior officers wanted to hear even before they knew they wanted to hear it. And he knew that if Danny Jabo was the captain’s favorite officer in the wardroom, then he couldn’t be. And he was at a critical stage in his career, just one step to go before taking command of a ship himself, the pinnacle of a naval officer’s career, getting his twenty years in, and retiring with a captain’s pension.

And now the XO’s fate was solely in the hands of the mercurial Commander Michaels, and the fitness report he would issue at the end of this tour. Any praise that was less than completely glowing, any superlative that was remotely qualified, might doom him. The Cold War was over, and with so many boats decommissioned, and so few new ones being built, there weren’t that many commands to go around. Careers were sacrificed every day because of an adverb misplaced or the absence of an adjective in a fitrep. The XO sensed that any praise lavished on Danny, bona fide naval hero, would be taken from him. So Lieutenant Jabo needed to come back down to earth.

He didn’t think it would be hard. Danny seemed uncomplicated in that way, non-political in a manner that probably made him endearing to others, easy to like. But as a result, he’d never see the XO coming. He’d never outmaneuver a guy like the XO when his career was on the line.

As he congratulated himself on his cunning, the copier made a grinding noise, and one of the green lights on the control panel turned red. Agitated, the XO threw open the access plate and saw where the paper had jammed. He grabbed the edge of the offending sheet and pulled, but the machine held onto it tight. With two hands, he pulled again, hard. He heard a snap and the sheet came free, as every light on the machine briefly turned red, and then its internal systems shut everything down to save itself from further damage. He smelled the sweet aroma of melting plastic. The XO jabbed the power button over and over, but nothing happened.

He had killed the copier.

Danny was walking out of his stateroom when he saw a gaggle of junior officers, including V-12, gathered around the bulletin board, peering at the new watch bill. A few glanced at him as he approached and stepped over to make room.

He scanned it until he found his name. It was under V-12’s.

“What the fuck?”

V-12 laughed. “I guess I’m supposed to teach you how to be an EOOW.”

He nodded and considered it. While technically he wasn’t qualified on any of his new ship’s systems, he’d been qualified everything on a previous ship, and wore the gold dolphins of a qualified submariner. On the Alabama, when a new department head had arrived, they’d typically given him a token watch or two in the engine room, followed by a few observed watches on the bridge as OOD, and then they put his name in the watch qualification book. They hurried the process both out of respect for the officer’s previous experience and the dire need for qualified watch officers. So maybe that’s what this was, just a token watch. But as he took note of the XO’s small, neat signature at the bottom of the strangely wrinkled sheet of paper, and absorbed the fact that he would be ostensibly supervised by his lower-ranking roommate, he felt certain that at least part of this was deliberate — an attempt to put him in his place.

“This is crazy,” said V-12.

“Yeah, well.”

“You were the only officer of the deck who could find the drone on the range!” he said. “What do they want you in the engine room for?”

“Do I hear some questions about the watchbill?” The XO had appeared behind them, a tight grin on his face. “If so, you can address them to the Number 4 torpedo tube.”

“No questions, XO,” said Jabo, not taking the bait. The XO continued anyway.

“I know you qualified on an S8-G reactor on that Trident,” he said, emphasizing the word. “Thought you might need time in a fast attack engine room: S6-G.”

“Good idea, sir. Looking forward to it.”

The XO nodded, disappointed that Jabo wasn’t more pissed about it.

V-12 spoke up. “XO, what’s wrong with the watchbill?”

“I put people where they need to be, V-12. Everyone contributes, everyone qualifies, no exceptions.”

“No, not that. I mean — it’s all crumpled up.”

The other JOs chuckled and the XO’s smile disappeared. He did an about face and stormed down the passageway.

“Well,” said V-12, looking at his watch. “I guess we should do our pre-watch tour.”

Danny marveled at how much smaller the engine room of Louisville was, compared to the Alabama’s, where he’d learned the trade of nuclear propulsion. Everything was smaller: the air conditioners, the air compressors, the evaporators that made their freshwater out of the sea that surrounded them. And that equipment was jammed into an engine room that was smaller still, machinery crammed from the deck to the overhead, and every move required ducking and twisting to avoid a piece of gear. The Alabama had been designed around her twenty-four ballistic missiles, a huge suite of weapons that stretched everything out, making the ship longer and wider on every axis. The Louisville seemed very crowded in comparison.

“I’m sure this all looks familiar,” said V-12, as they walked through the engineering spaces prior to taking the watch.

“Some of it does,” said Jabo. “Some of it doesn’t.”

While Danny was learning about the S6-G propulsion plant, he was also learning more about the crew, including V-12. He was efficient and knowledgeable, reviewing the logs thoroughly as they conducted their pre-watch tour and noting anything amiss in the space: a dead light bulb by the evaporator, a damaged piece of lagging near the port main engine. If Danny had a critique of him it was that he was a little chatty as he talked to the watchstanders. Submarining was serious business, and being the EOOW was a grave responsibility. V-12 was here to give these men orders, but sometimes it seemed like he was running for student council.

But hell, thought Danny as he stepped into maneuvering. I’m supposed to be here learning from him.

“Lieutenant Jabo is the Engineering Officer of the Watch,” he announced. “Under Instruction.”

“Throttleman, aye.”

“Reactor Operator, aye.”

“Electrical Operator, aye.”

He recorded it in the logs.

“So sir, what’s a naval hero like yourself doing a UI watch?” It was Brady, the Reactor Operator.

“I just do what I’m told,” said Jabo. “Just like you guys.”

“Seat?” V-12 was courteously offering him the EOOW’s chair.

“Maybe later,” said Jabo.

“What did they have for the EOOW on a Trident?” asked the electrical operator. “A recliner?”

“Hammock,” said Jabo, and they laughed.

He looked at the panels in front of him, which didn’t look all that different from what he’d learned on Alabama. The watchstanders, too, seemed familiar. The nuclear enlisted men of the submarine force fancied themselves, with some justification, as the smartest men on the boat, if not the smartest men in the navy. They were unquestionably the biggest smart asses. They grouped all the other crewmen together, calling them “coners,” as they occupied the front part of the submarine. While all the boat’s officers were also nuclear trained, as well as college graduates, the enlisted men didn’t mind challenging their intellect as well. It made the watch go faster.

The boat was moving at Ahead Flank, 100 % reactor power, transiting to the search area as fast as possible. This meant every man in maneuvering had to be on his toes, but especially the throttleman, who controlled the flow of steam to the main engines. If he screwed up, the reactor could exceed 100 % power, a reportable incident. Jabo watched him work; he was a lean, serious-looking young man, who scanned his panel efficiently while making minute adjustments to the throttle. Jabo noticed half of a tattoo poking out from under his sleeve.

“Is that an Eagle, Globe, and Anchor?” he said, surprised, recognizing the emblem of the United States Marine Corps.

“Yes sir,” said the throttleman, not offering further explanation.

“James was in the Marines before he was in the Navy,” explained V-12.

“No shit.” said Jabo. “How does that happen?”

“I enlisted in the Marines right after high school. Did my two years in an infantry platoon and got out. Got a job slinging packages at Federal Express for a year, decided I wanted back in the military. But something different.”

“And now you’re a nuclear mechanic?”

“Yes sir.”

“Wow,” said Jabo, impressed. He was really evaluating James now, and he did have the short hair and the erect posture, and most of all the earnest demeanor, of someone who’d been through Parris Island. “You went from being a Marine Corps infantryman to a nuke on a submarine. That’s really two ends of the spectrum.”

James shrugged. “Not that different,” he said, scanning his panel, adjusting the throttles slightly. “There are lots of misconceptions on both sides.”

“How so?” asked Jabo.

“Those grunts aren’t as dumb as you think.”

“And?”

“And you guys aren’t complete pussies.”

They all pondered that.

A few minutes later, the 1MJ phone whooped — somebody was calling maneuvering. The 1MJ was one of the boat’s many sound powered circuits — an ingenious, time-honored navy system of communication that required no power source other than the speaker’s voice. Jabo picked it up.

“Maneuvering, Jabo.”

“Lieutenant Jabo, this is the XO. How’s your watch going?”

“Fine sir. Learning a lot.”

“Good, glad to hear it.” There was a pause, but Jabo was comfortable with silence. Finally the XO cleared his throat and continued.

“I believe Chief Beck is your Engineering Watch Supervisor — could you have him contact me in my stateroom?”

“Aye aye sir.”

The XO hung up.

Jabo picked up the 2MC microphone, the amplified circuit for the engine room. Normally underway, amplified circuits were avoided because of the noise. But since they were going Ahead Flank, and their own machinery was operating so loudly, it didn’t matter. “Engineering Watch Supervisor, come to maneuvering.”

Within seconds Chief Beck was there, still tanned from their time in Hawaii. He was standing watch as the Engineering Watch Supervisor, the senior enlisted man in the engine room, but he was also the senior mechanic on the boat. He looked a little surprised to see Jabo in there with young V-12.

“Who’s teaching who in there?”

“I like to think we can all learn from each other,” said Jabo.

“Good point. You called, sir?”

“The XO wants to talk to you.”

“May I?” he said, pointing to the 1MJ.

“Certainly. He’s in his stateroom”

He selected the XO’s stateroom with the dial and turned the crank.

“XO, this is Chief Beck.” He began nodding as the XO spoke on the other end.

“Yes sir. I understand. You know we don’t have anybody qualified to do that… yes sir. My best mechanic. Aye, aye sir. We’ll figure something out.”

He hung up with a quizzical look on his face. “Weird,” he said.

Everyone in maneuvering waited for more.

“The copier is tits up,” he said. “God only knows how long until we’re in port to swap it out. So the XO told me to put my best man on it, get the goddamn thing fixed no matter what. I guess we can’t run a submarine without a steady supply of copies. “

“Can you do it?” asked Jabo.

He shrugged. “Not like any of us have ever fixed a copy machine before. But I’ve got mechanics who can fix anything.” He pointed at James.

“I’m on it,” the throttleman responded, without taking his eyes off his panel.

Honolulu

Master Chief Cote took the long way out of the hospital, leaving through the main reception area, which he almost never did. It was a beautiful day, however, and he thought he would walk outside a little before getting in his car and driving back to the house. He had increasingly less to do at the hospital. The navy was getting comfortable with the idea of living without him. And, increasingly, Cote was getting comfortable with the idea of living without the navy. He knew he would move back to Indiana when he got out, it was a foregone conclusion. So he was already nostalgic for Hawaii and determined to enjoy the days he had left in paradise, every palm tree, every wave, every flawless sunrise.

The reception area was more hectic than normal. Almost every seat was taken with a sick person or their companion. Standing at the main desk, a young pretty girl was crying her eyes out and pleading with the receptionist.

“Please, you’ve got to help me!” she said. “The other lady told me I could come back in a couple of days and check.”

The woman at the desk gave her a fatigued roll of her eyes. “I don’t know anything about that. And I can’t give you that kind of information if you’re not family,” she said. “I can’t even tell you if he’s here.”

“Please!” she said, the word elongated and turning into sobs. Other people in the waiting area began to turn away and mutter in embarrassment. Cote paused just a moment. The girl, in her desperation for help, sensed his gaze.

Her eyes dropped to the silver dolphins on his chest.

She ran to him and grabbed his arms. “Please, you’re a submariner! You’ve got to help me!”

“I’m not sure I can,” he said. “But I’ll try. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“It’s my boyfriend… he told me he’d write me a letter before the boat pulled out… I never got anything! And now I know his boat is overdue… all the wives are talking about it. And I can’t get anyone to tell me shit because we’re not married yet!”

At the mention of “overdue” Cote perked up a little. It wasn’t unheard of, but it was a lot more unusual than it used to be during the height of the Cold War, when captains had to lead their boats into peril and improvise to get them home. He’d been on a Sturgeon class boat once in shallow water near the Kamchatka Peninsula when the Soviets somehow got a whiff of them. For two weeks, the Soviet High Command had a better idea of their location than Subpac, as they dodged sonobuoys and ice floes in the Sea of Okhotsk. Submarine schedules had become much more predictable since the demise of their old foe.

“You didn’t get a letter… so you think your boyfriend must be in the hospital?”

“Yes!” she said, almost shouting. “He loves me! I know it sounds stupid.” She ran her fingers through her hair and Cote saw that one of her fingernails was painted black.

He grabbed her hands and looked into her eyes. “What boat is your boyfriend on?” he asked, his voice lowered.

Her eyes widened, sensing correctly that Cote knew something terrible. “Boise.”

It was midnight before they were all gathered together in a conference room: the admiral and his aide, Carr and King from NIS, and Connelly from the CDC. Master Chief Cote was there too, wondering if he might finally learn what the hell was going on. In the center of the table, in a sealed plastic bag, was a bottle of black nail polish.

“First things first,” said the admiral. “Where’s the girl? How is she?”

“She’s in isolation on the fifth floor, sir,” said Cote. “She appears to be thoroughly freaked out, but not sick at all.”

“Let’s make sure she’s treated well,” said the admiral. “I can’t imagine what she’s going through. I don’t want her to feel like she’s a prisoner here.”

King, the eager young NIS agent, spoke up. “We can keep her here as long as we want,” he said, pointing at Connelly. “We have the authority from the CDC.”

The admiral frowned and leaned over the table toward the young man. “I took an oath to be an officer and a gentleman, if that’s alright with you.”

King withered in his seat.

The admiral turned to Connelly. “What do we know?”

“Looks like the pathogen was transmitted via the nail polish. Something cheap she bought at a flea market at Aloha Stadium. We confiscated a case of it from the vendor, he says he imported it directly from some relative at the factory in Thailand. We’ve got a team in Bangkok right now checking it out, they theorize they made a batch with contaminated river water. There are things in that river science doesn’t even have a name for. Somehow it got into his bloodstream when he painted his nail.”

“It was cracked,” said Cote. “His fingernail. I saw it.”

“Why did he paint his fingernail? Did she say?”

“They painted each others’ nails. Some kind of sign of devotion.”

The admiral sighed heavily at that.

Connelly continued. “So that’s why he was infected and she wasn’t, because it got into his bloodstream and mutated into some kind of infection. We think. Inside the boat, it went airborne somehow. Maybe it took hold in an air filter, or inside one of the scrubbers. We won’t know for sure until we get onboard.”

“You think everybody got it?”

Connelly shrugged. “We don’t know anything for sure, we’re still not even sure what we’re dealing with yet. Maybe something like the Hanta Virus. But based on the circumstances… I fear the worst.”

“So what do we do?” asked the admiral, more to himself than anyone in the room. “Sink it? An out of control nuclear submarine filled with a deadly disease?”

Carr responded. “Obviously this is way above my paygrade…”

“And mine,” said the Admiral. “But tell me what you think.”

“After 9-11, the planners agreed they would from now on shoot down airplanes that were non-responsive, heading toward populated areas.”

“How do they define non-responsive? What if the pilots are just busy? Or distracted?”

“Or asleep? All those things are possible, and, in fact, have happened. More often than you would think. Most recently just two weeks ago, when a Northwest Airlines 737 overflew the Minneapolis airport by 150 miles, and was nonresponsive for about an hour.”

“What happened?”

“The pilot finally answered the call. Said he and his copilot were distracted and lost ‘situational awareness’ as they were arguing about some company policy.”

“And they were really ready to shoot her down?”

Carr slid a file folder over the table toward the admiral. “Two F-16s from the Minnesota Air National Guard were on the runway, ready to intercept. The protocols call for a series of escalating actions, starting with a fly by, waving wings, even dropping flares. We modeled our special procedure on this, with the shooting water slugs and the underwater telephone. The idea is to confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that the plane can’t or won’t respond.”

“And then they shoot her down.”

“If they have to. We’re not going to let big jets fly into buildings anymore.”

“And a nuclear submarine can do a lot more damage than an airplane,” said the admiral. “A lot more. But we don’t even know if everybody is dead onboard Boise. Not yet.”

“If there’s anyone onboard, they’ll answer the call from Louisville,” said Carr. “The special procedure will leave no doubt.”

“But the Louisville has to find her first,” said the admiral. “No matter what, they have to find her.”

USS Louisville

Danny woke up early the next day and grabbed a granola bar in the wardroom. The delicious smell of bacon was wafting from the galley, but he fought the temptation. Angi managed to stay in great shape and he didn’t want to come back from sea with a belly, an occupational hazard on submarines, which had the best food in the navy. He crunched on the bar as he walked the short distance to control. It tasted like honey mixed with sawdust.

Lieutenant Bannick was the OOD, and he looked disappointed to see Jabo on the steps. Bannick was on his last deployment, his resignation letter already turned in and his separation orders in hand. Rumor had it that he had a job offer from Kraft Foods, near his hometown in Naperville, Illinois. Certainly he was growing his hair out in preparation for civilian life. Jabo had no problem with that; he had himself written his resignation letter once, and had had every intention of getting out. He had no problem with people leaving the service after fulfilling their obligation. But he did have a problem with people who phoned it in, no matter how short they were. Perhaps because of his last patrol on Alabama, Jabo knew better than most how much a submarine depended on the dedication of every man.

“Aren’t you happy to see me?” said Jabo.

“I was hoping you were my relief,” said Bannick. “I’ve got to piss like a race horse.”

“I’d take the watch if I could.”

“Yeah what the fuck is up with that?” Bannick responded with a chuckle. “You’re qualified to chart our course, but the XO won’t let you take the watch?”

Jabo saw a few enlisted heads turn at that in control, and he chose not to respond. Everyone on the boat had a god-given right to bitch, he knew, including officers. But an officer like Bannick, even one nearing the end of his time in uniform, shouldn’t be airing his doubts about the command where the crew could hear him. For that same reason, Jabo would talk to him about it later: in private. He continued over to the chart.

They were getting close to the area that he’d boxed in with a red pencil line — his best estimate of where the Boise might be. It excited him. Another twelve hours and he would request the captain station the tracking party, and be ready to man battle stations. He carefully checked, and re-checked their position. Then he pulled out a binder of the latest NTMs, or Notice to Mariners, to verify that the chart was completely up to date. Bannick had wandered over to look.

“Nothing out here, right? Nothing but deep water?”

“Supposed to be,” said Jabo. “But sometimes these sea mounts can sneak up on you. And trust me, you don’t want to hit one at this speed.”

“We’re about to slow down to go to PD,” said Bannick: periscope depth. “We’ll get a fix while we’re up there.”

Jabo spent another fifteen minutes reviewing the chart, where they were and where they were going, satisfying himself that they were safe. He made an entry on the deck log, noting the time: 0625.

“Ahead one third,” ordered Bannick.

“Ahead one third, aye sir,” responded the helm as he rang it up. The engine order telegraph dinged as the engine room answered the bell.

Just a few feet away, the sonarmen came alive as the ship slowed and their acoustic environment became visible to them again. At ahead flank, they’d made so much noise that they couldn’t hear a thing, but as the ship slowed it became quiet again, and to sonarmen, it was like removing a blindfold after many hours.

Sounds emerged in every direction. Behind them, a distant cargo ship with battered screws steamed in an efficient great circle route across the Pacific. A lonely whale moaned plaintively far to the north. Below them, the tectonic plates of the ocean floor groaned as they shifted.

Through all that, a junior sonarman heard something exceedingly odd on his headphones: a faint pinging. He jerked upright, put his hands over his earphones, and closed his eyes in concentration.

“What have you got?” asked the supervisor.

“Not sure…” he said. “But think it might be active sonar. Straight ahead of us.”

“Oh fuck,” said the supervisor, making a quick note in his logs. He turned a switch so he could listen to the same thing as his watchstander. “Do we have anything else on that bearing?”

“Nothing.”

The submarine, as part of its mission to remain quiet, relied largely on “passive” sonar, meaning they just listened for noise with an array of exquisitely sensitive listening devices. It also had, but rarely used, “active” sonar. This was the science of emitting a pulse of sound into the water and waiting for it to hit something and bounce back. The nature and the timing of the echo could reveal much about the target, most importantly its bearing and distance.

Because of the preternatural quiet of a vessel like the Louisville, other vessels using passive sonar had little hope of finding her. So active sonar was the platform of choice for everything thing that hunted her: planes, ships, and other submarines. A sonarman on a submarine was trained to react to the pinging of active sonar the same way an infantryman in the bush would react to sound of a ratcheting shotgun.

It was extremely faint, and it took the supervisor a while to hear it, but there it was: a series of regular pings, about one second each and one second apart. Definitely electronic, definitely manmade.

“How does it comp?” he asked.

Another watchstander was furiously keying a computer on the side, comparing the frequency of the pinging signal to their vast electronic library of known active sonars, friend and foe.

“It doesn’t match up to anything,” he said. “But it sure as hell sounds like active sonar.”

“Yes it does,” said the supervisor.

He picked up the microphone, exhaled, and spoke.

“Conn sonar, we have possible active sonar at three-zero-zero, designating Sierra One. Recommend battle stations.”

Jabo jerked his head up at that, and looked at Bannick. He fully expected him to immediately call away battle stations; that’s what he would have done. The Chief of the Watch actually put his hand on the alarm. Bannick hesitated, glanced nervously at Jabo, and then hunched down to look at the CODC, his computerized sonar display. He picked up the mike and spoke into it. “Sonar, conn, I don’t see anything at three-zero-zero.”

The sonar supervisor stepped into control. Jabo sensed some disdain from him toward the young Officer of the Deck. “Sir, I listened to it myself. It’s extremely faint but it’s regular and its electronic. Recommend battle stations.”

“Did you get a match?”

“No!” he said, unable to hide his frustration. “Not yet. But it is without question manmade. We need to call it.”

“I concur,” said Jabo. “Along that bearing, it could be our target.”

Bannick exhaled jaggedly. “Let’s not freak out here,” he said. “Why would our target be using active sonar?”

“You need to tell the captain,” said Jabo. “Now.”

Bannick didn’t say anything, but looked toward the ladder, as if his relief might show up and spare him from having to make any tough decisions. Aggravated, Jabo walked briskly to sonar.

There was a brief look of surprise from the sonarmen as he entered. “Can I listen?” he said, and a watchstander nodded, handing him a set of headphones.

After a few seconds he could hear it — it was impossibly faint, and he gave credit to the man who first heard it. It reminded him of one of those hearing tests the navy made him take once a year. But there it was, a faint, regular electronic beeping. “Shit.”

He took the headphones off and handed them back.

“Where are you going, sir?”

“To tell the captain,” he said.

Just as he reached the door, the watchstander at the middle console stopped him. “Wait…” he said.

Jabo paused.

“It’s gone,” he said.

“Shit!” said Jabo. “Are you sure?”

The sonarman waited, his eyes shut, straining to hear it again.

“It’s gone. Not a trace.”

“Goddamn it!” said Jabo.

He walked back into control where Bannick smirked, having just gotten the word from the supervisor, his under-reaction vindicated. “Now let’s get my relief up here,” he said. “The smell of that bacon is making my stomach growl!”

MM3 James was staring at the copier, trying to pull it apart in his mind, piece by piece, before he did so in real life. He was a gifted mechanic, a skill set he found to be under-appreciated in the real world. People understood that electricians were smart, and that computer guys were smart. But guys who could look at a machine and understand it intuitively… they seemed only to impress each other. At least that was true until he got in the military, where keeping machines running, both in the Marine Corps and in the Navy, tended to keep people alive. So good mechanics were treasured.

The copier was small and complex, and clearly not designed for do-it-yourself maintenance. He pulled off the access panel and stared inside, saw in his mind how the dozens of tiny gears meshed and turned to pull a blank sheet of paper up, feed it through, and spit it out the other end with an image upon it. Picking up a single sheet of paper was a tricky mechanical challenge, and James admired the delicacy of it. He turned those gears by hand, saw that was not the problem.

He pushed the power button, nothing happened. He found an internal breaker that had tripped, reset it, and turned it on again. The machine tried to come to life, but with a horrible ratcheting sound, deep inside its guts, it shut down again. The sound actually made James happy; it confirmed that the problem was indeed mechanical. If it was something to do with the electronics of photocopying, he was screwed, but gears and motors were something he could fix.

Slowly he disassembled it, one component at a time, not putting anything aside until he understood its role in the machine. Finally he pulled out a shiny steel axel from inside the machine that held two white plastic gears on each end, each about an inch in diameter. One of them was missing about half its teeth.

“Bingo,” he said.

He pulled the damaged gear off the axel, and put it in his pocket.

Danny almost ran into James as he looked for the captain. He saw the copier in pieces behind him, a red danger tag hanging from it marking it as OOC, or Out of Commission. If he’d been a junior officer with more time on his hands, he would have cornered James to explain his plan for the machine. Jabo’s dad had been a heating and air condition repairman, a gifted mechanic himself, and he was interested in such things. But he didn’t have time.

The captain and XO were both outside the captain’s stateroom, heading down to the wardroom for breakfast.

“Jabo!” said the captain. “Join us for some fake eggs?”

“I think we just detected the Boise,” said Jabo, trying to keep the anger out of his voice.

Both the captain and XO stared.

“Then why aren’t we at battle stations?”

“You need to ask Bannick that,” he said. “I recommended it.”

“Tell us what happened.”

Jabo sighed, trying to keep cool. “Sonar heard a regular, active signal, along the right bearing. Bannick dicked around, and we lost it before he called anything away.”

“It’s gone?”

“Completely,” said Jabo.

“Shit,” said the captain.

The XO smirked skeptically. “Active sonar? If it’s the Boise, why in the hell would she be using active sonar? I’ll want to listen to those tapes myself.”

“Good idea,” snapped the captain.

“And aren’t we too far?” continued the XO. “We’re still outside the red zone — as you plotted it.”

“Considering what we know and don’t know about her position — no telling. But yes, by my very rough estimates, we’re pretty far. Either we’re closer than we think, or it was a really loud noise. Or both.”

The captain furrowed his brow and thought hard. “Ok, fuck it. Maybe that is her. Jabo, you give the training after lunch. We’ll station the tracking party right after. Everybody agree with that?”

“Yes sir,” they both said.

“Good. Jabo, come down and eat with me. We’ll tell Alabama stories and irritate everybody.”

“Aye, sir.” They all started toward the wardroom, but the captain stopped and turned to the XO.

“I thought you were going to go listen to those tapes.”

The XO turned around and walked to sonar without a word.

In the wardroom, Petty Officer Sheldon was setting out a silver pitcher of orange juice.

“Sheldon!” said the captain. “What’s real and what’s fake? Report.”

The cook smiled. “Morning, captain. Real milk, still,” he said. “For probably another two days. Real bacon. Fake eggs.”

“Orange juice?” He pointed.

“Real.”

“Real concentrate? Or real fresh squeezed?”

“Squeezed it myself.”

“Outstanding — give me real bacon, fake scrambled eggs, and a large real orange juice.”

“Aye aye, sir. Nav?”

“Just coffee for me,” said Jabo.

“What?” said the captain. “In the final days of real orange juice and real milk?”

“Yes sir, I’m good.”

“It’s rude to let your captain eat alone. Don’t they teach you ROTC guys wardroom etiquette?”

In truth, Jabo didn’t need much convincing. Like Bannick, the smell of bacon was making his stomach growl. “Alright, in the spirit of good manners,” he said. “I’ll take the same as the captain.”

“Very good,” said the cook, disappearing into the galley.

“So,” the captain said as they sat down. “What do you think of our little ship? We haven’t had much time to reflect together since you reported.”

“Loving it,” said Danny. “Ship and crew.”

“What are your first impressions? Any weaknesses? I value your opinion.”

“Well, captain, I can give you a good assessment of the engine room.”

The captain smiled at that. “You’re not enjoying your time back there?”

“Honestly — I think I could serve the ship better up here.”

“Maybe so,” said the captain, nodding.

Sheldon came in with their orange juice, and the captain waited until he left to resume. “He’s a good XO,” he said.

Danny nodded. “I didn’t know we were talking about the XO.”

“Bullshit. You’re pissed because he put you in the engine room. And I don’t blame you— a hot shot like you wants to be up front, where the action is.”

“Wouldn’t you, sir?”

“Of course. And trust me, this is a very small world we’re living in. If and when you are needed on the conn, you’ll be on the conn. I can personally guarantee you that.”

“In the meantime?”

“In the meantime, consider this a learning experience.”

“On the S6-G propulsion plant?”

The Captain shrugged. “It wouldn’t kill you. It is different than what you’ve learned before, and you are a lot more likely to run into the S6-G on future boats than another S8-G. And I don’t mind at all having one of my more experienced officers back there watching over that engine room. But that’s not all.”

“Sir?”

“Consider it a learning experience on how to work with difficult officers. Officers who aren’t like you. Officers who perhaps don’t have your talent, officers who are at different places in their careers. Trust me. Much like the S6-G reactor, this won’t be the last time you see one.”

The door burst open and V-12 entered the wardroom, bounding with energy.

“Captain! May I join you for breakfast?”

“Certainly, young man.”

V-12 turned to a cabinet behind them, opened it, and began rooting through a huge pile of single-serving boxes of cereal.

“We’re having bacon and eggs,” said the captain. “You can give Sheldon your order…”

“No thank you, sir,” said V-12, his back still toward them. “There’s Lucky Charms in here somewhere, I saw them yesterday.”

Danny worked on the charts for about two hours, fueled by coffee and the excitement that they were about to begin the hunt. Adequately prepared for the training, and utterly exhausted, he snuck down to his stateroom when the rest of the crew was gathering for lunch, and slept for forty-five minutes, fully clothed in his rack. That forty-five minutes was the only sleep he’d gotten in the last day, and it was interrupted twice: once by the radioman needing him to review messages downloaded at periscope depth, prior to routing to the captain. The second time an engineering laboratory technician from aft needed to remove Jabo’s dosimeter from his belt for routine measuring and chronicling of how much radiation he’d absorbed. He would have been interrupted a third time, by an ET needing a signature on a training plan, but V-12 intercepted him at the door and told him that it could wait, giving his roommate about ten more minutes of sleep before he had to head down to the wardroom and begin training.

Danny spread out the chart on the wardroom table. The last known positions of the Boise were on it in red X’s, the SOSUS hit and the BST buoys. He had also drawn an X for noise they’d heard that morning, and the bearing, at least, did fit along his predicted track.

Their position, too, was drawn over it, a series of slow snake-like motions across the Boise’s faint trail. They had slowed to eight knots, and were angling their way westward, listening keenly at the slower speed. They were hunting.

And he knew they were close.

Two of the three OOD’s arrived early for the training, and studied the chart, which Jabo appreciated: Lieutenants Perez and Burkhardt. The third OOD of the three-section watchbill was Bannick, who apparently didn’t feel he needed the extra time. They also looked over the special procedure, which the captain’s night orders the night before had required them to memorize. It contained the actions that would, theoretically, alert the Boise to their presence when they finally located her and got within range.

The three of them, Bannick, Perez, and Burkhardt, would be on the conn because they had the most time of all the junior officers on the boat — about two years each. They’d qualified everything and wore gold dolphins on their chest. Burkhardt and Perez were friends too, Jabo knew, sharing a stateroom. This was good, it meant they would trust each other and help each other out as things got tough.

“You guys have any questions before we start the official portion of this training?”

“Not yet,” said Perez.

“Yeah, maybe after this training.”

“Burkhardt, I saw your orders come through on the last broadcast.”

He nodded. “I heard — I’m going to the ROTC unit at Creighton.”

“Congrats,” said Jabo. That’s what I did. ROTC at Purdue.”

“Good time?”

Jabo nodded. “Good duty. But it’s cold up there.”

“Did you get your MBA?”

“Nah,” said Jabo. “I’m not smart enough for that.”

“Keep an eye out for my orders, too,” said Perez. “Should be here soon.”

“Where are you going?”

“Trying for the ORSE board,” he said.

“East coast or west coast?”

“East, hopefully,” said Perez.

ORSE stood for Operational Reactors Safeguards Exam. They were the team that evaluated all the nukes in the navy, travelling to every nuclear ship and grading their performance. It was a grueling and vital job. There was one team on each coast, and as with most things in the submarine force, the east coast group held a measure of prestige. The snobbery was a holdover from the Cold War when the subs out of Groton and Norfolk operated on almost a daily basis with their Soviet adversaries. It was the kind of shore tour that could set a junior officer apart from the pack.

“Nice,” said Jabo. “Nice easy shore tour.”

“He’s a diggit,” said Burkhardt, laughing. ‘Diggit’ was a term the crew used to deride any man who was overly enthusiastic about the Navy, as in ‘he digs it.’

“Well thank God they’ve got ROTC units to send guys like me and Burkhardt,” said Jabo.

The wardroom door crashed open and the rest of the officers streamed in for their training. V-12, of course, was at the at the head of the pack. Bannick came in looking like he just awoken minutes before, his hair standing straight up, eyes squinting. The XO and captain arrived last and took their seats

V-12 spoke up. “Is today the day you tell us what really happened onboard the legendary USS Alabama?”

“Not today,” said Jabo.

“When? We were promised all the lurid details when you reported aboard.”

The captain spoke up. “How about we complete our fucking mission first, V-12?”

“Put me on the conn, captain! I’ll find her.”

The captain rolled his eyes at this and everyone laughed. “Just stay in the engine room where you can do the most good. Or the least damage.”

“Aye, aye sir.”

The captain thumped the table. “Commence training, Jabo.”

“We’re now following the tracking standing orders,” said Jabo. “Which you have all reviewed. Upon completion of this training, we’ll station the tracking party. If any of you get a hit…” He glanced at Bannick, who looked away. “Call away battle stations. We have every reason to believe the Boise is within range now.”

“Explain the operating areas,” said the captain.

“Yes sir,” said Jabo, pointing at the chart. “While we don’t have any assigned areas, you’ll see I’ve assigned overlapping boxes, boxes that creep gradually westward at eight knots. Each OOD should consider it his job to search each of these boxes completely during his watch. But stay on track… be ready to turn over the watch where your box overlaps with the next box, so we can continue.”

V-12 stood up to get a better look at the chart, even though he wasn’t an OOD. He would spend the patrol in the engine room, as the Louisville put her most experienced junior officers on the conn, and the newer guys in maneuvering. Jabo wished he had V-12 up front. Bannick stared at the chart blankly, uninterested. Jabo would have gladly traded Bannick’s experience for V-12’s energy and enthusiasm.

“What makes us think she’s moving along this five knot westward track?” he said.

“Exercise briefing,” the XO snapped.

“And the data points I have here…” said Jabo, pointing at the chart. “It’s consistent with a five knot SOA.”

“What about stovepipes?” said V-12. “Hers or ours?”

“No stovepipes,” said the XO.

V-12 looked up at that, as did a few others around the table. When submarines operated together, they were usually assigned “stovepipes” in the ocean, literally columns of water they were assigned from the sea floor to the surface, areas where they knew they could go to periscope depth, or surface, without the risk of colliding with the other boat. It was a staple of submarine exercise protocol. Not having them was akin to announcing a football game with three quarters. Jabo had actually considered creating some fictional stovepipes and putting them on the chart, just for appearances, but he didn’t want to limit any area of the ocean from their searching no matter how small. In addition, he felt like it would be lying.

“How will she get the broadcast?” asked V-12. “Or shoot trash?”

Jabo shrugged. “Like us — she’ll just have to be careful.”

He looked over at the three OODs, Bannick, Perez, and Burkhardt. They were okay with it, he could tell, too focused on the specifics of the procedures they’d been given to be distracted by the doctrinal departures. But V-12 wouldn’t let it go.

“Did they have to get special permission from the CNO for something like this? It’s a complete departure from Navy regs.”

The XO was starting to get agitated at V-12’s questions. “Why don’t you worry less about Navy regs and more about the standing orders you were supposed to memorize last night?”

“But XO…”

“You heard me,” he said. “And since you’re so concerned about the integrity of this exercise, why don’t you recite the standing order for us?”

V-12 sat back, and looked the XO right in the eye.

“The OOD shall maintain an 8 knot SOA while searching along the recommended axis spelled out in Appendix A of the standing order. Standard collision avoidance maneuvers shall be taken upon broadband detection, in parallel with the manning of battle stations. Trash will be gathered and compacted on the evening watch and shot on the morning watch while the ship is at Periscope Depth, acquiring the broadcast. The tracking party will be supervised by the JOOD while the OOD ensures the ship is turned over at the end of watch in the overlap between the old and the new operating zones, as outlined in red upon the main navigational chart.”

He sat back.

“Is that right?” said the captain to Jabo, who’d been following along on a laminated sheet.

“Word for word.”

“Anybody want to hear Appendix A?” said V-12.

Later that afternoon, Jabo saw the XO had posted a new watchbill to account for the tracking party. It was handwritten on a sheet of lined paper due to the death of their copier. It still had Jabo in the engine room, still under the instruction of V-12. And just when he thought it couldn’t get any better, he noticed he’d been given the midwatch that night: midnight to 0600.

Jabo grabbed a few hours of sleep late that evening. He thought of his wife, Angi, running in front of him on a rainy Seattle road as he drifted off. He missed her so bad it pained him, but something about the memory made him fall into a deep dreamless sleep. About two hours was all he needed, and it was all he got.

When he woke up, he thought for a disorienting second that he was back on the Alabama, and that his friend Hayes Fountain would be awake in the stateroom, putting on his Nikes, ready to go on one of his mythic treadmill runs that he logged meticulously in a binder, on graph paper, each patrol. Jabo wondered if that would be how it was for him now, all the memories of all his boats jumbling together until he was an old man and he wouldn’t be able to tell one boat from another when he reminisced. He missed Angi constantly, it was part of the background noise of his life at sea. But he realized with some surprise how much he missed the Alabama, too, and the shipmates he’d had, on this boat where he was in many ways still a stranger.

He showered, and met V-12 at the watertight door to the engine room at 2300 for their prewatch tour.

“You can skip this…” said V-12.

“Not my style,” said Danny.

They walked through the engine room and verified everything was in order. It was, as expected, quiet. The men on the 1800–2400 watch had had the midwatch the night before, and were ready for the luxury of at least six uninterrupted hours of sleep, something that only came along every three days. They checked the logs, talked to the men, and then went forward to grab a quick bite to eat.

The wardroom was darkened, as Burkhardt and Perez finished up a movie before the midnight meal, or “midrats,” were served. Submarines, with the day broken into four six hour watches, served four meals a day.

“What’s the flick?” said Jabo.

“Point Break,” said Burkhardt and Perez together.

“Good one,” said Danny. There were two kinds of scenery you grew to miss at sea, he’d learned, and there were cinematic remedies for both. Some underway favorites contained lots of beautiful women, and others contained lots of beautiful landscapes. Point Break was the latter, and had been a favorite on the Alabama too. “Peace through superior firepower,” he said, quoting the film.

“Fear causes hesitation,” said Burkhardt. “And hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true.”

Perez joined in. “If you want the ultimate, you have to be willing to pay the ultimate price.”

“I can see you guys have watched this a few times.”

“About five so far,” said Perez.

“Maybe we shouldn’t get too much of our personal philosophy from a bad Patrick Swayze movie,” said V-12.

“Fuck you, it’s a classic.”

“Better this than Dirty Dancing,” said Jabo.

There was easy laughter around the table, and Jabo could feel the bond between the junior officers. It was a direct byproduct of the huge responsibility that the submarine forced placed on the shoulders of twenty-five year old young men. It was slightly tighter with Perez and Burkhardt, who’d been on the boat longer — the reason why they were on the conn. But V-12 was there too, well-liked and well on his way to becoming a solid watch officer.

Petty Officer Spencer, the cook, came in and turned on the lights as Patrick Swayze took on that last giant wave, and Johnny Utah threw his badge into the surf. The credits rolled as he placed platters of cold cuts and bread on the table. Jabo took a single piece of wheat bread, cut it in half, and started building himself a sandwich. The half-sandwich looked tiny in his big hands.

“That’s all you’re having?” said V-12.

“That’s it,” said Jabo. “I had a big breakfast.”

“You worried about getting fat?”

“My wife is hot,” he said. “I have to stay in shape.”

“Let’s see some pictures,” said Burkhardt.

“Never,” said Jabo. “None of you will ever see her.”

They were laughing as the Captain came in. “What’s going on in here? Plotting a mutiny?”

“No sir,” said V-12. “Lieutenant Jabo was just telling us how hot his wife is.”

“Nice, Jabo, real classy.” He looked at Jabo’s mini-sandwich. “Is that why you’re eating like a sorority girl?”

“Yes sir,” he said. “And I’m going to make myself puke it up before I take the watch.”

“You’re ongoing?” he said, the smile frozen on his face. “Aft?”

“Yes sir,” said Jabo. He got the distinct feeling that the captain had wanted Jabo up front now, and that the XO had chosen to ignore his wishes.

“Hm,” he said, and a slightly nervous silence descended in the wardroom as the officers processed his obvious displeasure. Just then the XO walked in.

“Midrats!” he exclaimed. “Spencer! Where’s my special mustard?”

His eyes swept the room and he quickly detected the tension that had preceded him. He nervously glanced down at the platters of food on the table.

“Cold cuts!” he said with artificial enthusiasm. “Did you know that cold cuts are one of the most expensive meals you can serve on the boat? The crew always thinks it’s the chop going cheap, but really it’s the opposite.” He was proud of his knowledge.

The captain wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin. “I had no idea,” he said.

“Well,” said V-12, breaking the silence and standing up. He looked at Danny. “Little hand says it’s time to rock and roll.”

Everyone stared.

“What the hell is that, V-12?” said the captain.

“It’s from the movie!” he said, pointing at the screen. “It’s from Point Break!”

Everyone laughed out loud even as the captain shook his head.

Jabo and V-12 made their way to the engine room, and into maneuvering, where they took the watch. It was the same team they’d had, including James, the Marine Corps veteran, staring dutifully into his panel, as always somewhat aloof from the rest of the watchsection, even in those closed quarters. There was a flurry of activity as they took the watch, signing into the logs, looking at the night orders for the slight bit of activity that would be taking place on their watch: securing the port motor generator. But soon, in the quiet of the midwatch, Jabo started to feel resentment creep back over his exile in the engine room. Not because of pride — but because of his deep certainty that he could serve the ship, and the mission, best in the control room, driving the ship and leading the crew. He tried to think of it as a learning experience, as the captain had suggested, but the lessons eluded him: instead he seemed to be wasting a lot of energy because of some weird personal vendetta belonging to the XO. He sighed heavily.

“Something bothering you?” asked V-12.

“Yeah. I heard we’re almost out of real milk.”

“I guess that never happened on the Trident,” said the reactor operator.

“Never,” said Jabo. “We kept two dairy cows in missile compartment lower level, Bossy and Flossie, gave us fresh milk all patrol. I was Chief Dairy Officer.”

“I heard it was more exciting than that,” said V-12. “On that particular Trident.”

“Hm.”

The watchstanders nodded expectantly.

“Seriously,” said V-12. “Why don’t you tell us what happened? We’ve all got secret clearances.”

As they waited for him to tell the story, it occurred to Jabo that he didn’t talk about his last patrol on the Alabama much, even to Angi. If they ever made him see a Navy shrink, which they’d threatened to, the doctor might diagnose him with some kind of post-traumatic stress. And maybe that was a part of it. More likely, thought Jabo, it was a deeply ingrained inclination to avoid talking about himself. But a long six hours of watch dragged out in front of them, and he didn’t have that many good jokes.

“It was our navigator,” he said. “Mark Taylor. Academy guy, wound really tight. He was crazy, but none of us knew it until he tried to kill us all.”

“Nobody knew he was crazy? Nobody suspected?” asked the electrical operator.

“We had our suspicions,” said Jabo. “Just like I’m sure you’ve had about every officer on this boat at some point.”

“How did he do it?”

“A couple of ways before the collision, but we didn’t know. Started a fire. Actually killed an A-ganger by dumping all our Freon.”

“We trained on that incident,” said the electrical operator. “Turned to Phosgene gas.”

“That’s right,” said Jabo. An image of Petty Officer Howard flashed through his mind, the first victim of Taylor’s madness. It brought back a familiar combination of sadness and anger. “After that, he deliberately ran us into a sea mount at Ahead Flank.”

“That’s fucked up,” said Brady, the reactor operator.

“Yeah,” said Jabo. “It is. He wanted to sink the boat, and he nearly did it.”

A call came up from middle level, requesting to secure the motor generator for maintenance.

“Secure the port motor generator,” said Jabo, giving the order.

“Secure the port motor generator, aye sir,” said the electrical operator, efficiently securing the machine from his panel while ensuring all electrical busses remained energized. The watchstander in the spaces acknowledged. Jabo made a note if it in the logs. A few minutes later the electrician showed up in maneuvering with red safety tags to sign, which he would hang before commencing the work. After Jabo signed them, he hung two of them on the breaker switches for the machine in maneuvering, and then headed back down to the machine to perform his work.

“So then what happened?” asked Brady after the electrician departed.

“We had a collision, which caused flooding, which caused an electrical ground, which caused a fire.”

“And Commander Michaels was there too?”

“Right there with me — fighting the flooding in the torpedo room. Then the fire in Machinery One.”

“What happened to the Nav?”

“Dead. Killed himself right before we ran aground. Hung himself by the diesel. We had to run the fire hoses by his body.”

“And you lost a finger?”

“Part of a finger,” he said, holding it up.

“Lost a finger and gained a Navy Cross,” said V-12.

The men shifted in their seats now, impressed, quiet, a little awed. Even James, he could see. It wasn’t how Jabo liked his nukes, all their smart-ass tendencies neutralized.

“James,” he said, to the throttleman, ready to change the subject.

“Sir?”

“How’s that troubleshooting of the copier going?”

He shrugged. “Pretty good.”

“He’ll do it,” said V-12. “Smart guy.”

“Tell me your plan,” said Jabo. “I’m curious.”

James shrugged again, and then reached into a cubby near his feet. He pulled out a bar of soap with the broken gear pressed into it.

“Here it is. I tore it down, and I think this is the only thing broken.”

“Let me see that,” said Jabo. James handed it over. The gear had been pressed flat into the soap, until the edge of it was just flush. Jabo could see that the side of the soap itself had been carefully planed flat, making a perfectly horizontal surface.

“Half the teeth are stripped.”

“That’s right. I’m going to carve the missing teeth into the soap with an X-acto knife.”

“Then?”

“I’m going to pour epoxy into the mold, let it dry and cure.”

“That’s it?”

“I’m sure I’ll have to file down the new teeth to make everything mesh together. Might have to balance the thing, depending on how fast that gear turns, I’m really not sure.”

“But you think that will do it?”

“Yes sir, I do.”

Jabo handed it back with a smile. “I do too.”

The watch ended and Jabo made his way forward to the control room. In the berthing areas, the men were stirring quietly, hitting the showers, heading for breakfast, the ship’s day beginning even as his watch had just ended. As predicted by his comrades-in-arms at midrats, the half sandwich had not satisfied him and the smell of breakfast cooking was making him hungry.

In control, the tracking party had already been stationed, making the crowded space that much more crowded, with two additional watchstanders, both of them hovering over a chart: an ET plotting the ship’s position, and a Junior Officer of the Deck, or JOOD, supervising. While normally the Officer of the Deck would have both the “deck and the conn,” in these situations the conn was delegated to the JOOD.

It was a significant division of duties. The “conn” meant the JOOD could give orders to the ship’s control party, altering the ship’s course, speed, and depth. The “deck” however, meant the senior watchstander, the OOD, was responsible for the ship as whole, and was the captain’s proxy in the control room. That was a sacred responsibility, and could never be delegated.

The OOD that morning was Bannick. He tensed up when Jabo entered. He opened the night orders and made a show of reviewing them.

“Any sign of her?” asked Jabo.

“Not at all,” Bannick said with a nervous half laugh. Jabo could tell he absolutely did not believe they would acquire their target, nor did he want to. It pissed him off. He headed to the chart.

They had moved into the new red box he had labeled, as required, ready to search a new sector. And, in fact, it looked like a lot of empty ocean, at least on paper. The JOOD was Lieutenant (junior grade) Francis but Jabo had heard everyone in the wardroom call him Van. He had a little less experience than V-12, and while qualified EOOW he did not yet wear gold dolphins.

“Van, right?”

“Yes sir, that’s what they call me.”

“It’s not your name?”

The ET hunched over the chart laughed a little.

“No sir, they call me that because when I reported aboard here, for the first six months I lived in my van while I found a place to live.”

“No shit?”

“No shit. But I’ve got an apartment now.”

“You okay with the nickname?”

“Sure,” he said. “But there used to be an A-Ganger onboard here that everybody said looked like me, except he was about six inches shorter. They all called him ‘minivan,’ and he fucking hated it.”

“Damn. I like that,” said Jabo. He wandered to sonar.

The watchsection was wide awake, and, true to stereotype, the small space smelled like soap and scented shampoo, the fresh watchsection well scrubbed and showered.

“Fuck, is that cologne?” he said.

“Sir who would wear cologne at sea?” said the supervisor. “That would be really gay.”

“I don’t know,” said Jabo. “It smells like lilacs in here or some shit.” The watchsection was alert and in a good mood — they knew they were the tip of the spear in their search, and now that they had slowed, they could peer into the ocean with the full complement of the ship’s tools. Every man in sonar, and every device they controlled, was looking for the Boise. It was what sonarmen trained for constantly and rarely got to do: hunt for a worthy adversary.

Jabo leaned into a broadband display for a better look. “What’s that?” he said, pointing to a slight white trace on the waterfall display.

“That’s a Dick-4,” said the supervisor.

“What’s a Dick-4?” asked Jabo with a completely straight face.

“You’ve heard that one before, haven’t you sir?”

“About a million times,” said Jabo. “You guys need to come up with some new material.”

V-12 appeared at the door. “Good morning sonar!”

“What are you doing here?” said Jabo.

“You’re my UI watch,” he said. “I should be asking you that. The standing orders say you’re never supposed to me more than an arm’s length away from me, so I can prevent you from harming yourself or others.”

“Good one,” said Jabo.

V-12 wedged himself further into the small space. He clearly had a hunger to participate in the search, even if he was delegated to the back of the ship. Jabo sympathized.

V-12 pointed to the same trace that Jabo had noticed. “What’s that? A Dick-4?”

“It’s a merchant,” replied the supervisor. “About fifteen miles out. Loud as shit.”

“I guess so,” said Jabo. He stared at the sonar display, turned a switch to shift it to relative bearings, so he could easily see which way was forward, and visualize their sonic picture not as a map, but as the water around them. That’s where Boise was: somewhere in front of them.

“You guys all listen to the tape?” he asked. “The signal we heard yesterday?”

“Yes sir,” they all replied in unison.

“It never did comp out,” said the supervisor. “Doesn’t match anything we have in the system. But it’s obviously manmade. And it sure as hell sounds like active sonar to me.”

“Ok if I listen?” said V-12. “I haven’t heard it yet. That’s really why I came up here.”

“Sure,” said the supervisor. He took off his headphones and handed them to V-12. As he put them on, the supe started turning switches, recalling the recorded beeping from the day before.

“I think I hear it,” said V-12.

The supervisor looked up from his console with a grin. “What?”

“I hear it,” said V-12. “I think I hear the pinging.”

“I haven’t turned on the tape yet,” he said. “You’re still listening to the sphere.”

V-12’s face became dead serious. “I hear it,” he said. “Listen.”

The supervisor turned the switch so that the whole room could hear it. And there it was: the same faint, regular pinging they’d heard the day before.

“Oh, shit,” said the supervisor.

“Tell the OOD,” said Jabo. “Now.”

The supervisor grabbed the 27-MC microphone, and then hesitated. The pinging faded, then disappeared.

“Fuck,” he said. “She’s gone. Again.”

“Goddamit,” said Jabo. “Keep listening.”

“It just disappeared,” said the supervisor. “If anything, she was louder than yesterday. But then it just evaporated.” He looked at his watch to make a note in the logs, and Jabo instinctively looked at his watch too: exactly 0630.

It occurred to him suddenly that the last time he’d felt this adrenalin surge, he had also smelled bacon in the air.

“Let me see the logs from two days ago,” he said.

The supervisor pulled a binder from a small cabinet. Jabo flipped back to 0630 from two days before, then three days before. Nothing. He couldn’t call it a pattern: just two data points. But it was all he had.

“He waved his hands at V-12. “Move,” he said. “Let me out. I need to go talk to the captain.” V-12 backed out so they could both leave.

The XO and captain were both in the control room, smiling, chatting with the watchstanders, both holding standard navy issue coffee mugs made from indestructible green plastic. Everyone looked up as Jabo stormed into the room with V-12 trailing behind him.

“Captain, I think we heard her again.”

He raised his eyebrow. “No shit? Why aren’t we at battle stations?”

“She disappeared again. But: I think I know when we’ll hear her again.”

“Oh really?” said the XO with a smirk. “You’ve got some intel you’d like to share?”

“Twenty-four hours from now,” said Jabo. “I’m not sure why, but we seem to be picking up active emissions from her between 0600 and 0630. And I’ll bet we will again tomorrow.”

“I like a good bet,” said the XO. “What are you wagering?”

“If I’m wrong — keep me in maneuvering the rest of the patrol.”

“Sounds appropriately humiliating,” said the captain. “What if you win?”

Jabo paused just a moment. “Make me the battle stations OOD,” he said.

“You’re not even in the qualification book…” said the XO. The captain raised his hand to silence him.

“Anything else, Jabo?”

“Yes,” he said. “I want V-12 to be my JOOD.”