The Bear

USS Columbus

“How long before we get to the coordinates, Commander?” Captain Dawson stood in the entrance to the command center, watching his crew go about their business. His XO looked up from the waterfall display.

“Another day, sir. And no further communications on our mission, as yet anyway.”

“I’ll be back for my shift in an hour.” The captain turned away and began making his way to the mess. He might as well get something to eat before duty called. Not that he was ever off duty. That was the role of a boat’s captain. Always on. ‘What the hell is going on?’ he wondered. His last thought was punctuated by the overhead speaker.

“Captain to the conn.”

Dawson laid down the tray he had just taken from the stack, and sighed. He always seemed to be missing a meal. At least it felt that way. And from fighting off his cold, or whatever it was, skipping meals wasn’t helping. He left the mess and quickly made his way down the corridor and into the command center. He stood behind the XO seconds later.

“What’s up?”

“We have a mechanical noise off the port side.”

“How far away?”

“A thousand yards.”

“That’s pretty close. Conn, make your speed dead slow. Let’s see if we can get a hard fix on whatever it is.”

“Dead slow aye,” came the reply.

The next few minutes threw a pall over the command center with each seaman paying careful attention to their station. Dawson ducked his head inside the sonar room in front of the conn, watching as the sonar-man listened intently on his headphones. A tap on the shoulder brought a negative shake of the head. Just as he was about to step out, the seaman entered a sequence of commands into his computer station. His screen returned an ‘unknown’ display.

“Sir?” Dawson ducked his head back in as the seaman typed the contact as ‘Sierra 1’. “Contact is unknown in the system, sir.”

“Thanks Jason.” Dawson stepped back into the command center and relayed the news to the XO. “Do we have anything else on the contact?”

“Transient is moving northeast to southwest.”

“Very well. Let’s get a plot line started.”

“Do we follow? It’s a chance to get a make on a new sub, possibly.”

“Well,” Dawson said as he leaned against the bulkhead frame, “if this was your boat, are you hanging around a bit to get a trace, or are you following your orders and proceeding to your destination?”

“We’ll continue on our course, sir.”

“Why?”

“Our orders seem a bit out of the ordinary,” Tull said without hesitating. “This isn’t our part of the world. Something is up, and we’re on point to find out what.”

“What if this contact is what we’re supposed to be on point about?” Dawson smiled as he asked the question. Tull was a good officer, but he was young, completely lacking real-world tactical experience.

“But we don’t know that.” Tull looked down at the display, his mind churning. He hated when Dawson did this to him, but he knew it was necessary. “It would be a missed opportunity if this was why we were here and didn’t capitalize on it. All we can do is gather what intel we can as we proceed.”

“I’ll be back after I have something to eat,” Dawson said as he left the conn, his voice trailing off into the corridor.