Virginia Class

4

Garrett trotted up the steps of the graceful, turn-of-the-century mansion housing the headquarters of Naval Submarine Group Two, returning the salute of the two Marine sentries outside the door. It was a beautiful New England spring day, with gulls wheeling and keeking overhead. He'd been at the dock supervising the provisioning of the Virginia but Admiral Fore's summons had been brutally direct, with an air of urgency. What could be the problem?

Vice Admiral Richard Fore's office was a bastion reached through layers of outer offices and official buffers of progressively higher and higher rank. Garrett was passed through with little delay until he was ushered through into the carpeted office of the commanding officer of Submarine Group Two. SUBGRU Two was the command organization for all SSNs — attack submarines — in the Atlantic. The strongest such fleet in the world, it included SUBRON 2 and SUBRON 10, as well as SUBDEVRON 2 which evaluated new undersea technologies, all based out of New London. It was also the headquarters for SUBRON 4, down in Charleston, South Carolina, and for SUBRONs 6 and 8 operating out of Norfolk. At any given time, SUBGRU Two might command as many as forty-five attack submarines, various tenders and support vessels, and the special Navy Research submarine NR-1.

He came to attention in front of the admiral's massive oak desk. "Commander Garrett, reporting as ordered, sir."

Fore glared up at him from beneath a formidable pair of shaggy white eyebrows. "What the hell were you playing at, Commander?"

"Sir?" Garrett scrambled through his memory, searching for whatever it was that might have made his boss this angry. He couldn't remember….

"That speech you gave yesterday, at the change of command ceremony. Do you have any idea what a hornets' nest you've managed to kick over?" Fore shoved the newspaper across the desk. It was a copy of the Connecticut Reporter and the headline read, "fair sex" not wanted on board. The subhead added, cryptically, sub skipper says "no" to women in submarines. A grainy photograph showed him at the podium during the ceremony the day before.

"What the hell is this?" Garrett asked, before remembering where he was, and adding, "sir."

"It's a liberal rag pushing women's rights, is what it is," Fore said. "Normally it doesn't get very much attention. But your little speech yesterday was seen as proof that the Navy is not interested in equal rights for women in the service. Apparently the wire services have picked it up and are even now echoing your words across the country. Damn it, Garrett, we had the whole issue pretty well back in the box, and your speech just let it all out in the open again. Would you mind telling me just what you had in mind with that talk you gave?"

Garrett tried to remember just what it was he'd said. "I think I was taken out of context, sir. I wasn't talking about whether or not women should be allowed on subs. I was talking about the hardships our sub crews have to endure… months at sea without seeing a woman."

"Oh, they got that part, too." Fore's finger stabbed at a paragraph farther down the column. "There's considerable talk here about your 'sexist remarks,' and there's an editorial in here that explains that you — and by extension, we—think of women as ornaments and kitchen drudges. You called them 'the fair sex,' for God's sake. How condescending can you get?"

"Damn it, sir, it was a joke."

"Your joke may have set the Navy's public relations program with regard to women in the service back twenty years. You are aware, are you not, that both NOW and the Patriotic Women's Front have been angling for years to get the Navy to admit women to male-only billets?"

"Yes, sir."

In fact, female naval personnel had already been brought aboard most ships in the Navy. After some tentative experiments back in the '70s and '80s, women now served aboard a number of U.S. ships, including her aircraft carriers, and a number of women were combat pilots.

But it took considerable effort — and therefore money—to redesign a ship to permit women the privacy of their own quarters and heads. That had been done, one way or another, on board surface ships, but a sub was something else. There was almost zero privacy on board a submarine, as Garrett had been trying to say in his speech, and the habitable spaces were so tightly packed with equipment, electronics, and life-support gear there was no room to expand. You couldn't simply add, say, a separate shower head and berthing compartment for women's use only without throwing out something else — weapons systems or reactor shielding or sonar gear or air scrubbers… and every single system on board a submarine was absolutely essential either to her mission or to the survival and well-being of her crew.

Women would not serve on board American submarines until those submarines were designed, from the keel up, to include them.

"When we start working on the next new sub design, sir, maybe we should talk to EB about installing quarters for women."

"That's just it, Garrett. The Virginia is a new design, the 'submarine for the twenty-first century,' remember? Your speech has stirred up all kinds of controversy out there about why the Virginia class is still… let's see. What did they say?" He turned the paper so he could read from it. "Yes, here it is. '… a no-girls-allowed clubhouse for the Navy's old-boy network.' They go on to say, 'Obviously, Commander Garrett does not believe women capable of the same degree of dedication and patriotism as men.' "

"I'd be happy to have female sailors in my crew, Admiral. Somehow, I don't think they'd care for the accommodations."

"And that is not the point. You departed from the text of your approved speech. Why?"

Garrett blinked. He'd submitted the text he'd written out ahead of time, yes, but somehow he'd thought that a formality. "I didn't realize my speech had to be approved in advance, sir."

"If it touches on political, controversial, or sensitive issues, of course it does. Damn it, you know the regs."

"Yes, sir." He just hadn't realized he was dealing with a controversial topic in the first place.

"There wasn't anything that would set off the NOW people in what you submitted. Why did you start shooting from the hip?"

"I don't know, sir. It seemed right at the time. The speeches were long and boring. I thought some light comments and some appreciation of the enlisted men's dedication would go down more easily."

"And the Patriotic Front is using that to claim you don't think women are dedicated enough to serve their country."

"That is not true at all, sir."

"True or not, the Navy Department is now engaged in some pretty extensive damage control. We've taken a pretty bad hit, here. I needn't remind you, Commander, that carelessness like this has ruined more than one promising young officer's career."

Garrett started to reply, then thought better of it. He'd not seen things in quite that light before. Damn it, the powers-that-were could scuttle him for a few chance comments.

"What can I do, sir?"

"To start with, no more comments to the press. If they phone you, and they will, I have no doubt, refer them back to my office. Second, all, repeat, all speeches you make will be submitted to my office for prior approval… and no departing from the prepared text. I don't care if you put them all to sleep in their chairs, you stick to the approved speech, with no ad-libbing. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"Finally, you will prepare a public apology. Doesn't need to be long… a few paragraphs. Say that you had no intention of slighting the dedication and willingness to serve of our nation's female sailors and officers, that you would be proud to serve with them at any time, that the Navy has taken heroic strides to include women in all areas of endeavor… you know the drill. Submit it to my office for approval and distribution before 1600 hours today."

Garrett winced inwardly. His schedule today with the loading and provisioning of the Virginia was packed solid already. When would he have time?…

"Clear, Garrett?"

"Clear, sir." He would just have to make the time.

"Very well. How goes the provisioning?"

It took Garrett a moment to shift mental gears from the chewing out to ship's business. "Uh… fine, sir. We're on the sched for loading torps and TLAMs this afternoon. Final provisioning after that. We'll be ready for our planned 0700 departure tomorrow."

"Good. Your orders have already been sent aboard by messenger. You'll open them, as usual, when you're under way."

"Yes, sir."

"I will tell you this. You're going to have some new bluenoses in your crew."

Garrett's eyebrows reached toward his hairline. Bluenose was the name for personnel who'd crossed the Arctic Circle, much as the Royal Order of Neptune was awarded to men who'd crossed the equator, or the Golden Dragon was won by those who'd crossed the international date line. They were going north, then. "Under the ice, Admiral?"

Fore nodded. "You'll be shaking out Virginia's new under-ice sonar. And you'll be transiting to the Pacific. Because of the radical new technology involved, and because your mission will involve developing and evaluating strategy and tactics for a new weapons platform, Virginia will remain under the operational umbrella of SUBDEVRON 2. However, we want you back in your old stomping grounds for the next couple of months. Things might be heating up again in the South China Sea, and the planning staff thinks this will be a good test of Virginia's operational capabilities. They seem to think it won't hurt to have a man at the conn who's faced the Chinese before. Full details will be in your sealed orders, of course."

"Yes, sir."

"Questions?"

"No, sir."

"Okay. And have that formal written apology on my desk before 1600 hours, or I'll have Commander Fitch extend his tour of duty as Virginia's skipper. Understand me?"

"Aye aye, sir."

"Then get out of here. And for God's sake, don't talk to the reporters!"

Garrett turned and hurried from the office, feeling lucky to be alive.

Outside, he stopped and took a deep breath before walking around to the HQ parking lot and getting into the car requisitioned for his use. Fifteen minutes later he was walking up the dock, a critical eye scanning the activity on Virginia's forward deck, where a working party was gently, gently lowering a Mark 48 ADCAP torpedo at an angle down through the weapons-loading hatch forward of the sail. A number of enlisted men in dungarees and poopie suits — the navy blue coveralls used by submarine crews — were gathered around the descending torp as it rested on the cradlelike loading tray, guiding its nineteen-foot length down the narrow hatch. A loading crane on the dock was preparing to sling the next ADCAP into position. He watched as the first bright blue Mark 48 vanished tailfirst down the hatch, where a second working party hidden below deck was manhandling the pencil-thin giant into a storage rack in the torpedo room. The empty loading tray, meanwhile, was lowered back to its horizontal position on the forward deck, ready to receive the next torpedo.

Virginia could carry only thirty-eight weapons — a variable mix of Mark 48 ADCAPs, tube-launched mines, Harpoon antiship missiles, and Tomahawk TLAM missiles — as opposed to the weapons load of fifty carried by the Seawolf. It was part of the trade-off Virginia's designers had been forced to accept to create the smaller and less-expensive attack boat. Smaller, cheaper, better. The Virginia was certainly smaller and cheaper than the mammoth Seawolf. Would she be better as well? That remained to be seen.

Lieutenant Bill Carpenter, "Weps," Virginia's weapons officer, was supervising the loading of the torpedoes. He saw Garrett standing on the dock alongside and saluted; Navy tradition held members of a working party exempt from saluting while carrying out their duties, but the senior man could salute if he himself was not otherwise engaged. Garrett returned the salute, then walked the rest of the way aft to Virginia's gangway, empty now of the banners that had festooned it during the ceremony yesterday. A first-class machinist's mate in whites, standing the officer-of-the-deck watch in a temporary shelter erected on board close by the gangway, made the announcement of Garrett's coming on board into his communications headset—"Virginia, arriving" — then came to attention and saluted. Garrett, by tradition, saluted the boat's ensign, fluttering on her aft deck, then saluted the OOD. "Permission to come aboard."

"Permission granted, sir. Welcome aboard."

"Thank you… Pettigrew," Garrett said, glancing at the name tag on the sailor's whites. He tried to memorize the man's face. It would take him a while to get to know all 140 men and 13 officers of the crew by face alone… but in the inevitable crowding on board, that would happen, and sooner rather than later. For Garrett, it was vitally important that he know his men as individuals.

Walking toward Virginia's forward personnel hatch, located just abaft her far-forward sail, he felt the slight give in the deck beneath his feet, a sensation almost like walking on rubber or thick carpet padding. Like the Seawolf and both the improved and retrofitted L.A.-class boats, Virginia came with brick-sized anechoic/decoupling tiles covering every square inch of her hull except for hatchways, control surfaces, and sonar dome and windows. The tiles helped defeat enemy active sonar and served to further insulate onboard noise, part of the engineering that made her as silent as the Seawolf.

He descended the ladder inside the hatch, then turned and walked forward to the command center. Lieutenant Commander Peter Jorgensen, Virginia's exec, stood in the control room, already holding out a coffee mug — complete with Virginia's logo — for Garrett to take. "Welcome aboard, sir."

"Thank you, Number One," Garrett said, accepting the coffee. "How are things going?"

"We're an hour and a half behind sched, Captain," Jorgensen replied. "We had a man injured during the torpedo load."

"Bad?"

"A broken wrist. The guy got his hand in the way of an ADCAP coming down onto the cradle. He's been taken Mainside to the hospital."

"Shit. Who was it?"

"TM3 Connors, sir. The incident has been logged and reported."

"What went wrong?"

Jorgensen stiffened. He was directly responsible for everything that happened on board the Virginia, both as the boat's executive officer and as the captain's representative when the captain was ashore. He hadn't worked with Garrett long enough yet to know how he would respond to news of the accident. "It's all in the accident report, sir."

"I want to hear it from you, Number One. Was Connors an experienced hand?"

"Yes, sir. Well, pretty much. Virginia uses a different style loading tray. The new sail placement, you know."

Garrett nodded. Virginia's sail, the above-deck structure once known as a conning tower that housed the boat's sensor array masts, was located much farther forward than on other submarines. It gave her an odd, snub-nosed appearance, with just barely enough deck space forward of the sail for twelve vertical-launch TLAM tubes, the rounded half-globe of her nose, and the weapons-loading hatch itself. The change in architecture had necessitated a number of changes in the equipment used to service the boat.

"Well, Connors hadn't worked with the new rig, sir. Nobody had. Fact is, he had his hand resting where he shouldn't have. He got it caught between the fish and a support bar."

"Damn. He could have lost his hand."

"He almost pulled it out in time, sir. He just wasn't quite quick enough."

"It shouldn't be a matter of being quick enough. The men have to know their equipment."

"Yes, sir."

"Very well." He frowned. That was not an auspicious beginning to things. He made a mental note to stop by the hospital on his way to the BOQ — his quarters on shore — tonight. "Any other problems?"

"Not so far, sir." Jorgensen sounded wary, as though he was waiting for the drop of another shoe. "Lieutenant Carpenter says they can make up the lost time tonight and still have time to complete provisioning."

"Sounds good, Number One." He checked his watch. "I'm going to my office. You have the watch."

"Aye aye, sir."

Garrett's stateroom and office was located on the first deck forward of the control room. He stopped at the door to watch another Mark 48 ADCAP slide down from the loading hatch. Forward of his stateroom, the deck itself had been pulled up and the grating converted to rails that received the incoming torpedo from the loading tray topside, guiding it down past this deck, through the second deck, and into the torpedo room, which was located amidships on the third deck. Senior Chief Bollinger was standing in the passageway just short of the drop-off, hands on hips, staring down into the chasm created by pulling up sections of Virginia's first and second decks. A working party was noisily engaged in the opening, maneuvering their ton-and-a-half charges down to their on-board storage racks.

"What's the matter, COB," Garrett asked. "Can't reach the goat locker?"

"Goat locker" was shipboard slang for the quarters shared by a submarine's chiefs, located on the second deck and forward.

"As a matter of fact, Captain, I can't. Seems there's a fish in my way."

"Doing anything urgent? Besides sitting on your thumb, I mean."

"Just watching the Ginny swallowing goldfish, sir." Goldfish indeed. A single Mark 48 ADCAP cost something like two million dollars. A TLAM Tomahawk ran more in the neighborhood of ten million. But to Garrett's mind the cost was less important than the fact that they could be relied upon when it counted.

Garrett smiled. It was a good sign that the Virginia had acquired a nickname already. "Come on into my office. I need to talk to you."

"Sure thing, Skipper."

The captain's office was smaller than some closets Garrett had seen, with just barely enough room for two chairs and a tiny desk. His stateroom was just forward of the office, with a bunk and the only private head — a bathroom and shower — on the boat. Much of the bulkhead space was taken up by communications equipment, a computer monitor and keyboard, and a small printer. Space was cramped, but the Virginia did offer the very latest in computer and communications technology.

"What can I do for you, sir?" Bollinger asked, wedging himself into the visitor's chair.

"Jorgensen told me about the accident."

"Yes, sir. Leaves us a hand short."

Garrett glanced hard at Bollinger, looking for an indication that that had been a deliberate pun. The Chief of the Boat maintained a bland and noncommittal expression.

"How long to get a replacement?"

"Should be able to have someone out from the holding company by tomorrow. I've already put a request through channels."

"Excellent."

"It'll mean delaying our departure, though." Virginia was scheduled to depart New London at 0700 hours the next day.

"Can't be helped."

"If it turns out there's going to be too much of a delay, we could always have them meet us by Sea King, an at-sea transfer."

"I'd rather avoid that if possible." Dangling a man from a harness attached to a cable lowered from a Navy helicopter was acceptable practice in an emergency — when a crewman had to be taken off for surgery, for instance — but could rarely be justified otherwise. The chance of mishap was too high, the advantages too slight, the sea far too cold and unforgiving to try an at-sea transfer in any but the most urgent circumstances.

"Of course," Bollinger replied.

"We can go a man short if necessary. I'm more concerned about the training standards. Number One said the injured man wasn't experienced with the new loading tray. I don't want this accident repeated, not with Mark 48 ADCAPs weighing over a ton and a half apiece, and not while we're at sea."

The loading tray the working party was using on the forward deck was essentially identical to the loading trays used in the torpedo room. Torps were manhandled off their storage racks and into the tray, which allowed them to be slid forward into the torpedo tubes during loading. A certain amount of muscle power was necessary, especially during the urgent heat of combat, and conditions could be less than ideal, in rough water or while the submarine was performing violent evasive maneuvers, for example. The torpedo room crew had better know exactly what they were doing under such conditions, and they'd better know the equipment they were working with, know it better than they knew themselves.

"Sounds to me like we have some drill in our future," Bollinger said, grinning.

"COB, you've just read my mind. This deployment is supposed to evaluate the Virginia and her capabilities for SUBDEVRON 2. But to do that, I first need to evaluate Virginia's crew. Do you copy?"

"Loud and clear, Captain."

"Good. It is my intention to call a meeting of all officers and senior enlisted personnel to work out a training schedule as soon as we're under way."

He was interrupted by a loud clangor from for-ward — another weapon coming down the weapons-loading hatch, bound for the torpedo room two decks down.

He stood up. "I don't think we'll get anything else done while that's going on," he said. "We'll discuss the details later."

"Aye, aye, sir. I'll look forward to it." Another loud clang sounded, accompanied by the echoing yells of sailors and a burst of paint-scorching profanity. Bollinger chuckled.

"What?"

"It just occurred to me, sir. Whoever first called us the silent service was never on board one of these things in port!"

"Makes you wonder about L.A. boats in port, doesn't it?"

Bollinger laughed, nodding. One of the chief claims to silent fame for the Seawolf—and, by extension, for the just-as-silent Virginia—was that they were actually quieter, while under way, than an improved Los Angeles-class submarine tied up at the dock. If the Virginia was this noisy, what did it say about the L.A.?

"Be fair, Captain," Bollinger replied. "Maybe the L.A. boats are quieter when they're under way. I damn well hope that's the case for us!"

"Me too, COB. Right now, they can probably hear us in Beijing."

Bollinger pricked metaphorical ears at that. "Beijing, Captain? Are we headed for the Pacific?"

"Looks that way, COB, though we'll wait and see what the orders say. Until then, keep it to yourself."

"Of course, sir. But it'll help in some of the stores requisitioning, know what I mean? I might have a private word with Lieutenant Kendall." Kendall was the boat's supply officer.

"By all means."

"Thank you, sir."

Garrett tried to catch up on some of the backlogged office work waiting for him on his computer. Like Seawolf, the Virginia was a "paperless" submarine, with all reports, memos, and requisitions handled electronically. That didn't mean there was any less work to do, however, and it seemed to Garrett — a command veteran on both the Seawolf and on Los Angeles boats— that the office workload was getting worse and worse… and backbreaking, nosegrinding worse. At this rate, he would be lucky if he emerged from his coffin-like office once in the course of an entire three-month deployment.

But first, he had an apology to write. Trying to ignore the crash and clang, the shouting and swearing just beyond the thin bulkheads of his office, he began pecking out words on his keyboard.

Surely, he thought, a naval officer had more vital things to do than wading into the cold and murky pool of public relations.

Or of political damage control.