“Yes sir, Captain, Officer of the Deck. It’s zero three fifteen, sir. I’m calling to request to come up to periscope depth.”
Kane had trained his junior officers, on night wakeup calls like this, to make him dig for information. If the officer of the deck did a data dump on him, he’d be back asleep by the end of the O.O.D’s report.
“Okay. Any contacts?”
“No contacts, sir.”
“Present status?”
“Depth one five zero feet, speed six knots, course west, sir.”
“Reason for PD?”
“Broadcast, Captain. Also we need to check the inertial nav against the GPS signal.”
“Last broadcast was when?”
The ship was required to come up to periscope depth at least once every eight hours to get radio messages from the Comstar satellite that orbited in a geostationary orbit over the Pacific. The satellite would transmit messages in a ten-second burst every fifteen minutes, whether anyone was there to hear them or not. Usually while they were up, the periscope antenna would pull down the signal from the navigation satellite, the globalpositioning system.
“We were up at twenty-thirty last night, sir. It’s time.”
“Very well, Offsa’deck,” Kane said, slurring the title, “take her up to PD and get the broadcast and a nav fix.
Then get us back down and speed back up to flank.
We’re late.”
“Aye, sir, periscope depth, broadcast, nav fix, deep and flank.”
Kane recradled the phone and shut his eyes again, sleep washing comfortably up over him, the dreams coming slowly, but then he was in his backyard dressed in a clown suit at his daughter’s birthday party, his wife Becky handing him a beer, the kids squealing in delight.
The party melted into a beach where he and Becky were alone in the moonlight and she was reaching for him, a devilish look in her blue eyes. He could feel her long fingernails as she drew them across his flat stomach to his waistband, her playful laughter mixing in with the sounds of the waves on the sand. He felt her fingers plunge into his bathing suit and gently stroke him, then pull him out. She began to kiss him. His eyes rolled back in his head, Becky’s mouth working until sweat poured down from his temples and— BOOM BOOM BOOM.
“Radioman, sir, messages for you.”
“Goddamnit.” Kane sat up in the rumpled bed. The radioman came in with the metal clipboard with the official Writepad. Kane glanced at the messages, the ones classified with codeword Enlightened Curtain first in the queue. It looked like the blockade would proceed ahead of schedule. Kane initialed the messages, drawing his finger over the surface of the Writepad as if using it for a pencil, the computer drawing lines as his finger sketched his initials over the pad.
The radioman left and Kane sank back into the rack, feeling the deck take on a down angle as the officer of the deck drove the ship deep again and increased speed to get back on their planned track to the Japan Oparea.
He shut his eyes and felt sleep overtake him again, but this time lovely Becky was gone, the dreams dominated by the ocean, its depth and darkness, storms at sea, dark rain. He tossed and turned all the way to the next phone call from the control room.
Comdr. Toshumi Tanaka was still awake in his stateroom, reading the message traffic about the coming of the American Navy’s carrier battle groups. One of the messages was from his father, addressed to the entire Destiny force at sea in the waters near the Home Islands.
The message read that the approaching battle groups might attempt to set up a blockade, but no matter what happened, no submarine was to attack or molest any incoming American unit — even if there were American submarines approaching in close. Admiral Tanaka allowed the Destiny force to shadow the Americans, but even at that he was being cautious, ordering the Japanese submarines to remain outside a half-kilometer distance from any American ship.
It was ridiculous, the younger Tanaka thought. He was in the middle of thinking about how he would change those orders when a knock came from the door to the head Tanaka shared with his first officer, Lt. Comdr. Hiro Mazdai.
“Come,” Tanaka said.
“Evening, Captain. Is everything satisfactory?”
“Fine, Mr. First, why?”
“I was in the head and saw your light on, sir.”
“Anything on your mind. First?”
“The crew is uneasy, sir.”
“About the American battle groups?”
“No, Captain. I think it’s just the situation.”
“Explain.”
“Sir, our Two-class manned ships are in the waters of the Home Islands. Our Three-class ships have set sail for the deep Pacific — and for the near Pacific, where the closest incoming aircraft carrier group is approaching.
Only two things can happen. Either our fleets engage or they don’t. Either the Americans shoot at us and we shoot at them, or we return to our separate ports with all of our weapons still aboard.”
“First, is there a point to this?”
“Just that, one could say if we go down the path of shooting, both sides may lose. At first we should prevail.
