The receptionist sighed too and watched her leave. She remembered that feeling so well, despite the years. She’d lived on Oahu her whole life and she, too, had had her heart broken by a sailor on one of these ships, despite the warnings every islander had given her prior to giving herself away. Maybe she’d given the girl two more days to think that the boy was still in love with her, two days of false hope. She was okay with that.
The officers filed into the wardroom at 1900. Dinner had been cleared but the pleasant smell remained, underpinned by a fresh pot of coffee that had been brewed in anticipation of a long night, the hundreds of check lists that had to be complete before the ship could go to sea.
Danny took note of his new shipmates as they arrived. He didn’t know any of the officers other than the captain personally, although in the small world of nuclear submarines, he was sure he would know some of their friends, their former ships, their former shipmates. Learning everyone’s names would be his first priority, but the boats they’d served on would be next.
Of course for the majority of the officers that filed into the wardroom, there were no previous boats — they were junior officers on their first sea tour, just like he’d been on
One of them was V-12, and Danny couldn’t help notice the way the other JOs deferred to him, listened when he talked, and greeted him first when they entered. While a little goofy, Danny thought, he possessed that great intangible that the nuclear navy sought so hard to instill in its young men: leadership.
The captain and the XO arrived together, the Captain sitting at the head of the table and the XO literally at his right hand. The XO, as always, came in carrying a thick stack of documents, which was beginning to seem almost like security blanket.
“Alright, let’s get started,” said the captain. “We have our orders. As many of you know, we are pulling out at dawn tomorrow. After a day of training at the Kauai torpedo range, we will proceed to Papa Hotel, submerge, and then commence a high speed transit to the western Pacific, where we will attempt to locate and track a friendly submarine.”
V-12 spoke up. “Is she wearing a NAU?”
“No NAU,” said the captain. “She’s going to be quiet.” Often friendly subs were given a Noise Augmentation Unit, or NAU, in exercises like this, to simulate the noisier boats of their enemies. And because, in reality, it was nearly impossible to track a modern US submarine unassisted.
The XO spoke up. “Part of the exercise is to see if we can do it. See if we can track one of our own with no help.”
Danny noticed how the captain had carefully avoided lying to them so far. They were going to track and find a friendly submarine — that was true. The XO didn’t seem to have as much trouble. Maybe the deceit was something that he and the CO had discussed, maybe it was even necessary. But it was interesting.
Danny rolled out a small scale chart of the Pacific across the wardroom table. JOs at either end held it down. He’d carefully drawn two neat lines upon it. The first was a blue great circle route that represented their high speed transit to the last known location of
On the western edge of the chart was the second line, in red, one that connected the dots from the launch of the BST buoys to the SOSUS hit. The line connecting those two points of data represented the best estimate they had of
“We should be on station in four days,” said Danny. “That’s an SOA of twenty knots.” Those were the first words he’d spoken to his new shipmates in his capacity as navigator. Every one of the junior officers was staring at his hand where it hit the chart. He traced the blue line of their route with his finger and their eyes followed it intently.
“Alright,” the captain sighed. “Let’s get this over with. Danny, show them your goddamn fingers.”
Danny was startled a moment, and then he complied: flipping over his left hand and so they could see the bright scars. He flexed his fingers so they could see the incomplete range of motion. They all leaned in, fascinated, except for the XO who flipped through one of his binders.
“The last time Danny was on a high speed transit across this ocean, he lost those fingers for a few days,” said the CO. “But I was nicer back then. If any of you shitheads screw this up, I’ll cut your whole hand off.” They all laughed.
