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
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
“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
“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.
