Ghost Sub полностью

“I like a good bet,” said the XO. “What are you wagering?”

“If I’m wrong — keep me in maneuvering the rest of the patrol.”

“Sounds appropriately humiliating,” said the captain. “What if you win?”

Jabo paused just a moment. “Make me the battle stations OOD,” he said.

“You’re not even in the qualification book…” said the XO. The captain raised his hand to silence him.

“Anything else, Jabo?”

“Yes,” he said. “I want V-12 to be my JOOD.”

Jabo looked at the captain as the control room behind him lapsed into a shocked silence. V-12 stared at his feet to avoid looking at the seething XO. Their second-in-command suddenly turned to leave, but as he did so he ran right into the messenger, who was holding a tray full of steaming coffee mugs for the morning watch section. Coffee spilled everywhere and the XO stomped right through it as he stormed out.

“Congratulations,” said the captain after a pause. “You’re an OOD now. Usually we have a little ceremony.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You can thank me by finding the Boise.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” He tried to think of something intelligent to say. “Who’s taking my slot in the engine room?”

The captain looked around. “Lieutenant Bannick can do the duty.”

At first Jabo thought: great, another officer in the wardroom pissed at me. But when he turned, he saw nothing but gratitude on Bannick’s face.

Not knowing what else to do, Jabo decided to attack the problem. “Let’s take a look at the chart.”

He traced the course of the Boise, his red line, with his finger. “Ok. We have several pieces of data that show her along this track.”

“Several?” asked the captain.

“Two. More if you count the SOSUS hits and the BST buoys. I want to stay on this course, at five knots, stay right behind where we think she is.”

“But not gain on her.”

“Exactly. I don’t think she’s going slower than five knots, and this way we won’t run into her.”

“That would be lovely.”

“Let’s man battle stations at 0530, and wait and see if we hear that pinging again at 0600.”

“You mean wait and see if you’re right?”

“Correct, sir.”

“You’re going to have to eat a lot of shit from the XO if you’re wrong.”

“Captain… I really don’t care.”

Michaels sighed. “I know you don’t, Jabo. We’ve been over this.”

“Captain…”

“Let’s talk about that bullshit later. Trust me, it’s as tiresome to me as it is to you. But I feel I owe you some fatherly advice on that front. There’s more to a naval officer’s career than saluting the flag and giving rudder orders.”

“Aye, aye sir.”

“Anything else I need to put in the night orders?”

“Yes sir, one more thing. I’d also like to go down to 720 feet. For the rest of the day.”

The captain furrowed his brow, calculating. “That’s in the envelope,” he said. “But barely. Awfully deep for that slow speed. Why?”

“Exactly because it is a screwed up depth. I doubt the Boise will be that deep. So if we creep up on her for some reason, we won’t run into her.”

The captain nodded. “Good thinking Jabo. There are more elegant ways to locate a submarine than running into her.”

James was going forward, bar of soap in hand, when he ran into Lieutenant Jabo coming out of the control room.

“Sir.”

“Petty Officer James — how are you?”

“I wanted to see you, actually, sir.”

“I don’t know anything about fixing copiers.”

“None of us do. I wanted to see what our plans were for the next twenty-four hours.” He held out the soap bar so Jabo could see it. The broken gear had been pulled out, and the cavity had been carefully cleaned and smoothed. Tiny new teeth, to replace the broken ones, had been meticulously carved in the soap.

“I need to pour the epoxy in, and it takes twenty-four hours to cure. I want to make sure we won’t be taking any major angles in the meantime, or it’ll spill out. Have we got any drills like that planned? Any emergency blows on the plan of the day? Sir?”

Jabo nodded. “Should be smooth sailing. Plan on going to battle stations about 0530 tomorrow morning, then things should start to get interesting.”

“So we found what we’re looking for?”

“Let’s hope so,” said Jabo. “Both for the sake of our mission and my career prospects.”

“Sounds good sir,” said James. He started aft.

Jabo looked at his watch. “You going to pour the epoxy in that thing now?”

“Yes sir, I need to, if we’re going to start rocking and rolling in twenty four hours.”

“Mind if I watch?”

Back at the machinist’s work bench, deep in the engine room, Jabo looked over James’s shoulder as he worked. He put the bar of soap directly under the strong work light, picked it up, and blew into it to dislodge a speck of soap that had fallen into the mold. From a drawer he pulled out a small tin can of epoxy, and unscrewed the lid. Jabo smelled the paint-like odor.

“Ready?” said James.

“My heart is pounding,” said Jabo, and it actually was, a little bit.