James rolled in, got himself a cup of coffee — black — and scooted in across from Brady.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said.
“What the fuck are you doing back there?”
“Mission critical work. Fixing the copier. You guys talking about this sub we’re hunting?”
Cartwright nodded as he shuffled. “Lieutenant Jabo figured out that she was pinging every morning at the same time. That’s why we’re going to battle stations tomorrow at 0530.”
“She’s active?” said James. “Isn’t she supposed to be hiding?”
“It’s an NAU,” said Cartwright. “I’m almost positive.”
“NAU?”
“Noise augmentation unit. A noisemaker. Somebody decided to turn it on for a few minutes a day to give us a sporting chance.”
“Why?” said Brady.
“Because,” said Cartwright as he began to deal. “Without some kind of artificial noise we would never, and I mean
The ship’s propulsion machinery continued smoothly pushing the ship forward along its programmed route. Nuclear fission turned mass into energy, which turned water into steam, which turned the ship’s main engines and propelled her across the Pacific. The air conditioners had failed, however, and the ambient temperature in the engine room would have soon killed any watchstander, had any stayed alive. It was 140 degrees in engine room upper level.
Other systems throughout the ship had also been affected without caretakers. Fluorescent lights flickered and went out without watchstanders to replace them. A bilge overflowed, sloshing dirty water over the lower level decks, with no one to manually operate the bilge pumps. The ship’s atmosphere was oxygen rich, as the oxygen bleed continued to provide O2 to a ship that had no humans to breathe it. While not as hellish as the engine room, the entire ship was hot, one hundred and ten degrees in the control room.
With no cooling water, the operating fire control computer in the control room heated up until it began to destroy itself. The acrid smell of burning electronics soon permeated the forward compartment, as did a thin layer of greasy smoke that hung near the overhead. The image on the computer’s monitor began to distort and display nonsense, as its brain overheated, and then it finally went dark. Still, the computer inside refused to die as electricity poured into it and no heat could leave.
Finally temperatures inside the machine reached the point where wire insulation began to melt. With no plastic around them, bare wires in the dying machine touched each other and sparked. In the oxygen-rich atmosphere of the
The ship’s autopilot efficiently maintained course, speed, and depth as the control room was filled with smoke, darkness, and the sound of tripping circuit breakers. All over the boat lights shut off as the ship’s electrical system tried to save itself.
Jabo rolled out of the rack at 0300, too excited to sleep. V-12 was snoring lightly in the rack below, and Jabo decided for the moment to let him keep sleeping. He’d be awake soon enough.
He walked into control where there was a tense silence. Word had raced through the boat about Jabo’s theory, and everyone had an opinion. Some thought it was a set up, that the game had been rigged in their favor by an NAU. Others thought the opposite, that it was too easy, that they were falling for some kind of ploy and would fail in their pursuit because of it. They’d had all day to talk about it, and every man had an opinion. Either way, everybody knew something interesting was going to happen at 0600: either they were going to find their target, or Lieutenant Jabo was going to get humiliated. There was an air of nervous expectation in the control room, the planesmen and the dive all focused intently on their indicators, with none of the usual midwatch malaise.
Van was on his feet, Jabo was happy to see, alertly watching his team.
“Morning,” said Jabo. “So you’re the OOD?”
“Yes, sir,” said Van. “This is like… my third watch ever. And my first midwatch.”
“I hope it was all you expected it to be.”
“Yes sir,” he said laughing.
“Van… you don’t need to call me sir.”
“Nav?”
“Better. Although I’m not exactly used to that yet either.”
“Are you relieving me?”
“I will soon enough,” said Danny. “Give you a few minutes to eat, if you want, or shower. But probably not both. I’m calling away battle stations at 0530.”
