Panic Switch полностью

Vevera, Pacino and Dankleff had decided to walk to the boat’s pier from China Express, the passage into the builder’s yard security gate quick compared to that of Squadron Six in Norfolk. Back at the parking lot across the street from the restaurant, a DynaCorp flatbed half-ton truck had loaded up their seabags and suitcases to transport them to the ship and bring them into the wardroom, where the officers would later relocate their stuff into their staterooms. So far, the XO hadn’t assigned staterooms. Typically each of the three officer staterooms would be assigned to a department head, and his or her direct reports would bunk there. Which was somewhat miserable, Pacino thought, since there would be no getting away from the boss. Doubly awful, considering his boss was River Styxx.

They had walked by the massive submarine assembly building, which was currently assembling the 802 Oklahoma, then a jog south, then west to the jetty leading to the North Pier, eventually walking past a material storage yard and maintenance building to the end of Pier 1 North.

“Yes, thar she blows,” Vevera said.

The three officers stopped and gazed at the USS New Jersey. The boat was mostly identical in appearance to the Vermont. A long, black cylinder, lying deep in the water so that the deck’s curvature allowed walking on the top surface. The plug trunk hatch was open, as was the forward hatch. There were no dog-houses erected over the hatches since they would have gotten in the way of the wooden platform placed on the hull aft of the sail — the conning tower, which was a vertical fin rising out of the hull near the bow. The platform was painted white and had railing draped with red, white, and blue bunting. A lectern was located in the center of the platform. At the top of the sail, the periscopes and masts were all retracted. Unlike Vermont, her anechoic tile coating was fully intact and looked brand new, the hull shiny and black. The boat was tied up port-side-to, her stern facing north, her sonar dome facing south, down-river. Pacino looked northward, at the drydock and roll-out table.

“Well, there won’t be a back-full-ahead-flank underway from here, not the way the Jersey is tied up,” Pacino said. “Put on a backing bell and run right into the drydock.”

“Damned shame,” Vevera said. “I would have liked to see you do that back-full-ahead-flank thing.”

“He made it look easy,” Dankleff said, clapping Pacino on the shoulder. “Although it turned out to be a back-emergency-ahead-flank underway. Still, Lipstick here drove it like he stole it and we slipped right out of Norfolk. Not like the time you fucked it up, Squirt Gun.”

“Hey, I showed him how not to do it. After that? Success was an easy day.”

“You’ll have to learn how to deal with tugboats and a harbor pilot this time, Lipstick,” Dankleff said, grinning. “Assuming you’re the one driving us out.”

“Check out the other side of the assembly roll-out table,” Pacino said. “Floating drydock.” The dock was lined up with their pier. Inside was the bow of a submarine, the sonar dome removed, the internals covered with canvas draped over scaffolding, with more scaffolding in the dock, arranged so densely around the boat it could barely be made out to be a submarine. “I bet that’s the north end of the 798 Massachusetts there. The future Vermont.”

“All these names of states,” Dankleff said in disgust. “At least Big Navy finally woke up and named the last four Barb, Tang, Wahoo and Silversides. So named for World War II combat submarines, decorated all.”

“Much cooler,” Vevera said. “Still, New Jersey is a tough state, and who can forget the fighting battleship New Jersey? Well, let’s get aboard and get our stuff sorted.”

Pacino and the others greeted the topside watchstander, a short and petite female sonarman third class, who wore a nametag ironically reading LONGFELLOW. Pacino wondered how much teasing she’d suffered on the boat from that name. She read their orders, since this was their first time reporting aboard, and scanned their retinae with her handheld biometric device, then returned their salutes as they formally requested permission to come aboard.

“Permission granted, gentlemen.”

“That always sounds strange to my ears,” Pacino remarked as they crossed the gangway to the plug trunk hatch. “Somehow, ‘gentlemen’ is something a more senior man would say to a group of junior guys.”

“It’s the plural of ‘sir,’ Lipstick,” Vevera said. “She can’t say ‘permission granted, sirs.’”