“That’s good, because after all this development, I’d sure hate to lose one!”
“Ain’t gonna happen, Cousin.”
“What about the watertight seal? We need a watertight seal between the fighter and the access flange so we can open both the hatch on the bottom of the fighter and the hatch on the Louisiana’s deck. That way the pilot and sensor operator can move freely between the Louisiana and the fighter while submerged. We can also rig electrical cables so we can recharge the fighter’s batteries from the Louisiana whenever the fighter is docked.”
“No problem. We pressure-tested the mock-up to the equivalent of eleven hundred feet without any leakage.”
“All right, so no problems or concerns at all?”
“Well, I wouldn’t push it on the upper limit of the launch speed if I was you. If you get over ten knots, there could be enough drag on the fighter that your sonar operator can’t raise the locking bar. If that happens, you’ll have to slow down.”
“You’ve done a great job with the fighters and with Platform Alpha, Dwight. After ten years of development, I’m sorry we couldn’t see our plan through to go into business together. I’m sure that if we had had the opportunity, we could have made millions of dollars selling sub-fighters to the navy. Unfortunately, the attack on DC changed all that, at least for me.”
“What do you mean, at least for you? Are you suggestin’ I could still sell them myself?”
“Sure, why not? As long as you can distance yourself from me—”
“No way, Cousin. There’s no way I could excise you from all the records. Besides, I think we have a higher callin’ for how to use these fighters now. What’s money anyway? When all is said and done, we have to live with ourselves and know we did what we could for our fellow man. I don’t regret makin’ this decision.”
“You’re a good man, Charlie Brown.”
“Thanks,” Dwight said looking around at the rig. “You know when you guys are gone, I’ll probably have to scuttle this thing.”
“When we leave, I think the cover story we came up with to cover your butt is still the best… deep-six it, and claim it was weakened in the storm and just couldn’t be rebuilt.”
Just then, at the top of the stairs next to Dwight, Leona appeared. “Welcome to Platform Alpha… whoa!.. Captain!” she announced. “You look different!”
“Well, hello there, Leo — I mean Petty Office Harris! It’s good to see you!”
“Good to see you, too, sir!” Leona’s hand involuntarily went to her throat as if surprised. “What’s with the beard?”
“Just a little bit of insurance… in case we run into someone who might recognize me.”
“Good idea — you’re pretty famous.”
George wanted desperately to jump onto the stairs and rush to the top to give her a big hug and a kiss! And he could tell she felt the same way. But for the moment, they had to keep up appearances.
“I want to thank you for your support during our brief deployment. You should know that your daily summaries of ships’ positions were extremely valuable to us. We probably wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for you.”
“Thank you, Captain. It was my pleasure.”
“Since you’ll be joining the crew here, come on down and I’ll have someone show you to your berthing area.”
“Thanks, Captain. I’ll grab my things and be right back!”
Dwight interrupted. “So come on up, George, and let’s get that coffee now. Chicory — just the way you like it!”
“Okay, I’ll be right up! Oh, by the way, I almost forgot — we have a couple of extra crew members we didn’t count on before. A couple of marines — Sergeant Ramirez and Corporal Williams.”
“Marines! What happened?”
“It’s okay. I’ve interviewed them at length, and they’re good men — a valuable addition to the team. I actually should have thought about it before.”
“Thought about what? What are you gonna do with them?”
“Security. If anything unexpected ever happens, it will be good to have some marines on our side. For right now, I’ll send them up to stand watch. Give them each a pair of binoculars and a post on opposite sides of Platform Alpha. We’ll have them keep watch for any small craft that might wander into the area but not show up on your surface search radar.”
“Okay,” Dwight agreed. “You’re right, it sounds like a good idea.”
“Oh, and Dwight… either find them each a post that’s covered, or get them some coveralls like the rest of your crew. If this overcast sky clears up, I don’t want any surveillance satellite spotting marines walking around on what is supposed to be an out-of-commission civilian oil rig. It wouldn’t look good, if you know what I mean.”
“Absolutely. We’ll keep them out of sight of Big Brother’s probing eyes.”
Chapter 28
Pappy gave George a confused look. “What the heck’s a sub-fighter?”
“Oh, a little project I’ve been working on for ten years or so — mostly with my own time and money, and a little help from Dwight,” George answered nonchalantly. “You’d be surprised what you can do on a shoestring budget when you have a cousin in the manufacturing business!”
“Okay, but what is this thing, and what makes it a fighter?”
“Well, let’s compare aircraft and submarines. They’re similar because they both move through a fluid medium — one through air and one through water. So when you look at the shape of a submarine and the size of its control surfaces, what does it remind you of in terms of aircraft?”
“A blimp or dirigible.”
“Right. And how fast and maneuverable were the old lighter-than-air dirigibles compared to later heavier-than-air airplanes?”
“They sucked.”
“Exactly. And how is it that a submarine maintains its depth when it’s sitting still?”
“Ballast tanks,” replied Pappy. “We flood some of the ballast tanks to dive and pump air into them to surface. To maintain a depth, we flood or pump until we achieve neutral buoyancy.”
“That’s right. So effectively, a submarine hovering under water is like a blimp hovering in the air. And it’s just about as maneuverable. In your words, it sucks.”
“Yeah, but I can’t see how you can do anything about it. I mean, without using ballast tanks we could drive the boat up to the surface using the dive plane, if we had enough headway, but if we slowed down any, we would sink. We would have to blow the ballast tanks to stay on the surface.”
“That’s great in-the-box thinking, Pappy. I would have expected more from you! I think we’ll send you back to World War One — you’ll fit in perfectly!”
“All right, all right — quit giving me grief, Captain. Just tell me what the heck these things are!”
“OK, they’re two-man submarines. They’re heavier than water with no ballast tanks. So they have to maintain headway to maintain depth. Just think of them as the sharks of the submarine community — they have to keep moving or they die. They’re sleek, hydrodynamic, with very little drag. They have wings. Not quite like an airplane, but relative to their size, their wings are much larger than the little excuses for control planes that submarines currently have. With larger wings and control surfaces, they have tremendous maneuverability, and the lift produced by those wings greatly reduces the amount of headway needed to maintain depth. In fact, they can maintain depth, fully loaded, at less than five knots.”