“I don’t believe in incentives, Al. The only incentive you need is to keep me happy.”
“There goes an impossible dream,” Taleb sang as he walked away.
“Come on, Al. Let’s get you topside so you can meet our hero master chief and then I’ll help you check in. I won’t assign you anything today because it’s your first day. Give you a chance to get settled and get your bearing on this floating bucket of bolts. But what I will do is show you where to report for work tomorrow morning.”
As he followed the broad-hipped sailor along the port side of the ship, he found himself looking forward to going topside. The lower decks of Sea Base brought visions of how a trip to Satan’s domain would look; a world of constant shadows filled with those destined for hell breathing in the horrid fumes of oblivion. He wondered if somewhere topside he could find more fitting accommodations for the messenger of God.
Twenty minutes later with little conversation, the two emerged on top of Sea Base.
Showdernitzel turned to him, her breaths coming in rapid gulps. A couple of joggers passed. “Don’t need to jog to stay in shape,” she said, slapping her flat stomach. “Several trips up and down the stairwell every day will be all the exercise you need.” She cocked her head to the side, eyes wide, and smiling. “This your first ship?”
Everything Steve Bucket taught him to say came easily to his lips. Everything a lie, but to lie to Satan’s helper was not a sin. But he didn’t lie. It was hard to lie, but he told her this was his first ship. Bucket said that would cover any slipups he made. He explained he had made third-class petty officer out of A school. That would cover the fact he was a petty officer and not a seaman. Petty officers had more freedom than seamen.
Showdernitzel shook her head, putting her hands on her hips. “Well, shipmate, looks as if we will have to start work on teaching you what life as a real boatswain mate is all about. Book learning don’t do nothing but produce word fairies that have little to do with the real world of the sea.”
“Senior Chief,” Seaman Gentron said, turning from the AN/SQR-25 Sonar console. “Glad you’re back. I’m getting sporadic contact on that submarine again.”
Agazzi pushed the lever down securing the watertight door. This was his domain. The lowest deck on board the USNS Algol. He quickly moved across the top level of the compartment and slid down the few steps to the lower level where the row of consoles was located.
“Diagnostics check out?” Agazzi asked.
“I checked them when I changed the watch, Senior Chief.
No problems then.” Gentron pointed to the readouts above the console. “The data is basically the same. Same hertz readout indicating a non-Western submarine. Doesn’t jive with marine environmental noise. Whatever it is, it’s man-made and it’s not American.”
“Where’s Petty Officer Keyland?” Agazzi asked.
“He, Taylor, and Bernardo are in the UUV Compartment over on the Bellatrix,” MacPherson answered.
“They haven’t finished reloading the firing cartridge?”
“Nope,” MacPherson said, tapping his computer screen. “But I’ve been watching them through the cam. I think Bernardo is ready to return.” He chuckled.
“Why?”
MacPherson shrugged. “No reason other than body language, Senior Chief. Can’t hear anything through these devices,” MacPherson said, reaching up and tapping the cam on its own console. “All they do is let us guess what the other guy is thinking.”
Agazzi patted MacPherson once on the shoulder. MacPher-son was draped over his chair like a thrown blanket. His right leg rested on the chair arm, his foot swinging slightly back and forth. His right arm was up and over the high back, while his body rested awkwardly against the left arm.
“More likely he just don’t want to be doing hard work,” Gentron added.
“That’s enough,” Agazzi said.
“Good point,” MacPherson added. He winked at Agazzi, then returned to watching the video image in front of him. His left hand moved the mouse gently, guiding the deployed UUV on its patrol.
Agazzi smiled. He could see why women fought over this young sailor. Dark hair and blue eyes that could “freeze a lady at twelve paces and cause her panties to disappear,” as Bernardo said kiddingly.
Agazzi turned to Gentron. Gentron was still the new kid on the team even after five months on board. Seamen were always the new kids at sea.
Agazzi had seven sailors, including him, to fight an underwater war. They’d had eight for a while, but the eighth sailor had been no sailor. He’d been some sort of religious fanatic with a fatal design to sink Sea Base. No one knew why, or could even figure out what Sea Base had to do with this religious notion of starting Armageddon. Agazzi’s thoughts went back to the one moment when he looked up from the walkway in the UUV compartment and saw this Smith bringing the metal bar down on him.
“Senior Chief, you listening?”
“Tell me what you have,” Agazzi replied to Gentron’s question.
“Same thing as Petty Officer Bernardo had yesterday. A contact bearing 220. It stays around for a few seconds and then disappears.”
“Same contact?”
Gentron shook his head. The light brown hair cropped close to the head had grown in the months at sea. Grown too much for Navy regulations, for it touched the man’s shirt collar. Agazzi made a mental note to mention it to Petty Officer Key-land, the Leading Petty Officer of the division. The seaman was spending too much time with Bernardo.
“Different contact, Senior Chief. The passive noise spikes show slight differences in the signature. I’d say we have at least two submarines out there.”
“Two submarines?” Agazzi grew interested. They had had one submarine shadowing them since they departed the Sea of Japan a month ago. Naval Intelligence had given a probable identity as Chinese. Now that they were shifting their operations area to support the growing Taiwanese crisis, maybe the Chinese had decided to put another submarine out here with them. Maybe the submarines were relieving each other on station like American submarines sometimes did. “You pass it along to Combat?”
“I was just going to do that, Senior Chief,” Gentron answered.
Agazzi knew Gentron was waiting for him or Keyland to show up before telling Combat. Combat Information Center was located on the second deck of the tower on the top of Sea Base. Combat never let a piece of reported information go without a multitude of questions, and Gentron would have been a basket of nerves within two seconds of their questions.
“Petty Officer MacPherson, why didn’t you pass this along to Combat?”
MacPherson brought his leg down onto the deck. “Senior Chief, every time Seaman Gentron said he had something, I looked. Didn’t see the contact.”
“But the SQR-25 still had the traces running down it, Senior Chief,” Gentron objected.
Agazzi looked back at MacPherson.
“He’s right,” MacPherson agreed. “I did see the traces, but Senior Chief, we only had two contacts and both were light traces. I wanted to see a third trace.”
“Next time, report it and worry about confirmation later.” Agazzi reached over and pushed the button on the intercom. At least the communications problems within Sea Base were being corrected by ship’s force. The Navy had generated a request for contractors to propose corrections, but then after the commercial world provided their own recommendations, the funds had been de-obligated.
His thoughts wandered for a minute as he recalled overhearing Admiral Holman in a tirade with Captain Garcia about the internal communications problems plaguing Sea Base. Rear Admiral Dick Holman had been told about the funds being “de-obligated” that had been earmarked for Sea Base. The admiral had launched into a tirade about Washington rear-echelon so-and-sos not knowing where their balls were located. What was it the admiral said? Agazzi tried to recall, then he remembered. The admiral said something about politicians like, “To them, every program is the same; so when they get down to two, they cut one — but they always cut the nice one and kept the ugly one. Then, everyone spends the rest of their time trying to put the red lipstick of the good one on the ugly one.” After a few minutes of listening to Admiral Holman, Agazzi came to believe the worst curse word in the Navy was “de-obligate.”