It was an untidy ballet between the fighter and the drogue in in-flight refueling. Franklin watched as Major Johnson approached the bell-like end of the refueling drogue slowly. Every aspect of in-flight refueling was critical, but none more so than the approach. It was here that a miscalculation, an air pocket, or high-altitude wind shear could send the drogue crashing into the fighter aircraft.
Johnson’s male probe slid into the refueling drogue smoothly — almost like teenage sex, thought Franklin, recalling his first time. Daydreams and fantasies helped pilots pass those boring moments of level flight. Wow! he thought. Those tanker and RC-135 pilots must need more flight suits than fighter pilots.
Thirty minutes later, Franklin had replaced her. Both of them ignored the continuous complaints by the tanker pilot as they entered the Taiwan Strait. After all, Franklin reasoned, Jolly Roger had two of the world’s most powerful fighter aircraft accompanying it, and afterward, hundreds of miles for the glazed-eye flight back to Okinawa.
“Senior Chief!” Bernardo shouted, waving four fingers above his head. “I have four contacts out there now.” Bernardo dropped his hand and leaned closer to the AN/SQR-25 sonar display. “Gentron, you Christly twit! What the hell did you do to my screen?”
”Nothing, Petty Officer Bernardo,” Gentron stuttered from the other side of MacPherson.
“Bullshit!”
“Leave him alone,” MacPherson interjected. “We’re trying to set up the controls for another UUV.”
Bernardo grabbed a tube of wipes from beneath the console, ripped one out, and started wiping down the display. “Looks as if he rubbed his greasy hair against it.”
MacPherson reached over and ran the back of his hand up the side of Gentron’s close-cropped hairline. “Yeah, too much hair, Gentron.”
“Okay, everyone, let’s concentrate on the ASW picture. Tell me about the contacts,” Agazzi interrupted as he jumped up from his desk, heading toward the lower level.
“Four of them just popped up. Popped up within seconds of each other.”
Bernardo stuffed the wipes beneath the console, never taking his eyes off the display. He reached up and pointed. “I have two strong ones and a weak one that could be convergence-zone jump. And, of course, this one that’s been there all along.”
“Location?”
“We have the original two southwest of us. One is bearing 225 and the other is 240 degrees.” His finger pointed to two new trace marks inching down the rainfall display. “This one is north of us bearing 010 degrees true, with a buddy coming from the east at 080 degrees.”
“East! That would mean they…”
Agazzi reached the console, touched Bernardo’s shoulder, and interrupted Gentron’s comment. “Any indications of their presence prior to this?”
Bernardo looked toward Gentron, straining his neck for a glimpse of the young seaman. “Gentron! Did you see anything other than the original submarines?”
Gentron looked at Agazzi. “Senior Chief! I only saw the ones Petty Officer Bernardo detected yesterday: those bearing around 240. All they did was show up on the console and then disappear, as if they knew how close they could get before being detected.”
“Senior Chief,” MacPherson said. “You want me to keep our UUV searching southwest of us?”
“Taylor and Keyland still in the UUV Compartment?” MacPherson looked at the small cam picture. “I see Elvis, but Po-Boy must still be fiddling with the UUVs.”
“Tell Petty Officer Keyland to prepare to launch another two UUVs.”
“Senior Chief, we’re launching the second one now. Two more means Gentron or I am going to have to handle two on each console. We’ve never handled more than one at a time.” “I’ve got confidence in your ability, Petty Officer MacPherson. It’s time to test your professionalism,” Agazzi said. He leaned down and watched the noise trace of the four contacts trickle down the rainfall display. “Petty Officer Bernardo, start a time-motion analysis on those four contacts. I need to know their course, speed, and distance from us.”
“Can I help?” Calvins asked from where he sat on the stool near the maintenance desk. Agazzi looked at him for a second before his attention returned to the contacts.
“I can do the TMA, Senior Chief, but the signal strength is increasing on each and each is on a continuous bearing. I may not know how far they are from us, but they are definitely closing.”
“Where’s our submarines when we need them?” MacPher-son asked.
“We have five and every one of them is somewhere in the Taiwan Strait.”
“How about they Taiwan one of them out here with us?” MacPherson added.
Agazzi pushed the MC button for Combat. “Combat, Sonar here; we have four — I say again — four unidentified contacts.…” He repeated the initial analysis to the Tactical Action Officer. Responding to the peppering of questions by Commander Stapler, Agazzi told him that based on constant bearing and increasing signal strength, the contacts might be approaching Sea Base.
A constant bearing, decreasing range meant the submarines were on a collision course with Sea Base.
“We’re surrounded,” Bernardo said with a sigh. He looked toward the young sailor from Pennsylvania, who was now standing beside the maintenance table, his body half-blocking the security camera screens. “Okay, Seaman Calvins, get your ass down here and I’ll show you how the SQR-25 does time-motion analysis.”
Agazzi leaned forward as the young sailor squeezed by him. With only seven of them, it helped that each learned something about every job in Sonar. “Okay, Calvins, if they sound General Quarters, you will have to stop and man your sound-powered phone position,” Agazzi warned as he left the console.
He was halfway up the ladder from the console area to the upper level when Bernardo shouted, his voice trembling with emotion.
“I got torpedoes in the water. Jesus Christ! They’re coming from every direction.”
Agazzi gripped the railings and slid down backward to the bottom level. He pushed Calvins out of the way as he leaned over Bernardo’s shoulder. The normal dark green background of the screen had turned pale from the number of noise signatures filling the ocean beneath Sea Base.
“Eight. I got eight! Eight torpedoes inbound, Senior Chief!”
“Calvins, get your ass up there and man your position!” Agazzi shouted, pushing by the seaman as he hurried to the MC console.
“Showdernitzel!” Jacobs shouted, waving her toward him. Who was the sailor trailing behind her?
“That’s the master chief,” Showdernitzel said, her hand shielding her mouth. “Whatever you do, don’t let his bluster scare you. It’s his bite you have to worry about.”
Andrew stared at the man standing near the rail gun. “Is that Jacobs?” he asked quietly, bending down near Showder-nitzel’s ear.
“Master Chief Jacobs to you. The rest of us call him Bad Ass, but not to his face. It’d make his already too large ego bigger.”
Jacobs! Andrew straightened, his eyes narrowing as he absorbed everything about this man who had killed his brother. His father had read in the papers about Jacobs’s act. But none ever knew the whole story of his brother’s death. He glanced down at Showdernitzel. This woman would tell him. She’d tell anything about anybody if anyone even pretended to listen to her babble. He shivered at the idea of spending unnecessary time with this woman of sin. The left side of his lips curled in disgust.
“What was that?” Showdernitzel asked, laughing as she looked up at him. “You think he’s bad from here, wait until you see him up close. Then, you’ll really shake.” She laughed again. “You look as if you smell a skunk. You’ll get used to the odors of the flight deck after a while. Most of us never notice them.”