You may have a Navy Cross, he thought to himself. And maybe the admiral knows you by name. But I still control the watch bill. Once it was published, the captain wouldn’t second guess him on this.
The XO had been solidly in the middle of the pack at every early stage of his career: 253rd in his class at the academy, barely in the top half at nuclear power school, and slightly worse at prototype. But this is why he had made it to XO, clawing ahead of so many peers that had once been deemed more promising. And this is why he would make it to captain: he was good at this. He had the careerist equivalent of good eye-hand coordination, a sense for which way the wind was blowing, a knack for saying what superior officers wanted to hear even before they knew they wanted to hear it. And he knew that if Danny Jabo was the captain’s favorite officer in the wardroom, then he couldn’t be. And he was at a critical stage in his career, just one step to go before taking command of a ship himself, the pinnacle of a naval officer’s career, getting his twenty years in, and retiring with a captain’s pension.
And now the XO’s fate was solely in the hands of the mercurial Commander Michaels, and the fitness report he would issue at the end of this tour. Any praise that was less than completely glowing, any superlative that was remotely qualified, might doom him. The Cold War was over, and with so many boats decommissioned, and so few new ones being built, there weren’t that many commands to go around. Careers were sacrificed every day because of an adverb misplaced or the absence of an adjective in a fitrep. The XO sensed that any praise lavished on Danny, bona fide naval hero, would be taken from him. So Lieutenant Jabo needed to come back down to earth.
He didn’t think it would be hard. Danny seemed uncomplicated in that way, non-political in a manner that probably made him endearing to others, easy to like. But as a result, he’d never see the XO coming. He’d never outmaneuver a guy like the XO when his career was on the line.
As he congratulated himself on his cunning, the copier made a grinding noise, and one of the green lights on the control panel turned red. Agitated, the XO threw open the access plate and saw where the paper had jammed. He grabbed the edge of the offending sheet and pulled, but the machine held onto it tight. With two hands, he pulled again, hard. He heard a snap and the sheet came free, as every light on the machine briefly turned red, and then its internal systems shut everything down to save itself from further damage. He smelled the sweet aroma of melting plastic. The XO jabbed the power button over and over, but nothing happened.
He had killed the copier.
Danny was walking out of his stateroom when he saw a gaggle of junior officers, including V-12, gathered around the bulletin board, peering at the new watch bill. A few glanced at him as he approached and stepped over to make room.
He scanned it until he found his name. It was under V-12’s.
Lieutenant Jabo…. Engineering Officer of the Watch Under Instruction
“What the fuck?”
V-12 laughed. “I guess I’m supposed to teach you how to be an EOOW.”
He nodded and considered it. While technically he wasn’t qualified on any of his new ship’s systems, he’d been qualified everything on a previous ship, and wore the gold dolphins of a qualified submariner. On the Alabama, when a new department head had arrived, they’d typically given him a token watch or two in the engine room, followed by a few observed watches on the bridge as OOD, and then they put his name in the watch qualification book. They hurried the process both out of respect for the officer’s previous experience and the dire need for qualified watch officers. So maybe that’s what this was, just a token watch. But as he took note of the XO’s small, neat signature at the bottom of the strangely wrinkled sheet of paper, and absorbed the fact that he would be ostensibly supervised by his lower-ranking roommate, he felt certain that at least part of this was deliberate — an attempt to put him in his place.
“This is crazy,” said V-12.
“Yeah, well.”
“You were the only officer of the deck who could find the drone on the range!” he said. “What do they want you in the engine room for?”
“Do I hear some questions about the watchbill?” The XO had appeared behind them, a tight grin on his face. “If so, you can address them to the Number 4 torpedo tube.”
“No questions, XO,” said Jabo, not taking the bait. The XO continued anyway.
“I know you qualified on an S8-G reactor on that Trident,” he said, emphasizing the word. “Thought you might need time in a fast attack engine room: S6-G.”
“Good idea, sir. Looking forward to it.”
The XO nodded, disappointed that Jabo wasn’t more pissed about it.
V-12 spoke up. “XO, what’s wrong with the watchbill?”
“I put people where they need to be, V-12. Everyone contributes, everyone qualifies, no exceptions.”
“No, not that. I mean — it’s all crumpled up.”
The other JOs chuckled and the XO’s smile disappeared. He did an about face and stormed down the passageway.
“Well,” said V-12, looking at his watch. “I guess we should do our pre-watch tour.”
Danny marveled at how much smaller the engine room of Louisville was, compared to the Alabama’s, where he’d learned the trade of nuclear propulsion. Everything was smaller: the air conditioners, the air compressors, the evaporators that made their freshwater out of the sea that surrounded them. And that equipment was jammed into an engine room that was smaller still, machinery crammed from the deck to the overhead, and every move required ducking and twisting to avoid a piece of gear. The Alabama had been designed around her twenty-four ballistic missiles, a huge suite of weapons that stretched everything out, making the ship longer and wider on every axis. The Louisville seemed very crowded in comparison.
“I’m sure this all looks familiar,” said V-12, as they walked through the engineering spaces prior to taking the watch.
“Some of it does,” said Jabo. “Some of it doesn’t.”
While Danny was learning about the S6-G propulsion plant, he was also learning more about the crew, including V-12. He was efficient and knowledgeable, reviewing the logs thoroughly as they conducted their pre-watch tour and noting anything amiss in the space: a dead light bulb by the evaporator, a damaged piece of lagging near the port main engine. If Danny had a critique of him it was that he was a little chatty as he talked to the watchstanders. Submarining was serious business, and being the EOOW was a grave responsibility. V-12 was here to give these men orders, but sometimes it seemed like he was running for student council.
But hell, thought Danny as he stepped into maneuvering. I’m supposed to be here learning from him.
“Lieutenant Jabo is the Engineering Officer of the Watch,” he announced. “Under Instruction.”
“Throttleman, aye.”
“Reactor Operator, aye.”
“Electrical Operator, aye.”
He recorded it in the logs.
“So sir, what’s a naval hero like yourself doing a UI watch?” It was Brady, the Reactor Operator.
“I just do what I’m told,” said Jabo. “Just like you guys.”
“Seat?” V-12 was courteously offering him the EOOW’s chair.
“Maybe later,” said Jabo.
“What did they have for the EOOW on a Trident?” asked the electrical operator. “A recliner?”