“NAU?”
“Noise augmentation unit. A noisemaker. Somebody decided to turn it on for a few minutes a day to give us a sporting chance.”
“Why?” said Brady.
“Because,” said Cartwright as he began to deal. “Without some kind of artificial noise we would never, and I mean never, hear a Los Angeles-class submarine operating at five knots.”
USS Boise
The ship’s propulsion machinery continued smoothly pushing the ship forward along its programmed route. Nuclear fission turned mass into energy, which turned water into steam, which turned the ship’s main engines and propelled her across the Pacific. The air conditioners had failed, however, and the ambient temperature in the engine room would have soon killed any watchstander, had any stayed alive. It was 140 degrees in engine room upper level.
Other systems throughout the ship had also been affected without caretakers. Fluorescent lights flickered and went out without watchstanders to replace them. A bilge overflowed, sloshing dirty water over the lower level decks, with no one to manually operate the bilge pumps. The ship’s atmosphere was oxygen rich, as the oxygen bleed continued to provide O2 to a ship that had no humans to breathe it. While not as hellish as the engine room, the entire ship was hot, one hundred and ten degrees in the control room.
With no cooling water, the operating fire control computer in the control room heated up until it began to destroy itself. The acrid smell of burning electronics soon permeated the forward compartment, as did a thin layer of greasy smoke that hung near the overhead. The image on the computer’s monitor began to distort and display nonsense, as its brain overheated, and then it finally went dark. Still, the computer inside refused to die as electricity poured into it and no heat could leave.
Finally temperatures inside the machine reached the point where wire insulation began to melt. With no plastic around them, bare wires in the dying machine touched each other and sparked. In the oxygen-rich atmosphere of the Boise, the sparks flared into electric flames that burst from the machine. Some landed on Lieutenant Dwyer’s beloved book of procedures, which quickly ignited. It was a thick book, and with nowhere to go, the white smoke quickly filled the forward compartment as the book burned and burned, the vinyl tile on the deck beneath it melting.
The ship’s autopilot efficiently maintained course, speed, and depth as the control room was filled with smoke, darkness, and the sound of tripping circuit breakers. All over the boat lights shut off as the ship’s electrical system tried to save itself.
USS Louisville
Jabo rolled out of the rack at 0300, too excited to sleep. V-12 was snoring lightly in the rack below, and Jabo decided for the moment to let him keep sleeping. He’d be awake soon enough.
He walked into control where there was a tense silence. Word had raced through the boat about Jabo’s theory, and everyone had an opinion. Some thought it was a set up, that the game had been rigged in their favor by an NAU. Others thought the opposite, that it was too easy, that they were falling for some kind of ploy and would fail in their pursuit because of it. They’d had all day to talk about it, and every man had an opinion. Either way, everybody knew something interesting was going to happen at 0600: either they were going to find their target, or Lieutenant Jabo was going to get humiliated. There was an air of nervous expectation in the control room, the planesmen and the dive all focused intently on their indicators, with none of the usual midwatch malaise.
Van was on his feet, Jabo was happy to see, alertly watching his team.
“Morning,” said Jabo. “So you’re the OOD?”
“Yes, sir,” said Van. “This is like… my third watch ever. And my first midwatch.”
“I hope it was all you expected it to be.”
“Yes sir,” he said laughing.
“Van… you don’t need to call me sir.”
“Nav?”
“Better. Although I’m not exactly used to that yet either.”
“Are you relieving me?”
“I will soon enough,” said Danny. “Give you a few minutes to eat, if you want, or shower. But probably not both. I’m calling away battle stations at 0530.”
Jabo glanced quickly at the bearing repeater indicator and saw that all was in order. They were going five knots, along the course that matched his best guess for Boise. And they were at that odd depth he’d ordered: 720 feet. Even though it made absolutely no tangible difference inside the boat, seeing that big number had an effect: combined with the quiet of the midwatch, and the anticipation of the crew, it felt like they were deep.
“You think we’ll hear her?” said Van, almost whispering.
“We keep hearing that pinging, whatever it is. It’s happened the last two mornings about the same time. So that’s what I’m hoping. If I’m wrong, I guess I’m going to be spending a lot of time in the engine room this patrol.”
“Anything but that,” said Van, laughing anxiously.
Jabo could see that Van was nervous around him, he had clearly tagged him as adult supervision. He felt a little bad about it. If for no other reason, he was worried that the young officer might not be completely forthcoming, for fear of fucking up. Fear of fucking up could lead to paralysis, even though it was a behavior that permeated some parts of the officer corps.
“You hear anything?” said Jabo. “Sonar got anything out in front of us?”
Van nodded vigorously. “No — nothing at all.”
“You excited?”
Van looked at him, smiling, afraid it was a trick question. “Yeah, of course.”
“You should be. This is going to be fun.”
“Can I ask a question?” said Van, nervousness in his voice.
“Of course.”
“Can I get a head break? My bladder is about to explode.”
“Of course,” said Jabo. “It’s about time I did something useful up here.”
He and Van exchanged course, heading, and depth, and then Jabo said, “I relieve you.”
“I stand relieved.”
Jabo turned to the watchsection and announced, “This is Lieutenant Jabo. I have the Deck and the Conn.”
It was the first time he’d said those words in three years, and it felt really good.
Jabo stayed in the control room when Van came back, gave him the watch back for a couple of hours, and then took it back again for good. V-12 came up about 0500, also too excited to sleep.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning, glad you could make it.”
“Wouldn’t miss it. Ready to give up the conn?”
“In a few minutes, let’s go to battle stations first.”
“Aye,” said V-12. He wandered over to study the chart.
At 0525 the captain came to control, his eyes alive with excitement. “You find her yet?”
“Not yet sir.”
“I knew this plan was bullshit.”
“Wait until 0600,” said Jabo. “That’s the pattern.”
The captain looked at his watch. “You ready for battle stations?” Jabo waited for the few seconds to tick by until it was exactly 0530. Then he picked up the 1MC microphone and announced to the crew, “Battle Stations!”
“Chief of the watch, sound the general alarm.”
“Sound the general alarm, aye sir,” he responded, and then sounded the clanging alarm. Outside control he heard feet on the deck, running in every direction.
“Christ, the alarm sounds loud,” he said.
“Good,” said the captain. “In this case, we want her to hear us coming.”