Blushing, she took a swig of coffee and glared back at him.
“Yes, Mr. Briscoe, like I almost did, but I didn’t say his crash wasn’t caused by a defective AutoDocker. He may not have known how to fix the problem like Marker did. I should have explained the fix to him before he took the pod out.” She dropped her head, sniffled and wiped her eyes.
Trying to break her mood I whispered, “Hey, Lieutenant, what’s Bowman working on so intently?”
She glanced his way then back at me and softly replied, “Probably today’s POD, our plan of the day. He posts it early every morning before the vault meeting at 1100 hours. It’ll be out in a few hours. Tells everyone their tasks for the day.”
“Yep,” the Chief said, “Seen lots of ‘em. Never good news.”
“Well I’m sure this one will focus on Edwards’s accident and its cause. And since we’re rather hard to reach by the NTSB and they don’t even know of our existence, Bowman will name a Go Team as they do and send them out. In this case, I expect your names will be on his short list. That’s why you’re here isn’t it?”
“According to Admiral Greenfield, yes,” I answered, “But I should first learn the Exosuit before I go out don’t you think?”
“No better time than the present,” Briscoe said rising from the table, his chair screeching over the floor. “Drink up your coffee and follow me back to Pod Bay 1.”
As I stood to follow him Bowman looked up from his tablet and over at us.
“Where are you gents headed? Up to your racks?”
“No, but I wish,” Briscoe said, “I’m taking Marker down to the Exosuits and give him a ten-minute crash course on their use.”
He chuckled.
“Well, Mr. Briscoe, you could have chosen a better word to describe your intensive course but it’s good that you’re training him. You’ll both be going out at 1200 hours to survey, assess and recover the wreckage. Bring it back to Pod Bay 2. I’ll want to inspect it there.”
Pausing he added, “Oh, you’ll need a cutting torch; I’ll have that ready and waiting in the docking bay for your departure. Now Lt. Williams will track you in a SeaPod for your recovery needs like towing, lifting, or moving big things around. It’s all in this POD.”
I looked at my watch for the first time since they found the wreck and saw it was six-fifteen a.m. civilian time. A half-mile over our heads the sun would soon be rising above the eastern horizon, a sight I knew I couldn’t enjoy for another month.
I hadn’t slept more than an hour in almost a day but this was what I expected: either balls-to-the-wall busy or twiddling-your-thumbs idle with no in-between. I knew I could sleep later and enjoy it better.
“Let’s go, Chief,” I said.
His ‘ten-minute crash course’ lasted most of three hours but in that time I had been locked in the suit twice almost gagging on the neoprene-permeated airflow, walked through the unflooded bay once and then spent thirty minutes floating and propelling around the flooded bay testing all the joints and seals. He never trusted me enough to open the bay door to the ocean fearing another accident but dousing the bay lights perfectly simulated the outside midnight zone. And as I expected in that simulation I found the suit’s forward floods crucial to seeing and finding anything; but just like driving a car at night with its headlights on I had to point myself toward where I wanted to see or go. I passed the course with ‘driving colors’ as he put it.
We entered the Mess at 0930 hours to a half-empty room but the kitchen was still lighted and open. Aromas of eggs frying and bacon broiling lingered in the air. On the way to the serving line we passed a group of four crew members sitting together at one of a long table finishing their meals and another lone crew member sitting by herself at a smaller four-top table. Her nametag read DEASON, JILL and her ID tag had a notch telling me she was part of the nuclear assessment team. Her flowing red hair, a cute freckled face, and a tight-fitting blue jumpsuit must have attracted Briscoe. He stopped at her table, pointed toward the tray line and asked:
“Is that where we order?”
I tried to suppress a snicker but couldn’t. I just hoped that she didn’t see through his ruse as I did. Shortly I learned that he was just being social, hating to see anybody eating alone and it worked.
“Yes it is,” she answered smiling. She dropped her fork and swept her hand over the empty chairs.
“Please join me with your trays. It’s always good to see new faces around here. We see so few.”
“Interesting lady,” said Briscoe grabbing a tray entering the line. “Everyone seems so alone down here. Must be the tight security. Always watching over your shoulder. Two eggs over easy, two donuts, and four sausages, please.”
“Or maybe a fear of the strange occurrences lately.” I said placing my tray behind his. “If someone’s creating them they’re still down here mingling with the staff. Who knows who will be next? A short stack of pancakes, lots of butter and two slices bacon. No eggs.”
”Welcome to my mess hall, gentlemen,” said the culinary specialist, a tall heavyset older man dressed in a blue chef’s coat and toque.
He glanced at our ID badges then continued, “My name’s Chef Bill Saunders and I’ll be your chef while you’re at the station.” Pulling our orders from steam trays, he plated them and slid them to us under the sneeze guard.
“It’s your day today. It’s bagless day.”
“What’s that mean, Chef,” Briscoe asked grabbing utensils for his plate.
“One day a week I cook all your meals in the kitchen. The other six… see those microwaves over there… I give you MREs in bags and you heat them up yourselves. Pretty good food and just as nutritious, but much easier on the pantry… and me.”
“Oh? How big is your kitchen staff Chef,” I asked.
“You’re looking at ‘em, Mr. Cross. It’s a pretty simple job except for bagless days when we run out of MREs and some damn Pacific storm hovers over us preventing a timely food drop. Then I have to make do with powdered foods and you don’t want to wish those on anyone… but they’re still nutritious.”
“Thanks, Chef,” I said filling my cup from the coffee urn. “Hope I don’t have to stay that long.”
I turned back, saw Briscoe seating himself at Deason’s table, and joined them.
“So are you guys the troubleshooters that HQ sent down to calm our fears?” she asked as I sat.
“That’s what they told us,” Briscoe answered forking a piece of yolky egg white into his mouth, “but we may have trouble keeping up with the boogie man; he’s already struck twice since we arrived last night.”
“Yeah, that’s what I heard and I hate it when things go bump in the night.”
She took a small bite of toast and continued, “That really shook me up. Sometimes I wish I’d taken a desk job pushing a pencil in some nuclear lab on shore.”
“What’s your specialty, Ensign Deason? I see from your ID badge that you’re Navy.”
“I’ve got one doctorate in nuclear physics and another in chemical oceanography. Seems to fit well with our mission. Basically I keep the nuclear sensors calibrated and honest ensuring that the data they report is really encroachment radiation from Fukushima and not spurious radiation from other sources.”
“Like what?” Briscoe asked taking another bite.
“Well, for example, when nuclear subs pass nearby or nuclear warheads are tested at sea; we occasionally find false positives in our data and must differentiate between them and our targeted data.”
With my curiosity tweaked I asked, “How do you distinguish between the types of radiations?”
“Isotopes. From the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. That meltdown released iodine-131, cesium-134 and cesium-137 into the Pacific. Cesium-134 is unique to the Daiichi incident while cesium-137 is produced by nuclear power plant effluents and underwater nuclear weapons testing.”