All that made him a few years older than his JO peers: he was twenty-seven. But Kincaid made sure none of them thought they were in better shape. He devoted every spare minute to working out, using every piece of the paltry exercise equipment the ship stored in Missile Compartment Lower Leveclass="underline" the treadmill, a rowing machine, a stationary bike, and a punching bag. Unfortunately, everything except the treadmill and the punching bag was broken. It had all been scheduled for replacement, but their orders had changed before the new equipment arrived. The broken gear didn’t disrupt Kincaid that much; his routine centered on the treadmill. But it bothered him deeply, as a submariner, to go to sea with shit broken.
Kincaid tried to run five hundred miles every patrol, tracking his progress on a sheet of graph paper taped to the state room wall. Each sheet from each patrol went into green half-inch binder. Whenever possible, he did his run in ten-mile increments, which took him about ninety minutes. It was the longest he could go, especially early in a patrol, without pissing people off for monopolizing the treadmill. Already, though, the competition down there in Missile Compartment Lower Level was starting to wane. People were getting lazy. A new patrol was like the New Year: everybody had resolutions. I’m going to qualify chief of the watch. I’m going to learn to play guitar. I’m going to lose twenty pounds. But usually by the third week, he pretty much had the place to himself.
The thought made him feel stronger, as he listened to the repetitive slapping of his Nikes on the belt beneath his feet. He didn’t listen to music when he ran. The treadmill ran on a non-vital electrical bus, the first busses, by design, to start shutting down if things went wrong with the ship’s electrical plant. On his first patrol as an officer, he’d been on the bike when the 2MC announced a reactor scram. Another JO was listening to some heavy metal on his head phones, trotting along dumb and happy on the treadmill. Kincaid yelled out to him, but he didn’t hear him any more than he heard the announcement. A second later the bus dropped, the treadmill shut off, and the JO ran clear over the rails, flipped over, and broke his collarbone. So Kincaid decided he could live without the music, listening instead for any announcement, bang, or alarm that would make getting off the treadmill a good idea.
He saw Jabo climbing down the ladder at the far forward end of the compartment. He spotted Kincaid and struck a Kung Fu pose. Kincaid jacked up the speed a couple of more tenths, feeling competitive. Jabo was strong, a natural athlete, one of those guys Kincaid would want next to him if he ever needed to be dragged out of a smoke-filled compartment. But he didn’t want Jabo to think for a minute that he was in better shape. For a variety of reasons, Kincaid usually had a chip on his shoulder about other junior officers. But liking Jabo was effortless. And in addition to being his best friend, he was a superb naval officer: smart, loyal, and good. He took on every task with a complete devotion to getting it done properly. A word popped in Kincaid’ head that he didn’t think he had ever used to describe another human being. Jabo was dutiful.
Jabo had made his way to his side. “Come on Hayes, let’s go.”
“Let’s go what?”
“We’re burning Enter the Dragon.”
Kincaid looked down at the console. “Two and a half more miles.” He consciously made his words sound as easy as he could. “Almost done.”
“Thirty minutes on the treadmill,” said Jabo, pointing to a laminated sign that hung on the bulkhead. “That’s the limit. I’m here to enforce the rule.”
“Fuck that. You see anybody else down here?”
“Maybe I want on it.”
“When I came down here, it still had my stats from yesterday on it. Ten miles in an hour and twenty-two minutes.”
“Maybe it was somebody else.”
“No one else on this pig could do that run,” he said.
Jabo put his hand over the red emergency stop button.
“Don’t you fucking do it!” said Kincaid, laughing now.
Jabo feigned he was hitting the button again. Kincaid was losing his rhythm laughing. He finally dialed down the speed, and brought the treadmill to a stop. “Alright, motherfucker. Seven point five miles. Let me go write it down and I’ll meet you in the wardroom.”
“An old guy like you shouldn’t be running like that anyway,” said Jabo. “Gonna fuck up your joints.”
“Old guy? Feel like going for a race?”
“I feel like watching a movie,” he said. “Eating some shitty food, drinking some watery Coke, and watching a movie while we still can.”
The movie ended just in time for Jabo to complete his pre-watch tour prior to relieving Hein on the conn. In missile compartment third level, the level where the majority of the crew slept in nine-man bunkrooms, Jabo stopped at the ship’s laundry. Petty Officer Howard was wearing boxers and a t-shirt, doing laundry while reading a well-worn copy of The Shining.
“Shouldn’t you be studying for your quals?” asked Jabo, pointing at the book. Howard was his favorite kind of sailor — enthusiastic without being a kiss ass, smart, and funny — the kind of guy you didn’t mind spending a couple of hundred days a year with sealed in a steel tube. He’d gotten himself in trouble after the last patrol, driving drunk from the E Club on base to the barracks. It was a classic kind of stupid, avoidable, young man’s mistake — the distance from the E Club to the barracks was about two hundred yards. Howard had said he wanted to get his car out of the E Club lot because he was worried his stereo would get stolen. Jabo was one of several officers who’d gone to bat for him after the incident.
Howard thumped his chest, where his silver dolphins would have been if he’d been wearing his uniform. “I qualified last patrol, sir! You know that.”
“What about Diesel watch? Chief of the Watch? Diving Officer? There’s always something to qualify for.”
Howard rolled his eyes. “Ok sir, let me get my poopie suits clean and I’ll get right on it.” He stood and peered into the small glass window on one of the ship’s two dryers. “Looks like they’re almost done.”
“Excellent. You can come up to the conn on the next watch, I think we may be going to periscope depth to get the broadcast, you can sit with the Chief of the Watch.”
“Seriously?” Howard was paying attention now. On a normal patrol, trips to PD were rare. Offering a seat like that to Howard was a big deal, giving him a leg up on a big watchstation qualification. “What time?”
“Come up about halfway through the watch,” said Jabo. “I’ll see what I can do. I’m not even positive we’re going, but I know we need the broadcast…if you happen to be in the control room when we do, and you’re prepared, I don’t see why you can’t get the signature.”
“Thanks sir, I’ll be ready!”
“Good,” said Jabo, and he continued his tour.
He finished the tour, as always, in the control room, reading the captain’s night orders, checking the deck log, and looking at the CODC display, the Officer of the Deck’s view into the ship’s sonar suite.
“What’s that?” said Jabo, pointing to a contact designated Sierra Nine. They’d been tracking it loosely for the whole watch.
“Not sure,” said Hein. “We’ve been trying to get away…not really doing any good listening at this speed.”
“But he keeps hanging on?”
“Still there every time we slow down.”
Jabo punched a few buttons on the console, bringing up the contact’s estimated course and speed.
“She’s following us? That’s what you’ve got in here.”
Hein shrugged. “Who knows? We’re going so fast, it’s hard for us to listen.”