Duggan nodded. “No…sorry.”
“That’s okay…hell, you just got here. The tank is always full. As we burn diesel fuel, we let in water. The fuel, being about fifteen percent less dense, floats atop the water. The sensor floats atop the water-fuel interface. So as the tank empties of fuel oil, the sensor actually rises. Keeps the tank full of something all the time, which helps shield the people tank from the reactor.” He knocked his flashlight against the aft wall of the tank.
“Cool,” said Duggan.
“Yeah, those fuckers think of everything. One more question: how much fuel does this tank hold?”
“Thirty-five thousand gallons,” said Duggan, proud of himself for knowing the answer. Right before coming down, he’d seen the tanker truck on the pier, the hoses already extended, ready to send the cargo gushing into the tank where he stood.
“Good job. You have any idea why we carry that much diesel fuel?”
The question surprised Duggan. He hadn’t thought it was based on anything…it was just how much the tank held. He was struck by how many things there were to know inside an empty tank…and they weren’t trivial, either, they were actually important, capacities and specs developed by some of the finest engineers in the world. He contemplated how many hours he would have to spend at sea before he knew everything he was supposed to know about this giant boat.
“I’ll give you a hint,” said Jabo. “It’s based on a theoretical casualty in which we lose all power except the diesel engine, and this much fuel would allow us to steam for a certain number of hours at a certain number of knots, enough hours to get us out of harm’s way. The theory goes.”
“I’ll look it up.”
“Then get back with me and I’ll sign your book. Will that be your first signature?”
Duggan nodded.
“Holy shit! What an honor. You owe me a beer when we get back.”
Far above them, Renfro stuck his head through the hatch and yelled down. “Hey, topside wants to know what’s taking so long. Are you guys blowing each other?”
“Yeah,” said Jabo. “But we’re almost done.”
He handed Duggan the mallet. “Here, start banging on shit.”
The navigator sat huddled over a chart in a darkened corner of the submarine’s control room, frantically making revisions during the last few hours of the USS Alabama’s refit. He was a small man burdened with many secrets.
For example: he knew the combination of the inner SAS safe, the safe-within-a-safe that held the sealed authentication codes that would allow the launch of a nuclear missile. That series of four double-digit numbers was so secret that he was not allowed to write it down, and he had nightmares about being summoned to radio at the start of World War III and being unable to remember it, his faulty memory removing Alabama from strategic service as surely as an enemy torpedo. And, as navigator, he knew the exact locations of their patrol areas, the vast swaths of ocean where Ohio-class submarines maintained their vigils, within missile range of their targets in China and eastern Russia. That kind of targeting information was so secret, classified beyond Top Secret, that even the name of the classification was unutterable to the vast majority of the ship’s 154 man crew.
He knew the ship’s top speed: not as fast as many novelists speculated, slower than a good speed boat, but impressive enough to those who understood how quietly their 18,000 ton warship could move beneath the ocean at that speed. And he knew the ship’s test depth, the deepest at which they ever operated, the depth at which their systems were tested against the maximum sea pressure they should ever face. More secret still, he knew the ship’s collapse depth, the depth at which engineers estimated that the hull would finally succumb to the pressure of the millions of tons of sweater that surrounded them. It was striking what sea pressure could do to the works of man at those depths, the way water could turn into a force as solid and destructive as any weapon. Their XO had a standard lecture he liked to give about the nature of submarining, how seawater was their only real enemy. Torpedoes and depth charges just allowed the enemy inside.
Unlike the ship’s relatively unimpressive top speed, its maximum depth would be striking to anyone knowledgeable about diving and submersibles, a very large number that was a monument to the engineering marvel that was a Trident Submarine. But, as the navigator knew and was reminded of every time he so much as glanced at the small, italic numbers that dotted every one of his charts: even that large number was very much smaller than the depth of the ocean almost everywhere that they operated. Another favorite monologue of the XO’s: he would hold his hand out at waist-height, the distance to the deck representing the depth of the Pacific. Test depth is here, he would say, pointing to a spot about four inches below his palm. The submarine could travel deep, but the Pacific was very much deeper, a kind of biblical abyss that was difficult for the mind to grasp, even the minds of men who’d spent their whole lives at sea.
But the navigator had another, even darker secret, one more frightening than a forgotten safe combination or the depth at which a submarine becomes destroyed by a heartless ocean, a secret that tortured him as he tried to stay focused on the charts: he knew the ship’s mission. Along with the captain and the XO, he’d seen the new orders that he feared would doom them. Doom humanity. As navigator he not only knew about it: he had to help plan it, and plot their course right into the belly of the beast. He envied the rest of the crew in their ignorance, their hectic, boisterous preparations for patrol.
“Nav, are you alright?”
The navigator looked up, startled. The Duty Officer, Lieutenant Maple, was staring at him from the conn. He’d stopped signing the thick stack of red DANGER tags in front of him and stared with concern.
“Yes. I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
The navigator looked where Maple was pointing. He’d been jamming the point of his dividers into his knee. He’d stabbed right through the fabric of his khakis, into his flesh. Blood ran down his leg into a dark red puddle on the deck.
The next morning, Jabo waited outside the Captain’s stateroom with his single-page letter of resignation in hand. He hadn’t wanted it to be this way, wanted a few more days to warm up to the task, but as with so many of his plans over the last nine years, this had been preempted by the needs of the navy. They’d been ordered to sea early for reasons that had not yet been revealed, and he had to get this letter in the captain’s hands before the final mail call, if he actually expected to get out of the Navy at the earliest opportunity: five years to the day after he received his commission from the ROTC unit at Vanderbilt. The ship was still on the surface and rolled gently in the five foot swell that was following them out to deep water. After three years at sea, Jabo knew intuitively that if the rolling was bad inside the protected waters of the sound, they were in for a rough transit to Point Juliet, the earliest they could submerge. The XO walked out of the Captain’s stateroom, a wry smile on his face, paused at the sight of him. Like Jabo, he had a letter in his hand, but his was printed on fine official stationary.
“Danny have you heard anything about this girl baby shit?” he asked, waving the letter. The XO was short. But he was solid and spry, with a boxer’s build and attitude. His shaved, gleaming head enhanced his tough guy look. There were legends in the submarine fleet about his physical strength, tales of bar fights he’d broken up in Subic Bay and boxing matches he’d won at the Academy. He was a submarine officer of the oldest school, fluent in profanity, torpedo targeting, and dismissive of protocol. Jabo agreed with the consensus that they were lucky to have him.