Still thinking about the previous evening. Blackmore failed to notice when Ensign Marvin halted his rambling. Certain that he knew just what was on Blackmore’s mind, the ensign spoke out directly.
“Jesus, Lieutenant, will you please lighten up!
That prudish look on your face reminds me of my headmaster at military school. I know we can’t ask you to condone all of the unorthodox behavior you’ve seen aboard the Pelican this past week, but please keep an open mind. Duty aboard the Marlin is special. Though your first impressions might tell you otherwise, one thing that you can be certain of is that, when the Marlin is called into action, you can count on us to get the job done.
“As to what came down last night, you should just forget it. Command’s been pushing us awfully hard these past few months. Believe it or not, this has been our first real R and R in over sixty days. Guys will be guys, and they deserve to be able to let their hair down on occasion. We’re just lucky to have the commander around to save our scalps for us when things get out of hand.”
Failing to see the humor in this, Blackmore stood there impassively, his serious gaze locked on the mist shrouded island of Maui visible on his right. Conscious that he had failed to change the newcomer’s mind. Ensign Marvin was in the process of pivoting to return to his cabin to pick up some more aspirin when a strange surging noise came from the surrounding waters. Turning back to the bridge, he hastily scanned the nearby seas for the source of this commotion, and his eyes caught sight of a bubbling expanse of white water visible two hundred yards west of the Pelican. Before he could even call out to inform Lieutenant Blackmore of his find, the characteristic black tower of a submarine’s sail broke from the ocean’s depths. By this time, the lieutenant had also sighted it. The two men stood there speechless, as the vessel surfaced completely. From its massive size, almost twice that of the Pelican, and its rounded hull, both officers identified it as a nuclear attack boat.
The silence that they shared was suddenly broken by the harsh, ringing tone of the tender’s underwater telephone. It was Ensign Marvin who picked up the receiver. Blackmore was close by his side as the captain of the submarine briefed them of an accident that had just taken place beneath the waters surrounding Kauai, Hawaii’s northernmost island.
There, a 688class attack sub had been in the process of utilizing an experimental vertical-launch missile system when something had gone wrong. An explosion had followed, and the huge 360-foot vessel had become immobilized on the sea floor, some 800 feet below the pounding Pacific. The Marlin was being called on to immediately initiate a rescue operation of its trapped crew.
Quickly sobered by a rush of adrenalin, Ensign Marvin went to awaken Commander Pierce. This left Blackmore alone on the bridge once again. With his eyes glued to the submarine, Blackmore knew the time had come when he’d see for himself just what kind of stuff the crew of the Marlin was really made of.
The Barking Sands Pacific Missile Range facility occupied an eight-mile-long strip of prime beach property on Kauai’s western shore. Run by the U.S.
Navy, the site included some 700 square miles of surrounding ocean. There over 900 missile launches a year were monitored.
To assist in the research and development of new weapons systems, and to insure the reliability of old ones, the Barking Sands Tactical Underwater Range (BARSTUR) was littered with bottom-mounted hydrophones and three-dimensional tracking sensors.
These systems allowed the technicians to know just what was going on below the ocean as well as above it. This ability was especially important in the testing of submarine weaponry.
It was to the facility’s central engineering station that this data was channeled. Displayed visually in the form of a massive, opaque, 3-D bathymetric chart, the sea floor appeared visible without its covering of water.
On this particular morning, the technicians huddled around this lucite chart were monitoring no mere test. Instead, their attentions were ri voted on a life and-death struggle taking place right before their startled eyes. Each of them knew that somewhere beneath the Kaulakahi Channel, between Kauai and Niihau, the crew of the 688class submarine Providence was fighting to survive.
None of these technicians were more aware of their predicament than Dr. Richard Fuller. As project manager of the launch that the Providence had been in the midst of when the accident had occurred, Fuller was responsible for determining the vessel’s exact location. This was of vital importance if a successful rescue attempt was to be initiated. By utilizing the range’s unique underwater sensor grid, the Naval Oceans System Command (Nose) scientist had been able to determine that the sub had settled on the sea floor 845 feet beneath the water’s surface. Fortunately, this was well within the incapacitated vessel’s depth threshold. Otherwise, the loss of life would have been significantly greater. Most cognizant of this fact, Fuller knew that they had been lucky so far. Now, if the Navy could only complete the rescue of the remaining crew members, they could all breath a sigh of relief.
Only minutes before he had personally relayed the sub’s precise coordinates to the vessel the Navy had assigned to effect this rescue. It was presently on its way from Maui. The lives of over 100 men were now in the hands of the DSRV Marlin.
Fuller had worked with such craft on several occasions, though this would be the first time that he would get to see it perform the function for which it had been originally designed. Thankful that the Marlin had only been a couple of hundred miles away when the Providence went down. Fuller anxiously awaited its arrival.
With his arms cocked behind his back, the six-foot, three-inch researcher nervously paced the engineering station’s floor. Except for his white lab jacket, Fuller didn’t appear to be the type of individual one would expect to find indoors very often. With his skin tanned a deep bronze and his curly brown hair bleached with streaks of blond, it was evident that the middle-aged scientist spent his fair share of time in the sun. More at home on the exposed bridge of a destroyer, or the sail of a submarine, he surrendered to inside duty only when absolutely necessary. This morning was one of those occasions.
They had been in the midst of a test of a new submarine-borne launch system when disaster had struck. The Providence had been one of the first 688class attack subs to be fitted with a dozen vertical launch tubes built into the bow section of its outside pressure hull. Specifically designed to hold a Tomahawk cruise missile, the 688’s with this capability would have an entirely new offensive weapon at their disposal, allowing them to hit surface targets well inland.
Three previous launches had taken place without a hint of trouble. Then this morning, only seconds after the captain of the Providence had been given permission to fire the fourth prototype weapon, a searing explosive blast had decimated the cruise missile while it was in the process of exiting its launch tube. Fuller could only assume that this explosion had originated in the Tomahawk’s mid-body fuel tank. Regardless of the cause, the resulting blast concussion had been focused downward, directly at the sub’s hull. As a result, three seamen had been instantly killed, with six others severely burnt. Quick action on the part of the surviving crew members had allowed the ruptured compartment to be subsequently sealed, yet not before the vessel’s hydraulic system had been severely damaged. Unable to control its trim, the sub had spiraled downward to its present location on the sea floor deep below the Kaulakahi Channel.
Though he was a civilian who never wore a Navy uniform, Richard Fuller had a deep respect for the brave men who lay trapped inside the hull of the Providence. Living constantly in a dangerous, alien environment, such individuals went about their daily work far from the notice of the general public. No strangers to either personal sacrifice or risk, these young men were the country’s true heroes. Knowing this, he had to do everything within his capability to insure their survival. Certain that the coordinates that he had relayed to the Marlin were precise ones, Fuller could only count the minutes left until the DSRV would arrive.