Jake shot a glance to Henri who looked away to hide a blushing smile.
“Then why do you look like you’re about to piss in your pants?”
A muffled laugh burst from Henri’s downturned face.
“Sir, I—”
“Call me ‘Jake’,” he said. “We use last names with our military riders, but we use first names for ourselves.”
“Sir. Jake. Yes, I will call you ‘Jake’ from now on. All of us will. My men are ready for their first dive.”
“I know it doesn’t feel right,” Jake said. “But you’re always safer submerged than surfaced when you’re hiding. We’re running out of nighttime, and we need to get underwater.”
“How can you be sure that the new hatch will hold?”
“For the same reason the Malaysians trusted the old hatch. It’s designed for it.”
Henri interjected.
“I have inspected the new hardware. Your countrymen were as skillful attaching the new hatch as they were in blowing through the old one. It will hold.”
“And if it doesn’t,” Jake said, “we’ll trust that this ship has the strength to reach the surface. What’s our status, Henri?”
“The ship is rigged for submerging. Four Black Shark torpedoes are loaded in tubes one through four. Two Exocet anti-ship missiles are in tubes five and six. High-pressure air banks are at ninety-eight percent. The battery is at sixty-four percent.”
Jake almost cracked a joke about the ship’s former owners being sloppy with their battery energy management, but then he remembered that three Malaysians had succumbed to the attacking gas. Three dead on a mission where he had held childlike hopes of shaping regional boundaries without dealing out more death.
“Prepare to dive,” he said. “Station two men with flashlights below the forward hatch to look for water leaks.”
The men returned to the control station, and Jake awaited a glance from Henri. Although he had looked over every major system aboard the once-Malaysian submarine, he wanted his French ace’s affirmation that he had inspected every safety detail and approved taking the Wraith below the waves for its maiden dive under its new command.
Henri gave him the look with a nod.
“Henri, submerge the ship,” Jake said.
“Venting main ballast tanks,” Henri said.
The enclosed steel world remained unchanged, save for the digital depth gauge ticking away meters.
“Depth is ten meters,” Henri said.
“Take us to thirty meters,” Jake said.
Showing his skill in distributing water throughout internal tanks, Henri balanced the submarine’s weight and kept the deck level. His eyes glued through the control room’s forward door to two men peering upward with flashlights, Jake ignored the ship’s depth.
“Steady at thirty meters,” Henri said. “Holding depth. Speed four knots.”
“Maintain course, speed, and depth,” Jake said as he stepped down from the conning platform.
He walked forward, sliding between bodies of Philippine sailors who apprenticed over the shoulders of French-trained mercenaries. When he reached Henri, a glance sufficed to raise him from his seat. Flores followed the Frenchman like a trained dog, and the tight space under the forward hatch became cramped with five bodies.
Pointing his finger at moisture that reflected flashlight beams under the hatch, Flores revealed his ignorance.
“Is that a slow leak, perhaps? Microscopic?”
“No,” Jake said. “It’s condensation. The temperature just fell a few degrees as we descended. Plus the hull has started shrinking ever so slightly under compression by water pressure. So there’s less air volume to hold the moisture.”
Flores had a sheepish grin.
“They didn’t teach us this detail in our training, such as it was,” he said. “I expect that I’ll be learning a lot.”
“Most nations that need to catch up in a hurry on their submarining abilities send their people to friendly nations to get trained,” Henri said. “You unfortunately don’t have that luxury.”
“Not to worry, Flores,” Jake said. “You and your team are getting the bonus immersion plan. Trial by fire — and water.”
Jake looked upward and saw the hatch holding.
“How’s it look to you, Henri?” he asked.
“Marvelous.”
“Agreed. Head back to your station and take us to sixty meters.”
After returning to the conn, Jake called Flores to his side.
“Yes, sir. I mean, Jake.”
“Hang out with me. If you’re going to be your nation’s first submarine commander, you need to see the world through my eyes.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
“Ask questions when there’s a break in the action. If I need to ignore you, I will.”
“Yes, Jake.”
“Henri,” Jake said. “All ahead two-thirds.”
“You don’t mind me asking why you increased speed?”
“Before we go deep, I want speed in case we need to drive to the surface.”
“Why didn’t you speed up before coming to sixty meters, or even thirty meters?”
“There’s a set of rules saying that you don’t go fast near the surface or when you’re really deep. The reason is in case you accidentally place the ship on an angle, such as if your stern planes get jammed in the wrong position. If you’re going too fast when that happens shallow, you pop to the surface and risk hitting something before you could recover. If it happens deep, you know the rest.”
“You would dive below crush depth?”
“Right.”
“I’ve heard that submarines will travel at maximum flank speeds at any depth.”
“Correct,” Jake said. “Sometimes you just have to take your chances and hope nothing goes wrong.”
“I see.”
“Henri, make your depth one hundred meters,” Jake said.
The deck dipped, and Jake grabbed the polished railing for support. Beside him, Flores stumbled for balance.
“The quickest way to change depth is with an angle on the ship and with speed,” Jake said. “Henri took it easy on you thus far but seems to have lost his patience.”
The shift in depth seemed fast.
“Showing off, Henri?” he asked.
“Just testing our new ship,” Henri said.
Jake recalled that the Wraith lacked the air-independent-propulsion MESMA system of the Specter. The missing hardware limited the ship’s underwater endurance but made it shorter in length and gave it a slight advantage in maneuverability.
The deck steadied.
“Henri,” he said. “Rig the ship for deep submergence.”
The Frenchman acknowledged his order and lifted a sound-powered phone to his cheek to pass the word to the engineering spaces.
“What is deep submergence?” Flores asked.
“I station sailors near the large-diameter seawater valves throughout the ship,” Jake said. “Each one of them will be wearing a sound-powered phone headset so that they can announce a flooding casualty. When you go deep, you want those extra seconds of response time, in case it happens.”
“But it won’t happen, will it?”
“I’m going deep to test my new ship — not to kill myself. Follow me.”
Jake led Flores forward through the control room, sliding around the central navigation table and between the bodies of mercenaries and apprentices. He stopped below the hatch and looked up at the glistening condensation.
“The hatch is fine. Let’s go to the torpedo room.”
He descended ladder rungs and faced a room stacked with rows of green cylinders, each with the mass of a sedan.
“Black Shark torpedoes,” he said. “Except for over there, up front. You see four spare Exocet anti-ship missiles. They’re launched from the tubes, just like torpedoes, except that you have restrictions on how fast and how deep you can be.”