Feeding hydraulic fluid to the six tubes capped by breach doors, copper piping ran between liquid crystal displays and control buttons over the forward bulkhead. A French mercenary stood at the weapons control panel, a headset covering his ears. His uniformed Philippine shadow leaned against a weapons rack.
“You have communications with the control room?” Jake asked.
“Yes, Jake,” the mercenary said.
“Good.”
“The tubes?” Flores asked.
“Yup,” Jake said. “Those count as holes that let water into the ship. Big ones. Twenty-one inches wide to be exact. Need someone watching them. Let’s head aft now.”
A minute later, Jake passed another mercenary-apprentice pair in the rear auxiliary machinery room. Atmosphere cleansing and refrigeration units whirred.
“You got communications with the control room?” he asked.
“Yes,” the mercenary said.
“What’s at risk for flooding in this compartment?” Flores asked as he craned his neck.
Jake pointed at two angled cylinders that resembled mini-torpedo tubes as they jutted through the insulating hull lagging.
“The three-inch launchers,” he said. “For shooting out bathythermographs to measure water temperature and the associated speed of sound. Also for communication buoys and, God forbid we need them, some of our anti-torpedo decoys.”
Clenching his jaw and slamming his eyes shut, Jake waited for the haunting memories of his past reliance on decoys to clear. He then pointed to the other side of the room to a downward-aimed cylinder propped below a hydraulic compactor.”
“Also there,” he said. “The trash compactor and ejector.”
“I see.”
“One more stop,” Jake said. “Let’s go.”
Reaching the hull section where his memory expected to see an air-independent ethanol and liquid oxygen MESMA plant, he found it unfortunate that the Malaysians had foregone this tactical gem in favor of a smaller, cheaper submarine.
He ducked through a watertight door and underneath the wide air ducts leading to the quad diesels. He saw the main motor further aft, hidden intermittently by a man pointing to gauges on a control panel. Four sailors — a mix of mercenaries and Philippine students — wore the dungarees of the engineering crew and surrounded their instructor, who shook his head.
“I don’t like this, Jake. I don’t like it at all,” he said.
Jake respected Claude LaFontaine, a former engineer officer on the French nuclear-powered Rubis submarine who had become an expert on diesel power plants in Renard’s fleet. He looked as thin and edgy as the French cigarette he cradled between his fingers.
“What’s wrong, Claude? Don’t like what I stole for you?”
“I don’t like the temperature readings. Even with oversized heat exchangers, everything runs hotter than it should. We are operating in tepid seas.”
“It’s in spec, though, right?”
“Well, yes. It’s just that I fear the lubrication oil will have less viscosity, making the diesels less efficient.”
“So it’s going to take a little longer than normal to charge the batteries, due to diesel inefficiency?”
“Possibly. I’ll tell you more when I run them. But the salinity is horrible. Even with the extra salt filtering added to this ship, the cooling water chemistry is corrosive.”
“So that’s a long-term maintenance concern? You’ll need to add fresh water to the cooling water more frequently?”
“Well, yes.”
“The fresh-water still works?”
“Yes. So far.”
“So no major problems?”
LaFontaine furrowed his brow.
“Well, no. But I still don’t like it. And with no MESMA system, we’ll place a greater strain on our battery. This ship makes me nervous.”
“I think waking up and realizing you’re still alive makes you nervous. That doesn’t bother me. What would bother me is if nobody is on the phones when I take us for a deep test run. Get someone on the phones.”
After returning to the control room, Jake stood at the polished rail. Despite his brave airs, going deep made him anxious, and doing so in a stolen submarine made it worse.
He called to a Philippine linguist who was seated, pouring over logs and seeking updates in manuals.
“You see anything about limited operations?”
The linguist shook his head.
“You’ve looked at the captain’s standing orders, the deck log, the latest updates to operations manuals?”
“Yes. All of them. There’s nothing here limiting depth operations. This is a healthy submarine based upon the notes.”
“Well, what did you learn? Anything?”
The linguist grabbed the Malaysian ship’s former captain’s standing orders and flipped pages.
“Here,” he said. “You’re not supposed to run the fresh-water still when ocean temperature is above twenty-seven degrees centigrade. It can’t condense the fresh water adequately, despite being designed to work up to thirty degrees.”
“All stills are temperamental. If that’s all you see noted as a chronic problem, I’m ready to go deep.”
He ordered the Wraith to two hundred meters, and Henri dipped the deck on a steep angle to get there. When the ship leveled, it felt strong around Jake, honoring its design. Respecting the dangers of depth, the mercenary crew remained quiet and alert to slow leaks that could rupture.
He gave it five minutes and then pushed deeper.
“Henri,” he said. “Make your depth three hundred meters.”
As the room bent downward, Jake felt a chill, which he credited to the coolness of the deeper water.
“Steady at three hundred meters,” Henri said.
“Very well, Henri. Get a report from each station to verify that we have no leaks.”
After a half minute of rapid conversations on the sound-powered phone, Henri confirmed the ship’s integrity.
“Okay,” Jake said. “Let’s see what this ship can do. You ready, Henri?”
“Yes, Jake. So is the engine room.”
“Henri,” Jake said. “All ahead flank. Make your depth fifty meters, smartly.”
Jake yanked the rail as the deck shot upward. The ship shuddered as it climbed, and a glance at the speed gauge showed the Wraith cracking twenty-five knots. As the deck leveled again, he appreciated and respected his new submarine.
“Henri,” he said. “Get a secure message ready in our radio queue telling Philippine fleet command that the ship is shaken down sufficiently for its intended operations.”
Beside Jake, Flores appeared enthused and offered his first smile.
“Feel like a veteran now?” he asked.
“It’s good to have finally gone deep.”
“Message is ready,” Henri said.
“Antoine,” Jake said. “Are there any close contacts on sonar?”
The Frenchman shook his toad-like head.
“Henri,” Jake said. “Take us to periscope depth.”
As the deck angled upward, Jake tapped a capacitive touch screen to command the periscope’s ascent. A subroutine sent the optics into a rapid full-circle swivel, and a panoramic image of the sweep filled two adjacent monitors beside him.
The first pass had taken place with the periscope submerged, and the panorama contained hues of dark blue water. As the Wraith lurched in the surface swells, he commanded another full-circle optical scan, and the world above him appeared in his screens as a panorama of a starry sky.
“Raise the radio mast,” Jake said. “I’m lowering the periscope.”
“Radio mast is raised,” Henri said.
“Very well,” Jake said. “Transmit.”