“Aye, aye, sir.” The executive officer departed.
“How’s the plant?”
In delayed shock, the thin and tall engineer officer offered a blank stare but uttered his report. “We’re still running for high-speed operations. Given our present situation, I recommend shifting the plant to our quietest mode, per your order of ultra-quiet.”
“Agreed. Do it. And remember not to use any announcing circuits. Pass orders to your team by word of mouth. God knows who’s listening. Also, take manual control of the aft trim tanks to bring the stern to the bottom. Get the deck level.”
“Bring the plant to ultra-quiet operations without using announcing circuits and take manual control of the aft trim tanks to bottom the stern and achieve a level deck, aye, sir.”
Causey stepped from the maneuvering center, descended the ladder to the middle deck, and landed among a horde of dazed sailors. “Everyone pass the word through the ranks to get the diving officer up here.”
Sailors repeated his order throughout the throng of lingering men.
In a moment of unexpected calmness, Causey realized he was recovering from mortal fear and no longer trying to cheat death. His heart raced but his breathing began to slow, and he felt the air shifting behind him as a body approached.
“You wanted me Captain?” Lieutenant Hansen stank of nervous sweat and clammy skin.
“Did your team salvage enough equipment to head into the forward compartment? I want your guys to assess the damage.”
The diver strained to speak in full sentences. “We did, sir. The problem’s going to be… it’s going to be compression and decompression. Decompression is the biggest challenge… I mean a challenge…. without a lockout chamber.”
“You can use high-pressure air to pressurize the tunnel.”
His brush with death hampering him, the young diver wrestled to express each thought. “It’ll take some attentive control to avoid giving my guys the bends… real attentive control. We’ll need to monitor and hold the pressure… hold pressure in a real tight band. But if your ship allows control over the pressure in there… in there… then maybe…” The muscular officer gazed into an undefined distance.
His need to lead inspired Causey with strength. He placed his hand on a thick shoulder. “Hey? You’re alive.”
A tear streaming down his cheek, the lieutenant said nothing.
The Indiana’s commander shook the catatonic officer. “Hey! I said you’re alive.”
The diver blinked and then released a cathartic chuckle. “Holy shit, captain. Only by an ass hair.”
“Do you know what to do next?”
Lieutenant Hansen wiped his tear. “Get my guys into the forward compartment.”
“That’s right. Check with the engineer for the air system diagrams and draw up a plan.”
“I’ll need about thirty minutes to check everything before I send my guys in.”
Causey suspected the young officer’s overconfidence. “Remember to get Senior Chief Spencer’s input. In fact, get your whole team’s input. The more experienced minds you can bring to bear on this, the better.”
“Of course, sir.”
“And do it right instead of doing it fast. There’s no hurry. We’re not going anywhere.”
“Can I have the tunnel and the area by the watertight door as a staging and control area?”
“Yes, and you can have the area around the control valves to the air pressure reducers, too. This is your show.”
“I’ll get it done, sir.” The diving officer disappeared into the confused crowd.
Causey started into throng of sailors with a slow pace, inspecting faces to measure his men’s mettle. With each pair of eyes he checked, he saw courage and hope rising behind the waning terror. But an appropriate fear remained within his sailors as an anxious awareness of a hostile adversary and the inability to run or fight.
Trailing a master chief petty officer with a big head behind him, his second-in-command appeared oddly confident and eager to update his boss. “I commandeered the engineering lab for officer meetings. It’s private and has just enough space.”
The mediocre man’s first post-torpedoing move impressed Causey. “Decisive and appropriate. Good.”
“Also, I’ve asked the chief of the boat here to set up muster areas for each division. This mindless milling about isn’t doing us any good.”
The Indiana’s commander nodded. “That’s two good easy but important decisions. So, you’ve got your head on straight, which means you’re not in shock. I wonder how many of the crew are.”
As quickly as it had come, the executive officer’s confidence vanished. He sounded timid. “I wasn’t really looking for shock, sir. I was inspecting for injuries as you asked, and there was nothing in need of treatment. Everyone’s fine physically.”
With an inspiring spring in his step, the big-headed master chief stepped forward. “I was looking. I’d say about fifty-fifty on guys who look dazed. You’d have to be dead not to be affected.”
“They’ll recover.”
“They sure will, sir, and you did your part making sure of it. I heard a few guys exaggerating about the abnormally large size of your testicles by turning the ship around and bottoming it.”
Causey snorted. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“No question about it. I’ll get working on the muster stations and put together a map of which division is where. I’ll also get an inventory going on the supplies we managed to bring back here.”
“Good idea. Get on it.”
“Done, sir.” The master chief marched away.
Realizing he needed help passing an order, Causey called out. “Cob!”
The chief of the boat stopped and listened.
“Pass the word for all officers to meet in the lab. Let the division chiefs handle musters.”
“I’ll pass the word, captain.”
A new idea entered the Indiana’s commander head. “One more thing. Have everyone think of a way out of this mess. You may all believe I’ve got oversized testicles, but they only took us this far. I have no idea if the fleet received our message and is helping, or if we’re stranded in hostile territory to fend for ourselves.”
“I’ll ask, sir.”
“Encourage everyone to volunteer whatever comes to mind. No idea’s a bad one. No idea can be worse than our reality.”
CHAPTER 4
Jake Slate slapped the small primate’s paw from his pocket. “Back off, you little imp!”
The rhesus macaque eyed his human opponent, shrieked, and scurried around a corner.
Walking beside him, Jake’s wife giggled. “I told you they trained monkeys to grab wallets.”
Jake glared at his guide, a man in his early twenties who claimed to hail from Bangalore.
The native Indian offered a meek smile and spoke with a British accent. “Your beautiful wife is right. So many bad people taking advantage of tourists.”
Letting his cynicism flow, Jake revealed his suspicions. “Yeah. A busy place with rich tourists. I wonder how the little monkeys select their targets.”
The guide gulped, redirected the conversation, and pointed at the calligraphy on the Great Gate. “This is a wonderful line of poetry. ‘O Soul, thou art at rest. Return to the Lord at peace with Him, and He at peace with you.’ Very beautiful, isn’t it?”
Jake scoffed. “How poetic.”
His wife smacked his chest. “Be nice.”
“Linda!”
“Stop complaining.”
“I’m not complaining.”
“I don’t like your attitude.”
“You never like my attitude. I thought that was a qualification of being my wife.”
Linda thumped his chest again and followed up with a swat against his shoulder. And then another backhand to his chest. In Chaldean Aramaic, she called him a fool. “Daywanna!”