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“Maybe I want on it.”

“When I came down here, it still had my stats from yesterday on it. Ten miles in an hour and twenty-two minutes.”

“Maybe it was somebody else.”

“No one else on this pig could do that run,” he said.

Jabo put his hand over the red emergency stop button.

“Don’t you fucking do it!” said Kincaid, laughing now.

Jabo feigned he was hitting the button again. Kincaid was losing his rhythm laughing. He finally dialed down the speed, and brought the treadmill to a stop. “Alright, motherfucker. Seven point five miles. Let me go write it down and I’ll meet you in the wardroom.”

“An old guy like you shouldn’t be running like that anyway,” said Jabo. “Gonna fuck up your joints.”

“Old guy? Feel like going for a race?”

“I feel like watching a movie,” he said. “Eating some shitty food, drinking some watery Coke, and watching a movie while we still can.”

•   •   •

The movie ended just in time for Jabo to complete his pre-watch tour prior to relieving Hein on the conn. In missile compartment third level, the level where the majority of the crew slept in nine-man bunkrooms, Jabo stopped at the ship’s laundry. Petty Officer Howard was wearing boxers and a t-shirt, doing laundry while reading a well-worn copy of
The Shining.

“Shouldn’t you be studying for your quals?” asked Jabo, pointing at the book. Howard was his favorite kind of sailor—enthusiastic without being a kiss ass, smart, and funny—the kind of guy you didn’t mind spending a couple of hundred days a year with sealed in a steel tube. He’d gotten himself in trouble after the last patrol, driving drunk from the E Club on base to the barracks. It was a classic kind of stupid, avoidable, young man’s mistake—the distance from the E Club to the barracks was about two hundred yards. Howard had said he wanted to get his car out of the E Club lot because he was worried his stereo would get stolen. Jabo was one of several officers who’d gone to bat for him after the incident.

Howard thumped his chest, where his silver dolphins would have been if he’d been wearing his uniform. “I qualified last patrol, sir! You know that.”

“What about Diesel watch? Chief of the Watch? Diving Officer? There’s always something to qualify for.”

Howard rolled his eyes. “Ok sir, let me get my poopie suits clean and I’ll get right on it.” He stood and peered into the small glass window on one of the ship’s two dryers. “Looks like they’re almost done.”

“Excellent. You can come up to the conn on the next watch, I think we may be going to periscope depth to get the broadcast, you can sit with the Chief of the Watch.”

“Seriously?” Howard was paying attention now. On a normal patrol, trips to PD were rare. Offering a seat like that to Howard was a big deal, giving him a leg up on a big watchstation qualification. “What time?”

“Come up about halfway through the watch,” said Jabo. “I’ll see what I can do. I’m not even positive we’re going, but I know we need the broadcast…if you happen to be in the control room when we do, and you’re prepared, I don’t see why you can’t get the signature.”

“Thanks sir, I’ll be ready!”

“Good,” said Jabo, and he continued his tour.

•   •   •

He finished the tour, as always, in the control room, reading the captain’s night orders, checking the deck log, and looking at the CODC display, the Officer of the Deck’s view into the ship’s sonar suite.

“What’s that?” said Jabo, pointing to a contact designated Sierra Nine. They’d been tracking it loosely for the whole watch.

“Not sure,” said Hein. “We’ve been trying to get away…not really doing any good listening at this speed.”

“But he keeps hanging on?”

“Still there every time we slow down.”

Jabo punched a few buttons on the console, bringing up the contact’s estimated course and speed.

“She’s following us? That’s what you’ve got in here.”

Hein shrugged. “Who knows? We’re going so fast, it’s hard for us to listen.”

“But easy for someone to listen to us.”

Hein smirked a little…Jabo could tell he didn’t really believe they were being followed. But he knew they should be assuming the worst right now, and he didn’t like the complacency he saw from his friend Hein at that moment. It was sloppy thinking for an OOD. It would be hard, but he vowed to learn more about Sierra Nine during the six hours of his watch.

Jabo crossed the control room to finish his pre-watch tour with a check of the ship’s position on the chart. Even with all the advanced, electronic navigation at their disposal, the ship’s position, marked in pencil on a paper chart, was still a cornerstone of navigation. Jabo took his time as he did it, even though he could tell Hein was eager to get off the conn now that his six hours were nearly up.

“Are these our assigned areas?” Jabo asked QM1 Flather, the assistant navigator, who was standing nearby with a pencil tucked behind his ear. He looked as exhausted as the navigator did, all the last minute changes to their patrol orders had taken a toll on him as well.

“Here, here, and here,” said Flather, wearily thumping his thumb on a succession of three blue boxes that progressed westward. “They are changing fast because we’re moving so fast.”

“Where are the orders?” Flather handed him over a clipboard with their assigned areas from Subpac. Jabo carefully checked all three areas on the chart, verified that all three had been drawn in correctly. It was critically important. Staying inside the proper rectangle at the proper time ensured that they wouldn’t collide with any other US submarine, as no two boats would ever be assigned overlapping patrol areas. Conversely, if, while in the assigned areas, they heard another submarine on sonar…it wasn’t friendly.

Jabo then looked over the ship’s track on the chart. He checked the time of the dead reckoning, followed the track to the left, realizing with shock that Flather had actually plotted their predicted position, three hours into the future, past the left border of the chart, into the margin.

“Where’s the next chart?” said Jabo. “Why haven’t you changed?”

“Not approved—Nav’s still got it,” said Flather. “Still going over the updates.”

Jabo frowned and Flather shrugged. He looked up at Hein.

“There’s no chart.”

Hein came over to join them. “I think the Nav’s almost done with it, he’s finishing up in the officer’s study. I’ve been asking him about it for the last hour, he finally stopped picking up the phone.”

Jabo tapped his finger on the table. “I need to see that chart.”

“Ah shit, Danny, it’s six o’clock already. I’m starving.”

“Sorry, Jay, really. I’ve got to see where we actually are before I take the conn.”

“Alright,” said Hein, falling wearily into the captain’s chair. “Fuck. Go find him. Quickly please.”
Jabo slid down the ladder out of the control room and headed for the officer’s study where he’d last seen the nav. He felt bad—relieving the watch late was a bad deal, and doing so more than a few times could quickly lead to a reputation that he didn’t want. But on the other hand—he didn’t feel right about taking the watch without seeing where they were going. Hein should have insisted on getting that chart into the control room. He knew that they were operating under some extraordinary circumstances, but his instincts as an Officer of the Deck, honed over three long years at sea, wouldn’t allow him to take the watch when their position was plotted into blank space on the margin of a chart.

He stuck his head in the Officers’ Study. The nav wasn’t there, but the chart was. He also noticed, to his displeasure, that the coffee pot had been left on, and the space was filled with the bitter smell of the scorched, empty pot. Jabo glanced at the chart. The stamped box at the bottom had not been signed, which was required before he could use it for navigation.
Where the fuck is he?
Thought Jabo, as he rolled up the chart. It irritated him that the Nav would walk away from the chart like that when they had needed it in control for at least an hour. He couldn’t imagine what a higher priority would be. He walked down another ladder, to the wardroom, and walked in.

The captain and XO looked up at him over their coffee cups. “Danny, aren’t you supposed to be relieving young Jay?” said the Captain.

“Yes sir, just need to get this chart approved by the nav, thought I might find him in here.”

The captain and XO looked at each other. “You need that chart for the next watch?” said the XO.

He hesitated for just a second—he knew what he was about to say would put both the Nav and Hein up shit creek. “We need it right now. They’ve got us plotted in the margin, heading off the edge.”

A look passed between the XO and captain. The captain sat back and raised an eyebrow. “No chart at twenty knots. Jesus Christ.”

“Give it here,” said the XO, pulling a pen from his pocket. “I’ll approve the fucking thing.”

As he reached for his pen, the 4MC crackled. The 4MC was an amplified phone circuit designated for use in emergencies only. Just the sound of its distinctive static was enough to trigger an adrenalin surge from an experienced submariner.

“
Fire in missile compartment third level!
” came the announcement. “
Fire in the ship’s laundry!
”

The chart forgotten, Jabo bolted from the wardroom without a word and headed aft, toward the fire. He heard the XO and CO clamor up the ladder to control behind him. As he ran, he was surprised to see the navigator hurrying forward, donning his flash hood and his firefighting gloves, also moving toward control. The navigator was supposed to be in control during emergencies, so he was going in the right direction. But for all his responsibilities, he didn’t have much to do aft of the forward bulkhead, and Jabo wondered what he was doing back there while a needed chart was languishing on the Officers’ Study table. All thoughts about the nav disappeared as Jabo smelled smoke and saw an orange glow coming from the laundry where just minutes before he’d been chatting with Petty Officer Howard.

•   •   •

There is no such thing as a minor fire on a submarine, a sealed tube containing 154 men and a very finite quantity of breathable air. Fires consume oxygen as they emit toxic fumes, most notably carbon monoxide. Fires threaten electrical systems as wires and breakers melt and scorch. And throughout the ship ran pipes full of high-pressure fluids and gasses, substances that didn’t react well to open flame: hydraulic oil, high pressure air, and pure oxygen, a breech in any of which could turn a simple fire into a blowtorch, and a compartment into a furnace. The ship’s pure oxygen was manufactured just aft of the laundry, in Machinery Two, and it was the oxygen generators that Jabo thought of as he ran to the scene.

“Lieutenant Jabo is the man charge!” he shouted as he arrived. Men were hustling, several in their underwear, fresh out of the rack. He spotted MM1 Jantzen, who seemed to be the second highest ranking man on the scene, already putting on a sound powered phone head set. He relayed to control that Jabo was in charge. Both Jabo and Jantzen pulled their EABs, or emergency air breathing masks, over their heads. He breathed in to pull the mask against his face, verifying the seal of the rubber, then plugged into the manifold over their heads. He took a deep breath of the cool, oily-smelling air.

The navigator’s voice on the 1MC announced, “Fire in the Ship’s Laundry, Lieutenant Jabo is the man in charge. The fire main is pressurized.”

Jabo turned; there were fire hoses located throughout the ship, twenty-two in all at every level and compartment, and memorizing their locations was one of the first things a new man did when he reported to the boat. There was one directly behind the laundry, and he was surprised that there wasn’t already a hose team at the scene ready to unleash, they were trained to put water on a fire in seconds.

But there was a problem; he saw a group of men frantically pawing at the hose. He leaned over, then detached from his EAB manifold, took two long steps, and moved closer.

“What’s wrong?”

Petty Officer Yowler looked up at him, his face red and sweaty behind the mask with frustration. “It’s pressurized in the rack!” he said. “We can’t get it off!” Jabo saw what he meant. Someone had turned the valve on before the hose had been removed from its rack, engorging it with water and freezing it in place. It was immovable and useless to them. He stopped himself from asking who the fuck did something that stupid—there would be time to worry about that later.

He tapped three men on the shoulder who were standing around the rack, struggling with the hose. They turned, and since they all had EABs on, hiding their faces, Jabo glanced at their chests. One of the three did not have dolphins. “You know what you’re doing with that hose?” he asked the nub.

“Yes sir!” he shouted through the mask. It was the new guy, Hallorann. Jabo was pleased to see him rush to a hose and a fire.

“Okay—forget that hose. Go up to Mike Seven, bring that hose down here from second level. String two of them together if you need to.” He pointed to three others. “You go get Mike Two, up forward. Get both fucking hoses on this fire now!” The six men ran off without a word.

Behind him, two men had stuck two portable carbon dioxide extinguishers into the laundry and exhausted them with a quick white blast. It didn’t slow the fire at all. The lights in the missile compartment suddenly went out, the non-vital electrical bus either being secured as a safety measure or as a side-effect of the fire. Diagrams of the ship’s electrical system ran through Jabo’s mind like a series of rapidly advancing slides; he thought about the weapon’s system 400 Hertz generators one level above them. With the lights out he could see the orange glow of the fire through the billowing gray smoke that was pouring from the laundry.

Jabo had been in fires before on the boat, all the previous ones being electrical, in nature, or “Charlie Class” fires. The biggest had been on his second patrol, when the breaker for a main seawater pump breaker exploded in the engine room. With those types of fires, once the electricity was secured, if it was secured quickly enough, the fire usually diminishing rapidly. But this appeared to be an “alpha” class fire, one feeding on some kind of fuel and leaving ash behind. He heard Jantzen reliably relaying the information about the pressurized hose frozen uselessly in its rack to control, and imagined the XO seething at the news.