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“Yes Lester?”

“Review my logs sir?”

Lester was the Auxiliary Electrician Forward, a roaming watchstander with responsibilities all over the forward section of the ship. The Officer of the Deck was required to review and initial his logs periodically, but a good watchstander, like Lester, would prompt the OOD to take a look when something was wrong. Jabo really wanted to study the chart, puzzle over that inconsistent sounding. But Lester knew what he was doing, he’d spent two years on a fast boat before coming to
Alabama
. Jabo knew he wouldn’t be bothering him without reason.

He crossed the conn and took the clipboard. He scanned it quickly, wanting to see if anything jumped out at him before asking Lester what his concerns were. There were only a few red circles on the sheet, from the last watch, when they’d been at PD. They’d ventilated briefly, and the oxygen level in the ship had actually drifted high out of spec, slightly beyond the twenty percent they tried to maintain with their normal underway O
₂
bleed. (There was an upper limit for oxygen because too much of it could make fires more likely and intense.) Since going back deep, the crew of
Alabama
had managed to breathe it back down into specification. And for the last two hours, Jabo could see everything was in black. He scanned over the rows that were the normal areas of concern; hydrogen, electrical grounds, the bilges. Everything at first glance looked good. But that’s why they put smart guys like Lester on the watchbill: to let them know what was wrong before alarm bells started going off.

“Check out Freon,” said Lester.

Jabo scanned the second sheet, where a long list of contaminants were measured by CAMS, the ship’s computerized atmospheric monitoring station. Freon was, indeed, drifting higher, especially in Machinery Two.

“That’s weird,” said Jabo.

“I know,” said Lester. “Especially since there’s no refrigeration gear back there. And look at this…” Lester flipped ahead a page, to a row in which he checked the temperatures of the two main freezers, which were almost directly below their feet.

“Not out of spec…”

“But getting there,” said Lester. “They usually go high before meals, as the cranks are going in and out of there getting food, but usually by now they’re going back down. They’re still going up.”

Jabo sighed. “I’d say we may have a refrigeration problem.”

It was one of those things they didn’t spend a lot of time teaching you until you actually arrived on a boat: the importance of the ship’s numerous refrigeration plants. An ensign was conversant on his first day on the boat in the language and philosophy of nuclear propulsion, thanks to a year of rigorous training, both in the classroom and at a working reactor. He could also fake it reasonably well in a conversation about torpedoes or sonar, or any of a handful of tactical systems that he’d studies at submarine school for three months immediately before reporting to the submarine. But refrigeration was one of those things they were expected to learn at sea, despite the fact that it was a system whose collapse could affect almost every other system on the boat: and it wasn’t at all about the food stores. The same plants that cooled the ship’s refrigerators and freezers provided cooling water to all the ship’s electronics as well.

“Chief of the Watch, get Chief Yaksic to control.”

The chief of the watch was already sending the messenger to the goat locker; like any good COW he’d been eavesdropping and anticipating. “He’s on his way, sir.”

A
whoop
on the panel and a blinking red alarm light caught the COW’s eye.

“Number one oxygen generator is shut down on high voltage,” he said.

Motherfucker
thought Jabo. His blood started pumping and he started running through procedures in his mind, aligning priorities, trying to figure out what the fuck was going to happen next, and what he could do about it.

•   •   •

Petty Officer Howard made a slight adjustment to the voltage of the number one oxygen generator, and waited a moment to verify that the individual cell voltage was drifting back down. Since they’d started up the machine that afternoon after the drills, voltage had been edging high again, a tendency that had worsened in recent days. He’d calculated in his head that he had just enough time to complete a round of logs before getting back to the machine and adjusting it, lest its own protective systems shut it down because of the excessive voltage. The machine needed maintenance, real maintenance, with contractors, engineers, and work plans. But that would probably have to wait until they were in port, if not dry dock. In the meantime, it was his job, for six hours at a time, to keep it running.

The oxygen generators were some of the most advanced, most temperamental, and most important machinery on the boat. They manufactured breathable oxygen from the only raw material that the submarine had unlimited access to: water. Using high voltage electricity, the generators ripped the H
₂
O of water into its constituent parts: hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen was pumped overboard and the oxygen was either piped into the boat or stored in banks for later usage. But the net result of this giant exercise in basic water chemistry was a machine that combined high voltage electricity with high pressure cells of two of nature’s most explosive gasses. Which is why most men on the boat routinely referred to the oxygen generator as “the bomb,” and why almost every oxygen generator in the fleet had hanging somewhere near it a picture of the
Hindenburg
.

It was Howard’s skill at running the oxygen generators, he knew, that had kept him away temporarily from the green table—captain’s mast—and whatever variety of punishments awaited him for the dryer fire. The captain and XO wanted to take him to mast, which would, at the very least, mean he would have to re-qualify every watch station. And probably worse: he might lose rank, he might lose money, he might even be kicked off the boat. Shit, who knows—they might even send him to the brig. He’d gotten a recent free pass for his DUI, so he was not expecting leniency. Even if he knew that he was not at fault for the fire.

But they had to keep Howard on the watchbill for now because of the oxygen generators. Only two other men were qualified to run them. If they busted him, they’d have to go port and starboard in machinery two, meaning each watchstander would have to stand an exhausting cycle of six hours on watch, six hours off watch, instead of the normal three-section watchbill of six on, twelve off. Apparently, the captain and XO didn’t want to have the oxygen generators, along with the other crucial atmosphere control equipment in the space like the burners and the scrubbers, tended by exhausted men. So they’d reluctantly delayed Howard’s punishment. Howard knew he was lucky—Captain Shields was a merciful man. Merciful to him, merciful to the men who would stand port and starboard in his absence. Captain Soldato would have done the opposite, would have taken him to mast the night of the fire, busted him, screamed at him, and laughed as they racked his shipmates and gave them the good news that they were six on and six off for the rest of patrol because of Howard’s fuck up.

So Howard was determined, absolutely determined, to stand each watch flawlessly. That, combined with the passage of time, might make whatever sentence they eventually passed on him a little more lenient. And his secret hope: if enough time passed, maybe he would find out what actually started the dryer fire. Although, certainly, he was the only person on the boat that thought the crime was unsolved. He’d been working on it, writing down what little information he had, a few thoughts about the possibilities, trying to piece it altogether before they finally got around to hanging him. He kept his notes on two neat sheets of yellow notebook paper, and when he was on watch they were on his clipboard, directly behind his logs, so he could record his ideas as they occurred to him, points of data that, when fully assembled, would prove his innocence.

As he finished tweaking the oxygen generator back into compliance, it was that clipboard he grabbed, ready to take another perfect round of logs in machinery two, a small step on the road toward redemption.

He started on the level he was in, third level, taking logs on all the operating machinery. No burners were running, but, oddly, two scrubbers were. This despite the fact that carbon dioxide was at zero, because of the recent ventilation. He finished his round of logs on both machines, noted the high but appropriate temperature of each: both were running perfectly, if needlessly.

He descended the ladder to Machinery 2 Lower Level. In addition to the machinery that concerned him as a watchstander, it was also home to the ship’s modest complement of exercise equipment. But no one was working out—with the tempo they were operating everyone was too tired to exercise. It was too bad, it was nice having the company down there, made the watch go a little faster to watch someone else using the space recreationally, even if he was at work. It depended on the person, of course.

During the first hour of the watch, the navigator had come aft to work out, wearing faded blue USNA gym shorts and a plain white T-shirt stretched across his bony shoulders. Howard caught himself staring at the pink, starburst-shaped scar on the nav’s knee, from when he’d stabbed himself with the dividers in control: that story had rapidly become legend with the crew, further evidence that craziness was tolerated among officers. It was another example of Captain Shields’s willingness to give second chances; rumor had it that the XO wanted to throw the nav off before his knee had scabbed over. The navigator had caught him staring at the scar and Howard quickly averted his eyes and finished his logs. He made note of the nav’s presence in the same section of the logs he would have recorded the smell of smoke, flickering lights, or mysterious rattles that might give away their position to the enemy.

Howard saw gratefully, upon descending to lower level for the second time, that the navigator had already gone. He stood at the bottom of the ladder and took the emptiness in, true solitude being unusual on the boat. He realized he was staring at the deck, zoned out in a way that surprised him: he was actually relatively well-rested. He shook his head to clear the cobwebs, then lifted a deck plate to check the level of water in the bilge, one of the entries on his logs.

He put his pen to the paper and tried to write DRY but couldn’t remember how to get the word started. When he remembered, he couldn’t get the tip of his pen to the appropriate box, directly below the DRY he’d written an hour before.

Shit. He stood, shook his head again. Something was wrong, he realized, he was suddenly leaning on the aft bulkhead, trying to get his bearings, his back cold against the steel. It was getting harder for him to think, he started to slide down into a seated position.

Even as he faded out, he realized that something was out of place. It was a knack all experienced watchstanders had, the ability to know that something was out of position before they’d actually isolated what it was, an ability they’d gained by staring out at a normal line up for hundreds of hours. Reactor operators in the engine room were known for it, an uncanny way of looking at their panel of over fifty indicators as one giant picture, sensing immediately that some dial had moved form its normal position, even though it would take another half second to figure out which one. Howard experienced the same thing surveying Machinery Two Lower Level.

Part of him knew he needed to climb the ladder; whatever was wrong seemed worse in lower level. But then he isolated exactly what was wrong: a small valve in the very corner of the space, a valve he’d never seen operated, a valve that was always closed, its purple-handled operator perpendicular to the pipe. The handle, Howard realized through a fog, was sticking straight out, parallel to the pipe, and the valve was wide open. This could be it, he thought with his last conscious breath, lunging toward the valve. I’ll shut it, save the day, save the crew. The fire will be forgotten. He collapsed with his hand outstretched, the clipboard crashing against the deck.

•   •   •

“Get him yet, chief?”

“No sir,” he said, growling machinery 2 even as he spoke. “Howard’s not answering.”

Jabo’s mind raced, electric, in casualty mode, even though no alarm had yet sounded and no urgent words had yet crossed the 4MC. Something was happening—he knew it wouldn’t be long.

The oxygen generator was shut down, Freon was creeping up high in machinery two, the ship’s freezers a level below him were warming up, and, most ominously, Howard was not communicating with them from the space where two out of three of these events were taking place. It could be that Howard was simply combating the problem, and whatever was going on he deemed more important than answering the COW’s calls. That was a real possibility, and it was something Jabo was sensitive to, the fact that sometimes a situation demanded action more urgent than updating control. Not more than a few minutes had passed since the oxygen generator shut down; it was very possible that Howard had his hands on the knobs, trying to make the thing safe, recoverable, and that a report was forthcoming.

“Quit calling him,” said Jabo.

“Aye sir.”

Jabo saw Lester at the ladder to control, ready to go.

“Yes,” said Jabo. “Go down there, see what’s going on, see if he needs help.”

“Aye sir,” said Lester, already running down the ladder, giving the timer of the BST buoy a twist as he passed.

Jabo thought it over, trying to connect all the dots. He thought back to his pre-watch tour, remembered seeing Howard in Machinery Two, dutifully on watch a few minutes early, reviewing his logs, something else out of the ordinary that he couldn’t quite remember. The one piece of the puzzle that still didn’t fit was the Freon in machinery two, he couldn’t figure that one out. How did Freon get down there? Would Freon somehow shut down the oxygen generator? Jabo didn’t see how it could, and he remembered that the number one generator was getting a little squirrelly, it had shut down on high cell voltage twice early in the patrol. But somehow the watchstanders had figured out a way to keep it running, some adjustment they could make to it during the watch. Jabo seemed to remember hearing that Howard was the one who’d figured it out, he was always kind of a prodigy with those machines. So why had it shut down? And why did Jabo have a bad feeling that he was missing something, something big?