Seawolf Mask of Command

by Cliff Happy

  “I’m looking forward to it, Senior Chief,” she agreed. But at the moment, she was only looking forward to a shower, some food, and then some badly needed sleep.

  But, before she reached her cabin, she ran into Ski.

  “How did that problem in sonar work out, Lieutenant?” he asked. Normally when they passed one another in a passageway, he ignored her, and Kristen realized the fact he was speaking to her couldn’t be a good thing.

  “It’s all fixed, sir.” She felt too worn out to deal with him at the moment.

  “Good,” Ski glanced at his watch. “The next watch begins in forty minutes,” he informed her with a smug grin. They were alone in the passageway, and Kristen wondered if he’d be acting like such an ass if Graves or the captain were around. “You’ve just enough time to get something to eat.”

  “Aye-aye, sir,” she replied, doing her best to at least appear like it was the best news she’d ever received, so he wouldn’t have the satisfaction of seeing how tired she was. Kristen paused by her makeshift cabin and then headed for the captain’s cabin, hoping he wouldn’t be there. She wasn’t comfortable with the idea of using his private bathroom, even though it made more sense than inconveniencing a dozen other officers by using the single officers’ head. Thus far, she’d been to his cabin a couple of dozen times and had yet to run into him, as he’d predicted. She arrived as Graves was exiting the cabin.

  “It’s all yours, Lieutenant,” he greeted her as he ducked his head and stepped out into the passageway. “The skipper’s in the radio room.”

  “Another eyes-only message, sir?” Kristen asked.

  “Either that or the latest box scores,” Graves replied and returned to his own cabin.

  Kristen entered the tiny bathroom. The first time she’d been in it, she’d been a bit surprised at how clean it was. Like the captain’s cabin, there was nothing in his private head that made it look like he’d ever even been in there. Not so much as a single hair was in the sink.

  After a quick shower, Kristen took a minute to wipe everything down with a spare towel, determined to leave the bathroom the same way she found it. As she stepped from the head, she bumped into Brodie as he entered into his cabin, and he seemed as startled as her at first.

  “Sorry to interrupt, Lieutenant,” he offered as he stepped aside to allow her to pass.

  Kristen felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment, which she knew was silly of her, and this caused her to blush even more. “Excuse me, Captain,” she replied and slipped by him, wanting to vacate his cabin as quickly and as quietly as possible.

  “Yes, of course,” he responded, giving her no reason to feel uncomfortable.

  Whereas some of the officers and men clearly looked at her from time to time with less than professional eyes, he’d always behaved appropriately. The long motorcycle ride they’d gone on before leaving Bremerton seemed like a dream. He never mentioned it, nor made any indication he even remembered it. Instead, he treated her with the same professionalism and objectivity he treated all of his officers and men. It was exactly what she’d always wanted from her superior officer.

  “Chief Miller says you were able to run down those Gremlins,” he said as she stepped toward the open door.

  Kristen paused, turning back toward him. “It was just some minor glitches, sir. When the equipment was installed, I think they rushed it a bit, but everything looks okay now.”

  Brodie gave her a weary smile. “Well, Miller was impressed with you, and that’s saying a lot. Miller doesn’t think officers have much business in sonar.”

  Kristen smiled knowingly. “I kinda got that impression myself, sir.”

  He nodded and stifled another yawn.

  Normally, outside of the cabin, he always looked fresh, in control. A rock. But now that he was here—in his inner sanctum—the mask of command he kept in place for the crew had slipped a little. Once more he was no longer just her captain. He’d once again become a man, with all the failings, weakness, and desires of any other human being.

  “Is there anything I can do for you, sir?” she asked and immediately regretted it. She was an officer, not a servant.

  “I told Chief Miller to expect you back in sonar a few hours every day.”

  Kristen wasn’t supposed to spend too much time in any single space. Instead, she was supposed to be studying the entire vessels. But she could hardly question his decision. “As you wish, Captain.”

  He watched her for a moment, his sharp eyes apparently recognizing her curiosity. “If you have a question, Lieutenant, I told you my door’s always open.”

  She considered his orders and asked, “Why do you want me to spend so much time in sonar?”

  “Why do you think?”

  Kristen’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully, her left hand absent mindedly playing with a lock of wet hair draped across her shoulder. “You’ve seen my report on optimizing the BQQ-10 processor for the latest Chinese submarines, haven’t you sir?” The report, as far as she knew, was still somewhere between COMSUBPAC and the Pentagon and hadn’t been released to the operational forces.

  He didn’t answer her directly; instead she saw a playful smile cross the boyish face. “What report?”

  Kristen had her answer and nodded in understanding. Beagler had leaked Brodie a copy of the report prior to her coming on board. She wondered how much more he knew about her. He didn’t seem to be the kind of man who left things such as ship’s personnel to chance.

  “Good night, Captain.”

  “Good night, Lieutenant.”

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Sound Room, USS Seawolf

  Kristen was on duty in engineering when the order came to rig the ship for deep submergence. The Seawolf then began her descent into the Kuril Trench. Once in the deep-sea canyon, the Seawolf followed it, using it like a road, guiding them generally southward. Of course, they had to make certain they stayed in the middle of the trench or risk ramming into a mountain like the Jimmy Carter had.

  Kristen finished her first engineering watch, not certain just how long she’d been awake. She guessed she’d been up for over thirty hours, but with her watch rotation shifted by Ski, she now had another six hours of training. Exhaustion, it seemed, had become part and parcel of life on board the Seawolf. Senior Chief Miller was waiting for her when she arrived at sonar after having grabbed a bite to eat and several cups of strong—caffeine loaded—tea.

  “There you are, Lieutenant,” he greeted her. He held a soda can in one hand, and she saw what looked like the remnants of pastry on his coveralls. “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about me.” He pounded his chest gently with his fist and released a belch.

  “Perish the thought, Senior Chief,” she assured him with a whimsical smile.

  He chuckled in response, then did his best to compress his bulk out of the way and turned her over to Fabrini. Kristen slipped in between Miller on the right and the row of sonar operators seated at their stations on the left.

  “Good morning, Lieutenant,” Fabrini greeted her.

  “Is it?” she asked. “My days are all screwed up.”

  “It happens to me all the time down here,” he admitted in understanding. “It takes me a few weeks to get my biological clock used to the eighteen hour days.”

  With the pleasantries out of the way, Fabrini began explaining the various pieces of equipment. “The three main displays are the BQQ-10 Stacks,” he said, pointing to the first three stations manned by sonar operators. “We have a narrowband, a broadband, and a classification stack. The narrowband is for finding fainter, more distant targets. The broadband is for up close and personal action. The ‘class stack’ electronically demodulates…”

  Kristen listened politely, already knowing what the equipment did, but she realized he had no idea she’d been using identical equipment for the last year listening to Chinese submarine noises and other ocean sounds captured on digital recordings. Once he finished explaining how the stacks worked, he directed her
attention to the last station at the far right of the three stacks. “That’s the spectrum analyzer.”

  “Don’t blow her mind already, Fabrini,” the man seated at the far station warned.

  Fabrini motioned toward the smiling sonarman. “Don’t worry about him,” he explained. “That’s just Greenberg, he’s an asshole.”

  “Hey!” a second sonar operator cut in. At first Kristen thought he was objecting to the language because she was there, not that she cared. But then the offended sonar operator added in protest, “I’m still in here!”

  Fabrini pointed toward the sailor whom Kristen recognized as the boat’s Protestant Lay Leader who conducted Sunday services for those interested. “That’s Hicks,” Fabrini whispered. “He’s a bit of a Jesus freak.”

  “And proud of it,” Hicks exclaimed proudly and returned to his labors.

  Kristen responded by patting Hicks’ shoulder, “Say a prayer or two for me next time you’re talking to the Big Man, would you?”

  “My pleasure, ma’am,” Hicks replied after removing his headphones and looking up at her. “And if you want, this Sunday I’ll be holding services—“

  “Hicks!” Fabrini snapped without anger and motioned for Hicks to get back to work. “Proselytize on your own time.”

  Fabrini returned to business. “Now, we’re currently at just under eleven hundred feet, which is pretty damn deep, even for us,” Fabrini explained. “At this depth our sound signature decreases dramatically as cavitation coming off the propeller drop off to almost nothing. Plus, between us and anyone on the surface searching for us, there are currently three thermoclines and two different salinity gradients.”

  Kristen understood basic sonar principles, but listened patiently as he explained how thermoclines of varying water temperature combined with the different salinity levels in each layer acted as reflectors to sound waves, preventing any sound the Seawolf made from reaching the surface. “Unfortunately, it works in reverse,” he added. “So, although we’re fairly invisible down here, we’re nearly as deaf as a fencepost, too.” He pointed toward the narrowband stack. “In fact, we’ve been trying to classify an intermittent contact for hours, but thus far nothing.”

  Fabrini let her take a turn at each of the main sonar stacks over the next two hours. At first he tried to teach her every aspect of the various controls and displays, but soon realized Kristen was no novice. “Where’d you get your sonar training?” he asked as she began adjusting the controls on the narrowband stack.

  “Oh, I picked up a few things at the basic course,” she replied. Officers at the Submarine Basic Course were exposed to sonar, but hardly in any detail.

  Once finished with the three main stacks, Fabrini glanced toward the spectrum analyzer. It was the Cadillac of sonar systems and exceedingly difficult to master. “Maybe we should give that a shot tomorrow,” he concluded.

  “Never put off till tomorrow…” Kristen advised.

  “All right,” he agreed and directed the current operator who was seated at the analyzer to move aside. He then ordered Greenberg, who’d rotated to the narrowband stack thirty minutes earlier, to show her the spectrum analyzer.

  “Greenberg, besides being a pervert,” Fabrini whispered to her, “is also the best sonar operator we’ve got. I mean besides Pops.”

  “Pops?” she asked, not recognizing the nickname.

  “Chief Miller,” Fabrini explained.

  Kristen took a seat in front of the spectrum analyzer and Greenberg slipped in behind her. She noticed the pale skin where a wedding band should be and recalled seeing one on his hand when they first met. He placed a hand on the rear of her seat and leaned over her, his other hand on a handhold by the analyzer. “Hello, hello,” he greeted her as he glanced down, offering what she assumed was supposed to be a rakish smile that fell short by a mile.

  “Hi,” she replied, feeling a bit scratchy after over thirty hours without any sleep. “Can we get to work?”

  “Sure,” he answered and looked up at the analyzer. “Now this beauty is the signal analyzer,” he began and then noticed her hands moving to a few of the dials. “Be careful with that,” he warned. “We’ve been trying to classify a contact off to the east since the last watch came on.”

  Kristen nodded her head. “I’m just getting a feel for it,” she replied, moving the cursor over an intermittent noise represented by a broken line on her waterfall display.

  “Now,” Greenberg resumed. “This may be a bit complex, but this machine sort of combines all of the sounds into a single complete picture.” His tone of voice made it sound like he was talking to a child. Then she noticed him glancing down at her chest, hoping to catch a glimpse of cleavage. To his disappointment, she made it a point of keeping her coveralls zipped and buttoned up tight at all times when about the boat.

  Kristen glanced up at him as if to ask if he was kidding. “I know I’m a Nub, but I’m not a complete idiot, Mister Greenberg.” Kristen gave him a stern look, not interested in the least in providing entertainment for a twenty-year-old whose hormones were in overdrive.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Greenberg stood up, a bit startled. He blushed slightly. “I just meant it is a bit complicated and very sensitive. You might want to consider sticking to the other stacks for a while.”

  Annoyed at the idea of being treated like an ignorant child, she glanced back up at him as Fabrini watched with an amused smile. Kristen let out an annoyed sigh and motioned toward the analyzer. “This is the AN/BQR-27 passive sonar signal detection and analysis system,” she began, nearly quoting the manual on the sonar equipment verbatim. “It was built by Spectral Dynamics and represents the latest in a series of spectrum analyzers.” She motioned toward the twin screens. “It displays multi-beam acoustic data from all passive systems including towed, hull, acoustical, and hydrophone systems. It supports detection, analysis, narrow, and broadband for target classification and target signatures allowing the operator to match individual ships with stored sound signatures. It is currently the most advanced sonar ever deployed on a submarine and was installed seventeen days ago before we left Bremerton as part of the Commercial-Off-The-Shelf program. It is capable of picking out the slightest transient from extreme ranges well over one hundred miles.” Kristen paused and looked back up at Greenberg, raising a questioning eyebrow. “How am I doing so far?”

  “Uh…” he mumbled. “That sounds about right,” he admitted.

  “Great,” she answered in her best, no-nonsense tone. “Now, can we stop playing games and get back to work, Petty Officer?” she asked. Then, before he could answer, she pointed toward the screen. “Oh, and by-the-by, that intermittent contact is a Japanese fishing trawler by the sound of its screw.”

  As if to accent her point, a printer behind them started to spit something out. Fabrini tore it off the printer, read it, and handed it to Greenberg. “She’s right, it’s a Japanese trawler.”

  “Thank you, Mister Fabrini,” she replied.

  Kristen had no more trouble with Greenberg after that. For the next three hours she rotated from stack to stack every thirty minutes, polishing the skills she already possessed and learning a few more from the sonar experts in the shack. Despite Fabrini’s earlier assessment that Greenberg was the best, she actually learned more from Hicks and Fabrini than from the flirtatious Greenberg whose eyes seemed to linger on her excessively. It was a problem she knew she’d have to deal with as the patrol played itself out over the next few months. But she hadn’t expected it to start so soon.

  Once the shift was over and the next five man sonar crew started coming in, Greenberg, who apparently had the morals of an alley cat, paused by her in the passageway. “So, Miss, what do you think are the chances of us going out sometime?”

  Besides her being a commissioned officer, him being an enlisted man, and there being regulations against such fraternization, Kristen didn’t find him in the least bit attractive. He was immature—not to mention married—and she’d always been attracted
to older men, and Greenberg was none of these. She had no desire to embarrass him, but Kristen snickered slightly before beginning to chuckle, but then, she had to cover her mouth to stop from laughing in his face at the ludicrous suggestion. She turned and left, leaving Greenberg with a disappointed look on his face. As she walked away, she heard his friends giving him a hard time in her wake.

  “Damn dude, I’d say you’ve been burned,” one offered.

  “Better luck next time, hound dog,” Fabrini added.

  “Thou shall not commit adultery, my son,” Hicks teased.

  Greenberg’s response to the good-natured ribbing faded as she entered the control room on her way to the wardroom.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  USS Seawolf

  Food, shower, and then five hours of much needed sleep was all Kristen wanted out of life following her latest trip to sonar. She’d gone to the treadmill, forcing herself to run, but her heart hadn’t been in it, and she’d gotten off after only thirty minutes. Following a hasty meal, she was now anxious for a quick shower.

  She reached the captain’s cabin. Since she’d been sharing the bathroom with Brodie and Graves, she’d only crossed paths with the XO twice when he’d been exiting the cabin. As the captain had predicted, she’d seen him only rarely in his cabin. In fact, she’d seen him just about everywhere else but his cabin. He all but lived in the control center, and when not there he moved about the boat talking to crewmen and seeing for himself that his submarine was in good order. So, as she reached his door, she knocked at the same time automatically beginning to turn the doorknob, never thinking he might be in.