THE BRINK - OPERATION DEEP FLIGHT

by Marshall Huffman

  “Perfectly, sir.”

  “Good. Now you get the hell out of my sight before I reconsider. And by the way Admiral, my intention was to place the Chameleon under your command once this mission was over. Now I will have to rethink my options.”

  The President stood as Zoren walked out of the room.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  - OTIS AIR FORCE BASE -

  “Well, the elusive Dr. Ferris,” Susan said by way of greeting.

  “Dr. Long. How are you doing? Are you finding everything you need?”

  “It’s going very smoothly. We have already started working on the hardware installations. The access design is going to make this an easy and tidy installation. Your friend Dr. Hall was here bright and early. He is off with Ted. They are hot on the trail of some calculations for the navigational system.”

  “When Luke gets focused on something, he is tenacious.”

  “So it would seem. He was here waiting for us.”

  I see Dr. Motto and his crew is missing. They must be over at the DSV.”

  “Along with Dr. Langford.”

  “How is your part coming?”

  “We have started some of the preliminary embedding and coding. The propulsion people were in last night to start talking through their requirements. We have been working with them since the beginning so we have only a few glitches to work out.”

  “Sonar and radar?”

  “We have been in touch with them off and on. They are using the standard tape recognition files for contact identification. We have made some new additions but it’s relatively standard and straight forward.”

  “So the jerks at DigiLabs are the major hold up?”

  “No talent. That guy Luke seems O.K., but that Dr. Ferris, I just don’t know about him. You would think he would at least offer a girl a dinner or something.”

  “I’ll talk to him about that indiscretion,” Peter laughed.

  “Well, if he wasn’t so cute, I would probably turn him down. He seems to have some redeeming qualities.”

  “Glad to hear that. I’m sorry Susan. I have just been swamped. I didn’t even get back from Washington until late last night. It was near midnight by the time I got back to the house.”

  “I knew you went to a meeting but I didn’t realize it was in Washington. I guess I’ll have to take back some of the things I said about you,” she said, smiling.

  “I may get called back again real soon. Something major is in the wind but I can’t and shouldn’t talk about it until I’m sure of the facts.”

  “No problem. We will talk when you’re ready.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate that. So, should we think about tonight? I mean, don’t we need to meet about how you’re coming along with the project?”

  “Aren’t we doing that now?” Susan asked.

  “I meant over dinner,” Peter said.

  “Duh,” Susan said, smacking her forehead with her hand, “Now I’m following you. Yes, by all means, that’s exactly what should be done.”

  “Good. I’ll check back with you later in the day regarding a time. I’m sure we are both going to be rushing all day long,” Peter said as he was leaving.

  “Peter.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m glad to be here working with you.”

  “Thanks. Me too. I mean...oh you know. See you later.”

  * * *

  “Hi Dr. Ferris. How are things going?”

  “We are moving along quite well. I take it they called and you have something for me to consider?”

  “Affirmative. I will be flying down to see you later this afternoon if you have the time.”

  “Sure Ray. I’ll either be here or at the Chameleon. I’m going down there in a few minutes to track down Dr. Hall. He got away this morning before we could talk.”

  “Knowing your feelings about mornings, I’m not surprised.”

  “Nice talk. Do you want to set a time for me to be here?”

  “No. I don’t know my schedule yet. Secretary Taylor is coming by to bring me the dossier on some people they want you to consider. I’ll just hop a flight and find you. I need to get an update on the Chameleon anyway.”

  “Okay, I’ll see you later. Anything I should be prepared for?”

  “Not really. What I have for you is pretty much straight forward.”

  “Good. Have as safe trip.”

  “Easy for you to say. Mad Dog is coming to get me.”

  Peter just laughed and hung up. The chopper was landing for the trip to Newport.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  - PENTAGON -

  “General Durance, its Admiral Zoren on the line.”

  “Admiral Zoren, what an unexpected pleasure.”

  “Good morning General. Listen, I’ll get straight to the point. I was wondering if you might have some time to meet today?”

  “I could make the time. Why? What’s up?”

  “If you don’t mind, I think it would be better if we met in person. I’ve found talking face to face is much better than the phone.”

  “I see. Where do you have in mind?”

  “I was thinking the usual place.”

  “I can do that. What time?”

  “When could you make it?”

  “One of the advantages of being in charge is that you can make your own schedule. How about half an hour?”

  “Excellent. I’m looking forward to seeing you,” the Admiral said, and hung up the phone.

  “Have my driver meet me at the southeast door in ten minutes,” General Durance ordered his aid.

  “Sir, you have a 0900 briefing.”

  “Reschedule it for tomorrow.”

  “Yes General.”

  The General had been expecting Admiral Zoren to call. The Admiral had about as much use for the President as he did. President Beland was a weak, sniveling, bureaucrat in his opinion. He read the paper on the way to Arlington. The traffic was at its usual snail’s pace and he was a few minutes late. He liked that. It showed the Admiral who was in charge.

  “Admiral. Nice to see you again,” he said, extending his hand.

  “Glad you could make it,” the Admiral said, glancing at his watch so the General noticed. I can’t let this prick think he has the upper hand, the Admiral was thinking.

  “What can I do for you, Admiral?”

  “Let’s walk a ways,” the Admiral said and started off down one of the foot paths.

  “General. How do you feel about the meeting with the President yesterday?”

  “Enlightened.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It’s always amusing to watch the human dynamics going on. Your dislike for the President is apparent to everyone in the room, including Beland.”

  “I don’t care. The man is weak willed. He has no backbone and absolutely no concept of the role of the military. I’m getting sick of Commander-in-Chiefs that don’t know beans about making command decisions.”

  “I’ll have to say, I agree with that.”

  “Are you drawing up plans to deal with this situation when it all blows up in his face?”

  “I’ve given it some thought. Just getting started actually. Why?”

  “Well, you know it’s going to have to be a joint effort. The Navy will be involved at some point. It’s in the middle of the ocean after all.”

  “Admiral, we have missiles that can reach any point on this earth. Hitting the middle of the ocean isn’t much of a feat.”

  “Any bomb, no matter what size, isn’t going to penetrate much beyond a few hundred feet underwater, a thousand at the most. There are places that go down 45,000 feet or better. Your missiles won’t do much good there.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “We need to get someone on that sub who can tell us exactly what’s going on and where we can locate these, whatever the hell they are. Without that information, you can’t really plan any serious attack.”

  “If we attack,” the General said.
<
br />   “We’ll attack all right. These guys aren’t here on this planet for a holiday. It will end up a military operation at some point.”

  “Suppose you’re right, what does that have to do with you and me?”

  “I control the submarines. You have control of the Strategic Air Command. Between us we control most of the nuclear power on this planet. We can determine what action is taken.”

  “Aren’t you overlooking the Commander-in-Chief? That’s his call. He has the ultimate control.”

  “We both know that’s hogwash. He is the figurehead all right, but we have the power.”

  “I take it you have a plan for getting someone on the submarine?”

  “I do indeed. Once we know what we’re up against we can form a joint plan of action. We will present it to the President for implementation.”

  “And if he doesn’t see it our way?”

  “We initiate it anyway.”

  “You’re talking about treason. An overthrow of the government,” the General said.

  “I know what I’m talking about. Beland will have to be removed from office, no doubt about it. And it is not treason when you save your country.”

  “Admiral, you’re talking about a military coup. How would you get Beland out of office and have the military take over?”

  “General Peterson. You remember him don’t you?”

  “Of course. Army.”

  “Right. You noticed that the President didn’t even have him at the meeting?”

  “I figured he was indisposed. Can’t say I gave it much thought. Peterson isn’t one of my favorite people.”

  “The President's either. He has been unofficially reprimanded by the President for disobeying an order.”

  “Really? Very interesting. That’s one I haven’t heard.”

  “Very few have. He’s the one who told me. He came to me right after it happened. He is furious. He will join in with us when the time comes.”

  “You’re oversimplifying this just a bit aren’t you? The military can’t just come in and throw out the government. This isn’t Russia. We don’t take people out and shoot them and their families if they don’t obey orders. We would have a hell of a time convincing the common solider to follow those orders.”

  “Not if we we’re being attacked and the President was incapacitated. Marshal Law would be necessary for the safeguard of the country.”

  “I think I had better hear the whole story. You’re just giving me bits and pieces to bait me,” General Durance said.

  “Alright. Here is my plan,” the Admiral said, quickly looking around before starting.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  - NEWPORT -

  “Hello Luke,” Peter said.

  “Hey Peter. This is Ted Fellows; he is helping me with the calculations.”

  “Sure, we’ve met. How’s it going Ted?”

  “Just great. Luke has thrown us a real challenge. Neat stuff. The varying compression wave is the most interesting aspect. I think we have a fairly accurate math model worked out now.”

  “You guys,” Peter said, shaking his head, “You get off on the weirdest things.”

  “No, Pete, this is really exciting. We have already figured out where we need to locate all the sensors so the bow shockwave will have its minimal impact. That means that the response times can be even further improved. We have worked out the calculations for the corrections required. The computer will adjust the input so that the navigational controls will respond normally. The salinity and temperature will affect the density so that has to be figured in as well. It’s not really that complicated, once you pointed me in the right direction.”

  “When do you think you will be ready to test this theory?” Peter asked.

  “We are working on the computations now. That will take a few hours. We’ll need a couple of hours to set it up and three hours to run and test. I would think by 8:00 P.M. or so we should have our answers.”

  “That’s great. Then we could get the information encoded into the main computer.”

  “I’m making a backup tape for Susan as we speak,” Ted said.

  “I’ll let you boy wonders go to it. I’m going to check in with the rest of the departments to see how they're progressing,” Peter said.

  He worked his way through the Chameleon, visiting with each team member. One serious problem became apparent immediately. The diagnostic check on the expulsion system was showing a faulty emergence valve.

  “It doesn’t do it every time. Just every once in a while,” Al Norris, head of the General Dynamics team said.

  “What are our options?” Peter asked.

  “We can do one of three things. Replace the valve or try to figure out what’s wrong with this one and repair it.”

  “That’s only two.”

  “The third is to leave it and hope it’s just temporarily acting up and will correct itself in time.”

  “Are you going on the sea trials?” Peter asked.

  “No, Eric, my assistant is. Why?”

  “Then we only have two options. Repair or replace. I’m not going down in this thing with the valve acting up unless you are.”

  “Okay, do you have a preference?”

  “What’s involved with replacing it?”

  “We will have to pull the intakes off. Remove the expansion and compression chambers. Then remove the ion triggers, compression pumps and replace the valve.”

  “Do you have another valve?”

  “Not here, but we can get one in a matter of hours. We have the test unit and a spare in New London.”

  “How long will all of this take?” Peter wanted to know.

  “A couple of days. Three at the most. We can send for the valve and have it here tomorrow.”

  “You can have it here today if you need it that soon.”

  “It wouldn’t speed anything up. Most of the time will be spent getting to it. Once we have that done, it’s only a few hours’ work to replace it and test it out.”

  “Fine, get started. If you need anything, anything at all, you let me know.”

  “Will do, Peter.”

  “How is the hookup to the main computer control system coming along?”

  “Better than expected actually. That Dr. Long knows her stuff. The few problems that we have had, her people corrected immediately. Good looking chick too. Nice gams,” Al said.

  “Gams?”

  “You know, legs.”

  “I guess I haven’t noticed,” Peter lied.

  “Well, we sure have.”

  “We?”

  “The guys working down here. We can’t seem to get much work done when she is around.”

  “Shame on you,” Peter kidded.

  “Shame on you for not noticing,” Al replied.

  Peter checked in with sonar and found that they were already starting to do calibration testing and phase loading. They would have the entire test done and be ready for sea trials ahead of schedule. The radar group was in good shape as well. They had already finished most of their testing and were starting the hookup to the primary and backup computers.

  His own team was almost finished with the air circulation and scavenging system. They were finishing up the coordination with the power plant teams. The Chameleon had batteries for backup in case of system failure but the primary source was the Hydrogen Oxide fuel cells. They were fueled by the same liquid oxygen that was used for the air handling system. They could produce power as long as they had a supply of liquid oxygen. The O2N2 plant that DigiLabs had designed would supply the cells. The holding tanks could be used in an emergency if the O2N2 plant failed for any reason. They were set to test out the systems and emergency units in two days. After leaving the power plant section he went forward to the torpedo room.

  “How’s it going guys?” he asked, shaking Lt. Okeefer’s hand.

  “Really well. We have just about completed the installation. We will need power to test everything out but I don’t expect any major problems.”
/>
  “Excellent. When do you load the torpedoes?"

  “Oh, we won’t do that here. We will have to go to the Naval Depot for that. I would imagine that will be one of our first stops on the way to sea trials.”

  “Got it. I guess I hadn’t given it much thought.”

  “Why should you?”

  “You’re right. So, you are just about ready to test systems as well?”

  “Two days at the most and we will be ready.”

  “This is great. It’s all coming together at once. It couldn’t be better.”

  “When do we go for trials then?” Lt. Okeefer asked.

  “I don’t know just yet. Very soon at the rate we’re going.”

  “We’ll be ready,” he assured Peter.

  Peter headed back the way he had come and stuck his head in the auxiliary machinery space. Three men were hard at work on what appeared to be some sort of motor.

  “Sorry to bother you but I just stopped by to see how it’s going,” Peter said.

  “Hi Dr. Ferris. We are replacing the emergency generator. We ran a test yesterday and found it wasn’t operating up to capacity. Since we couldn’t find anything wrong, we decided to replace it.”

  “Good decision. Everything else going well?”

  “The evaporator unit isn’t cranking out like I would like it to. The pressurized booster heater isn’t generating sufficient heat. We replaced the coils but it’s still not up to specs. I think they undersized the tubing when they built it.”

  “Is this a major concern?”

  “If we were on a full size submarine it would be, but I think we should be okay. This thing is only going on short missions as I understand it. Water might get a little tight if you try to extend the mission with full crew.”

  “But under normal conditions it should be sufficient?” Peter asked.