Cold Choices - [Jerry Mitchell 02]

by Larry Bond

  Hardy ruled by fear because that’s what he felt. His fear of someone else’s error ruining his record was transformed by the crew into fear of doing anything without first checking with the captain. It was no way to run any naval vessel, much less a submarine. A fire on board had caused serious damage to Memphis, and the crew’s response showed Hardy that there were better ways to lead men.

  He’d just started to trust Jerry when they’d been attacked by Russian forces. . .

  ~ * ~

  Mitchell snapped back to the present when Commander Rudel finished his speech with his trademark line: “Now go work your tail off.” Jerry realized he’d used the same phrase when he welcomed Rountree aboard, but he wasn’t worried about copying Rudel’s command style.

  Hudson and Rountree headed aft. Jerry noted the smile on Rountree’s face. The skipper had that effect on people. Excusing himself, Jerry headed forward and down one deck to the torpedo room. He had to find Palmer, and check on the UUVs.

  Lieutenant (j.g.) Jeff Palmer was a weak link in Seawolf’s chain of command. It wasn’t enough to have intelligence or determination or even a good attitude. Nobody got through the nuclear pipeline and sub school without those abilities, but they weren’t enough to get Jeff Palmer qualified.

  Every submariner had to “qualify” aboard his boat. It meant knowing every system aboard in detail, not just the equipment you worked with in your own job. In an emergency, if the boat suffered some sort of accident or was damaged in a fight, everyone aboard had to know what to do. The candidate had to be able to draw the air, hydraulic, electrical, and other vital systems from memory. He had to find valves and damage-control equipment while blindfolded. In a real emergency, with the lights out, or the air filled with thick smoke, conditions could be much worse. In addition, the initial response to any casualty also had to be memorized, and understood. And it didn’t hurt to have the secondary procedures committed to memory as well.

  Both officers and enlisted went through the process. When they qualified, the captain awarded them their “dolphins,” an insignia worn on their shirt. Officers had gold dolphins, enlisted men silver. Like an aviator’s wings, they represented a lot of work, and were worn with pride.

  Jerry’s first qualification, aboard Memphis, had been an ordeal, for many reasons. Still, he’d done it in record time, in a single patrol. Normally, an officer new to subs would take about a year and a half to qualify. Palmer had been at it now for seventeen months, and had run into trouble from the very start.

  Part of the qualification process were “murder boards,” oral quizzes by a group of officers on a particular topic. Palmer could study the manuals and practice the procedures until they were second nature, but he seized up under any sort of pressure. Too many questions in rapid succession caused him to freeze, or give answers that were obviously wrong. Men who couldn’t handle pressure did not belong on a sub.

  Palmer was in the torpedo room, along with Torpedoman Chief Johnson, his division chief, and several of the torpedomen. They were loading weapons for the upcoming mission, which on a Seawolf- class sub took quite a while.

  The torpedo room on modern U.S. nuclear subs is located aft of the bow, not in it like the old-style WWII boats. The bow on Seawolf was completely taken up by three large sonar arrays, including a monstrously huge sonar “ball,” covered with passive hydrophones. The eight torpedo tubes, four to a side, were mounted in port and starboard nests complete with individual launching system, and angled outward. Modern guided torpedoes were smart enough to turn after they were launched and head for their prey.

  Jerry had been torpedo officer on Memphis, and was still impressed by the scale of Seawolf’s torpedo armament. His old boat could carry a warload of twenty-six torpedoes and missiles. Seawolf could load fifty, and the racks for them filled a two-story compartment. Seawolf’s tubes were bigger as well, thirty inches in diameter instead of twenty-one inches. Unfortunately, the U.S. Navy never developed thirty-inch torpedoes, so the tubes were sleeved to accept the standard twenty-one-inch weapons. The space was crowded with weapons and the machinery to move them, but to Jerry it was as large as a cathedral.

  Unusually, daylight and sounds from outside filtered into the space. A loading ramp angled from Seawolf’s deck, just aft of the sail, down through two decks into the torpedo room. Because Mark 48 torpedoes are twenty and a half feet long and weigh almost two tons, a special loading tray had been rigged to control their downward journey. Torpedomen handled the massive weapons as if they were made of glass, while Chief Johnson watched their every move. One torpedoman wore a set of sound-powered phones, communicating with the rest of the loading detail above.

  Jerry paused in the doorway, taking in the division’s progress and deciding if this was a good time to talk to Palmer. He was reluctant to distract men loading explosives, but the jaygee saw him and walked over.

  “What’s up, Nav?” Palmer’s good mood almost gave Jerry another excuse to delay telling him, but it had to be done.

  “You’re going to conn the boat out when we leave on the fifteenth,” Jerry said simply.

  Palmer acted like he’d been shot. “Oh, no.” If he hadn’t been leaning on a fitting, he might have fallen down. He was obviously remembering his last attempt, which had cost the navy a splintered piling and nearly a crushed sonar dome.

  “You need this ticket punched, Jeff.” Jerry’s tone was firm, but positive.

  Jeff Palmer was taller than Jerry, though slim. He seemed to shrink as he reluctantly nodded agreement. “You’re right, I have to do this.”

  “And you’ll have to answer questions about underway procedures for the XO day after tomorrow. He’ll see you in his stateroom right after lunch.”

  A pale redhead, Palmer turned white. “He’ll grind me up like hamburger! I’ll never be able to satisfy him.”

  “Do you think the XO’s going to deliberately trip you up?”

  “No, but you know what will happen.”

  Jerry sighed, but managed to do it on the inside. Palmer had developed a real confidence problem, but Jerry wasn’t going to blow sunshine at him. That wasn’t his job, and it didn’t really help the guy. Still, he needed to be positive.

  “Jeff, you know the material, you’ve proven that to me. If you want to stay in subs, you’ve got to show the XO you know it, then use it to get Seawolf under way safely.”

  “What if I can’t get past the XO?”

  “Then I’ll have Santana take her out,” Jerry answered flatly. Ensign San-tana was the electrical officer, and was also working on his qualification. To himself, Jerry added, “And you’ll be off the boat and out of subs the day we get back from patrol.”

  “Who will be the OOD?” asked Palmer hesitantly.

  “Mr. Hayes,” Jerry replied, and then with a slight grin, “And yes, he knows what he’s getting into.”

  “Thanks, Nav. I’m not too popular with my department head right now. And I don’t think I could be up on the bridge with him again. At least not right away.”

  “You’re right, he’s not happy with your progress,” said Jerry frankly. “And yes, he was upset about your earlier attempt, and not just because he was the OOD. It’s his job to push you, Jeff. If Greg Wolfe had given you up as a lost cause, would he have spent all those hours working with you?”

  “No, sir,” answered Palmer quietly.

  “All right then. Get your act together and show him you are capable of conning a boat on the surface. You know what to do. You just need to muster the intestinal fortitude and do it. Okay?”

  “Yes, sir. I will, sir.”

  “Correct answer, Mr. Palmer,” remarked Jerry. “Now you’d better get back to supervising the weapons loading evolution.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Palmer replied with a little more confidence. “And Nav . . . thanks.”

  ~ * ~

  Tuesday afternoon

  USS Seawolf, executive officer’s stateroom

  When Jeff Palmer knocked on the XO’s door
and went inside, Jerry stayed in the passageway. The XO had required Jerry to be here, but Palmer would have to answer Shimko’s questions alone.

  Which was as it should be, Jerry mused. So why was he here at all, he asked himself. Not moral support. The XO had left the door cracked, so Jerry could hear Palmer’s performance.

  “Mr. Palmer. What will the tides be when we get under way?”

  “Ebb tide, sir. Two feet above mean low water, with a two-knot current.”

  “And the weather?”

  “High scattered clouds, light winds from the south, about sixty-five degrees. That’s as of this morning according to the NOAA website. I’ll check...”

  “What rudder and bells will you start with?”

  “Well, sir, last time I used back one-third and twenty—”

  The XO interrupted Palmer. “I didn’t ask for a history lesson, mister. What rudder and bells would you use this time, if I let you take her out?”

  There was a pause, a little longer than Jerry would have liked, and then Palmer said, “The same. Back one-third and twenty-five degrees right rudder.” Jerry started to worry. He thought Palmer would last longer before getting rattled, but the XO knew where to apply pressure. Which might be what he wanted Jerry to see.

  “What orders are you giving the tug?”

  “None yet, sir. I have to get our stern swung out. . .”

  “Won’t that smash our bow into the pier?” The XO’s tone was neutral, with just a tinge of concern. He was challenging Palmer’s answers now.

  Palmer stammered, but he knew the answer. “I have to limit the swing to no more than thirty degrees. There’s a tower on the north shore you can use as a mark. As the rudder swings past that point, I tell the tug to start backing . . .”

  “The tug’s suffered an engineering casualty.” Shimko’s tone was still flat, but he spoke quickly.

  “Sir?”

  “The tug captain tells you he’s suffered a breakdown. His engines are dead. He can’t give you any help.”

  Jerry didn’t hear an answer right away, and counted the seconds. He imagined the wheels spinning in Palmer’s head, and hoped they were finding traction.

  “Put number three line back over, then shift to ahead one-third. Use side force from the screw and pivot on number three to push the bow away from the pier.” Palmer sounded tentative. If Jerry heard it, so did the XO.

  “But you’re using ahead engines. Won’t that drive our bow into the pier?” More concern in the XO’s tone, mixed with skepticism. He was really leaning on Palmer. Shimko remembered Palmer’s first underway as well. He knew Palmer would be worried about the bow.

  “I’d only leave it on for a moment, sir. We have some sternway. As soon as our sternway was off ...”

  “But what about the tug? As the bow swings around, won’t we hit the tug? We’re big enough to cave in his hull.”

  That was a sucker question. Since the tug was up against Seawolf’s side, with fenders rigged, there was no chance of damage. Jerry waited for Palmer’s reply And waited.

  “Sir, I’m not sure . . .” Palmer’s voice was more than unsure.

  “The tug skipper’s on the radio, yelling that he’s holding you personally responsible for any damage to his vessel.”

  “Sir . . .”

  Jerry was waiting for Palmer to implode when the door to the captain’s stateroom opened and Rudel stepped into the passageway. Jerry stepped back out of the way, and the skipper politely nodded to him as he walked to the XO’s stateroom. Knocking on the half-open door, he walked in without waiting for a reply.

  Jerry heard him ask lightly, “So XO, what’s the situation?” Shimko quickly summarized the scenario and pointedly remarked, “I’m still waiting for Mr. Palmer’s answer.” After a short pause, he added, “Mr. Palmer is liable for any damage to the tug.”

  Jerry was tempted to peek inside, but he didn’t really need to, and certainly didn’t want to be seen. He listened to Rudel ask softly, “Mr. Palmer, do you know the answer to the XO’s question?” His question demanded an answer, but at the same time had a positive tone.

  After a short pause, Jerry heard Palmer say, “Yes, sir. I do.” After another pause, he answered, “There can’t be any damage, because he’s tight alongside us.”

  Rudel asked, “But won’t he keep our bow from moving out from the pier?”

  “No sir, we’re so much bigger than the tug, with a much deeper draft, and he’s at our pivot point anyway. Then, as soon as our headway’s off and we’ve swung more parallel to the pier, I’d send the lines back over and get us moored again.”

  “Why would you do that, mister?” The XO’s voice was still level. “I thought the idea was to get under way.”

  “Not with the tug in the way. Besides, he’s broken down and we can’t leave him adrift in the channel.”

  “Very good, Mr. Palmer, never abandon a mariner in distress.” The captain’s praise was followed by a quick “Carry on,” and he stepped out of the XO’s stateroom and back to his own. As he passed Jerry, the skipper winked at him, smiling. Jerry felt himself smiling as well. He was sure now Palmer would pass.

  Rudel’s kind words were the only praise Palmer received. The XO grilled him for another twenty minutes, and there were more trick questions as well as hard ones. Jerry knew the XO wasn’t really testing Palmer’s knowledge, but his presence of mind, his ability to think under pressure.

  Finally, he said, “All right, Mr. Palmer, I’m satisfied that you’re able to properly get Seawolf under way next Monday. Continue your preparations. The Navigator and I will review them Monday after quarters.”

  Jeff Palmer stepped out of the XO’s stateroom, pale but smiling. Jerry and Palmer walked some distance away from the XO’s stateroom before either spoke. “Compared to that, the underway will be a breeze.” Palmer sounded stressed but pleased.

  “Just hope you’re right, Jeff. Things can get past you before you know you’re in trouble.” Jerry gestured back toward the XO’s stateroom. “In there, you knew you were being asked a question. On the bridge, you’ll have to ask yourself the questions, as well as answer them.”

  Palmer’s expression became more serious, but his smile didn’t go away completely. “Believe me, sir, I get it. My first underway taught me that. We live in a boat designed to sink, filled with explosives and a nuclear reactor. If we don’t stay on our toes, we’re screwed.”

  “Learning from your mistakes is a good thing. But dwelling on them is not,” advised Jerry sternly. “You lost the bubble last time and it’s been holding you back. This time you need to stay in control, which means you have to think ahead. We may move slowly, but a submarine on the surface reacts to your helm orders just as slowly—so keep your wits about you and plan accordingly.”

  “I will, Nav. And this time, I won’t screw up.”

  “Sounds good, Jeff. Let’s plan to meet on Friday, you and Mr. Hayes, to do a final review, okay?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll inform Will.”

  “Very well, Mr. Palmer, carry on.”

  ~ * ~

  2

  PROTECTIVE RESPONSE

  8 September 2008

  Northern Fleet Headquarters, Severomorsk, Russia

  The four men marched down the main hall of the Northern Fleet Headquarters building in perfect, if unintentional, unison. The echoes of their footsteps reverberated sharply off the ornate walls, giving the illusion of a much larger contingent. The mood was somber, the air formal, the countenance of the men stern and determined. “How perfectly Russian,” mused Captain First Rank Aleksey Igorevich Petrov. Flanked by his eskadra and diviziya commanders, Petrov followed the staff functionary as he led the way to the fleet commander’s conference room. “Finally,” thought the young captain, “we will finish this godforsaken fleet acceptance process and I will be able to take my boat to sea.” Frustrated and irritated by the unceasing paperwork, inspections, and constant bickering with the shipyard, Petrov longed for the peace and serenity that
only the sea could provide.

  He was born in Severodvinsk on the Kola Peninsula, the son of a senior shipyard engineer, and submarines were in his blood. He remembered many visits to the shipyard with his father to watch those underwater behemoths as they were rolled out of the great construction halls.

  As a boy, he’d dreamed of commanding one, and that dream had never changed. And it was with great pride that he bid his parents farewell to join the Soviet Navy to pursue his dream. He graduated first in his class from the Lenin Komsomol Higher Naval Submarine School in Leningrad, and everything seemed to be going according to plan when disaster struck in December 1991.

  The fall of the Soviet Union brought nothing but chaos and poverty to the “new” Russian Navy, whose members lost the respect of their countrymen along with their paychecks. Petrov didn’t care about the fate of the Communist Party. They had brought this on themselves. He was deeply concerned, however, about the effects their sudden collapse had on the navy in general, and his career prospects in particular.