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At 3:15 in the morning, Hein wandered into control.

“Head break?” he asked Jabo.

“Shit yes,” said Jabo. “Thanks.” Head breaks were the most needed on the midwatch, because of the vast amounts of coffee consumed, and the hardest to come by, because everyone who could be sleeping was in the rack. They quickly exchanged the keys and Jabo bolted from the Conn as the quartermaster was recording the relief in the deck log.

“This is Lieutenant Hein, I have the Deck and the Conn.”

As the helm was acknowledged, Jabo darted back up the ladder and grabbed a few of the books that the XO had left for him.

“Just a head break Jabo!” shouted Hein.

“This will just take me a second…”

He bolted down the ladder into the watchstander’s head where he took a fantastically long and satisfying piss. He washed his hands and took the books into the Officers’ Study.

The Navigator was there. He looked up from his chart without smiling or speaking, and then went back to work. Jabo edged around the table to the locker in the corner that contained the books he was looking for.

The shelf held their small library of submarine history, all the classics both modern and ancient, novels and nonfiction: Wake of the Wahoo, Hunt for Red October, Clear the Bridge, and Run Silent, Run Deep. Jabo was looking for anything that might liven up his lecture on the Kilo.

“Brushing up on your submarine history, Jabo?” said the Nav. There was something snide in his tone.

“Doing some training for the XO…”

“If you’re looking for Rig for Dive, I’ve got it.”

“I don’t think I need it — that’s World War II, right?”

The nav chuckled. “Yes. Good guess.”

Jabo felt himself getting pissed off at the Nav’s smirk. “Crush Martin, right? Lost his boat after that?”

The Nav suddenly turned and swept his hand over the row of history books. “They’re all about lost boats. Lost men. All the nonfiction ones, anyway.”

“Not all of them…”

“Let’s see…” The Nav tapped one of the book’s spines. “The Wrasse went down somewhere in the Sea of Japan, nobody knows where: ninety-two men.” He tapped another. “The Tang, sunk by one of her own torpedoes, 74 men lost.” He pulled an ancient paperback half way out to read the cover. “The Wahoo, gunned down by Japanese planes in the La Perouse Straits, 79 men. Fifty-two submarines this country has lost in all. Three thousand men still onboard.” He pulled another book out and threw it on top of his chart: U-Boat Commander, by Gunther Prien.

“Our enemies haven’t fared any better. The hero of Scapa Flow wrote this right before his boat disappeared. “

“Dangerous work,” said Jabo, feeling the need to say something.

“Suicide,” said the Nav. “And submarines are built for suicide missions.”

“Not anymore…”

The Navy laughed hard at that, almost a bark. “Jesus, Jabo. You really believe that? You think anyone has ever believed that a Trident Submarine would ever come back from a war mission? How loud do you think we’d be during a launch of our twenty-four missiles? How far would that sound carry? How vulnerable would any Trident be during a strategic launch? We’d be lucky to get all twenty-four missiles away before the first torpedo found us.”

“I don’t know…”

“Take a look, Jabo,” said the Nav, pointing to the other side of the room, to the books that contained all their war fighting tactics and procedures. “See if you can find a procedure for reloading a Trident submarine. There isn’t one. No one plans on us coming back.”

He sighed deeply and slumped back in his chair.

Jabo returned to the conn.

• • •

At 0545, just as the scent of frying bacon was beginning to drift into the control room, Kincaid arrived. As they were nearing the end of the formal turnover, Jabo brought up the incident in the Officers Study.

“So he said that we’re on a suicide mission?”

“That’s right,” said Jabo.

Hayes thought it over for a moment. “I’ve heard that kind of shit before. It’s something boomer sailors tell themselves to make it sound like what we do out here is tough.”

“I guess,” said Jabo. “I guess you had to be there. This didn’t seem like some kind of posturing. He seemed…”

“Depressed? Pissed off? He’s a department head. He should be depressed and pissed off.”

Just then, the navigator started walking up the ladder to control, a bundle of rolled charts under his arm. He walked right by the two friends without saying a word.

Hayes shrugged. “I’m ready to relieve you.”

“I’m ready to be relieved. Ship is on course two-seven-five, Ahead Full, depth six-five-zero feet.”

“I relieve you.”

“I stand relieved.”

“This is Lieutenant Kincaid, I have the Deck and the Conn.”