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Which means at the moment, in machinery two, it’s pretty fucking harmful, thought Jabo. He pictured it all pooling back there now as they took the up angle, collecting invisibly against the bulkhead and the wall of the diesel fuel oil tank. The up angle was good, the Freon would roll backwards, away from the berthing areas. Jabo wondered how the berthing check was going, wondered if they would soon hear about any one else unconscious. Depending on how much Freon was back there, it could be above the second level deck plates now, gathering like an invisible pool of water that Howard may have unknowingly descended into. Jabo pictured it, rising like floodwater up to the oxygen generators, the burners, the scrubbers…

That’s when it finally clicked.

He grabbed the 1MC, saw the nav raise an eyebrow at that, as did the captain, who was just entering control. Jabo almost shouted into the microphone.

“Secure the scrubbers!” he said. “All hands throughout the ship don EABs. There may be phosgene in the atmosphere!”

Everyone in control reached for an EAB, as did Jabo.

“Both scrubbers are secured,” said the navigator sourly, getting the report on the phones. He still didn’t have an EAB on, and Jabo fought the urge to snap back at him, order him to put one on. The captain also stared at him a little befuddled, but he pulled an EAB from the overhead and put it on, and the nav then followed suit.

Jabo stepped down to the CODC display, pulling on his own EAB; the trip to PD was suddenly more urgent. He remembered his pre-watch tour: both scrubbers were running for no apparent reason. There was no doubt that Freon had somehow filled Machinery Two, and with two scrubbers running at temp, it was more than enough to create Phosgene gas, just as the message had warned. It sounded like they had unlimited Freon back there and unlimited heat from the scrubbers; it was like they were running a fucking phosgene factory. They had to get up quickly and get clean air onboard. If the sonar screen was clear when they slowed down, Jabo was going to recommend to the captain that they emergency blow to the surface.

But the screen wasn’t clear, not even close. Surface contacts were everywhere. Blowing to the roof might add a collision and flooding to the list of shit going wrong. The captain leaned over his shoulder as he stared at the congested sonar display.

“Phosgene?” His voice sounded distant coming through the built in mouthpiece of the EAB.

“Yes sir, there was just a message about this a few days ago — the new refrigerant can mutate into Phosgene at very high temps, and both scrubbers are running back there.” “Both scrubbers are running?” said the captain with a raised eyebrow.

“Not sure why.”

“Noise isolation exercises last watch,” said the navigator, with his back turned to them. He was somehow eavesdropping even with the headset on and a dozen people jabbering in his ear. “We were determining the TIMS baseline.” TIMS was a system of noise meters on virtually every machine on the boat. Originally designed to aid in sound silencing efforts, they’d learned to use it for maintenance. A baseline for every connected machine was established, and if the noise level went up, it could mean something was going wrong with the machine and someone needed to take a look. They periodically had to run equipment to gather baseline data.

“And that might create phosgene?” asked the captain.

“Yes — we received it in a safety flash last week.”

“I don’t remember that.” Jabo saw him file it away. They both were focused on the grainy green sonar display in front of them, where several bright white bands indicated that they were not alone in their patch of ocean.

From sonar: “Conn, Sonar we have six contacts…”

“We see them,” said the captain. He was touching them on the screen, he stopped on the brightest one. “What do you hear at two-one-zero, the contact designated Sierra Two?”

There was a pause, and then Petty Officer Leer, the sonar supervisor, appeared at the door to control. What would normally be a five second walk took a minute as he unplugged his EAB, walked to them, and replugged in the manifold by the CODC in control, the look of concern evident even through his plastic mask. “These guys just came out of nowhere when we slowed. We’re effectively surrounded by them. Maybe a fishing fleet, maybe squid boats.”

“Distance?”

“I’ll need a TMA maneuver to be sure, but we can hear the screws turning, clear RPM counts — they’re close. Probably within two thousand yards. I thought I could hear chains rattling on one of them.”

“So fishing boats. Very close fishing boats.”

“That’s right.”

“Danny, give them a TMA maneuver.”

“Helm, right full rudder.”

“Right full rudder, aye sir! My rudder is right full.”

“Make your course zero-one-zero.”

“Make my course zero-one-zero, aye sir.” Leer took a deep breath, unplugged his mask, and trotted back to sonar.