Phoenix Sub Zero

But he’d been wrong that he’d be cheered up by the shower, he thought as he unzipped the poopysuit and slid Myra’s letter against the skin of his chest. The heaviness was still with him, just cleaned of its surface scum but as solid and substantial as ever. There was always one man who could cheer him up—Terry Betts, the torpedoman chief.

Betts should have finished lunch by then. Daminski left his stateroom and padded down the steps to the torpedo room two levels below, down in the belly of the forward compartment.

He walked into the aft end of The Room—the crew’s name for the space that was cavernous and open when empty of torpedoes and cramped and tight when the ship was loaded out. On this run, Augusta was carrying a full load.

Daminski walked down the narrow aisle between the weapon racks, running his crooked fingers along the flanks of a Mark 50 torpedo. The weapon was cool and shining in the bright lights of the room, her Astroturf green paint gleaming. Stencilled black letters near the tip read mk 50 mod alpha warshot ser 1178. Back over his shoulder Daminski could hear the sound of a man grunting with exertion as he lifted weights. The torpedo room was one of few spaces available for exercise, though the crew spent much of their spare time in their coffin-sized racks sleeping away the patrol. The more they slept, the shorter the run would seem.

Senior Chief Terry Betts sat on a cushioned bench at the forward bulkhead of the room at the torpedo local-control console. A two-liter bottle of Classic Coke was set in a special holder on the console; Betts sipped the soda from an Augusta coffee mug. He was a huge bear of a man, his gut protruding almost half the way to his knees. His thick fore arms stuck out of the rolled-up sleeves of his poopysuit, a custom-tailored one made to hold his tremendous frame.

Daminski smiled as he approached the grizzled chief.

“Terry. You’re awake. Something wrong?” Daminski’s face was suddenly alive with humor.

“Me? I heard you’d been down ever since the launch, there. Rocket.” Betts took a long pull on his Coke.

“That’s Captain Rocket to you. Senior Chief.” Daminski and Betts went back decades to the USS Dace, an old dinosaur Permit-class submarine when Daminski had been a green ensign torpedo officer and Betts had been the division’s first class petty officer. The two had always played squadron softball in the spring and football in the autumn as long as they were both stationed in Norfolk. Whenever Daminski was bored he liked to relive old games with Betts, bringing back the glory of that one perfect touchdown, or the time the softball had flown what seemed a quarter-mile away.

Daminski sat down next to Belts and let out a whoosh of breath, the feeling of heaviness sneaking into him in spite of Betts’s presence.

“We still looking at going home in three weeks, Cap’n?” Betts asked.

“I guess. Not that there’s much to come home to.”

Betts studied a Mark 50 torpedo on the central rack.

“Myra got another bug up her ass?”

“Worse than usual. This time she—”

A phone at Betts’s side whooped. Betts scooped up the handset, the black telephone dwarfed in his massive fist.

“Torpedo room. Betts … yeah, he’s here. Hold on.” Betts handed Daminski the phone. “Conn for you. Skipper.”

“Captain.”

“Off’sa’deck, sir. Request permission to come to periscope depth, sir.”

“Whatya got?”

The officer of the deck gave the ship’s course, speed, and depth and the distance to the surface-ship contacts being tracked. Satisfied that the ship wouldn’t collide with some rustbucket tanker bound for Naples, Daminski ordered the ship to periscope depth. The submarine would remain submerged, hiding under the cover of the waves, interacting with the world above only, extending the radio mast to listen to the satellite transmission of their radio messages, extending the periscope to avoid a collision. Daminski handed the phone back to Betts. Even as the big torpedoman chief reached over to replace the handset in its cradle, the deck inclined upward to a fifteen-degree angle as the O.O.D drove Augusta up toward the surface 500 feet overhead.

Betts asked again about Myra. Daminski thought about finishing the story, then thought better of it, dismissing the impending breakup of his marriage with a wave of his football-damaged hand.

“Hell with it, Terry. The real reason I came down is that you’re looking kind of wimpy these days. I think the fat’s gotten into your arms there. What do you say? Loser buys the keg.”

Betts stared down his nose at Daminski. Daminski was fond of frequenting the bars on the piers and arm-wrestling anyone who was foolish enough to take him on, but he had always had the intelligence never to challenge Betts.

“Captain, I will break your arm, and then you’ll bust me to third class.”

“Come on.”