Piranha: Firing Point

Paully White’s voice intruded finally, the captain having to yell to get through Pacino’s deep concentration.

“What is it, Paully?”

“Emmitt Stephens, sir.”

“Bring him in.”

Pacino checked his watch. It was 0600 local time, and he had wanted to set sail by now, but gathering the crew on such short notice had been a problem. It was one of Pacino’s tactical problems: how late the SSNX could leave and still manage to arrive in the op area of the East China Sea at the same time as the Piranha, the second half of the pincers he intended to clamp around the Red Force.

Pacino stood to greet Stephens. With his gray hair hanging over his ears, he looked sweaty and exhausted.

“I wanted to give you the news in person. Admiral,” he puffed. “The reactor’s critical, and we’re heating up now, emergency rates. We should be bringing steam into the engine room in an hour.”

“Excellent, Emmitt.” Pacino clapped the older man on the shoulder, and Stephens smiled slightly. “How was it?”

“Goddamned hairy, sir.”

“Well, let’s start the engines of the tug, order them revved up. I want them loud, because once their engines are on, I want you to start the emergency diesel. Warm it up slow, but get it on-line using the DC electrical end.

When it’s warm, put it on the DC bus and divorce the SSNX from shore power. We’ll finish the reactor startup on the diesel in the Pacific.”

Pacino expected the usual protest at the gross violation of fleet procedures, but Stephens just nodded and repeated back the instructions.

“And, Emitt, did I mention that you’ll be going with us as chief engineer?”

“Gee, Admiral, that must have slipped your mind.”

“Hope you have a spare set of underwear.”

“Admiral, you’re getting predictable in your old age. I packed a bag.”

Pacino smiled. “Start the diesel, Eng.”

As the stateroom door shut behind Stephens, Pacino found Paully staring at him. “What?”

“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you? You’re in your element.” It almost sounded like an accusation. Or maybe that was just Pacino’s take, because it was true, he felt alive again. The flurry of orders was coming naturally into his mind and out of his mouth, his men and machines moving to the beat of his conductor’s baton.

Paully was dead right, he did love it. He’d had a brief taste of this during the Japanese blockade, and it had seemed to define him. For the first time in years he realized that he no longer missed commanding a submarine, that he no longer felt the emptiness inside him since Seawolf had gone down. The void of submarine command had been filled by fleet command, and he couldn’t — didn’t even want to — go back. But if he was wrapped up in the intricacy of commanding a fleet, he also couldn’t escape feeling guilt. Guilt at feeling good, when he had no right, no right at all, Eileen still quiet in her grave on the other side of the world, leaving a jagged and bloody hole in his life that would never be filled.

Yet a half million American lives and a billion Chinese lives depended on his next decisions, and it occurred to him that he owed it to those people to release the grief, to get on with his life, even if that meant saying good-bye to Eileen’s memory. He felt her for just a fleeting moment, and what he sensed was not anger at him but a sort of encouragement.

Pacino narrowed his eyes at White. “I love it, Paully, every second of it. Now, where’s Tanaka? I still need to talk to him.”

“Joanna?” White called into the passageway. “Hold on, sir.” He vanished for a moment, then came back with an odd look on his face. He was holding a bulky envelope in his hands. “Joanna said he’s gone. He left this.” “Get her in here,” Pacino said slowly, a pang of anxiety running through his gut. He opened the envelope and found a note and a pile of data disks.

“Sir?” Joanna said.

“Tanaka?” “He gave me that envelope on the pier and said he had to go.”

“Did you explain this isn’t really a garbage barge?” “Yessir,” Joanna said in annoyance. “He just said it wasn’t right. He was really upset — he made it all the way to the hatch and got all teary. I think he was embarrassed that a woman saw him that way.”

Pacino read the note. Paully waited, an eyebrow cocked.

“Says he can’t go,” Pacino said, reading. Tanaka had written that he couldn’t go to sea and put his own submarine fleet on the bottom, even if it had fallen into the hands of an enemy. The last lines said it all: he had dedicated the Rising Sun class to the memory of his dead son, who had gone down under fire from one of the USS Piranha’s Vortex missiles. Shooting down a Rising Sun would be like having his son die all over again.

Suddenly Pacino had a new window into death and grieving, and he felt for the older admiral with the dead son. Pacino folded the letter, putting it slowly into his breast pocket. As he glanced at the disks, he noticed a second note taped to them. That note was more official: