Piranha: Firing Point

The backseater stood and lowered himself down the ladder and removed his helmet. Patton blinked — it was Byron Demeers.

“What are you doing here?” Patton asked.

“What are we doing here?”

“Sirs, the staff car is waiting,” Patton’s pilot said. He thanked the young lieutenant, handed back the flight helmet, and climbed into the car. Soon they were speeding along an empty road. They passed several guarded checkpoints to a small pier head, where the car screeched to a halt.

A female civilian was waiting for them and she pointed to the boat tied up at the small pier.

“Where are we going?” Patton asked. The woman just looked at him, motioning to the boat. He shook his head and climbed in after Demeers.

The boat bounced over the water in the East Lock, past Ford Island, out to the main channel and into the Pacific. Patton raised an eyebrow at Demeers, who just shrugged.

The boat ride seemed to last forever, but was perhaps only an hour long. By the time the coxswain throttled down, Patton’s back was aching from the pounding of the waves. He stood, joining the coxswain on the helm platform, and looked out over the water.

“I don’t believe this,” he mumbled. As Demeers joined him on the helm platform, his jaw dropped, too.

A few hundred yards ahead was an oceangoing tug pulling a huge garbage barge, piled forty feet high with trash, drawing a mob of circling seagulls. The rotting garbage stank, the horrible smell of it rolling across the water and invading Patton’s nostrils.

“So this is our punishment,” Demeers said. “Driving a garbage tug.” “It’s worse,” Patton said. “They’re not pulling up to the tug. They’re bringing us to the barge itself.” “I knew I should have listened to Mother,” Demeers said. “She wanted me to stay on the farm.” “What the…” Patton said.

Where the coxswain had tossed over his line to the barge, a piece of scrap plywood moved aside and a man in coveralls stepped out. He grabbed Patton by the arm and pulled him inside. Rapidly he returned for Demeers.

But stranger than the barge, the man coming from nowhere, the tunnel under the garbage, was what the man in coveralls said when he reached the hatch. The man found a microphone, clicked the speak button, and said, “Devilfish, arriving!” That was the announcement made when a ship’s captain crossed the gangway to the ship. Mystified, Patton looked down the hatch. The ladder led to a deck some fifteen feet below, and the smell coming from within was unmistakable. That odd combination of diesel fuel, lubricating oil, ozone, cooking grease, sweat, amines, and non-contaminating floor wax was unique to one vessel — a nuclear submarine.

Patton looked over at Demeers, then back down the hatch, then at the man in coveralls.

“Go on, sir,” the man said. “And welcome aboard the Devilfish, Captain.” “Why did you call me that?” Patton asked.

“Well, sir, because I always call the commanding officer ‘captain.’ Is there a problem, sir?” The man seemed genuine, not understanding Patton’s confusion.

“Of course not,” Patton said, glancing at Demeers. “I always walk onto garbage barges and take command of the submarine underneath. Down ladder!” he said, lowering himself down, Demeers following him.

Once they were down, the sentry started laughing until his belly hurt. They’d had a lottery to see who’d get to admit the captain. It had been worth every second.

At the bottom of the ladder, Patton found a crowd, officers and chiefs lining an immaculate wood-paneled passageway, all at attention, a chief blowing a bosun’s whistle, something out of a square-rigger navy movie.

Patton looked at the men in their khaki uniforms, his head spinning. Then he heard a familiar voice, the voice of the man who had made his career: “Welcome aboard the USS Devilfish, Captain Patton.

Are you ready to take command of the first ship of the SSNX-class?”

Slowly Patton pivoted to look at the tanned, white-haired admiral. A smile came to his lips as his heels snapped together, his body becoming upright, the salute stiff at his forehead. Pacino waved a return salute, then reached out to shake his hand. The admiral’s grip was fierce and tight, and Patton returned it.

“Admiral. Sir. It’s good to see you.” “Blood and Guts John Patton,” Pacino said, his smile growing even wider. “It’s damned good to see you again.

We here, all of us, cheered when the news came in that you’d survived. Are you hurt, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, sir, physically anyway. But I lost—”

“Don’t worry about that, John,” Pacino said quickly.

“Not now. We’re here for the change-of-command ceremony.

Gentlemen, attention to orders.” Pacino pulled out a single sheet from his coverall pocket and handed it to Patton. “Captain, you may read your orders.”