Terminal Run

Pacino replaced the microphone in the cradle and looked up to ten pairs of doubting eyes. Vickerson turned and looked at him, biting her lower lip.

“Captain, two hundred feet, sir.”

“Very well.” Pacino stood straight on the conn, glaring at the depth gauge.

“Two fifty, sir.” Vickerson swallowed. “All stations report ship rigged for deep submergence, sir.”

“Very well.” On every level of every space, phone talkers would prowl with flashlights, hoping to find a leak before the ship flooded catastrophically. The difference was critical, as the old submarine saying went — you find a leak, flooding finds you.

“Three hundred feet, sir.”

“Proceed to test depth, Officer of the Deck, thirteen hundred feet.”

“Thirteen hundred feet, aye, sir. Ship is at all ahead standard.”

“All ahead full,” Pacino ordered, knowing that full speed at test depth violated the ship’s operating envelope, since a jam dive at full speed would send them plunging through crush depth before they could recover.

“Full, aye, Captain,” Vickerson replied. Pacino smiled to himself — she was beginning to learn. It was obviously harder for Vermeers, who stood there with beads of sweat on his forehead.

“Five hundred feet, sir.”

The ship kept plowing deeper, until a loud groaning shriek sounded from above the control room, making Vermeers jump. “It’s just the hull adjusting to the pressure, XO,” Pacino said.

“I know that, sir,” Vermeers said. “I’m wearing dolphins.”

Pacino glared at the depth gauge.

“One thousand feet, sir.”

The phone on the command console buzzed. Vickerson lunged for it, looking up to say, “Torpedo room reports a leak on tube three’s inner door, sir. Leak is dripping, but increasing to a steady drip.”

Pacino nodded as if it were good news. “Very well.”

“Aren’t you taking us up, sir?” Vermeers asked.

Pacino glared at him.

“Eleven hundred feet, Captain.”

The hull shrieked again, a loud series of pops roaring from left to right and echoing in the depths of the seas. Vermeers tried to maintain a war face, but it was not easy for the young officer.

“Twelve hundred feet, Captain.”

The phone buzzed again. Vickerson listened. “Sir, tube three leak is now streaming.”

Pacino nodded, glancing at Vermeers, who nodded in imitation.

“Thirteen hundred feet, Captain,” Vickerson reported. “Tube three leak is streaming so hard the water is hitting the deck twenty feet away, sir.”

“Cycle tube three’s outer door,” Pacino ordered. “And all ahead flank.”

Vermeers’s face looked white even in the red-lit room. If full speed were dangerous at test depth, flank was suicidal. Especially before the ship had undergone sea trials. The deck below Pacino’s feet began to tremble as the ship sped up to flank speed.

“Aye, sir, opening outer door, tube three, door open, and shutting outer door.”

Pacino waited.

“Sir, tube three leak is down to a slow drip.”

“Very well. Offsa’deck, take the ship to five four eight feet, thirty degree up angle.”

The deck rose steeply. In the upper level, the sound of dishes breaking in the galley could be heard, several crashes of books and equipment sounding from the middle level. The crashing had barely stopped when the deck leveled out.

“XO,” Pacino said dryly, “I think you could do a better job stowing for sea. Should I take a few more angles, or do you think you can identify and fix the problems?”

“I’ll take care of it, sir.”

“OOD, I want you to increase speed slowly—”

“Sir, we’re already at flank—”

“—by coordinating with maneuvering and raising reactor power one percent at a time until you get a main lube oil bearing discharge over-temperature alarm, then back down one percent, which will be the emergency flank setting. Make sure the engineering officer of the watch has all main lube oil cooler balance valves fully open before you start.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” Vickerson said, more calmly this time as she hoisted a phone.

“You know you’ll ruin the reactor and make the ship a high radiation area by going above one hundred percent power, Captain,” Vermeers said. “We’ll be back in the shipyard for two years if you go over a hundred and ten percent.”

“I’m well aware of that, XO, just as I am that the Snare is out there spinning up twelve cruise missiles.”

Pacino stood on the conn, feeling the deck of the Devilfish shaking, waiting until he could get to the intercept point with the Snare.

The president of Cyclops Systems Incorporated, Colleen O’Shaughnessy Pacino, had designed the current generation of submerged battle control systems since the SSNX had first gone to sea, a soaring success for both Colleen and Michael Pacino since Cyclops got a bigger, more lucrative contract and they had gotten married. But the good times were in the past, since now Colleen Pacino was about to answer to Congress for the failed Tigershark torpedo program. That had been her biggest problem until, twenty hours ago, her husband had told her about the nightmare with Anthony Michael.

“Of course I’ll go,” she had said, as she sat up in the bed and swept her raven-black hair out of her face.