Dangerous Ground

the ROV control area.

Emily sat down at the control and display pallet and powered up the computer systems. Jerry looked around the space as she went through the initial system checks. He focused on the two ROVs in their support cradles and his eye caught the stenciled H and D on the vehicles. He asked, “Emily, I have a question for you. What do the ‘H’ and ‘D’ stand for on the ROVs?”

“Oh, that’s just my way of telling them apart. The ‘H’ stands for Huey and the ‘D’ stands for Duey.”

Jerry just stood there and stared. The quizzical look on his face made Emily chuckle.

“You mean to tell me you named those two vehicles after Donald Duck’s nephews?”

“Ahh, well, uh. yes.. and no,” answered Emily, whose face started to blush.

“Okay, that was as clear as mud,” replied Jerry sarcastically. “C’mon, what do the letters really stand for?”

“I told you,” said Emily defensively. “My babies are named after two of the maintenance robots from the 1971 science fiction movie Silent Running. The robots were named after Donald’s nephews.”

“Silent Running.?” asked a befuddled Jerry. “Isn’t that a submarine movie?”

“Oh, no! It’s classic sci-fi!” Emily’s face brightened, and she became more animated as she described the movie to Jerry. “There were these three spaceships carrying the last existing forests in domes, awaiting the message to return to Earth and renew the world following a devastating nuclear war. And on each ship there were three maintenance robots, and on the Valley Forge the three robots were named Huey, Duey, and Louie.”

Jerry could only stare in utter amazement as Emily just kept babbling on about this movie. She had the same unrestrained zeal for science fiction that his sisters had for shoes, jewelry, and boys. Jerry was now absolutely convinced that Emily Davis was a geek, a nerd — another brilliant engineer who didn’t appear to have a life. She went on for ten more minutes and finally concluded by describing how the tragic hero kills himself with a nuclear bomb. “It’s a wonderful movie with lots of depth and emotion all tied together in a futuristic spaceship motif. You really should see it sometime.”

“Let me get this straight,” Jerry said with deep concern in his voice. “Your favorite movie is about a ship. It has two robots named Huey and Duey. The movie has an environmental theme to it. Its title is Silent Running, which is something we will probably be doing a lot of. And at end, the hero is killed by a nuke. Are you trying to tell me something here?”

“What?” It was now Emily’s turn to be confused. But after a few moments, her eyes widened, her mouth dropped, and she sputtered, “Oh. Oh! No, no, I didn’t mean anything like that at all, Jerry!”

“Good! I’m glad to hear it, because I don’t like your ending.” Both of them laughed over Jerry’s response. The sound was so loud that all of the torpedomen stopped and looked over at the two of them. Foster had absolute disdain on his face.

Before Jerry could explain, the IMC announced, “Man ROV launch stations.”

Pulling himself together, Jerry looked over at Foster and ordered, “Senior Chief, please start loading Huey into tube three.”

Perplexed, Foster replied, “Excuse me, sir?”

“The ROV with the ‘H’ on it, that’s Huey. Please load it into tube three.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Foster said coldly.

Foster turned and signaled TM1 Moran, who opened the breech door for tube three remotely from the weapons launching console. Greer then inspected the tube with a flashlight, while Foster and the other torpedomen positioned the loading tray with the ROV so it lined up with tube three. The hydraulic rammer was connected, and Huey was slowly pushed into the tube, stern first and upside down. Emily showed the torpedomen how to thread the fiber-optic cable through the small penetration in the breech door and made sure there was enough slack so the cable could be hooked up to the connection box on the inboard side of the tube.

Foster and Lee then attached the deployment drogue to the nose probe on the ROV and slipped the retrieval cable through a larger breech door penetration and attached it to the drogue body. Finally a breech support ring was installed in the tube, which firmly secured the ROV and would prevent it from moving inadvertently. After the loading had been finished, Emily and Jerry inspected the ROV to make sure everything was in order. For Jerry, this was more of a quick course on what to look for when double-checking to see that a ROV had been loaded properly.

Satisfied that everything was correct, Emily asked Moran to shut and lock the breech door. She then took the fiber-optic cable, crimped on a connector, and hooked it up to the connection box. While the loading process went well, it still took twenty minutes to complete and it was clear from the torpedo room phone talker that the Captain was getting impatient.

Jerry and Emily hurried back over to the control pallet, and while Jerry put on his headset, Emily brought Huey to life. After a quick diagnostic check, she informed Jerry that everything was functioning normally and that Huey was ready to go. Jerry then reported to the control room, “Control, U-bay. ROV has been loaded and tested. Test satisfactory. Request permission to flood tube three, equalize to sea pressure, and open the outer door.”

The Chief of the Watch in control acknowledged the request and relayed it on to the OOD, who in turn asked the Captain. It didn’t take long before “Permission granted” was passed back to Jerry. Looking over toward Moran, Jerry called out in a loud voice, “Launcher, flood tube three, equalize to sea pressure, and open the outer door.”

“Flood tube three, equalize to sea pressure, and open the outer door, aye, sir,” replied Moran.

Looking back down at the checklist, Jerry marked off the step with a grease pencil. He then looked at the ship’s speed, the digital display read five knots, and he requested control to slow to two knots — bare steerageway.

“Sir, tube three outer door open,” reported Moran.

“Very well,” said Jerry. Now all they had to wait for was for Memphis to slow down enough so that the ROV could leave the tube without damaging itself in the process. It took a few minutes, but as soon as the speed indicator read two knots, Jerry contacted control again.

“Control, U-bay. Tube three outer door is open, all launch conditions have been met. Request permission to launch the ROV.”

As Jerry was waiting for permission from control, Dr. Patterson walked into the back of the torpedo room. He waved her over and offered her his chair. Jerry was surprised to hear her say, “Thank you.”

Control relayed the Captain’s permission, and Jerry looked over at TM2 Boyd at the winch controls. “Winch operator, release the brake.”

“Release the brake, aye. Sir, the brake is released,” said Boyd.

“Very Well.” Jerry then turned to Emily and said, “It’s your show now, Dr. Davis. Launch Huey.”

“Right. Engaging thruster,” she said.

“Louder, Emily. Everyone has to hear you,” chided Jerry.

“Engaging thruster,” repeated Emily in a louder voice.

“Cable paying out,” reported Boyd.

“Very well,” acknowledged Jerry.

The display console showed Huey slowly backing out of the tube. Once clear of the submarine’s hull, the ROV swung around in a lazy arc, righting itself, and assumed a position twenty feet below Memphis.

Emily announced that Huey was in the tow position. This was confirmed by Boyd, who reported that the cable was holding. Jerry then ordered the winch brake engaged and informed control that they were ready to begin the tow test. Slowly but steadily, Memphis increased speed from two to eight knots. At each half-knot increment, Boyd reported the tension on the cable. The stresses were within the specifications provided by Draper Labs. With the tow test completed, Jerry requested that the boat’s speed be reduced to five knots in preparation for the next phase of the trials.

While Memphis was slowing down, Seaman Jobin noticed that some water drops were coming from the fiber optic penetration in the breech door. Surprised, he called out to Emily, “Doctor Davis, ma’am, there are some drops of water leaking from the fiber-optic penetration in the door. Is it supposed to do that?”