Cold Choices

the torpedo room.

Cables and equipment clustered around a thick steel beam. Painted a bright green, the recovery arm was designed to fit in a twenty-one-inch-diameter torpedo tube, but just barely. Even though Seawolf’s tubes were larger, they had been sleeved to take the smaller weapons in the U.S. submarine inventory. While the tube was a little over twenty-three feet long, the arm actually expanded out to sixty feet when it was deployed outside the hull.

When a UUV returned to the sub, the recovery arm telescoped out of the uppermost starboard torpedo tube. It had a short-range acoustic homing beacon on the end that guided the underwater robot to within a few feet. Then the arm automatically grabbed the vehicle and lined it up with the torpedo tube below. Finally, it guided the UUV into the tube and retracted back into its own tube. It was as complicated as a Chinese puzzle and as easy to work on as a tax form.

Chief Johnson was directing some sort of activity while Palmer and Wolfe stood in one corner, flipping through tech manuals. Both officers looked up at the same time and saw Jerry. He hurried over to join them, but Wolfe started talking while Jerry was still a few steps away.

“It’s jammed halfway in.” Jerry’s heart sank. He didn’t bother asking how. Wolfe was already explaining.

“We interrupted the loading drill when the recovery arm showed a hydraulic leak. We found the problem and corrected it simply enough, but when we tried to re-stow the mechanism, it only slid part of the way in.

“As we pushed it back into the tube, it made a scraping noise — the kind of sound you don’t want precision machinery to make. When we tried to back it out and look for the cause, it made the same noise, only louder.”

“Did you ever see this on Memphis?” Palmer asked.

Jerry answered quickly, “No. Whenever we worked on the arm, it always went back in smoothly. But the retrieval system and procedures were a lot different since we used a tethered vehicle.”

“It’s like I said, it’s gotta be the tracks.” Palmer was insistent, but then added, “We’re screwed.”

“No we’re not,” Wolfe said firmly. “We’ll sort this out.” He turned to Jerry. “I’ve got Chief Johnson and the division locking it in place so it doesn’t move until we figure out what’s wrong.”

“Losing a vehicle would be bad enough, but losing the arm kills the entire mission. It’s the one thing we can’t replace or work around. We aren’t out even one day and this happens.” Palmer sounded like he was ready to go back to his stateroom and start packing his bags. Jerry thought he sounded frightened, worried more about his career than the jammed arm. Jerry was grateful that they were speaking softly.

“I said we’ll sort this out, and we will,” Wolfe repeated. “Now go make sure the arm can’t shift if we have to maneuver.”

While Palmer checked on the division’s progress, Wolfe said, “I was hoping you might have seen something like this on your last boat. We routinely pull it out for servicing, and the arm seems to work well. In the sea trials last week, we launched a vehicle and everything worked perfectly.”

Wolfe sighed, then asked Jerry, “Would you brief the XO? I know it’s my job, but I want to stay on top of this, and,” jerking his thumb in Palmer’s direction, “I’ve got to keep a lid on Palmer.”

“Okay.” Jerry nodded, and glanced at his watch to mark the time. “It’s been what, five minutes?”

Wolfe checked the clipboard. “Ten since we tried to re-stow the arm.”

“Yeah, it’s time to put the XO in the loop.” Jerry headed forward. He climbed the ladders between the two decks without even thinking about it, his mind trying to process the implications of a jammed recovery arm. He knocked on the XO’s door and heard, “Come.”

Lieutenant Commander Shimko was examining two forms, one in each hand, as if comparing signatures. As Jerry started to tell the XO about the problem, he methodically laid them back into a folder and placed the folder precisely on the corner of his desk.

He frowned as he heard the news, but nodded agreement when he heard Wolfe’s apology for not making the report personally. Jerry expected the XO to hurry down to the torpedo room, but instead he asked Jerry, “Is there any hazard to the boat?”

“No, sir.”

“Is there any need to change our course or depth?”

“Not at this time, sir.”

“And Mr. Wolfe and Mr. Palmer are both on task?”

“Yessir.”

“Then tell Mr. Wolfe I’ll be down there in a while. I’ll report to the Captain in the meantime. Thank you, Jerry.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

* * *

Jerry showed up in control at 1730 hours, half an hour before his watch started. He’d eaten an early dinner, in the first sitting. Not only did his rank allow him his pick of which sitting to use, a pending watch preempted everybody except the captain. It was a good meal — stuffed pork chops. Jerry savored the salad. The fresh vegetables would disappear after two weeks.

The captain or the XO couldn’t be in control all the time, so qualified officers stood watches as “officer of the deck” or “OOD.” Responsible for the operation of the sub when the captain wasn’t there, the OOD acted in the captain’s name. Any aspect of the ship that affected its operations was his responsibility. An OOD was expected to keep the sub out of trouble, deal quickly with any casualty, and if necessary, fight the boat until battle stations were manned. If there was time, he would notify the captain of developments, but he didn’t need the captain’s permission to act.

Lieutenant Commander Stan Lavoie had stood the noon-to-six watch in control, along with two chief petty officers and five enlisted men. Other officers and enlisted men stood watch elsewhere in the boat. The sonar displays were always manned, as was engineering, with almost twelve men tending the nuclear reactor and the engines. Others took care of the auxiliary machinery, located throughout the sub. About one-quarter of Seawolf’s 130-man crew was on watch at any one time. While the working day technically ended at dinnertime, the boat never slept.

Lavoie was waiting for Jerry, and had his briefing ready. While Jerry reviewed the ship’s course, speed, depth, and other information, the enlisted men on watch each passed information on to their reliefs, and then traded places, reporting to the chief of the watch, who also briefed his relief. Although somewhat crowded with twice the number of men it normally held, control remained quiet, the men speaking in low voices.

The chief of the watch reported to Lieutenant Commander Lavoie, “Sir, the watch has been relieved.”

“Very well, Chief. Thank you.”

Lavoie turned to Jerry. “I am ready to be relieved.”

Jerry responded formally, “I relieve you sir,” then said, “This is Lieutenant Mitchell, I have the deck and the conn.” Each of the enlisted operators acknowledged Jerry’s announcement that he was now in charge.

Jerry toured each of the enlisted men’s stations — conn, sonar, fire control, the chart table, and the rest. Everything was in order, as it should be when Seawolf was simply moving from Point A to Point B.

The captain had even suspended any drills until the UUV arm was unstuck. Normally after a boat went to sea, the XO ordered a flurry of emergency drills: fires, equipment failures, flooding, a simulated radiation leak. Those drills would still happen, but not until the weapons department solved their “little problem.” In the meantime, Jerry periodically updated the heading they’d need and the time it would take to reach New London, just in case the captain asked.

The quiet and lack of change wore away at Jerry’s alertness. He’d developed and enforced a routine, checking important displays every five minutes, and every display on the half hour. He paced the limited space, and thought up questions to ask himself.

Robinson did show up with the two junior electronics technicians. Although the extra bodies crowded everyone, he was glad for the activity, and to watch some of his men at work.

Halfway through the watch, Lieutenant Wolfe appeared, grinning widely. “War’s over,” he announced, almost euphoric. “The arm moves freely and appears undamaged.”

Jerry felt several bricks fall from his shoulders. The mission could continue. “How’d you fix it?”

“All it took was a bucket of bear grease, a crowbar, and Chief Johnson cursing a blue streak.” Wolfe grinned and Jerry could see the strain falling away. He felt it himself, and he wasn’t even responsible for the retrieval