Crush Depth

Challenger would need to surface and radio for a tow back to the pens.

Jeffrey liked the tall and straight-talking Willey, who’d been with the ship on Challenger’s previous missions. Jeffrey understood the immense pressure Willey was under now — Jeffrey had been the engineer on a Los Angeles—class boat during his own department-head tour four years previously. There was no point in asking Willey to hurry. He was as aware as anyone else on board of the imminent danger of being run down by some civilian cargo vessel that didn’t even know Challenger was there.

After a lengthy and worry-filled wait that saw Jeffrey eye the chronometer often, the phone talker relayed briskly, “Maneuvering reports ready to answer all bells.”

Jeffrey wasn’t much of a churchgoer, but he said a heartfelt prayer. He was about to find out, all at once, if the steam pipes and the condensors, the main turbogenerators and the big electric motors attached to the shaft, and the repaired pump-jet propulsor at the back of the boat really worked. There’d been no time to test the power train the proper way, tied up at a pier.

This is one hell of a way to begin the patrol, waiting step by step for a part of the ship to fall off.

If our pump jet doesn’t turn, we go right back into dry dock… and Voortrekker goes wherever Jan ter Horst wants.

Jeffrey’s heart pounded, but he also felt a nice silvery tingling anticipation in his chest. He paused, savoring the moment. He was about to give his first engine order as USS Challenger’s official commanding officer.

“Helm, ahead one-third.” Challenger started to move.

TWELVE

A few hours later, on Challenger, under way at sea

Challenger was past the edge of the continental shelf, submerged in very deep water. The crew had been sent to a hearty breakfast of nourishing hot food, with several choices of entrees, and now was settling in to the watch-keeping routines of being under way at sea.

Jeffrey sat alone at the desk in his stateroom. As usual, he kept the door open while he worked. In the control room, only a few feet up the corridor, a talented junior officer from engineering had the conn. Bell, in Jeffrey’s absence, was command duty officer, Jeffrey’s surrogate there. In a few more minutes Bell would turn in for badly needed sleep.

Jeffrey was a bit exhausted himself. His eyes burned. He knew they were bloodshot. His whole body felt wired, from lack of rest combined with too much adrenaline now growing stale.

Jeffrey was finishing paperwork, since the basic engineering tests were mostly complete. The ship had held up well enough as they gradually descended to test depth, ten thousand feet — two-thirds of their crush depth, which nominally was fifteen thousand. The problems discovered along the way were mostly small. They were resolved by isolating minor equipment, or bypassing sections of pipe.

The one potentially serious glitch was in the torpedo room. Several thousand feet down, during trials with seawater in the tubes at ambient pressure of more than a ton for each square inch, firing mechanism components failed in all four available tubes. COB and the weapons officer, aided by some of the contractors, had men working to install replacement parts from Challenger’s spares. This would take a while, but Jeffrey wasn’t overly worried. Though the weapons officer was inexperienced, COB was very good at getting things done. Besides, Jeffrey didn’t expect to need to shoot torpedoes very soon.

A messenger knocked on the doorjamb. Jeffrey looked up. The awkward youngster asked Jeffrey to go to the commodore’s office — Wilson had taken over the executive officer’s stateroom. Jeffrey’s navigator, Lieutenant Sessions, was with the messenger.

When Jeffrey and Sessions arrived, Wilson rose to greet them curtly. Jeffrey was still getting used to Wilson’s reading glasses and stubble of beard. Jeffrey thought they made Wilson look professorial. Yeah, that type of hard-hearted slave-driving prof who’d always get the best out of you, and break you if you disappointed him once.

“Sit down, both of you.”

Jeffrey took the guest chair. Sessions perched on a filing cabinet.

“Captain,” Wilson said to Jeffrey, “as commodore of a battle group I require a staff.”

“Sir?”

“I want you to double as my operations officer, and Sessions here as my executive assistant…. I don’t need a separate communications officer, I’ll borrow yours as necessary.”

“Yes, Commodore.” Jeffrey glanced at Sessions. Sessions nodded.

“I want your XO and Sessions to trade racks for the duration of this cruise. That way Sessions and I can work together in here more closely. I’ll keep to Lieutenant Sessions’s watch schedule for now, so he and I will sleep at the same time.” The XO’s stateroom had an extra rack — bunk — usually reserved for a VIP rider such as an admiral, or members of Congress.

“I’ll inform Commander Bell,” Jeffrey said. “I’m sure it won’t be a problem.”

“I’m quite sure it won’t be a problem.”

“Yes, sir.” By long naval tradition, not even the president of the United States could displace a warship’s captain from his stateroom. The captain, on his own ship, was supreme.

But I can see already having Wilson here as more than just an observer is going to be tricky, Jeffrey told himself. Where exactly does my authority end, and his begin? Where will the dividing line fall when we meet the Australian diesels days from now, and Wilson’s undersea battle group becomes an untested reality?

“If I may ask, Commodore, which route do you want us to follow to the Pacific?”

“South.”

Jeffrey glanced at Sessions, as a cue; Jeffrey let Sessions speak for himself.

“We propose to hide in the Gulf Stream, Commodore, at least until we’re past the Bahamas. Lieutenant Milgrom feels the confused sonar conditions in the stream will help conceal us.”

“Good. I leave the details to you to work out…. Captain, I want the ship to go faster.”

“How fast, Commodore?”

“Make flank speed until I say otherwise.”

“Flank speed, Commodore?” For Challenger, that was over fifty knots. Challenger was extremely quiet, but at flank speed any sub was noisy.

Wilson looked impatiently at Jeffrey. “Flank speed, Captain. I expect you to use local sonar conditions, and ship’s depth versus bottom terrain, to prevent our signature from carrying into the deep sound channel.”

“Understood.” If Challenger’s noise did leak into that acoustic superconducting layer in the deep ocean, it could be picked up on the far side of the Atlantic — the German side. Jeffrey didn’t like this, but what was his alternative?

“That’s all.”

Jeffrey and Sessions got up.

“Lieutenant, you stay here. We have things to discuss. Have your assistant navigator take over in the control room.”

Sessions acknowledged.

Jeffrey, in the doorway, turned back to Wilson. “Sir, Commodore, I have a concern.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“At flank speed we’re almost totally sonar-blind. We could get into trouble.”

“The route south has been sanitized for us by other forces, and will continue to be. You need to remind yourself that undersea warfare is a team sport, Commander Fuller…. If we stick to the