Seas of Crisis

To the on-watch junior officer of the deck who met them first, they presented orders that listed no names, then gave him the sealed orders pouch for Commander Fuller to put in his safe.

“Dashiyn Nyurba,” Jeffrey said, slowly and carefully. “Tell him I opened the outer pouch early, and we’re ready to meet.”

Jeffrey didn’t know which one of the five was this Nyurba. The group had kept very much to themselves. Because enclosed gathering places were in short supply, they held long meetings, barred to outsiders, in a small compartment crammed with ship’s computer equipment. They worked out on the ship’s exercise gear when the fewest crew members were around — well after midnight. They slept in enlisted racks on a lower deck, they wordlessly wolfed down meals in the enlisted mess in a booth they would commandeer for barely ten minutes without any mingling, and they seemed to avoid Jeffrey altogether. The crew accepted such behavior, being used to CIA agents and other “spooks” who’d act this way for whole deployments.

“Er, could you spell that name please, Captain?”

Jeffrey did. “I want him to join us half an hour after the XO and Nav get here.” Dinner had already been served in the wardroom — where Jeffrey and his ten officers ate — and in the enlisted mess — where the ship’s fourteen chiefs also ate, by shifts, in a six-man booth unofficially reserved for them. The whole crew numbered one hundred twenty, which created endless overcrowding. Her weapons stocks fully replenished in Australia, sleeping racks were precluded in the huge torpedo room.

Jeffrey stopped. He’d noticed that he was still thinking too much like a submarine captain, and not like an undersea strike group commodore should. The transition would not be smooth sailing for Jeffrey — or for Bell.

He wished to be hospitable to Nyurba, whom he knew now was seniormost among his guests.

“Have the mess management guys provide us with coffee service for four. And some danish, cookies, whatever they got, warmed a bit, preferably. Time it for when Nyurba gets here.”

The messenger repeated this, Jeffrey nodded, and he left.

Using his dressing mirror, Jeffrey undid his commander’s silver oak leaves from his collar points, replacing them with his new eagles. The sweet irony wasn’t lost that he’d vacate this captain’s stateroom a lot sooner than he ever expected.

Sessions was first to arrive. His shirt was neatly tucked into his slacks, and his hair was nicely combed, because of the unexplained summons to see his captain. Jeffrey knew this wouldn’t last long, Sessions being Sessions.

“Have a seat,” Jeffrey told him, deadpan, watching Sessions react with a jolt when he noticed the different collar tabs.

“Are congratulations in order, Captain?”

“Yes indeed, but hold that thought till the XO gets here.” Jeffrey was enjoying himself. Celebratory occasions of this magnitude didn’t happen often, and he wanted to savor each moment: the one thing more satisfying that being promoted, as a naval officer, was informing one of your people that he or she had received their own well- earned promotion.

Someone knocked. Bell came in, took the empty guest chair, and did a double-take.

Jeffrey stood. “I won’t mince words. Lieutenant Commander Bell, by an act of the United States Senate you’ve been promoted to Commander. And Lieutenant Sessions, you are now Lieutenant Commander Sessions. Put on the appropriate insignia.”

Bell, a bit wide-eyed, removed his gold oak leaves and gave them to Sessions, then picked up the silver oak leaves from Jeffrey’s desk and put them on.

Sessions, never outwardly competitive or demonstrative in his ambitions, donned the gold oak leaves of a lieutenant commander. He held his two old twin-silver-bar lieutenant collar tabs in his hand and stared at them dumbfoundedly.

Jeffrey couldn’t hold it in anymore. He cracked into a big smile. “I want to do the change of command ASAP, then hold an award ceremony in the morning…. Make it at zero-six-hundred, right after breakfast. Enough of the crew should be awake and off watch, to participate. The PUC award.”

“Sir?” Now it was Bell who sat dumbfounded.

Jeffrey cleared his throat for dramatic effect. “We aren’t going home for a while after all. You’re taking Challenger, permanently, and the Nav here is being made the XO. You’ll both be under me as part of a two-ship undersea strike group that shall form up with USS Jimmy Carter once we reach the Beaufort Sea. In my role as strike group commander, I’ll present the Presidential Unit Citation, with you as the recipient unit’s, Challenger’s, skipper. It’s classified, so no gold stars on top of the one we have, but I’d say, coming from our commander in chief, it’s the thought that counts.”

“Certainly, Captain.”

“Challenger is to be my strike-group flagship at all times, for reasons my orders say will be obvious later. Commander Bell, since you’ll take over this stateroom as skipper, and Lieutenant Commander Sessions will shift from his officers’ three-man stateroom to the XO quarters next door, I’ll use the VIP rack and make my office in there.” It was standard on American subs for the XO stateroom to have a fold-down second rack for VIP passengers. By Navy custom, not even the President of the United States could displace a naval vessel’s captain. “Yes, that part’s straightforward enough…. Concur?”

“Concur,” Bell said.

“We already know certain tactical doctrine and acoustic-link signals for working with another American nuclear sub.”

Bell and Sessions nodded.

“We’ve tons to discuss re Challenger getting through the Bering Strait unobserved by our Russky friends.”

“Sirs?” Sessions asked. “Who’s the new Navigator?”

“Promotion to lieutenant came through for Lieutenant Junior Grade Meltzer. You can give him those railroad tracks.” Slang for a navy lieutenant’s insignia. “My final act as commanding officer of Challenger is to decide to make Meltzer the Navigator. My first act as strike group commodore will be to appoint him my part-time executive assistant.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” Sessions said.

“As XO, your first act can be to tell him.”

“Yessir!”

Jeffrey fixed his gaze on Bell, and became more officious. “I want to make the changeover right away. You’ve completed your daily walkaround of my submarine?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“You’re satisfied enough with her material condition and crew competence to sign off on that, this minute?”

“Er, of course, sir.”

Jeffrey brought up a form on his computer touch screen, then rotated it to face Bell. “There’s the stylus. Render your electronic signature in the places indicated, please.”

Bell kept scrolling down the screen, signing at each point required until he got to the end. “Sir, I am ready to relieve you as commanding officer of USS Challenger.”

“Very well. Commander Bell, I am ready to be relieved.”

“I relieve you, sir.”

“I stand relieved. Congratulations, Captain,” Jeffrey said, shaking Bell’s hand. “XO, you too.” He shook Sessions’s hand.

Sessions beamed. “I wish I could tell my folks.”

“You will, after we carry out compelling business.”

Someone else knocked. “Speaking of which,” Jeffrey said half under his breath. “Enter!”

A tall and muscular man in his early thirties came in. His features and complexion were Asian, maybe Mongolian. By the fierceness in his eyes, the tough set of his lips below a jet-black mustache, and the unmistakable coiled strength in his presence as he merely stood there, Jeffrey thought he resembled a latter-day Genghis Khan.

“Commander Nyurba, CEC, I presume?” CEC meant the Navy’s Civil Engineer Corps, officers with advanced