'I know. It's a mob scene. Teenagers, family men, it's fun to sit with them all. Still, it stings to get yelled at, after everything I've been through with this ship…. It seems so childish. 'Go to your room.' `No TV for you tonight.' '
'The XO is teaching you to do your job. Part of your problem is you spend too much of your time with the senior officers.'
Ilse hesitated, then almost blushed when comprehension dawned. 'This way I get to know the chiefs and other ranks.'
'Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Adapt and learn. Fast as you can, is my advice. I said so once before.'
'I'm trying. The more I try, the worse it seems to get. I mean, not fitting in. The honeymoon is definitely over.' 'Poor baby.'
'Ouch.'
'What's the worst part of your punishment? Paper napkins instead of cloth when you eat?
Give me a break!'
'I guess you're right.' Kathy's tone had been sarcastic — was she pulling rank? 'I feel just awful about that security goof.'
'Good. You ought to. You could have gotten people killed. People who relied on you.' Ilse stayed silent.
'Well,' Kathy said, 'it's not all bad, as it turned out. At least not yet.'
'How so?'
'The crew felt simply horrible about leaving the Texas behind.'
'The XO said that.'
'At least, now they understand why.'
'The mission?'
'The captain and COB put the word out, after your gaffe. About the missile lab. Crew morale has skyrocketed. Didn't you notice?… No, I don't suppose you would…. People need to feel needed. They also need to know that fleet commanders do things for good reason.'
'Um, so everybody isn't totally mad at me?'
'Now who's being childish? We need all the morale boost we can get, where we're going.' Ilse settled into her rack, mentally numb. She fought with herself, then decided to ask. Kathy was the closest thing to a friend she had on the ship.
'Were you ever disciplined, Kathy?'
'I got my share of bollockings when I was starting out. It's hard to avoid. I told you once already, remember how little training you have for this. Learn from the experience, and put the ship always first, and move on.'
'I'll try'
'Try harder. The timeline of personal growth speeds up terribly during war. I sense we're covering the same ground as two days ago.'
'That did sting.'
'Success is not guaranteed,' Kathy said. 'You have to feel the calling. It's not for everyone.'
Yeah, Ilse thought, it's not for everyone. Let's see how far I get, one of a hundred twenty ants in a naval anthill, where I'm censured for breaking rules no one even mentioned.
'First thing after breakfast,' Kathy said officiously, 'we go over halocline-induced horizontal signal loss in the surface wave-mixed isothermal zone. With the shallow bottom and so many wrecks coming up, and the chin- mounted sonar unserviceable, you and I have our work cut out for us.'
'Yes, ma'am.' Ilse felt the ship slow down again, then bank to port, so the on-watch sonar techs could listen for hostile contacts yet again.
It all just never ends….
Kathy turned off her reading light, plunging Ilse into total darkness. Ilse waited, hesitated, then said, 'G'night, Kathy.'
But the only response was snoring. Ilse felt utterly alone, and cold beneath her blankets. PREDAWN, D DAY MINUS 3.
By 0415 local time Ilse was back in the CACC, as Challenger snuck into the English Channel. Ilse was busy integrating her updated version of the METOC data with the ship's latest readings of water temperature and salinity.
She glanced at the nay chart. Her modeling work was falling behind. While she slept, Challenger had climbed onto the European continental shelf. Already they were inside the western, widest part of the Channel proper.
Challenger favored the northern, English side, on Ilse's advice. In winter, the prevailing currents here ran east, helping gain precious minutes on the clock. Near the southern, French side of the Channel, because of the jutting Cotentin Peninsula, a gyre formed, and currents ran west.
Ilse saw Kathy watching as she studied once again an overlay of Commander, Submarines, Atlantic's latest data: friendly and enemy minefields in the Channel, Royal Navy safe corridors, and both sides' coastal antisubmarine obstructions. These were constraints that Ilse, as well as Challenger, would simply have to respect.
'Remember,' Kathy said, 'this is all several days old.' Ilse nodded. Submerged without trailing the floating wire antenna, they didn't have the baud rate to get a meaningful update through all the static and jamming, and they didn't have time to linger till they did get one. At least, Ilse told herself, the seawater blocking radio also shielded Challenger from most effects of solar storm disruption. The ship's magnetometers showed the storm was already starting: strength rating G2 on NASA's space-weather scale. 'Moderate.' G2 might or might not affect radar satellites and lowaltitude magnetic anomaly detection sensor probes. The surface wave-action showed the wind was from the west. This was good; warm air over cold water made fog. The fog would help hide Challenger's surface hump and Kelvin wake — both giveaways at the surface of her passage through shallow water — especially during the mid portion of her Channel run, which had to take place in daylight. Ilse ran more calculations. The sea was noisy, but not in the way she expected. The biologics were strangely quiet, even though this area should be good for mackerel, shrimp, and cod. The heavy peacetime shipping traffic had ceased. Instead, besides wind noise and rain and breaking whitecaps, the sonar sounds came mostly from the land, from coastal heavy industry, transmitted through the ground and into the water. England and occupied France, economies fully mobilized — of necessity or by force — were competing hard: to generate power, to dig in and harden surviving resources, and to make and transport materiel of war.
For now, the sounds of battle in the Channel were muted. For Ilse's conceivable future, Challenger had no friends. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, if the sub began to draw fire; a trigger-happy Allied vessel or plane might be the first to shoot. Ilse reminded herself what Jeffrey had said, that he counted on luck and surprise. That was all the crew could count on, besides each other and their training and the ship. Ilse began to understand what teamwork really meant.
She glanced around. The CACC was busy. Fire control technicians worked hard to update the tactical plot. A new passive bow sphere contact was announced, Sierra sixteen: a Russian trawler, exercising freedom-of- navigation rights in these international waters, no doubt eagerly spying on both sides. The trawler was noisy on purpose, and would be well lit, to broadcast its neutrality. Ilse called up the data. The trawler's closest point of approach to Challenger would be inside five thousand yards.
'Sonar, Oceanographer,' Lieutenant Bell said, 'give me best course to evade Sierra sixteen.' He had the conn.
'Recommend course one eight zero,' Ilse said. Due south, away from charted mines. ' That would bring us closer to the center of the current gyre. Eddies there make density cells, and chaotic Doppler.'
'Concur,' Kathy said.
Bell gave helm orders. Meltzer acknowledged and complied. Challenger turned. Ilse listened to Bell confer with Sessions.
'We're losing ground,' Bell said. 'We have to go faster or we'll miss the tide…. Helm, make turns for twenty knots.'
'Sir,' Kathy said, 'if we maintain that speed, as we get shallower we risk the propulsor cavitating.'
Just then Jeffrey came into the CACC, looking tired. Ilse realized he'd sensed the change in course and speed — assuming he'd actually been asleep.
Bell gave him a quick update.
