Polaris (28 page)

“Now!”
he said.

The driver slammed on the brakes, and the truck skidded to a halt, going completely sideways. They sat for one pregnant moment, and then the drone crashed directly on the stretch of road in front of them, right outside the driver's side window. There was no explosion, as the drone carried no fuel. Just sparks and the concussion.

They waited a moment, made sure there were no more blips on the screen, and then all three men got out to look at the wreckage.

Debris was scattered everywhere, centered on a small crater the drone had created in the asphalt. None of the pieces had any kind of markings or identification on them. Both sergeants took pictures. It was the closest Pete had been to a drone since leaving Eris Island. After a few minutes of catching their breath and walking around the wreckage, they got back into the truck without a word.

The driver drove slowly around it, into the median, to avoid the destruction.

The soldier in the passenger seat was the first to speak. “Those things are bigger than I thought.”

*   *   *

“We're almost there,” said the driver. They'd driven about another hour since the drone attack and were approaching the submarine base. They'd slowed down to an almost leisurely pace to make the rendezvous at the exact right time, which seemed painfully slow after their brief one-hundred-mile-per-hour sprint.

The soldier in the passenger seat turned and shook Pete's hand. “We're not going to hang around after we drop you off, I'm afraid, so let's say goodbye now.”

Pete took his hand.

Suddenly they were at the head of the dock. They exchanged documents with two men in a machine gun nest that was topped by a heavily camouflaged metal shield. He waved them on and then ducked back below his cover after a quick survey of the sky.

“Go,” they said to Pete. “Good luck.”

He jumped out of the vehicle with his seabag, and as soon as he did, his companions sped away inland, as fast as they could drive.

Pete looked around. The soldier in the machine gun nest was deep inside his shelter, invisible.

“Is there a submarine around here somewhere?” Pete yelled toward him.

“That way,” said the soldier. His hand appeared out of the shadows, and pointed down the pier.

Pete didn't see a submarine, but he started walking in that direction anyway.

*   *   *

After a few minutes it came into sight, a dark shape emerging from the ocean. When he got to it, the brow and a single set of lines were the only things that connected the vessel to shore. Water still dripped from the dark steel of its hull; Pete got the impression that it had surfaced just moments before his arrival. A man waited for him topside, in a full captain's uniform.

“Welcome aboard,” he said.

“I'm happy to be here,” said Pete, extending his hand. The captain was wearing regular Navy ribbons; Pete thought he probably wanted him to notice that.

“I'm Captain Finn McCallister,” he said.

“Pete Hamlin,” he answered, taking the captain's extended hand.

An alarm screeched belowdecks. “Let's get going,” said the captain. “Sounds like they're near.”

“Who?”

The captain looked at him like he was making a bad joke. He pointed at the sky, just like the soldier who had driven him there a day before.

“The drones?” asked Pete.

“Of course not,” said McCallister, striding toward the ladder. “The drones are perfectly engineered to defeat the enemy and protect the Alliance. But all the same we should get submerged before they start dropping bombs on our heads.”

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

At the bottom of the ladder, a young officer was waiting for them, a weary smile on his face and a stack of linens in his hands.

“Lieutenant Ramirez will show you to your bunk,” said the captain. “He's your new roommate.”

“There's a uniform here, too,” said Ramirez, patting the top of the stack. “So you can look like a submariner. We even put your name on it.”

“Sorry for all the trouble,” said Pete.

“Don't apologize,” said Ramirez. “This is the first time I've seen the sky in five months. I'll be forever grateful.” He gave the hatch a longing glance as the captain spun it shut, preparing the big submarine to go to sea again.

“I'm going to control,” said the captain. “I need to get us to the dive point as quickly as possible. As soon as we get in deep water, I'll bring you to my stateroom so we can have a look at your orders.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“In the meantime, Ramirez will show you around.”

“Come on,” said Ramirez, no longer interested in lingering now that the last sliver of sky had been shut off to them. “First stop, our stateroom.”

As it turned out, it was right around the corner.

There were two bunks, one of which had been stripped bare revealing its thin, Navy-issue mattress.

“Here,” said Ramirez, handing him the stack of sheets and pillowcases. For the first time, Pete noticed that a pamphlet was sitting on top:
WELCOME ABOARD THE USS
POLARIS
.

“What's this?”

“That? A little bit of a joke. A thing we used to hand out to visiting bands of Cub Scouts and Rotarians. A memento of happier times. But there
is
some info that might be useful to you in there. Ever been on a submarine before?”

“Never,” said Pete. “Spent a lot of time in the simulator in Charleston. But this is my first time on a real boat.”

“You get used to it after about five years,” he said. The fatigue from all the years showed in Ramirez's face, but his smile was genuine. Pete thought Ramirez was one of those guys who could suffer through anything, probably a job requirement for a career in the submarine force. Or maybe he was just glad to have somebody new to talk to.

“Well,” said Pete. “Hopefully this won't take that long.”

There was a sharp knock on the stateroom door, and a strikingly beautiful woman appeared, with commander's insignia on her collar.

“Already hanging out in your stateroom?” she said. “Looks like Ramirez's bad habits rubbed off on you fast.” She had shoulder-length blond hair and a turned-up nose. Her body was small but powerful, athletic, reminding Pete of a cheerleader. Her eyes were hard, though, and she stared Pete down.

“Yes, ma'am,” said Ramirez, unfazed. “Now that I've shown him his rack, I'll show him where we watch movies and take showers.”

“That will cover a normal day in your life,” she said with a snort. She extended her hand to Pete. “Commander Hana Moody,” she said. “I'm the XO.”

“Pete Hamlin,” he responded.

“I know,” she said. “You must be important.”

“Not at all,” he said. “It's all about the mission.”

“Which is?”

There was a pause as she waited for Pete to disclose something. Anything.

“Ma'am, I'm not really at liberty to say. I haven't even reviewed my orders with the captain.”

She tossed her head and exhaled loudly. “Jeez, some manners from you. A guest on my ship, given this prime bunk, and you're keeping secrets from a superior officer.”

“Yes, ma'am,” he said. “Once I tell the captain, it will be up to him to share with anyone on a need-to-know basis.”

“I'm familiar with the requirements,” she snapped. She was looking him up and down now. “Ever been on a submarine?”

“Never,” he said.

“Are you Navy? Alliance?”

Pete shook his head. “I'm not at liberty to say.”

“Jesus, you're a pain in the ass. I'm told you have officer of the deck training?”

“Correct, ma'am.”

“Then I guess we'll treat you like an officer. We can use the help.”

“Only got four on the entire crew right now,” said Ramirez. “Captain, XO, me, and Frank.”

“You're forgetting somebody,” said Moody.

“Oh, the doctor!” Ramirez said in a teasing way, as if he knew it would irritate her.

“He gets a stateroom to himself and no duties on the watch bill,” she said. “But you won't get off that easy. I'll need to observe you before putting you on the watch bill, of course.”

“Of course,” he said, and their eyes locked.

“It'll mean spending a lot of time with me,” she said. “Hours and hours.”

“Looking forward to it,” said Pete.

She laughed loudly. “Sure you are, hotshot. All right—I'm going forward to take the watch from the captain.”

She turned and left without another word.

“She's pretty hot, right?” said Ramirez.

“Sure,” said Pete.

“Beautiful,” Ramirez said a little wistfully. “But deadly.”

*   *   *

They spent a few minutes talking about hometowns, and what was going on ashore, as Pete unpacked. Ramirez was eager for news about the epidemic and the Dallas Cowboys. He had a girlfriend who had dumped him recently, and clearly he still pined for her. She hadn't written to him in months; Ramirez worried about her.

Pete pulled out a Lucite block, one of the only personal items he'd thought to pack.

“What's that?” said Ramirez.

Pete handed it to him. He turned it over in his hand. “Is that a honeybee?”

“It is,” said Pete. “At every stage of its life cycle. There's the larva,” he said, pointing. “The pupa, the adult.”

“Very cool,” said Ramirez, staring at it curiously.

“It was a gift,” said Pete, feeling it necessary to explain.

“Let me guess,” said Ramirez. “From a girlfriend.”

Pete shook his head, trying to hide his sadness.

“Wife?” said Ramirez.

Pete shook his head again, and carefully took the Lucite block away.

“Ex-wife?” said Ramirez.

Pete didn't have it in him to clarify, so he let that stand.

Ramirez shook his head ruefully. “Join the club, my brother. The Submarine Force Lonely Hearts Club.”

Pete placed the honeybee memento above his desk, and continued unpacking.

*   *   *

After a few minutes, a sound-powered phone on the wall of the stateroom chirped, and he was summoned to the captain's stateroom. On the way there, he passed a muscular lieutenant with
HOLMES
on his nametag. He nodded gruffly in Pete's direction, his only acknowledgment.
I guess not everyone here is happy to have a new shipmate,
he thought.

“Come in, shut the door,” said the captain when Pete arrived. He scooted over to make room in the small stateroom.

“Aye, sir.”

“Listen,” said the captain, as they both sat down. The cramped quarters made for a kind of instant intimacy. “I suspect you're a civilian—maybe I'm about to find out. So, if that's true, why don't you call me Finn, and I'll call you Pete. At least when it's just the two of us.”

“Sure … Finn.”

The captain smiled broadly at that, as if he was pleased and surprised at the effort. “OK, let's take a look.”

Pete pulled out the small tablet that he'd been holding, and powered it on. He swiped his finger across it, and the patrol order came to light. The first few pages were all boilerplate, long descriptions of responsibilities and secrecy requirements. The captain scanned through it all quickly, swiping ahead with the confidence of a man who had read a great many patrol orders and knew how to get to the good parts. He watched the animated projections of the epidemic, his eyes growing wide. Finally he got to a paragraph that offered a summation of the mission and he read it, and Pete watched him go back to the top and read it again before he offered any kind of reaction.

“Eris Island,” he said. “You can get us in there?”

“I can,” said Pete. “It won't be easy, but I can.”

“One time we got within about two hundred miles and it was hot as hell. Drones everywhere.”

“We'll stay submerged as long as possible. Degauss and cross the shoals at PD.”

The captain nodded while making eye contact. “And that's where we'll find the wonder drug?”

“Yes, sir,” said Pete. “We hope so.”

The captain tapped the icon on the screen that contained Pete's personnel file. “I'll read this in a minute, after we get through the nuts and bolts here, but are you a doctor? A scientist?”

“I'm an engineer,” said Pete. “With extensive experience on Eris Island and with the drones. That's my expertise.”

“Aha,” said the captain, nodding, thinking it over. “There's someone I'd like to share this with,” he said.

“You have that authority, sir.”

The captain picked up a microphone over his desk, and turned a switch. His voice boomed across the ship. “Doctor Haggerty, report to the captain's stateroom.”

He hung up and waited for the doctor to arrive. Pete knew that somewhere close, Commander Moody was fuming at being kept out of the loop. He wondered how she would take it out on him.

*   *   *

Later that night, Ramirez took Pete to the wardroom. “I've shown you where to sleep, now I'll show you where to eat. That should about cover it.”

It was a somewhat formal-looking room: wood panel cabinets, a glass case with actual silver serving platters on display, and eight chairs arranged around a table with the captain's chair at the head, the only chair with arms.

“That silver is from the USS
George Washington,
” said Ramirez, pointing at the cabinet. “The first ballistic missile submarine. The first to carry a
Polaris
missile.”

Pete stared through the glass at the elaborately etched silver tray, a long, flat-decked submarine carved upon it. “Beautiful,” said Pete.

“Hard to imagine an era when they served food on silver like that onboard a submarine.”