Seawolf Mask of Command (13 page)

“Could you imagine how paralyzing it would be if the pain never went away?” he asked softly.

Graves leaned back, finally understanding what his friend was getting at.

Brodie continued, lowering his voice, “Every sight, sound, smell, emotion and thought she has ever experienced is as fresh to her as this conversation is to us. She can relive every experience she’s ever had with absolute clarity.”

Graves gasped in true understanding, “Shit, how the hell does she sleep at night?”

“A very good question,” Brodie concluded, his powers of perception once more evident. “You need to keep an eye on her, buddy. I guarantee you she’s carrying around a truck load of emotional baggage.”

Graves stewed over the matter for a few moments. He still didn’t see how having her take the exam now would help. Graves knew Brodie always had a reason for everything he did, and it bothered him that he couldn’t figure out just what was going on behind his friend’s eyes. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asked. “Ski isn’t the most forgiving person.”

Brodie nodded thoughtfully and rubbed his swollen eyes, yawning slightly. “If she wants to play with the big boys,” he said simply. “Then she better learn to swim in the deep end of the pool.”

Graves considered this. “She sure didn’t like being put on the spot.”

“Too bad,” Brodie replied coldly. “We haven’t time to nursemaid anyone. If she can’t handle the pressure when tied up pier side, she’ll be no good to us once at sea.”

Graves paused for a few moments. Brodie was right. They couldn’t afford an officer afraid to speak his or her mind. He briefly thought about Martin who was, thus far, turning out to be a real dud. “I noticed you have another meeting with the squadron today. What’s going on?” he asked his friend.

Brodie had been attending daily classified briefings for the last week. Thus far, he’d been tightlipped about what was brewing but had given Graves what little information he could.

“Nothing good,” Brodie said in reply. “NSA spotted heat blooms in nearly a dozen Russian
Alphas
and three
Typhoons
two nights ago.”

Grave understood only too well. The
Typhoon
ballistic missile submarines were among the finest boats in the Russian arsenal. Each boat carried twenty submarine launched ballistic missiles with ten 100-KT nuclear warheads a piece for a total of two hundred nuclear warheads on each boat. If even one of these boats unleashed its arsenal at the United States, the catastrophe would be beyond measure. To prevent such a calamity, during the Cold War each
Typhoon
had been shadowed by an American hunter-killer submarine from the moment it left harbor until it returned.

“
Oh, shit,
” Graves whispered. The information hadn’t been released on the top-secret read board, which meant it was still classified at a higher level. “Is there any chance this is just a training exercise?”

“The National Command Authority doesn’t think so,” Brodie replied as he finished his coffee. “We’re implementing Cold War procedures and scrambling submarines from both coasts to try and intercept the
Typhoons
before they go dark.”

“Is that what they have in mind for us?” Graves asked, wondering if chasing after rogue Russian subs was what all the secrecy surrounding the
Seawolf’s
mission was about.

“If only….”

Main Engineering, USS Seawolf

T
he reactor control room was hardly larger than a pair of phone booths and normally a single officer and two enlisted men could be found there. But every officer who could fit had squeezed into the space. Kristen stood calmly outside, not pleased at all by Brodie having shined the limelight on her. It was hard enough being on board without any additional attention. What disturbed her even more was that Brodie had clearly known about the addendum but had gone out of his way to have her explain the problem to the others.

“Goddamn!” Terry called from inside the control room. “She’s right.”

Several officers had taken small bets on the possibility she was correct, and there was a few seconds of expletives and laughing as money was exchanged. Terry appeared, as did Ski. Terry looked genuinely pleased, but Ski’s mood looked dark.

“Good job, Kristen,” Terry said with a broad grin. “This oughta nip the problem in the bud.”

“We won’t know for certain until the electricians check it out,” Ski grumbled, clearly unhappy she’d been right.

Kristen waited impassively, knowing better than to try to argue with Ski. But he turned toward her with a twisted look on his face, as if he had some secret he could use against her. She’d grown accustomed to people trying to undermine her. It had happened more than once during basic submarine officers’ training. People she thought might be her friend had turned out to be working to prevent her from graduating, and she’d learned the hard way not to count on anyone.

“Sir?” she asked him.

“So, you think you know it all, eh?” His tone was sarcastic and demeaning, and she felt her anger rising. Kristen was tired and her usual self-control was failing.

“Hardly, sir,” she answered flatly trying to hide her displeasure at having to answer such a question. The other officers present quieted down and listened. There were also several enlisted men within earshot, and she didn’t want to help make a scene. Besides, if he was trying to goad her into saying something stupid, she was determined not to take the bait.

“Hell, I bet you think you’re ready to take the engineering exam. I mean, after spending a year at Prototype school as an instructor, I’m sure us mere fleet sailors can’t teach you shit.”

Kristen bit her tongue, uncertain what he was playing at. “On the contrary, sir,” she told him, wishing she’d gotten a few hours of sleep so her mind was sharper. He was playing at something, and she feared a trap. “I consider myself most fortunate to be here and am looking forward to learning all I can.”

“Uh-huh,” he replied in a condescending tone as he rolled his eyes.

She felt her blood beginning to boil. She’d taken enough crap over the years to get this far and was sick of men like him. But she kept her emotions in check.

“Have you even had a chance to glance at your qualification’s checklists?” he asked. He raised up slightly, trying to intimidate her with his size. The fact she was a bit taller than him made this impossible and the effect didn’t intimidate her in the least. In fact, she felt her anger growing.

“Yes, sir,” she snapped a little harder than she meant to. “I have,” she added. “I’ve read nearly all of them.”

She could see the look of disbelief on several faces as she squared off with Ski.

“Is that a fact?” he asked with the same smirk she’d first noticed the previous afternoon. Except then she’d been fresh and had been able to let it roll off her back without too much trouble, but now she was tired and growing more annoyed by the minute.

“Yes, sir,” she replied briskly. “That is a fact.” She added emphasis to each word, as her cool exterior began to slip.

Whatever she’d said caused a whimsical, rather satisfied smile to appear on his face. “Excellent,” he replied easily. “Then you’re ready for the engineering exam.”

This was received with a few looks of disbelief from the assembled officers and enlisted men. Chief O’Rourke had arrived and looked at Ski as if he were crazy.

“That is up to the chief engineer, sir,” she pointed out bluntly. She knew she should back down, but he’d made her angry. Besides, if he was going to challenge her then she would rather die than give in to the misogynist dinosaur.

“Are you getting angry, Lieutenant?” he asked, baiting her more.

“Not at all, sir,” she answered, clearly lying and cursing her lack of self-control.

“Good,” he said with a satisfied look on his face she desperately wanted to slap off. “The exam is hard enough without entering into it angry.” He glanced at his watch. “I’d hate to seem unfair by scheduling it too soon,” he began. “Plus the weekend is tomorrow, and I wouldn’t want to inconvenience you,” he lied with a fake expression of innocence on his face. “So let’s start Monday immediately after the morning meeting.”

“What?” O’Rourke asked in disbelief. “We don’t have time for this nonsense,” the grizzled old chief added, a cigarette hanging from his lower lip.

But Kristen wasn’t about to give an inch. She’d fought with pigheaded fools like this long enough to know that politeness only went so far. She had to accept his challenge or he would lord it over her for the rest of her time on the submarine. “I’ll be ready, sir,” she said confidently.

“I’m sure you will,” he replied with the same haughty look she detested. He leaned closer, bringing his face within a few inches of hers. Kristen felt her fists tighten and was certain her face was flushed red with anger. “I’m looking forward to it, Lieutenant,” he said as his lips curled.

“As am I, sir.”

He left, leaving her standing there ready to spontaneously combust.

Oh, shit.

Kristen felt the rage leave her almost immediately as reality set in. He’d set the trap and she’d stepped right into it. She’d never seen the engineering exam but had heard about it. The test consisted of written and practical application portions that were reputed to be grueling.

“Are you out of your mind?” Terry asked bluntly once Ski was gone. “Do you have any idea how hard that test is?”

She didn’t.

“Good luck,” a fellow officer she recognized as Thomas Montgomery, the ship’s tactical systems officer, offered. By the tone of his voice, he clearly didn’t think she had a chance.

“Yeah,” another officer named Ryan Walcott chimed in. He was the ship’s navigator and the head of the operations department and so relatively senior among the ship’s staff. “Good luck with that, Lieutenant.” He departed.

The others filtered out, none offering her more than halfhearted best wishes. It was clear none gave her a chance of passing. Kristen knew she’d screwed up, and as she stood there, the anger being replaced by cold reality, she knew she was now in serious trouble. If she took the exam and failed it—as everyone expected her to—then this might be used as an excuse to put her ashore, and she couldn’t afford giving any of her detractors the ammunition necessary to be rid of her.

Kristen had to clear her head and develop a plan. She had seventy-two hours to be ready. It seemed like a lot of time, but not considering the amount of material the exam covered. They could ask her any question about any piece of machinery or system assigned to the engineering department which meant over half the submarine. She needed to familiarize herself with emergency procedures, battle damage repair actions, maintenance schedules… the list felt endless.

Kristen didn’t panic easily, but she felt the urge to do so now. What was worse was the fact she’d already been awake for the previous twenty-four hours, and time to rest was a luxury now. She needed all of her impressive mental acuity if she was to have any chance at all and starting out tired wouldn’t help. She glanced down at the three-inch binder tucked under her left arm. She couldn’t waste time cursing herself for allowing Ski to bait her, nor feeling sorry for herself. No one believed she could pass the exam. But then, no one had given her any chance at all of ever serving on a submarine. So far her entire career had been about proving people wrong. She would have to do so again.

Sunday night came too soon. The previous three days were a whirlwind of cram sessions interspersed with a few minor catnaps in the wardroom, or in some corner of the engineering spaces. Despite her intellectual gifts and puritanical work ethic, she’d found herself floundering in a flood of information. Terry had offered to help, which she’d certainly been willing to accept until he threw in that he thought they should discuss it over dinner, which she took for what it was, a lame attempt to get her to go out with him.

Word that she was taking the exam on Monday had spread throughout the boat in a matter of minutes of Ski’s challenge, and Kristen knew there were several betting pools forecasting odds that didn’t look too good for her. During her 72-hour marathon of studying, she’d been helped occasionally by a few crewmen who didn’t mind offering her their expertise on specific systems. But this help had been rare. She was, after all an officer. A Nub. A woman. An outsider. Kristen assumed most on board were hoping she would fail. But she was determined to prove them wrong. She’d never failed at anything in her life. Be it sports or school, she’d always been able to overcome any obstacle with hard work, and she was determined to do so now.

Kristen sat in the wardroom, a small mountain of manuals, checklists, and technical publications stacked liberally around her on the table. The previous seventy-two hours were a blur, and she was growing desperate. She’d slept for maybe eight total hours in the last ninety-six, and the pages in front of her were blurring as her concentration waned.

The door leading to the galley opened and Gibbs appeared, carrying a tea service and wearing a concerned look on his face. Over the previous three days he’d been the one person she’d been able to count on. No matter what time she’d arrived bleary eyed and stumbling in the wardroom, he’d appeared with hot tea and food, offering kind words of encouragement as he tried to keep her fed and filled with caffeine as she fought off exhaustion.