Barracuda: Final Bearing

The afternoon watch on Christmas Day passed without incident. The ship had been at periscope depth for most of the day. The men were happy; they had received their familygrams, transmitted by USUBCOM headquarters, each man aboard allowed one short transmission from his wife or kids or girlfriend or parents.

Pacino’s familygram had come in from Tony on the Writepad. The youngster was almost a teenager, twelve years old, missing his father, but then, Pacino being away had been almost normal. All the sea duty had kept him away from the boy for too long. And now, nearing the end of his naval career, Janice had left him and taken Tony with her. The familygram from Tony was brief and gut-wrenching. Pacino put it down on the fold-out desk, staring off into space, missing his son, missing his old life, wanting to toss the football with Tony, race against him in the Go Karts, hang out with him at the amusement park, cruise the beach with him in the sports car.

All the things they’d done in the past, but hadn’t realized would vanish into the past. It had seemed that Tony would always be there, and now he was living somewhere in New Jersey, over 300 miles away from Virginia Beach, which was over 13,000 miles from this Japan Oparea.

The Writepad’s annunciator alarm went off, beeping into the quiet of the stateroom. Pacino silenced it before it could wake up Paully, who was asleep in the upper rack, having been awake for more than twenty hours and only agreeing to go to bed when Pacino had ordered him. Pacino knew he should hit the rack himself but couldn’t seem to slow down his mind. He stroked the software keys of the Writepad, going deeper into the software until it displayed the E-mail he’d just been beeped for, and realized it was a second familygram, this one from Eileen Constance—

MICHAEL, JUST WANTED TO WISH YOU LUCK. I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE YOU AGAIN. MERRY CHRISTMAS.

LOVE, EILEEN.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about it. It seemed like Eileen was going too fast. But so was he. He’d found himself thinking about her, missing her, then trying to dismiss it. It was, he told himself, a physical attraction that had pretended to more in the thick of impending combat. And even if it did build into a relationship, she was so much younger and would be going to medical school in Florida while his HQ was in Norfolk. And what if she wanted children? Wasn’t he too old for that?

And then he had to laugh at himself for crossing so many bridges before the road was even built.

A knock at the door, a radioman offering Pacino the ship’s secure Writepad. He signed for the messages, which were then automatically transferred to his own Writepad. He punched the surface of the notepad’s display, read through the first four messages, and his heart sank. From the Birmingham in the southwest Oparea, code 3—I’m under attack. From the Jacksonville, also in the southwest Oparea, code 3. From Charleston and Atlanta, both farther north in the southwest Oparea, code 3. The southern forces, all four boats, had been attacked. And in all probability were down. Another knock at the door. The radioman again. Again Pacino signed for the messages, transferred the electronic messages to his own Writepad, then waited for the radioman to leave. The three messages were from the northern task force, the Buffalo, Boston and the Albany. All code 3s.

Pacino rubbed his eyes, knowing what he needed to do, at least in the short term.

A half-hour later he and Paully White were in David Kane’s stateroom.

“We need to get the Pearl Harbor ELF facility to call all the Oparea submarines to periscope depth,” Pacino said. “I’ll write the subs a message for their broadcast, ask them to transmit that they’re okay. I’ll need your permission to transmit, Captain.”

Kane nodded. “Absolutely, Admiral. Need any help with the messages?”

“No. It’ll only take a few moments, I’ll take them to radio when I’m ready.”

A half-hour later the Pearl low-frequency radio facility had transmitted each of the seven submarines’ ELF call signs, the powerful but slow radio waves penetrating deep into the Pacific, calling the subs to periscope depth, where Pacino’s message waited for them.

Pacino waited an unbearable hour. He had gotten one message back, from the Piranha, which was almost at the boundary of the northern Oparea. Pacino stared at that, wondering how the hell Bruce Phillips had gotten south that fast. He reread the latitude and longitude, which correlated with the alphanumeric grid coordinate Phillips transmitted. Phillips said he was definitely close to the northern Oparea. But looking gift horses in the mouth was not Pacino’s style.