In Silent Service

In Silent Service

By: Andrew Ryan Smith



It had taken Seaman Marco and myself well over an hour to scrub and squeegee all the backed up sewage out of one of the number two head.  By that time there was already a line of five rearing to … undo out hard work.  Not even a word of thanks form one of the five. We were met with only a look of irritation on old chief’s face as he shoved his way into the stall.  Ungrateful bastards.

I was glad to rip off the thin white tyvek suit and toss it into the garbage.  “Why does this shit always happen on my cleaning day?”  I muttered as I glanced at my wrist watch.  Marco laughed, “they sure as hell don’t show you this side of the fleet on those accelerate your life commercials.”  For a good reason I suppose.

I was to assume the sonar watch in 20 munities.  I grabbed a quick lunch in the galley.  While eating I noticed the TV was picking up regular stations, so we had to be close enough to the surface to drag the relay buoys.  After scarfing down the chicken and, picking at the pile of green beans, I slid down the narrow p-way into the combat information center.  I entered the room bathed in red light, dipping past the skipper as he peered through the periscopes.  I squeezed behind the cramped consoles to the black door of the sonar control room. 

Inside I found STS2 Wainwright (sonar technician subsurface, petty officer second class to anyone topside) leaned back in his seat staring at his sonar display.  Next to him sat Seaman Lenard, I tapped his shoulder he removed his headphones and turned to see what the disturbance was.  “Here to relieve you what do you have to report?”  He was a rather small man but he possessed  the attitude of a bull elephant.  That is to say he wound drive you in to the ground if you got in his way, and he would tear down a village to get a few drinks in him.  It was people like him that made me want to get back to my land loving life ASAP.

Without pause he dropped the headphones on the consul and rose from the seat. “Nothin to report, all is normal.” He said as he made his way for the door, “you have the watch.”  He proudly proclaimed as he forced open the heavy metal door. 

I took my seat as the door slammed shut.  I donned the oversized headphones.  Now it began.  Six hours, six long boring hours bound to be just as uneventful as the last ten watches.  Six hours in which I would become intimately acquainted with the glowing blue screen. 

In spite of the tedium, it was moments of stark sad realization like this that inspired me.  They provided a sort of mental kick, a sense of urgency, a reminder that this life was not for me.  When this was all over I would return to the civilian world, but I would return not to the life of the lazy dropout I had reveled in not so long ago.  I would be a ‘man on fire’ so to speak, am man with something to prove both to myself and the world at large.

But until that day came I was here, I was a Sailor, or perhaps conscript is a better term.  Here I sat like a cog in a machine, trying to deter an attack that was already set in motion.

Deterrent patrols, a brilliant idea dreamt up in the cold war to scare the soviets, now 40 years after the fall of their empire the patrols had been revived to destroy any ships that slipped through the ballistic missile defense system.  In truth we couldn’t deter them at all.  The name was dreamt up by some politician who undoubtedly thought it sounded good, and would make his scared constituents feel better.  If only they knew.

The last cluster of alien ships had splashed down in the pacific a few degrees north of the equator about four months ago.  They had submerged themselves at a shallow depth and used some king of stealth technology to avoid detection form aircraft.  It didn’t take them long to reach Seattle.  God only knows why that was their choice of destination, perhaps they wanted to liberate the space needle.  They tore through the few ships Bremerton could muster to fight of the invasion.  Anyhow they had been done in by a fleet of ships dispatched from San Diego when they surfaced a couple of miles off the coast.

Now it was our job to hunt down the next wave.  NORAD had seen them coming and predicted they would land somewhere in the Hawaiian Island region of the Pacific.  A large task force was assembled from the navies of the countries that could afford to send large numbers of effective warships out to sea for weeks on end The U.S., japan, China and even old Russia.  To the rest good luck better hope they don’t come your way, because if they do we will be in no hurry to help, at least not until our shores are safe.  That’s essentially what the U.S. representative had said to the UN after shooting down a joint defense proposal.  He knew, or had been told, that the bulk of the fleet was far too old to be sent out to combat an inter stellar invasion.  Not to mention the fact no one had the money to pay for it.

It is easy to sit back and say someone has to defend the planet, but when it gets down to it just cost so much no one can do it anymore.  Those cold war days of massive fleets facing each other down across a vast ocean were a relic my father’s day.  That’s why they reactivated this old L.A. class USS Miami (SSN 755) that had been in moth balls for several years after the big military downsizing.

To provide the bodies to man the old boat the draft had been reinstated in the states.  That is how I came to be hundreds of feet below the crashing blue waves of the Pacific, but I suppose it was better to be a Sailor trapped in a tin can than dead or a pet to some tentacle monster.

I glanced at my wristwatch again, only 10 minutes had passed.  This was already turning into a long watch. 

I turned to STS2 he looked strange bathed in the blue glow of the screen.  He must have caught me out of the corner of his eye for he turned to me.  I was briefly met with an awkward glare.  I returned my eyes to my sonar imaging screen.  All it showed were two blips corresponding to the cruiser and frigate we were working in conjunction with. 

Perhaps like was happier on those ships, they could stroll out on deck any time they wanted.  I had heard they even had fishing and B.B.Q’s on the flight deck from time to time.  Of course they also had to combat the rocking and rolling of the waves, and the pay was a little better on the subs

The 1MC cracked on, it’s volume in the blaring high range as always.  Even with my oversized headphones snugly wrapped around my head it seemed unnecessarily loud.  “This is the skipper, I just receives orders form PACCOM,” panted the old man’s scratchy voice. “We are going to hold down the perimeter along with Lake Champlain and Faraguat, while the bulk of the fleet takes up a position north of the projected splash down zone to strike at the enemy.  The surface assets will provide air cover we will mop up any craft that slip through.  Don’t get too discouraged we may have the opportunity to join the fight if the battle zone shifts.  I don’t expect us to be in a major hot zone, but keep your heads on a swivel and keep your ears open.  That is all.”

I couldn’t say that the captain’s words were far from awe inspiring.  In some small way they did provide a hint of hope.  Hope we would win the day and all survive, and in the not so distant future we could return to our homes and live as we pleased. 

The crew were usually hesitant to speak about battle, perhaps because not one of us had ever fought an actual battle.  Perhaps it was due to the mysterious nature of the invaders.  We all knew that their technology was superior to ours, they had proven that during the course of several battles.  Time and time again they had lost because of what appeared to be terrible tactics.  These beings moved in predictable patterns attacking at seemingly random junctures never pausing to regroup of fallback, never trying to take the initiative to gain an upper hand. 

The only tactic they seemed to adjust was the number of ships they sent in each wave, and where they landed.  Perhaps this was just how they worked, on their world these were likely bold and daring tactics, they may have thought us mad, or even cowards for employing such tactics as we did.  Perhaps the biggest flaw in their entire expedition was that they never once tried to fight in the air or bombard our cities form space.  Some speculated they couldn’t, that their massive ships were like unguided rockets sent on a one way journey.  I can’t say I believed any of that, but who knows what information the world military forces were keeping from us.  I didn’t even know what the beings looked like, they had sent multiple waves over the last two years yet it was not common knowledge what they looked like or why they were here.

It was hard to imagine why they returned to this world time and time again only to be met with slaughter.  It was hard to imagine why they came in the first place it was possible war was not their goal, but it didn’t really matter to any one on the boat.  They were coming and it was going to be us against them, that was the score and everyone just came to accept that fact.

The rest of my watch was as dull as every other. All I heard was the bad shaft on Faragut and a school of shrimp.  Ironic how the sound they naturally make is one almost identical to them frying in garlic sauce. 

Once my relief arrived I jetted out the door and grabbed a meal in the galley.  I couldn’t say which meal it was, keeping track of time in a tube filled with red lights is almost impossible so a meal was no longer lunch or dinner in my mind, just the next meal.  After slurping down a plate of noodles and diced tomatoes I slid into my rack to enjoy a few hours of sleep before my next tasking.  As I settled down in my rack I wondered what day it was.



The next morning I was jolted from my sleep by the call of reveille.  After shaving and grabbing a few strips of bacon from the galley I reported to morning quarters.  Chief Brown read the plan of the day, it hadn’t changed from the previous day.

I had two free hours which I spent on the mess deck watching the only public TV on the boat.  I caught the last half of a mystery movie.  I was lost not having seem the first half.  After shoveling the remains of the canned peaches into the nearest trash can, I was able to catch the first hour on a testosterone drenched action movie.  General quarters was called before the action had a chance to develop any plot. 

I reported to my station on the opposite side of the mess deck.  Once again it was only a drill, I hunkered down for an hour of safety briefs.  After suffering through the same training for the second time in a week I departed to take another six hours of sonar watch.

Again I reported to the sonar control room.  This time I relieved STS1 Kolper.  As we turned over he simply remarked “the topside boys are shoot’in.”

I slipped on the headphones and listened to see what I could hear.  The ships sounded the same as always.  I could make out the distant hum emitted from the constant vibration of the engines and the more audible grinding of the spinning shafts.  After a few seconds I could hear a slight hiss. 

“You hear it,” said the person at the consul next to me.  Their voice was too muffled for me to determine who it was, and I refused to move my eyes form the screen.  “That sound is the missiles launching, that was the 12th.  Looks like NORAD miscalculated their splash down zone.  There must be a lot of them this time.”

As I started to turn to see who was next to me, I heard a moan.  A sound I had never heard before.  I couldn’t imagine what it was then I realized it was the sound of metal under great stress bending and folding.  A second later the Lake Champlain’s sonar image began to grow.  The system was not detailed enough to show exactly what was happening but I had to assume the ship had been struck by falling debris. 

I glanced at the station next to mine, to see STS3 Roger gazing at his screen, his jaw hanging in astonishment.

“Impact, surface element casualty,” I shouted over my shoulder to the sonar watch officer, who relayed my account to the officer of the deck.  In response the OOD ordered the helms men to take the boat to a lower depth.  Everything seemed to be playing out like a movie as I helplessly watched the Lake Champlain slowly joined us below the waves.  Its massive hull creaking and whining as it began its final journey five miles down to the bottom of the Pacific.  As its dying cries slipped away into the darkness I heard another sound.  It was something I heard once before in sonar training.  The one sound we were trained to listen for above all else.  It was a sharp buzz, an odd sound.  I knew it could only be one thing, the water ionizing engines of an alien craft.  For a few seconds I was so shocked I couldn’t think, Roger reported the contact and the 1MC blared ordering torpedoes at the ready.  As I listened I couldn’t help but be intrigued by the peculiar sound.  It was similar to the hiss emitted by a school of shrimp, yet distinct in its own right. 

As I watched the sonar display screen I realized the alien craft was closing in on our heading, it was almost certain to collide with the boat.  Before I could report my finding I heard the hiss of the tubes flushing out a pair of torpedoes with a blast of high pressure air, followed in short order by a second volley.  As the storm of bubbles began to dissipate I could begin to make out the buzz of torpedoes cutting through the depths “Fish in the water.”  I called to the sonar watch officer.

Everyone was tense.  After a second and a half I heard the hollow sound of the torpedo’s detonation.  “We got a hit,” Shouted Brown.  The sound of the first impact was followed by another and another.  The last torpedo missed its mark, I could hear it buzz off into the distance.  But it didn’t matter the first three were enough.  I could clearly hear the bubbles of gas escaping the hull and the crack metal hull braking apart.  Its sound was different form the Lake Champlain but it would soon share the same faith five miles down.

We stayed at general quarters for three more hours, until PACOM ordered us to stand down.  That night it took too long for sleep to come to me.  The events of the day didn’t seem real.  The battle was so short so impersonal.  What had become of the crew of the Lake Champlain?  As fast as the ship sank I knew there probably wasn’t time for anyone to evacuate.  It was all hard to believe, but impossible to forget. 

The next morning I was awaken by revile as always.  This morning I was tired, more so than usual.  Just after morning quarters the Skipper Came over the 1MC again and told us that the enemy fleet had been destroyed in the atmosphere save two ships, one of which we destroyed.  We were to report to joint base Pearl Harbor Hickam Field for resupply and some well-earned liberty.

The next few days were a blur.  We were in Hawaii for four days.  I spent the first two hulling boxes of frozen food aboard.  On the third day I managed to get off the ship with Brown.  For reasons I didn’t understand he wanted to go to the beach.  He said he wanted to take surfing lessons, being form West Virginia it was a rare opportunity for him. 

It was a warm day, humid and slightly overcast.  Decent enough weather for a day at the beach.  Brown wanted me to go out with him and the instructor.  He insisted it would be fun. “A once in a lifetime opportunity,” were his exact words.  I repeatedly refused, said I was worn out from the last two days of hulling boxes.  He relented and jogged off down the beach in his blue navy issue swim trunks.  I meandered down the beach in the opposite direction to get a drink, the sand slipping into my shoes with every step.

I took a stool at an overpriced tiki bar and kicked off my shoes.  The bar tender, a sharp looking middle aged man asked what I wanted. 

“Gin and tonic,”

“Slice of lime in that?”

“Sure,” I replied turning to look back down the beach at Brown, slowly paddling out to meet the waves.

“You a sailor?” He asked with a some hesitation in his voice.  It must have been obvious with my short hair and cheap clothes.

“Why do you ask?”

He set a glass in front of me, “this one is on the house.”

He thanked me, for what I am not sure.  I thanked him in return.  I took a sip, he nodded his head and moved on the next customer.

I sat at the gaudy tourist-trap slowly sipping at the tumbler of gin and tonic until it began to sweat.  Gulls squawked as they glided past, the wind rustled some nearby palms, Brown splashed into the sea as he fell from his board.  By the time I was done and smacked the tumbler down on the bar I already felt light headed.  I gazed out at the emerald water where Brown was struggling to remount the board.  I couldn’t help but remember what lay deep beneath him.  Somewhere out there the Lake Champlain and her crew slept in the cold embrace of the sea.  Then, for just a second or two I heard something I hadn’t heard in long time, nothing.