USS Washington, SSN 787, “The Blackfish”
Inside the Amalfi-Napoli shipping channel in the Gulf of Napoli
Nine nautical miles south of Submarine Group 8 Forward base
Naval Support Activity Naples
0610 local time
Katie was ready to go home.
The feeling had hit her hard and unexpectedly during breakfast. Probably because the Blackfish was pulling into Naples this morning, and by this afternoon she’d be on a plane heading back to D.C. It was difficult to articulate, but it reminded her of the feeling she had at the end of a long workday when she couldn’t wait to strip off her uniform and change into comfy clothes. Her adventures on the Ford and the Blackfish had been incredible, but she was ready to get back to her regular life.
In the meantime, she wasn’t sure what to do with herself.
As soon as they’d secured battle stations and the adrenaline had burned off, she’d slept hard—hell, she practically lapsed into a coma for twelve hours. Ever since, she’d been wrangling with a strange cognitive dissonance. Sometimes the traumatic torpedo battle with the Belgorod seemed like it had just happened five minutes ago, other times it felt like a different lifetime.
So weird . . .
After breakfast, she’d come to the conn, because that’s where all the action was. But now she felt very much in the way. Transiting on the surface was more frenetic on a submarine than traveling submerged. She understood why submariners couldn’t wait to “go deep” after leaving port.
Someone bumped into her and apologized.
A minute later it happened again.
Maybe I should just go sit in the wardroom, have a coffee, and stay out of the way . . .
“Lieutenant Ryan?” Commander Houston said.
She looked up to find the venerable captain of the Washington smiling at her from where he stood beside the OOD’s workstation in the middle of the conn.
“Yes, sir?” she said.
“Commander Knepper is requesting your presence in the bridge cockpit.”
She raised an eyebrow. “The bridge cockpit, sir?”
He chuckled. “Up on the sail, Ryan. Remember the way you came aboard?”
At the time, the transfer from the Osprey to the sail of the Washington had been the most terrifying evolution of her life. Of course, that was before everything else that had happened since she came aboard.
“Oh, I remember, sir,” she said.
“This way, ma’am,” a young sailor said from behind her and handed her a harness and a spray jacket. “Pretty calm seas today, but it might get a little wet up there.”
“Thank you,” she said and let him help her into the safety harness.
Then she shrugged on the waterproof jacket, grateful for the warmth. Damn, they kept these submarines cold. Knepper had explained why, but she didn’t remember what he’d told her. She followed the sailor aft through the command passageway, up a ladder, then forward and around the lock-out chamber to the bridge trunk.
“Careful on the ladder, ma’am. It gets wet and slippery sometimes,” he said, pointing up through the open hatch into the bridge trunk.
“Thanks,” she said.
Methodically, she climbed the two-story ladder, holding on tight to the handrails as the sub rolled side to side with the waves. When she neared the top, someone raised the grate hatch and she emerged beside a pair of booted feet. When she looked up, Knepper offered her his hand, giving her something to hold on to as she took the last few rungs. With a relieved exhale, she stepped up into the cramped bridge cockpit, which felt ridiculously bare-bones. Another pair of boots hung behind her and she looked over her shoulder to find Juggernaut sitting on the top of the sail, feet dangling into the cockpit area. A third person, the lookout, stood behind Jackie, leaning against the railing of the flying bridge, binoculars up and scanning.
“I told you the day we met, Ryan,” Knepper said, apparently reading her thoughts, “space is a commodity on a submarine.” He lowered the grate back down so Katie had something to stand on.
“I remember.”
He reached over, unclipped one end of her safety lanyard from the D ring on her shoulder strap, and attached it to a metal stanchion.
“Thanks,” she said.
He nodded. “After all you did for us and our mission, I thought it only fair to let you come up and enjoy this. Being up here—cruising on the surface when the sun is shining and the breeze is blowing—this is my favorite part of driving submarines.”
The XO of the deadliest war machine on the planet gestured with a hand and she took in the view.
Ahead, blue water slid across the sub’s massive sonar dome, then frothed white as the impressive bow wave split into a V, before churning into a turbulent wake that rippled down the port and starboard sides of the hull. To her right, the horizon was a glowing ribbon of red and orange, the sky an infinite canvas for the rising sun to paint. The air had a chill and a smell of salt that reminded her of home—the Ryan family home back on the Chesapeake. She inhaled the fresh sea breeze, only to have the experience rudely interrupted by an unpleasant tang wafting up from the grate beneath her feet. Knepper had explained that the malodorous mélange was a mix of amine, lube oil, body odor, and garbage.
Nice, she thought with a God help me glance at heaven, and couldn’t help but wonder if she, herself, now smelled like an authentic submariner.
She tipped up on her toes to watch the bow dip and rise in a soothing rhythm as they plowed the sea, silently propelled by nuclear power. Off to her right, an albatross skimmed the wave tops, cutting this way and that as if teaching a master class in precision flying.
Savoring the moment, she glanced at Knepper, who was squinting slightly against the sea breeze, the hint of a contented smile on his face.
Feeling her gaze, he looked over. “God, I love my job,” he said.
“I can see why,” she said and meant it.
“I just love blowing shit up,” Jackie said from behind her, and they all laughed.
Knepper pulled a hand from his pocket and extended it to her. Katie reached out and shook it, feeling the cool metal of a command coin pressed between their palms as she did.
“Thanks for everything, Katie,” he said.
She broke the handshake and took the coin, resisting the urge to look at it like some tourist, and slipped it into her pocket.
“And thank you for saving the world,” she said.
“I’ve got something for you, too, Ryan,” Juggernaut said.
Katie turned and the feisty genius of a weapons officer handed her a ball cap. Inside, she saw a Velcro patch just like the one the ship’s crew wore—a multi-cam green flag with a cartoon orca grinning from the center. In the upper left corner SSN 787 was stitched, and at the bottom, in cursive, Fear the Blackfish.
Katie slipped the patch into her pocket and the cap onto her head.
“One more thing, Ryan,” Knepper said and dropped something else into her hand.
Katie stared at it in awe.
The submariner warfare pin—known in the submarine community as getting one’s fish—depicted a surfaced O-class submarine flanked by two center-facing dolphins. But instead of a shiny silver finish for enlisted personnel or gold for officer corps, this insignia had been painted black.
Black . . . fish, she realized.
“Keep those somewhere special, Katie,” Knepper said. “You’ll always be a part of the Blackfish crew.”
“I will,” Katie said, then felt horrified at the realization that tears were rimming her eyes. Hopefully, they wouldn’t notice.
“Who knows, Ryan,” Juggernaut said, leaning over from her perch and slapping Katie on the back. “Maybe someday you’ll have the balls to change your designator and join us for real.”
“Who knows,” she said with a glance back at the WEPS.
She stared out across the water, where the lights of Naples were growing larger in the distance. She had things to say, but the moment, she decided, called for silence. So she stood in the sail of the mighty USS Washington, beside her shipmates, and quietly watched the sun rise on the horizon of a new day.