South of New Zealand and north of the Balleny Islands, a man was alone. Below the sea, the sense of isolation was even stronger. Even with his sixty-eight-man crew, Sr. Capt. Chien Gan felt alone. He felt privileged to be commanding the first all-Chinese submarine of the twenty-first century, the Song-class Destiny. There were no Soviet parts, no Russian naval advisers, nothing that had not been contributed by Chinese naval engineers and built by the personnel at the Wuhan shipyard. Still, as he recorded in his log, the four stars on his shoulders and twenty-six years aboard submarines had not prepared him for this.
The intercom above his small desk buzzed. The silver-haired officer saw the light flashing above the small plate that read torpedo room. Chien put his pen down and touched the green button. It glowed red.
“Go ahead.”
The officer on the other end was Lt. (j.g.) Hao Hark. This was the first time the senior captain had sailed with him. Hao was a meticulous officer and the senior captain had been impressed by his vigilance.
“Captain, torpedo tube three has gone dark. It could be a filament problem. We’re going in to make sure.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. I’ll have Captain Biao slow to ten knots.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The senior captain tapped off the torpedo room intercom and tapped on the bridge. Captain Biao answered. The cruising speed of Destiny was fifteen knots. Biao had been running her at twenty-two knots to see what did and did not come apart at the submarine’s top speed. Though Biao had the bridge, any actions involving the torpedo tubes, even passive activity such as an engineering check, required the approval of the senior captain. Chien notified the bridge and Biao gave the order to slow. Then the senior captain went back to his log.
Chien didn’t like the book they had given him. It had been bound with glue, not thread. When it opened, it cracked. Chien would include that in his final report. Sloppy workmanship was something the senior captain did not tolerate.
A loose binding or a loose filament, he thought. It all mattered, some of it more than the sophisticated equipment the Destiny had on board. The helm had computers attached to sensors to monitor hull integrity, seam stability, and other aspects of the vessel’s construction. But for Chien, the filaments in lightbulbs had always been the best indicator of excessive vibration that, over time, could compromise welds. The computer readings were pure; it told them how much “shake” there was. Filaments were interactive; it told them how vibrations that were tolerable on paper could be detrimental at sea. Before computers the captains also relied on water in a cup, kept on flat surfaces around the ship. If the water sloshed, that was all right. That was normal submarine movement. If the water rippled, it meant dangerous structural flexibility. Unfortunately, that technique could no longer be used. Back in the late 1970s, if one of those cups had spilled, an ensign had grabbed a rag and swabbed the water. Now, with the ship’s reliance on electronics, a spill could be catastrophic.
The captain completed his entry and rose. The stateroom was small, just two by three meters. Just like one of the caves from his childhood. Chien stood five foot three, so there was sufficient headroom. That was one reason he had been selected for submarine service. The other reason was that he had been raised in a small village high in the mountains. That was where the navy recruited submarine crews. They were accustomed to breathing thin air. That background was an asset, given the way ventilation systems regularly broke down on the old Ming-class vessels, variants of the Soviet Romeo-class ships that were obsolete when the Chinese built them. Chien had always suspected that the Chinese spies were allowed to steal those plans so the Russians could drown enemy sailors.
At first the young man had resented being taken from the heights and thrown into the depths. But it introduced a new world to him, a world that knew no boundaries. At sea, one could go anywhere. It was both fitting and gratifying for the fifty-seven-year-old senior captain to be commanding this new generation of vessel.
They were just two weeks into the mission, which was scheduled to last one month. The previous six months had seen them operating primarily in tropical waters—the Philippines, near Guam and Midway, then all the way to Hawaii. Those trips had produced only minor technical problems. But those waters were also extremely moderate. Here, on the fringes of south polar currents, they would be cruising at greater depths, executing sharper maneuvers due to the canyons, and experiencing cooler water temperatures which could cause the ship’s alloys to react in different ways.
The unknown didn’t bother Chien. Growing up, he had always been eager to find out who or what was behind this crag or in that cavern. Perhaps he sought the mountains out because they frightened him. He looked for the familiar, the small, in any new place; some indication that people had been there. Smells, for example. At seven thousand feet the air was not thick enough to scatter the particles widely. Sometimes the smells were of cooking from a village miles away. Sometimes the odors were diesel fuel from a military patrol moving to or from neighboring Tibet. At times he could even smell the tobacco of men watching goat herds on distant peaks.
The senior captain rose and unbuttoned his olive green shirt. He hung it and then his trousers on wooden hangers behind the door. Hangers were a good indication of stability as well. If the clothing didn’t sway, the vessel was under control. Then he lay down on the aluminum cot perpendicular to the desk. A small shower, with a head inside the unit, was across from him. A closet was beside that. Chien clicked off the desk lamp. The room vanished. The cabin’s doors had two-layer rubber edging. In the event of a hull breach that would help keep water out and air in. There was no light, save for the glowing white numbers of the digital clock on his desk and the green buttons on the intercom. No sound came from outside the door; the crew were silent whenever the captain or senior captain were in quarters. In the dark, lying on his back, Chien listened to the sound of his ship as it filtered through the walls, ceiling, and floor. He heard the gears engaging—high and low, some close by and some not. There were occasional clinks and clangs, and like a distant waterfall, the constant sound of the sea moving past. Chien was familiar with all the sounds, though their order, volume, and frequency depended upon the course, speed, depth, and trim of the Destiny. Like the mountains and their smells, the vessel felt alive.
Tonight they were also reassuring. In the light he was alone. In the dark he was part of the ship, part of the sea, feeling currents that washed around him like the mountain air of his ancestral home. . . .