Larry Bond - Dangerous Ground

“I appreciate your candor, Mr. Mitchell,” said Patterson firmly, “but Emily has gone over the mission requirements and determined that the probability of a mission critical failure is quite low.”

This pronouncement caught all the Navy people off guard, and Jerry had to resist the urge to sigh. Assuming the odds of a major failure was low based on calculations with little or no operating history was risky business. He had seen an early draft of the mission plan, and the proposed ROV operations tempo was harsh. With little time for maintenance between each run, the whole concept of operations begged for a major problem to occur. By the look of several other crew members, it was clear that they shared his skepticism.

“Final item,” Bair declared suddenly, breaking the awkward silence. “During the second ROV test, Mr. Mitchell will observe the evolution from the control room.”

“Sir?” asked Jerry, slightly perplexed.

“It’s important that you see what goes on in control during a ROV deployment. It will give you an appreciation for what the ship control party has to do to support a launch and recovery. This will also improve your understanding of our information needs.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hardy then stood up and spoke firmly, “If there are no further questions, we’ll man ROV stations in half an hour.” It was not a request, and by definition there were no other questions. “Very well, then. Dismissed.”

Jerry stood and waited for Hardy and Patterson to leave. Once the herd had thinned out a bit, he left the wardroom and headed toward the torpedo room. He had taken less than half a dozen steps before Emily entered the passageway and called to him.

“Hey, Jerry, wait up a moment, please.”

He stopped, turned, and waited while she caught up with him. “Are you feeling okay? You were pretty spaced in there for a while.”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” answered Jerry. “I was momentarily mesmerized by your lovely blue nose.”

Emily immediately reached over and cuffed Jerry lightly on the head.

“Oww! Geez, pay the lady a compliment and she whacks you one.”

“A woman’s prerogative,” Emily replied tersely. “And stop acting like you’ve been mortally wounded. I didn’t hit you that hard.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll gladly accept any further abuse in stoic silence.”

Emily sighed, shook her head, and said, “Why is it that men always resort to sarcasm?”

Concluding that silence was the better part of valor, he quickly escorted Emily past the twenty-one-man bunkroom and into the torpedo room. Once inside, he gently directed her toward the ROV and Manta control area.

“All right Emily. What’s bugging you?” Jerry asked firmly.

She reluctantly looked at him. There were tears welling in her eyes and she blurted out, “Do you really not trust me, Jerry?”

Shocked and surprised, Jerry could only wonder: Where the hell did that come from? Confused, he asked, “What are you talking about, Emily?”

“During the brief, when you raised your concern on the repair issue, I saw the look on your face when I said I could take care of any major repairs. And when Dr. Patterson said I had calculated that there was a low chance of a critical failure happening, you didn’t seem to believe her. I can only conclude that you don’t trust me.”

Oh boy, Jerry thought, as he finally understood the problem. Mom warned me about this gender communications gap, he thought to himself. Struggling to answer Emily’s accusation without digging himself a deeper grave, Jerry motioned for her to sit down.

Then, after taking a deep breath, he carefully and slowly offered his explanation, “Listen, Emily, there is something that you have to understand. Navy people are trained to be conservative when dealing with equipment; submariners even more so. For example, when we conduct a reactor startup, we calculate the precise height that the control rods have to be raised before the core goes critical. There are a lot of variables that go into this calculation, and it takes several highly trained operators to do the math, and then it is triple-checked. And yet when we begin the startup, we operate under the assumption that the core could go critical the moment the Reactor Operator begins shimming the rods out.”

Emily’s scrunched brow told Jerry that she wasn’t quite making the connection.

“There are always places where a mistake could be made, and the results of such an error could be catastrophic. I admit there are a lot of coulds, possibles, and ifs in what I just said, but we can’t afford even one serious reactor accident.”

“But you trust your people, don’t you?”

“If they are qualified for their watch position, absolutely. But we all know that a mistake could still be made if we become complacent and just assume that the calculation was done correctly. And this, mind you, is how we treat an engineering plant that most of us have had years to become familiar with and can operate competently. We can’t say the same thing for your vehicles.”

Embarrassed, she looked down at the deck and shook her head no.

“Okay, then, please don’t confuse our lack of trust for your ROVs, as a lack of trust in you. I believe the crew trusts you. I know I do, but your ROVs have had so little operational time that most of what you and Patterson have said they can do is still on paper.”

A small smile flashed quickly across her face as she wiped her eyes on a Kleenex that Jerry had magically produced. “Thanks. I guess I’m taking any criticism of my babies, real or implied, a bit personally. I’m sorry that I accused you of not trusting me.”

“Don’t worry about it, Emily,” responded Jerry reassuringly. “When a person pours their heart and soul into a project, they get attached to it.”

For a brief moment, Jerry relived that fateful day when his F-18E/F Super Hornet spun out of control and blew up. He remembered saying he was sorry, over and over again, and feeling like he had just lost a friend. Jerry shook his head a little, as he tried to purge the memory from his brain. He saw the quizzical look on Emily’s face, smiled, and said, “Sorry, got lost there for a moment. Anyway, I want you to know that I understand where you are coming from and that I know how important those ROVs are to you.”

“Thank you, Jerry, I appreciate your empathy,” she said as she rose. She started to give him a peck on the cheek, but then reconsidered. Jerry saw her stop, but smiled almost as if she had kissed him. Both turned to their assigned tasks.

As she went about powering up the control console, Jerry surveyed his spaces and noticed that Huey was prepped and in position to be loaded. Looking at his watch, he saw that there were only a few minutes left before they manned launch stations. Less than a minute later, Senior Chief Foster, Petty Officer Willis, and Seaman Jobin entered the torpedo room and moved toward the ROV. They were the bulk of ROV team one; Petty Officer Boyd was already there, since he had the torpedo room watch.

“MAN ROV LAUNCH STATIONS,” announced the IMC. The Captain was precisely on schedule.

“All right, people. Let’s get this vehicle into tube three,” ordered Foster. Jerry got out of the way. Despite the smaller number of men working on the ROV, Foster managed to get it into the tube and hooked up in about the same amount of time as during the first test trials. Ten minutes later, Huey was outside swimming around. Once everyone was clear of tube three, Jerry walked up and shined his pocket flashlight on the fiber-optic penetration in the breech door. The leak they had seen during the first two tests had noticeably decreased to a slow drip. Satisfied, Jerry returned to his place back by the control console.