Ninety Degrees North by Stephen Makk

Author:Stephen Makk [Makk, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-08-09T04:00:00+00:00

Nathan awoke and dressed, and walked back aft to the galley for breakfast.

A young dark-haired girl smiled at him. “Hello, sir. Here for your normal cheese omelette and coffee?”

“Sounds good to me.”

He sat next to Kate LeDonns, a Lieutenant in Engineering. She got up and brought his food to him when it was ready.

He smiled. “To what do I owe this?”

“I can see you just got up, sir, and we need you in good shape. We’re under the ice, aren’t we, sir?”

“Yes. Is the word around?”

“It is, and I believe we’re not alone either. The Big Bad Wolf is out there.”

Nathan grinned. He always found it amazing that you couldn’t keep much from the crew. He remembered his time as a junior officer on USS New York City; it had been the same. All the clues from various sources added up and a picture emerged.

“Kate, have you seen Miss Kaminski recently?” He knew she was a friend of Nikki’s.

“Yes, she still speaks to me even after her promotion.” Kate gave him a knowing smile. “She’s enjoying the new job. She says her duties have expanded, but it suits her, I know. I suppose if I were a man, sir, I could think of worse people to put me to bed than Nikki.”

Nathan put on his best poker face. “I suppose so.” He finished his breakfast. “Well, I’d better be off Lieutenant. See you around.”

“See you, sir.”

Nathan left and shook his head. You couldn’t fit a piece of paper between her and Nikki.

In the control room, Weaps looked over at him.

“You have the conn, sir.”

“I have the conn. Where are we?”

“Approaching 150 miles from the eastern ice edge. No contacts.”

Nathan walked over to the chart display. We’ll get closer yet. He watched the crew go about their business.

“Sir, we’re 15 miles from Datum one,” said Koss.

“Thanks.” He let the boat get to around three miles of Datum one: their rendezvous location with the other boats.

“Planesman, down bubble five, trim for slow descent, make your depth 850 feet.”

“Sir, down five, 850 feet.”

USS Stonewall Jackson made her slow dive deeper into the Arctic Sea.

After long minutes, the Planesman called out, “Eight hundred and fifty feet, sir.”

“Thanks, Planesman. Koss, what’s our bearing for datum one?”

“Ninety seven degrees, sir. Two point two miles.”

“Make 97 degrees. Call out the position, Koss.”

The boat sailed on through the blackness, bound for that point in the deeps, that point in the blackness that’d been picked as their start point.

“Datum one, sir.”

“All stop. Maintain depth.”

The boat hung in the silent darkness, waiting.

After around two hours, Benson called, “We have a call on Gertrude, sir. It’s Minnesota.”

Nathan picked up the handset. “Commander Blake USN.”

“Blake, it’s Stanley. We have Tucson with us to port. Any sign of the bad guys?”

“No, not yet. My sonar wizard has picked up some traces, but not enough yet.”

“We’ve been dragging the low frequency wire. Fleet says maybe eight or nine boats are coming from the enemy coast, Yasens and Akulas. USS 73 Easting is coming from the south and USS Connecticut and USS Santa Fe are heading here.

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