Operation White Out, page 32
I jammed the wrench as hard as I could directly into the gaping maw and left it there. I grabbed an upper tentacle with my left hand and sliced. It was like cutting tough leather. I sawed frantically while the squid grabbed at my hand and knife with two other tentacles while keeping a grip on me with the rest. After what seemed like an hour, but actually was less than a minute, I held the detached, writhing tentacle in my left hand. I tossed it away, still squirming like a snake. With the tentacle out of the way, I could see the large, human-like eye, fully six inches across, staring at me malevolently. I plunged my knife into the orb—once, twice, a third time. That did it! The two thin tentacles whipped around frantically, and the giant disappeared into the darkness along with its pulsating companion.
“Harry, where are you?” I was concentrating on the water in front of me, preparing for another attack.
“Right below you, Mac. Let’s get the fuck outa here!”
A very long minute later, I followed Harry through the hatch opening, and Bill pulled me all the way in.
“Everyone down there okay?” That was Franklin again.
“Control…PTC,” Bill responded, “divers are back inside. Everyone seems to be okay.”
Just then, the smooth water surface in the circular opening began to boil.
“Shee…it!” Bill shouted, as two thick tentacles darted through the surface and began whipping around the PTC interior. “Fucker’s trying to get in the PTC!” Bill’s distorted voice in my earphones matched his lip movements. His face registered not so much panic as total shock.
“Or pull us out,” Harry added.
Bill and Harry grabbed their knives, slashing into the writhing appendages. I reached over the opening and grasped the hatch in both hands, pushing for all I was worth. I looked down into the six-inch eye of the invading monster as I swung the hatch down. I sensed intelligence, driven by pure malevolence. The last thing I saw before I dogged the hatch was a half-sliced-through tapered tentacle tip as it slipped back into the frigid water around us.
Harry removed his helmet and gave Bill a gloved high-five. From across the dogged hatch, I gave them both two thumbs-up and pulled off my own helmet and gloves. Then I grabbed a Ziploc baggie from my personal kit to fill it with my trophy sand, but when I felt my leg pocket for the sand, it was gone. Chalk up another one to the monsters.
“Control…this is Mac.” I was sure they could hear the relief in my distorted voice. “To hell with the rest of this dive. Just bring us home!”
About the Author
Dr. Robert G. Williscroft is a retired submarine officer, deep-sea and saturation diver, scientist, author, and a lifelong adventurer. He spent twenty-two months underwater, a year in the equatorial Pacific, three years in the Arctic ice pack, and a year at the Geographic South Pole. He holds degrees in Marine Physics and Meteorology and a doctorate for developing a system to protect scuba divers in contaminated water. A prolific author of both non-fiction, submarine technothrillers, and hard science fiction, he lives in Centennial, Colorado.
Dr. Williscroft is a member of Colorado Author’s League, Independent Association of Science Fiction & Fantasy Authors, Science Fiction Writers of America, Libertarian Futurist Society, Los Angeles Adventurers’ Club, Mensa, Military Officer’s Association, American Legion, and the NRA, and now spends most of his time writing his next book, speaking to various regional groups, and hanging out with the girl of his dreams, Jill, and her two cats.
Other Works By Robert G. Williscroft
Please visit Amazon.com to discover other eBooks by Robert Williscroft and your favorite online or Brick & Mortar bookseller for their paper versions:
Current events:
The Chicken Little Agenda—Debunking Experts’ Lies
Children’s books:
The Starman Jones Series:
Starman Jones: A Relativity Birthday Present
Starman Jones Goes to the Dogs (scheduled for release in 2023)
Short Stories:
The Daedalus Files:
Daedalus
Daedalus—LEO
Daedalus—Squad
Daedalus—Combat
Novels:
Mac McDowell Missions:
Operation Ivy Bells
Operation Ice Breaker
Operation Arctic Sting
Operation White Out
The Starchild Trilogy:
Slingshot
The Daedalus Files
The Starchild Compact
The Iapetus Federation
The Oort Chronicles:
Icicle—A Tensor Matrix
The Oort Federation: To the Stars
Andromeda—A Rising Tide (2023)
Biography:
Sŭbmarine-ër by Jerry Pait—Compiled by Robert G. Williscroft
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Glossary For Operation White Out
1MC—Ship’s announcing system.
AIP—Air Independent Propulsion. A much less expensive alternative to nuclear propulsion for submarines. Uses Stirling engines and HP air or oxygen and fuel, or uses fuel cells. Can typically remain submerged for two weeks or more.
APS—Underwater fully automatic assault weapon. Fires twenty-six darts in full automatic—lethal range forty feet. Magazine holds twenty-six darts. Was made in the Soviet Union for use underwater by Soviet frogmen as an underwater firearm. It was developed in the late 1960s and accepted for use in 1975. Underwater, ordinary-shaped bullets are inaccurate and very short-range.
ASR—Hull classification for submarine rescue ships.
Baffles—The area in the water directly behind a submarine or ship through which a hull-mounted sonar cannot hear. This blind spot is caused by the noise of the vessel’s machinery, propulsion system, and propellers.
Basketball—A slightly larger than basketball-sized, camera-carrying ROV on a tether. The Basketball portal is on the starboard side of Teuthis at the Dive Control Center.
BCP—Ballast Control Panel; the console from which water is pumped into and out of a sub, and distributed fore and aft in the sub. The Chief-of-the-Watch occupies this position, under the control of the Diving Officer or the OOD.
Boat—Slang term for submarine. Officially, all modern nuclear subs are called ships, but in practice, most submariners call them boats.
Boomer—Ballistic Missile Submarine.
Bottom—Bottom of the ocean, the seafloor. As a verb as in to bottom, putting the submarine on the seafloor.
Bow—Front of a ship or sub.
Brash—Small, floating fragments of sea or river ice typically near the ice edge in the ocean and in narrow straits with high tidal currents.
Bridge—The place on a ship from which it is driven. On a sub, it is the conning station at the top of the sail. (See Conn.)
Brow—Gangway onto a vessel from the pier or another vessel.
Bunny Suit—An insulating inner garment worn by divers dressed in a drysuit.
Cameroceras—A giant orthocone that supposedly went extinct over 400 million years ago. Looks like a giant squid, living inside a 10-foot-long, cone-shaped shell.
Capstan—A revolving cylinder with a vertical axis used for hauling in a rope or cable.
Captain—The officer in command of the ship or sub. He is an absolute dictator, subject only to the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the orders of his superiors in the chain of command.
CDMA—Code division multiple access. (See Secure underwater telephone.)
Chief-of-the-Boat—COB; the senior enlisted man on a submarine who serves as adviser to the commanding officer and executive officer. When a new enlisted sailor joins a boat’s crew, the COB is usually one of the first people the new sailor will meet.
Chief-of-the-Watch—COW; the enlisted watchstander (usually a chief petty officer) who sits at the BCP and controls the ship’s load of ballast water and its distribution throughout the submarine. The COW is also the senior watchstander for all the non-engineering spaces.
CinCLantFlt—Commander-in-Chief, Naval Fleet Atlantic; the commander of all naval forces in the Atlantic.
CinCPacFlt—Commander-in-Chief, Naval Fleet Pacific; the commander of all naval forces in the Pacific.
Clear the baffles—A submarine tracking another submarine can take advantage of its quarry’s baffles to follow at a close distance without being detected. Periodically, a submarine will perform a maneuver called clearing the baffles. The boat will turn left or right far enough to listen with the sonar for a few minutes in the area that was previously blocked by the baffles.
Cleat—A T-shaped piece of metal or wood, esp. on a boat or ship, to which ropes or lines are attached.
CO—Short for Commanding Officer
COB—see Chief-of-the-Boat.
Commanding Officer—The officer assigned by the Navy to be in charge of a ship or submarine. He is an absoloute dictator, subject only to the Uniform Code us Military Justice and the orders of his superiors in the chain of command.
Column—(water column) All the water above and below a specific point.
ComSubLant—Commander, Submarine Force Atlantic; the commander of all submarine forces in the Atlantic.
ComSubPac—Commander, Submarine Force Pacific; the commander of all submarine forces in the Pacific.
Conn—(1) The location from which the sub is controlled by the OOD—also called Control. (2) The Conning Officer (Conn), the watch position for the person who controls the sub’s direction, speed, and depth. The OOD usually has both the Deck and Conn, but can pass off the Conn to another qualified officer. Sometimes the captain will assume the Deck, leaving the Conn with the officer watchstander.
COW—See Chief-of-the-Watch.
Crashback—A forward moving ship reversing the screw(s) to all back full—the highest reverse speed possible.
CRC—Cable Reel Chamber.
DDC—Deck Decompression Chamber; a pressure chamber on a ship’s deck or just below the deck, that contains a side lock for entrance and egress, a small lock for passing in food or medical supplies, emergency equipment, and depending on how it is being used, bunks, lavatory facilities, etc.
Deck—The watch position of OOD (Officer-of-the-Deck); the person in-charge of the sub when the captain is not in the Control Room or has not assumed the Deck while in the Control Room.
DIA—Defense Intelligence Agency.
Dive Control Console—A console with gauges, valves, and indicators from where a saturation dive is controlled.
Diving Officer—The officer or specially qualified Chief Petty Officer controlling the submarine depth. Works directly under the OOD. The COW works directly for the Diving Officer.
DIW—Dead in the water; a ship that is not moving through the water.
DOC—Diving Operations Compartment.
Dolphins—The insignia worn by qualified submariners, silver for enlisted, and gold for officers. It represents about a year of hard study to gain complete, detailed knowledge of the submarine.
Drift ice—A large field of floating sea ice consisting of many ice floes.
Drysuit—A waterproof suit worn by divers that seals at the wrists and neck, and at the ankles if the suit does not have attached boots.
DRT—Dead Reckoning Trace. A mechanically generated ship’s track based on input from the SINS.
DSRV—Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle, a type of deep-submergence vehicle used for rescue of downed submarines and clandestine missions.
EB—Electric Boat Company, short for General Dynamics Electric Boat Company.
Emergency surface—Dumping high pressure into the main ballast tanks at a high rate, causing the submarine to surface very quickly.
Engineering-Officer-of-the-Watch—EOOW; the individual on watch who operates the powerplant.
EOOW—See Engineering-Officer-of-the-Watch.
Executive Officer—Second in command of a ship or sub. Responsible for ship’s administration and personnel.
Fake down—Loosely figure-eight a line so that it will feed from the top tangle-free.
Fast-attack—See Nuke fast-attack.
Fast cruise—A one- or two-day period alongside the pier where all sub’s systems are checked out just prior to deployment.
Fish—An ROV with high resolution, sidescan sonar that produces detailed images of the seafloor.
Fish—A torpedo.
Floe—See Ice floe.
General Dynamics Electric Boat Company—A General Dynamics company that has designed, built, and maintained submarines for the US Navy since 1899.
Gertrude—Underwater telephone. (See Secure underwater telephone.)
Helm—Ship’s wheel and steering mechanisms. The person manning the helm.
Hot Water Suit—A class of diving suit that keeps a diver warm by pumping hot water into the suit down the spine and along the legs and arms, where it flows into the surrounding water or into gloves and boots before flowing into the water. A hot water suit requires an umbilical from the hot water source to the diver. This umbilical often also contains breathing gas and communications.
Ice floe—A floating piece of consolidated sea ice typically at least twenty yards across and often miles long. Drift ice consists of many ice floes.
JOOD—Junior Officer-of-the-Deck; the individual (usually an OOD in training) who works directly for the OOD. The JOOD is responsible only to the OOD.
Keepers—One-piece rubber straps that wrap around the ankle and under the arch. Keep the feet of a Unisuit from filling with air and blowing off a diver’s feet when inverted.
Kirby-Morgan helmet—A hard helmeted full facemask specifically designed to work with both umbilical and rebreather saturation diving systems from the 1970s and 1980s.
LOS—Line of sight.
Main ballast tanks—Saddle-shaped tanks that fit around a submarine’s hull near the bow and stern. They are open to the sea at the bottom and have large valves at the top. When the valves are opened, water quickly fills the ballast tanks, causing the submarine to submerge. Air entering the tanks forces water out through the bottom openings, bringing the submarine to the surface. Dumping high pressure into the main ballast tanks at a high rate causes the submarine to emergency surface.
Man-in-the-Sea Program—A program put in place by the US Navy to develop saturation diving.
Maneuvering Room—That part of a sub where the engines, generators, and reactor are directly controlled.
Maneuvering Watch—The special set of watch assignments for a sub or ship that is getting underway.
Nav—Depending on context, the ship’s/sub’s Navigator; or the navigation stand—typically near the Conn.
Naval Reactors—The title of the admiral in charge of Naval Reactor Systems.
Nuke fast-attack—A nuclear fast-attack submarine; a hunter-killer submarine.
OIC—Officer-in-Charge; the Officer-in-Charge of a unit or operation. A lesser command responsibility than a Commanding Officer.
OOD—Officer-of-the-Deck; the individual in charge of the ship or submarine at any given moment. The OOD is responsible only to the captain.
Operation Ivy Bells—A top secret Cold War plan to retrieve Soviet missile parts and tap into their underwater communication cables.
Ops—The Operations Officer.
Orthocone—An unusually long straight shell of a nautiloid cephalopod. Can be thought of as like a Nautilus, but with the shell straight and uncoiled.
Outboards—Maneuvering thrusters that were normally concealed in the sub, but could be lowered from the keel near the bow and stern. These could rotate to help steer the sub, or if pointed in the same direction, they could move the sub sideways.
Polynya—A semipermanent area of open water in sea ice.
Port—Left.
Rebreather—A class of underwater breathing apparatus that recirculates the breathing gas exhaled by the diver after replacing the oxygen used and removing the carbon dioxide metabolic product.
ROV—Remotely Operated Vehicle, an unmanned underwater vehicle that is remotely piloted either by wire or untethered, using sound.
Satnav—A satellite-based navigation system developed by the US Navy for obtaining accurate positions for its Boomer and fast-attack fleets.
Secure—Stop or finish a process, such as “Secure from Maneuvering Watch;” or when used as a verb, to make something safe, as in “secure the lines in the locker.”
Secure the hover—Stop hover operations.
Secure the sidescan—Shut down the sidescan sonar.
Secure Gertrude—See secure underwater telephone.
Secure underwater telephone—A CDMA underwater telephone for secure underwater communications between submarines and between subs and surface ships. Without proper receiving equipment, it sounds like a faint, broad-spectrum hiss that blends completely into the background noise. Consequently, this type of underwater communication is undetectable. (See Spread Spectrum.)
