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He cut the Corvette’s engine and grabbed his briefcase and cover from the passenger seat, got out and locked the door, putting on his Vermont ball cap. He wore the shapeless, baggy, awful khaki two-piece fire-resistant working uniform that resembled pajamas, hating the uniform. He swore, if he ever rose to a high enough rank in the Navy, he’d bring back the uniforms that made the enlisted and officers proud to wear them. Goddamned Big Navy, he thought, out of touch, more concerned with political correctness than warfighting. If it ever came to combat, he thought, they’d be in sad shape indeed. He clenched his jaw, forced himself to stand up straight and walked to the entrance to the admin building, wondering if the crew would be blaming him for the fire on the submarine.

He climbed the stairs to the second deck, already starting to sweat from the sweltering August morning in a building with substandard air conditioning. Down the hallway, he stuck his head into the department head bullpen, where the engineer, navigator, weapons officer and supply officer had desks, each pushed against the outer wall of the room. He glanced mournfully at Rachel’s desk, which had been piled high with “get well” cards. The weapons officer and supply officer were absent this early, but the chief engineer sat at his desk, reading glasses perched on his nose.

The engineer, Lieutenant Commander Elvis “Feng” Lewinsky peered at his tablet computer, reading some memo from the shipyard about the health of his reactor plant. The engineer had no problems, Pacino thought, with the exception of his auxiliary machinery room forward of the reactor compartment, which had experienced some measure of fire damage. The emergency diesel engine, rumor had it, had been unscathed.

Pacino stepped all the way into the room.

“Hey, Feng,” Pacino said to his old friend. The “Feng” callsign acknowledged that Lewinsky wasn’t just the engineer, he was the fucking engineer.

Lewinsky looked over, tossed his tablet and reading glasses to the desk, and stood up, an expression of deep sympathy coming to his face. He walked up, shook Pacino’s hand, and clapped his shoulder. Lewinsky was Pacino’s height, but muscle-bound, taking his frustrations out on a heavy bag and his bench press rig. He had a close-cropped blonde crewcut, a strong jawline, and usually an intimidating expression unless he were smiling, or like now, when he looked concerned.

“Patch. How are you bearing up?”

Pacino found himself blinking back moisture in his eyes, embarrassed at his show of weakness.

“I’m okay, Feng. I just got back from the hospital.”

“The Nav — any change?”

Pacino shook his head. “She’s not good. Doctors won’t say she’s brain dead, but her brain activity is not good and the coma continues. I suppose her burns are healing. They used this new artificial skin for a skin graft and it’s looking good. But I’m worried for her.”

“Yeah,” Lewinsky said.

Pacino supposed there was nothing more to say about Rachel. “Are you hearing anything from the yard birds about the boat? Repair schedules?”

Lewinsky glanced back at his pad computer and turned to Pacino. “It’s not good. In fact, it’s so bad that they’re thinking about cutting off the forward compartment of the Vermont and replacing it with the bow of the new construction boat, the 798 Massachusetts, then rebuilding Vermont’s forward compartment and welding it onto the ass end of the 798. But a maneuver like that — imagine a head transplant on a human being. Every single cable, fiber optic line, duct and pipe has to be cut off at frame one-oh-seven and then re-spliced into place in the new location, and then you’d have to sprinkle holy water on it and pray that it will all work when things are said and done.”

“You’re kidding.”

“That’s the easy part. The Vermont forward compartment has to be moved to a floating drydock while they move the 798 from Electric Boat in Groton down here into Graving Dock Number Two and rip off its forward compartment, then float the 798’s forward compartment over to Dock Number One to weld onto Vermont’s reactor compartment bulkhead, then Frankenstein the 798’s hull together with our old forward compartment while they try to bring it back to life.”

“Fuck’s sake, Feng, you’re talking about a year of work.”

“More like two, Patch. Maybe three.”

“That’s insane. What the hell are we going to do while all that’s going on?”

“I heard the XO has plans for you junior officers. I don’t want to steal his thunder, though. You’ll hear the news soon enough.”

“Thanks, Feng. I guess I’d better report to my goddamned desk for a day of paper-pushing.”

“Hey Patch,” Lewinsky said, “Chin up. It’ll be okay.”