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“I hope you’re right, Feng,” Pacino said, and walked farther down the passageway to the junior officers’ bullpen office. He found his desk and dejectedly tossed his bag and cap onto it. He was alone in the room. He pulled out his laptop and plugged it into the docking station and scanned his email, but it was all routine.

Lieutenant Duke “Squirt Gun” Vevera entered the room, tossing his backpack onto his seat. He looked at Pacino sadly and shook his hand, looking into Pacino’s eyes. “You okay? Any of that smoke stuff cause permanent damage?”

Pacino shook his head. “I coughed all through the nights the first week, but I think I coughed it all up.”

Vevera was, like Pacino, an Academy grad, Pacino later learning that Vevera had been a classmate, although Pacino hadn’t known him at Annapolis. He was stocky, barrel-chested and built like a refrigerator, his physique earning him the initial nickname of “Man Mountain.” The “Squirt Gun” nickname came later, from him ill-advisedly remarking to the executive officer at midnight rations one night that his pretty young girlfriend was a “squirter,” and ever since the crew would regularly greet Vevera by tossing towels at him. Vevera had missed the Panther run to fight off a rabidly aggressive form of cancer, and against the odds he’d beaten the disease with an experimental treatment when everyone was certain they would be burying him when the Vermont returned, but he seemed as healthy as before the cancer struck. He owned an enormous motorcycle, an Indian Chieftain, in a turquoise and beige two-tone paint scheme with brown leather and leather tassels sprouting out everywhere, which earned him even more teasing from the enlisted men, who jokingly insisted no straight male would ever drive a motorcycle like that. Vevera was perhaps most famous for attempting to pull Vermont out of Norfolk when she’d been tied up bow-in, and during the reversal the stern had gone north instead of south, and to line up the boat to point northward, Vevera had just kept going in a backward circle, making a 270 degree turn instead of a simple 90.

Vevera had taken over for former mechanical officer Lieutenant Kyle Lomax, who’d left the ship to go to shore duty after the Panther mission. Vevera regularly complained about working for Lewinsky, but Pacino knew he secretly loved his job and revered the chief engineer.

“So, Patch, any news about the Nav?”

Pacino filled Vevera in, as he had the engineer.

Vevera just shook his head sadly. It was then Don “Easy” Eisenhart walked into the room. Another Academy grad, Easy was the ship’s communications officer, and Pacino was still getting to know him. He looked at Pacino with a half-smile.

“I hear you royally fucked up the boat, Lipstick,” he said.

Pacino’s other callsign, “Lipstick,” had arisen from an unfortunate drunken night of liberty in a foreign port when he’d awakened in the bed of a woman he barely knew, then reported to the ship with his lower face completely smeared in her lipstick, his appearance causing paroxysms of laughter from both officers and enlisted alike. Pacino waited for the memory of that morning to fade, but regrettably, it still lived on.

“Actually, it wasn’t—“

“I know, Lipstick,” Eisenhart said quickly, sensing Pacino’s sore spot. “Tough break. So, let me ask. How realistic was the simulation when it was done in-hull?”

“Easy, you have no idea how fucking realistic it was. When the fire broke out, I thought it was part of the scenario, and then when the smoke came in something happened. It must have fucked me up and I totally lost the bubble — I forgot it was a drill. I was so convinced I was actually at Zapadnaya Litsa that the Board of Inquiry must have thought I’d gone around the bend. It’s safe to say, they’ll never train that way again.”

“Wow. Well, better you than me. I’d have never survived that Board of Inquiry. You, with your admiral father working for the president and all, hell, one phone call and you were off the hook.”

“I thought that too, but Dad swears no one said anything.”

“Still, they did know they were dealing with a Pacino.”

“The thing I love about you, Easy? You definitely keep me humble.”

Eisenhart laughed. “Hey, someone has to.” He pointed his thumb at Pacino. “Fuckin’ guy gets the Navy Cross and steals an enemy nuclear submarine to earn the Silver Star — how you gonna keep his feet on the ground?”

Pacino laughed. “Fuck you, Easy.”

Eisenhart returned the verbal salute with, “And your mother too.”

* * *