It was just his commanding officer he couldn't stand.

How the hell did Captain Hairy Ricks ever make it this far? he asked himself for the twentieth time this week. The man was brilliant. He could have designed a submarine-reactor system on the back of an envelope, or maybe even in his head during a rare daydream. He knew things about submarine design that Electric Boat's shipwrights had never even thought about. He could discuss the ins and outs of periscope design with the Navy's chief optics expert, and knew more about satellite-navigation aids than NASA or TRW or whoever the hell was running that program. Surely he knew more about the guidance packages on their Trident-II 0-5 sea-launched ballistic missiles than anyone this side of Lockheed's Missile Systems Division. Over dinner two weeks earlier, he'd recited a whole page from the maintenance manual. From a technical point of view, Ricks might have been the most thoroughly prepared officer in the United States Navy.

Harry Ricks was the quintessential product of the Nuclear Navy. As an engineer he was unequaled. The technical aspects of his job were almost instinctive to him. Claggett was good, and knew it; he also knew that he'd never be as good as Harry Ricks.

It's just that he doesn't know dick about submarining or submariners, Claggett reflected bleakly. It was incredible, but true, that Ricks had little feeling for seamanship and none at all for sailors.

"Sir," Claggett said slowly, "this is a very good chief. He's young, but he's sharp."

"He can't keep control of his people," Ricks replied.

"Captain, I don't know what you mean by that."

"His training methods aren't what they're supposed to be."

"He is a little unconventional, but he has cut six seconds off the average reload time. The fish are all fully functional, even the one that came over from the beach bad. The compartment is completely squared away. What more can we ask of the man?"

"I don't ask. I direct. I order. I expect things to be done my way, the right way. And they will be done that way." Ricks observed in a dangerously quiet voice.

It made no sense at all to cross the skipper on issues like this, especially when he posed them in this way, but Claggett's job as executive officer was to stand between the crew and the captain, especially when the captain was wrong.

"Sir, I must respectfully disagree. I think we look at results, and the results here are just about perfect. A good chief is one who stretches the envelope, and this one hasn't stretched it very far. If you slap him down, it will have a negative effect on him and his department."

"X, I expect support from all my officers, and especially from you."

Claggett sat straight up in his chair as though from a blow. He managed to speak calmly. "Captain, you have my support and my loyalty. It is not my job to be a robot. I'm supposed to offer alternatives. At least," he added, "that's what they told me at PXO School." Claggett regretted the last sentence even before it was spoken, but somehow it had come out anyway. The CO's cabin was quite small, and immediately got smaller still.