"Mr Pitney," Ricks said over the noise. "Antenna depth."

"Aye, Captain. Diving officer, make your depth six-zero feet."

"Make my depth six-zero feet, aye. Helm, ten degrees up on the fairwater planes."

Ten degrees up on the fairwater planes, aye." The young crewman - helm duty is typically given to very junior men - pulled back on the aircraft-like wheel. "Sir, my planes are up ten degrees."

"Very well."

Barely had that been done when people flooded into the control room. The Chief of the Boat - Maine’s senior enlisted man - took his battle station at the air-manifold panel. He was the submarine's senior Diving Officer. Lieutenant-Commander Claggett entered the conn to back the captain up. Pitney, the boat's navigator, was already at his post, which was conning officer. Various enlisted men took their seats at weapons consoles. Aft, officers and men assumed their positions as different as the Missile Control Center - MCC - which monitored the status of Maine’s twenty-four Trident missiles, and the auxiliary equipment room, which was mainly concerned with the ship's backup diesel engine.

In the control room, the IC - internal communications - man of the watch called off the compartments as they reported in as manned and ready.

"What gives?" Claggett asked Ricks. The captain merely handed over the brief EAM slip.

"Drill?"

"I suppose. Why not?" Ricks asked. "It's a Sunday, right?"

"Still bumpy up on the roof?"

As though on cue, Maine started taking rolls. The depth gauge showed 290 feet, and the massive submarine suddenly rocked ten degrees to starboard. Throughout the vessel, men rolled their eyes and grumbled. There was scarcely a man aboard who hadn't lost it at least once. This was the perfect environment for motion sickness. With no outside references - submarines are conspicuously short of windows and portholes - the eyes saw something that clearly was not moving while the inner ears reported that movement was definitely taking place. The same thing that had affected nearly all of the Apollo astronauts began to affect these sailors. Unconsciously, men shook their heads sharply, as though to repel a bothersome insect. They uniformly hoped that whatever the hell they were up to - no one from Ricks on down knew as yet what was happening - they'd soon be able to get back where they belonged - four hundred feet, where the ship's motion was imperceptible.

"Level at six-zero feet, sir."

"Very well," Pitney replied.

"Conn, sonar, contact lost on Sierra-16. Surface noise is screwing us all up."

"What's the last position?" Ricks asked.

"Last bearing was two-seven-zero, estimated range four-nine thousand yards," Ensign Shaw replied.

"Okay. Run up the UHF antenna. Up scope," he also ordered the quartermaster of the watch. Maine was taking twenty-degree rolls now, and Ricks wanted to see why. The quartermaster rotated the red-and-white control wheel, and the oiled cylinder hissed up on hydraulic power.

"Wow," the captain said as he put his hands on the handles. He could feel the power of the sea slapping the exposed top of the instrument. He bent down to look.