His record was nearly spotless. He’d always done his best and in the face of overwhelming obstacles. He honestly did not care about what his superiors thought. Not at this juncture. But he was worried about what he would think of himself if he pulled the DSU team out before the job was complete. That’s what he feared: the loss of confidence and self-respect. Sometimes it was all you had. He had a pretty good feeling that Bell wasn’t too happy with him right about then.

But that was too damn bad.

He was a DSU diver. He knew the risks of his job. The awful sacrifices he might be called upon to make. That was life.

Oh, you make it sound so black-and-white, he told himself. But it isn’t and you know it. Love does not come easy to a man like you. But you love the Navy. You love the DSU and the DSSP. The Deep Submergence Unit and the Deep Submergence Systems Project are your whole life. And if you love them, you love Javy, Bell, Murphy, and maybe even Hubbs himself a little bit more. Maybe they look at you as a father-figure and maybe they don’t, but you know you look at them like your own kids. You picked them for this op. Out of all the DSU personnel, you picked those four because they were the best. They mean everything to you. And you know goddamn well that if you thought it would save them and get them back home again, you’d swim alone into that fucking city with a bomb strapped to your back. Screw self-respect. Screw it all.

Yes, that was it exactly.

What hurt the most was the fact that they might be losing faith in him. That was the blade that cut the deepest. And if something happened to them, he’d never forgive himself. Fuck the DSU, fuck the Navy, and fuck the United goddamn States of America, they were like his own kids and he could not let anything happen to them.

He actually opened his mouth to tell his divers to pull out…but he didn’t.

Couldn’t.

Because he knew the Navy. And if he and his team didn’t get the job done, they’d simply bring in someone who could. And that would be the last he and the team would ever see of the DSU again. He’d be given a desk job somewhere and put out to pasture. They’d be out of the service. Probably end up with the mercenaries of the deep salvage business or welding gas lines at 600 fathoms. Regardless, it would all be over. For him, for them.