Up From the Depths Read Online Free PDF Page B

Captain Gavin Horatio O’Reilly, United States Navy (Retired) watched the horizon through binoculars. This far into their voyage all they had come across were ships with no crews. Technically, those vessels still had crews but not personnel that could perform their assigned tasks as they had become victims to the Reset Virus. Several times they had to make course corrections to avoid collisions as some vessels were still under power and moving on their assigned routes until they either ran out of fuel or ran aground.
    O’Reilly lowered the optics but continued to stare at the sea. He glanced over at the bridge wings and saw the lookouts slowly swiveling their high power optics to scan for other waterborne traffic. This reminded him of the old sailing days he had read about as a youth. No electronics, no GPS, just sharp-eyed sailors watching the sea. Only this time the ship wasn’t made of wood but of iron, steel, and the blood of those that had seen her through combat.
    “Charts,” he called, using the old term for what was now designated as navigator. The bridge crew didn’t respond but as one looked over to the gray haired man who was bent over studying the map on the chart table.
    “Charts!” O’Reilly yelled louder. One of the younger sailors nudged Senior Chief Petty Officer (Ret) Arvin Pickering.
    “What?” he asked as he looked at the sailor. The sailor pointed at the captain. Pickering reached up and adjusted his hearing aids. Several seconds of pops, whistles, and squelch came from the Senior Chief before he answered.
    “Captain?”
    O’Reilly shook his head as he swiveled his command chair and looked at the retired Senior Chief.
    “Where are we at, Senior Chief?” O’Reilly asked, stepping down from his chair and walking to the chart table.
    “We’re 575 miles West of Bremerton, Cap’n,” Pickering reported. “Bearing 120 Mark 5. Current course and speed, I estimate time to arrival at 1500 hours tomorrow.”
    O’Reilly nodded as he studied the chart. To have made it this far without the use of modern navigational aids took skill and years of experience. Senior Chief Pickering had both. Using compass and sextant to gauge distance, location, and bearing was the mark of a true deep water sailor. To have made it this far with less than the normal Iowa class crew complement of 2700 was another feat unto itself. Of course, with the engine room having been modernized in the late 1980s and1990s and not having any of the gun crews save two of the retirees who spent their time checking and rechecking the systems of each of the three turrets made the crew they did have focus on keeping the ship running.
    O’Reilly returned to his chair and continued his vigilance of the sea.
    “Captain,” one of the bridge wing personnel said.
    “Go ahead,” O’Reilly said.
    “Looks like a storm forming. We’re going to get fog the closer we get to shore. Probably some gusts and lots of rain.”
    “Copy that.” O’Reilly swiveled his chair, brought up his binoculars and studied the dark clouds moving towards shore. With luck, they might make landfall after the storm had come and gone. Without radar, he would have to rely on his lookouts to spot land.
    “All ahead two-thirds,” O’Reilly ordered. "Steady as she goes."
    “Two-thirds, aye.”
     
    ****
     
    Below decks, in the Combat Information Center or CIC, several of the sailors that had been on active duty at Pearl Harbor and had found their way to the Missouri in the chaos that ravaged the Hawaiian Islands, tried to understand how to boot up the older systems that had been installed before the ship had become a floating museum. The systems that had replaced the older 1940’s era equipment were still ancient technology from the 1980s.
    “Oh my God,” Petty Officer 2nd Class Steve Pratt said as he tried to get the sonar system to boot up for the twentieth time. “This stuff is like playing Pong. Bet it still uses DOS.”
    Seaman Ernesto Kimmel looked at