CHAPTER 1: DEAD IN THE WATER


1700 Hours
8
th of August 2018
USS
McCampbell
United States Fleet Activities Yokosuka

Cromwell furrowed his brows as he fell into his chair, totally exhausted after a whole day's worth of bullshit. He let his eyes roll back, staring into the floral wallpaper that adorned the cold metal walls of his CO's cabin. His chair creaked as he leaned back, trying to catch a breather after the sheer hectic chaos that had occurred in the last 48 hours.

"Fuckin' civvies!" he moaned to himself as he recollected the previous two days' worth of events.


It had been a day of relatively calm seas on the 6th of August; visibility was good and the USS McCampbell set sail for the open waters out of Yokosuka for a sea exercise between American and Japanese vessels. It was around 8 o'clock that everything went south, badly. Despite initial warnings by both the Navy and the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force, a Japanese cargo ship had seemed to miss or ignore every foreboding message that told quite simply to back the fuck away, there are warships doing their shit. Cromwell had left the bridge for his OOD to handle this relatively simple manoeuvre of sailing in a straight line. This combined with having all lookouts focused on the opposite side of the huge cargo vessel that was ploughing towards them, gave a very annoying and nasty surprise to Cromwell. He had only stepped back into the bridge to perform an inspection when he bellowed at the top of his voice:

"Holy fuck! That's a fucking ship! ENGINES BACK FULL!"

The McCampbell shuddered as the ship's two screws jammed themselves into reverse, causing the ship to lurch forward. Shouts of sailors and screeching metal only confirmed Cromwell's worst fears.


Cromwell sighed to himself as he let the memories pass from the creases of his mind. Before he could finish a knock came to his door.

"Come in," he commanded, eyes closed in annoyance.

A tall man garbed in an NWU Type I stepped in, ducking slightly under the rather short door that acted as the entrance to the CO's cabin.

"Mike? Didn't I tell you not to bother me?" Cromwell groaned as he noted the golden oak leaf rank insignia stitched in the collar of the uniform of his guest.

"Come on Harry, you can't sulk in here forever." Lieutenant Commander Michael Sampson retorted, strolling over to wall-attached couch, stretching his legs out and resting his 8-point cover on the table.

"Yeah, well what do you want me to do? Sail this damn ship out of here and go on our merry ways?"

"Heh, perhaps." Sampson smirked slightly. "You are going to have to face the facts Cromwell. You fucked up. The McCampbell has a 12 foot dent in it. You're damn lucky that nobody broke as much as a nail."

Now if this was any other subordinate, with any other superior, they would have been immediately reprimanded. However, Cromwell and Sampson went back a long way. All the way back to Annapolis. He was usually tolerant of Sampson's stark realism, which anchored his own sometimes incredulous brash foolhardy style. However, today, he was in no mood for it.

"Zip it there. I don't need you telling me this when I'm probably going to get fired for this. Hell, court-martial. Navy needs to cover its own ass for all the accidents that happened this year."

Sampson leaned in, "Hey at least you're not alone. Don't forget every senior officer on this boat is facing the same thing."

"Not making it better. Damn civvies. Thanks to you I'm stuck here when the rest of the fleet is out having fun."

Sampson shook his head. "I'll be on the bridge. We're going to get relieved at 0900 tomorrow."

"Dismissed!" Cromwell chuckled in a saddened tone. The door to his cabin clanked shut and he once again shut his eyes.

"Damn civvies."


1800 Hours

Terrence Kimberly slid back the slide on his Mk 24 and tapped the magazine release button, allowing the metal box to eject onto the table. He released the round out of the chamber and set it back into the now ejected magazine. With a few swift motions he disassembled the weapon, laying the parts of the pistol onto the table as he began to wipe and grease the gun.

"Still oiling it huh?"

Kimberly looked up to see his marksman, Gregory Jones crunching on a Mars bar, looking over at his work.

"Yeah, you need to take care of a lady," he chuckled in response.

"Pffft, respectfully sir, that's the only lady you'll ever get," the sergeant laughed.

"Still more than you!" the young lieutenant retorted. Laughs rang out from within the armoury of the McCampbell in response to their commander's comeback.

The beauty of the McCampbell was that she had a full VBSS team of some of the damn best soldiers in the world. And here they were, a team of 10 SEAL Team 6 operators, sitting on their ass. All thanks to some damn Japanese fishing boat.

The only easy day was yesterday, huh.