Somewhere in the Pacific, five days until USS Athena's arrival at Seattle

To say that things were pretty quiet on the USS Maine would be an understatement; the boomer was gliding north absolutely silently. Cruising along 120 feet under the water at a leisurely ten knots, the ballistic missile submarine was barely making a sound. From the conn, one could hear the breathing of men breathing all throughout the ship. In the sonar room adjacent to the conn, the sonar operators were leaning back in their seats, listening to their headsets and trying to pick up whatever they could on passive sonar. There was nothing, though. Not even the trio of 688 class attack submarines escorting the Maine could be heard; they were all cruising equally quietly.

Sonar Technician (Submarines) Third Class James Rutz was half tempted to take his headset off. This stretch of ocean was empty; there was no doubt in his mind about it. The sub's captain, Commander Greenwich, thought otherwise, and because they were doing their best to cruise silently, arguing it was pretty much out of the question.

There was nothing that Rutz hated more than being proven wrong, so naturally he became pretty grumpy when the towed array picked up something right in the sub's baffles.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," he said, turning up the volume and reaching for the phone. "Conn, sonar. I've got a contact, bearing one-eight-two, very faint. Single screw."

"Conn here," came the Commander's voice. "One of ours?"

"It's too feint to tell. I can't get a fix on the reactor signature... and I've lost the contact again. I'm only using passive sonar back here. The Cheyenne should be holding at oh-three-five, though, and the Hartford at three-two-five. It could be the Alexandria, sir, but she'd be farther back. I don't think we'd pick her up. Permission to switch to active sonar?"

"Denied, James. That'll give away our position in a flash. If it's not the Alexandria, we'll be sitting ducks," Greenwich responded.

"Ho, I'm picking up the contact again. She's now father out and bearing two-three-five. Seems to be running perpendicular to us sir. She doesn't know we're here."

"It also means that she's not one of our escorts," remarked the captain. "Spread the word; hands to battle stations. Silently!"

Whispers rippled up and down the ship. Men tip toed to their assigned stations. Amidships, men quietly loaded torpedoes into tubes. That's where things started to go wrong.

There was a loud, resounding 'thunk', and someone cursed in agony.

The Commander lunged for the phone. "Bridge to torpedo room. What happened?"

A torpedo man answered on the other end. "Torpedo room here. We dropped a fish, sir. We need a medic down here for a broken foot."

"Will do. Keep it quiet, now. Bridge out." The captain hung up the phone. "Corpsman to the torpedo room," he whispered.

At that point, the roar of both reactor and propeller increased dramatically on James Rutz's headset. He figured there was no point in using the phone now. So he just yelled to the conn.

"Conn, sonar! I've reacquired the contact, sir! They must've heard that thud; their propeller is fully engaged and they're making their way to us, current bearing two-four-one. Definitely an Akula boat, sir."

"Damn," cursed the captain. "Helm, all ahead full! Sonar, has the Alexandria picked them up yet?"

"I'd say no, sir. I don't hear them back there, and if they gained any speed, we certainly would."

"Five rapid sonar pings from the towed array, James. Let's get them into this fight," ordered Greenwich.

"Pings away, sir…yup, they heard that all right. Damn, they're really pushing their screws." There was a pause. "Hostile contact's profile is reducing. They've almost got a firing angle."

"Well, we can't out run them…helm, left full rudder!" the captain ordered.

"Left full rudder, aye aye, sir."

"Right into them, sir?" protested the sonarman.

"Right into them. I want a targeting solution ASAP," Commander Greenwich said. "Where the hell is the Alexandria? The Hartford?"

"Still too far off, sir," Rutz reported. "Damnit, sir! I'm picking up two fast screws! Torpedoes in the water!"

"Flank speed," barked the captain. "All the way down on the planes."

"Commander, we don't have a lot more ocean below us-"

"All the way down on the planes," he barked again.

"All the way down on the diving planes, aye aye sir. Going to flank speed."

"Torpedoes still on target, sir," reported the sonarman as the Maine dived. "Wait… one of them has lost us. It's going up instead of down!"

"Good, now let's see if we can lose the other," the captain said. "Right full rudder."

"Right full rudder aye aye, sir."

"Second torpedo is still on course…range five hundred yards…four hundred. Two hundred and fifty yards and closing, sir!"

Sonar burst after sonar burst from the torpedo lashed the Maine, causing men to cringe fore and aft. James Rutz tried desperately to fool the torpedo with electronic countermeasures, but it was no use.

"Range fifty yards! Brace for impact!" yelled Rutz, flipping off his headset.

The explosion shook the boat violently. Men were thrown from their feet or seats and slammed against the inner hull of the submarine. Sailors in engineering scrambled after tools and hurriedly checked reactor readings. At the conn, officers desperately clawed their way back into their seats, fearing the worst as sparks skidded across the deck and smoke from electrical fires spread into the air. Red warning lights flickered on, casting the inside of the sub into a red glow.

"Damage report!" yelled the captain, pulling himself to his feet with one hand, clutching a bleeding forehead with the other.

"A near miss, sir! I'd bet we've got a huge hole in our outer hull, sir, and one of our ballast tanks has been blown open. Seems the pressure hull is intact, though," someone reported.

"Negative, negative," someone else yelled. "We've got a leak in the torpedo room. Very small sir, but the pressure differential is going to make it bigger."

"Get men on the pumps in the torpedo room! Helm, all the way up on the planes! Shut off the engines! Vent all the tanks! Surface, surface, surface!" Commander Greenwich shouted, still nursing his forehead.

"Aye, sir."

"Torpedoes in the water!" Rutz yelled.

"God DAMN it," growled Greenwich.

"No, commander. They're not headed for us… it's the Alexandria, sir! Torpedoes are from the Alexandria and on target towards the hostile sub."

Aboard the Alexandria, seconds after the Maine was hit…

"One of the torpedoes has detonated, sir," reported the sonarman. "I don't have any massive decompression noises, so I'd say that they're pretty much okay…wait, their engines have shut off. I hear hull creaking… they're surfacing, Commander."

The Alexandria's captain was pissed now. Someone had crippled the ship he was supposed to be escorting. If they lost the Maine, it would be on his head. "They must have taken some damage."

"I have a targeting solution on the enemy sub, sir!"

"Ready one and two!" the captain ordered. "Flood the tubes. Prepare to fire!"

"Tubes flooded. Doors open. Ready to fire, sir!"

"Fire one and two," the captain ordered calmly.

"One away…two away! Both torpedoes have acquired target and are tracking!"

There was a long, tense wait as the MK-48 fish sped towards their target.

"Enemy sub is flooding a tube, sir! I've got another contact, now. Slow, single screw…they must have launched a decoy."

"Prep tubes three and four just in case," ordered the captain.

"One of the torpedoes is going for the decoy, sir. The other is still closing on the target…one thousand meters."

There was another tense moment before the sonar operator picked up a shockwave of noise.

"We have detonation, sir! Right on target! I've got hull decompression noises…enemy is neutralized. Repeat, enemy is neutralized."

"Say hi to Davey Jones for me, Ivan," the captain muttered, as cheers rippled up and down the ship. "Can we get the Maine on the Gertrude?"

The communications officer tried. "No, sir. They must've lost their UQC during the battle."

"Get the Cheyenne and Hartford, then. Tell them both to surface and prepare to assist the Maine if necessary. We'll do the same."

The Maine

"That's a hit, sir! A confirmed kill for the Alexandria!"

As the joyful shouts occurred up and down the boat as the news spread, Commander Greenwich let out a sigh of relief. "Seems like I owe Commander Robertson a drink or two when this is all over- can we get the Alexandria on the phone?"

"That's a negative, sir. Gertrude is completely fried. I'll see if I can't jury rig something, but-"

Greenwich waved his communication officer off. "Don't worry about it. We still got radio, yes?"

"Yeah."

"We're nearly on the surface now. Extend the radio mast. I'll be up on the sail if anyone needs me."

"Aye aye, sir."

As Commander Greenwich clambered up the mast, the 560 foot submarine broke the surface. Because of the assistance in ascent by the diving planes, her bow breached first, propelled a hundred feet into the air before crashing down in a maelstrom of white foam and rippling wake. Greenwich held tightly to the ladder as the bow hit the water again and the stern came bouncing up. Now the inertial and gravitational forces sent the stern into the air and the bow down into the sea, but neither the bow sunk nor the stern rose more than ten feet this time around.

Commander Greenwich resumed his climbing as the Maine lightly bobbed to a stable resting level on the calm Pacific surface. Greenwich popped the hatch atop the sail and leaned aside as some water that had remained up there dripped down. It hit his first officer, following him up the ladder, on the head.

"Damn it, cap'n. Could'a warned me," swore the officer.

Greenwich grinned and hoisted himself atop the sail and onto the sub's bridge. The boat listed to port slightly, he noted as he tried to stand straight. He leaned over the port side of the sail, and looked aft. Sure enough, there was a gaping hole in the outer hull amidships. There was still a little bit of water resting in the bottom of the explosion-opened ballast tank that the hole revealed; probably the source of the slight list. He couldn't see the crack in the pressure hull through it; it was way too small to be noticed from such a distance.

"Hot damn! That's gonna keep those dry dock crews busy for awhile," said a voice next to him. Greenwich glanced to his left, where his first officer had joined him on the sail and was now in the process of gazing at the hole.

Greenwich walked over to the watertight bridge phone box and popped it open. He pulled the telephone out. "Conn, bridge. All clear skies and calm seas out here."

A black submarine broke the surface in the distance, thirty degrees off the bow. It was not quite as dramatic as the Maine's surfacing; the other sub's diving planes weren't maxed. This sub had drifted up at a leisurely pace. Another surfaced in a similar fashion at two hundred seventy, and finally a third almost directly aft. This one was closer, and Greenwich could see clearly that it was a 688 boat.

"Conn, bridge," he said into the phone again. "Hartford, Cheyenne, and Alexandria are on the surface."

Some Hours Later, USS Athena

For a child of the sea, the best way to get to sleep is to be at sea, with the waves bouncing your ship. It's very serene for me, and the sleep I get is generally dreamless. And believe me; for a half-blood, dreamless sleep is a godsend. Or gods-send, I suppose. Carriers don't bounce very much in the waves, but it's enough for me.

So I awoke from me dreamless sleep when the telephone on my bedside table rang its shrill, military ring. I swung a groggy arm over and brought it to my ear.

"Jackson."

"Admiral? This is Commander Lantean. We need you on the bridge immediately sir."

I swung slowly out of bed and started towards my closet. "What's up?"

"It's the Maine, sir."

That got me going like a shot of caffeine. "I'll be there in five," I said, placing the corded phone haphazardly back in its holder. I pulled the pants to my working uniform on, and was still buttoning it up as I kicked open the door to my quarters.

I sprinted down the hall just in time to trip into the service elevator. Hearing an amused chuckle, I looked up and saw Annabeth.

"Walk much, Percy?"

"Not a morning person," I grumbled as I let her help me to my feet.

"Yeah, I noticed. Did you just get called to the bridge?"

"Mm-hmm."

At this point, we were alerted to our arrival at the next level by a ding. Not our deck.

"How did you get ready so fast? Women are supposed to take way longer."

"Sexist," she muttered.

"Well it's true," I protested.

"When was the last time you saw me wasting time putting on makeup?" she demanded.

"Well, seeing as I'm generally not standing in your bathroom with you in the mornings…"

"You know what I mean," Annabeth snapped.

"Okay, fine. I've never seen you wearing makeup."

I glanced to my left, where a pair of officers were watching us amusedly. Feeling awfully embarrassed, I snapped, "what're you smilin' at?"

"Nothing, sir," one of them said, obviously trying to keep a straight face.

"Are you sure the two of you aren't a couple?" the other said, having much less success at not laughing.

At that point the elevator dinged again, our deck, and Annabeth and I stormed off, both red in the face.

It only took us another minute to reach the bridge, where Commander Lantean was listening to someone intently over the radio.

"Give me a SITREP, Commander," I ordered.

"One of our Hawkeyes found the Maine, sir. She's surfaced with her three escorts," the Commander said. "

"Can we get the Maine on radio?" I asked.

"I'll see if we can get the Hawkeye to patch us through to her," the Commander responded. "Lighthouse-Four, this is command. Can you raise the Maine on radio?"

"Command, Lighthouse-Four here. I've got her skipper on the horn right now, sir. He says he's taken a bad torpedo hit and wants to talk to the Admiral. Please advise, over."

"The Admiral's right here. Patch me through to the Maine," Lantean said.

"Athena? This is Commander Greenwich of the Maine. Can you read me, over"

Commander Lantean handed me the radio input. "Maine, this is Admiral Jackson. We read you five by five. Give me a SITREP, over."

"We were attacked by a Russian Attack sub at 0600, sir. Akula type. Detected us because we dropped a torpedo when going to battle stations. The Akula's on the bottom now, sir, thanks to the Alexandria, but we took at hit amidships. We've got a huge whole in our outer hull, a blown ballast tank, and a leak in the torpedo room. Not to mention a whole shitload of shorted equipment."

"What about your Nuclear launch systems?" I asked.

"Launching and guidance are both completely shot, sir."

I muttered a curse. There goes Plan B. "Get yourself to a safe port somewhere. Your escorts will take you in. Athena out." I handed the radio back to the commander and stormed off the bridge, Annabeth in tow.

"What's wrong?" she asked, as I dashed down the stairs.

"No nukes, no Plan B," I explained, not bothering to stop. "We desperately need to come up with something to buy us some time now. Find Thalia, and meet me in my quarters as soon as you can."

"Right," Annabeth said, looking at her watch. "I'll check the cafeteria."

Annabeth and Thalia barged into my quarters twenty minutes later and plopped down on the couch across from me.

"No nukes, I'm told," Thalia said.

I nodded. "No nukes."

We all sat there in silence for awhile; Thalia picking at her shoe, me staring at the coffee table, Annabeth also staring at the coffee table.

"I've got it!" Annabeth said, jumping up. "Percy, you need to use your powers to locate their fleet.."

I just shook my head. "It would take me too long to find them with my mind. Besides, even if I do, we can't exactly use that as targeting coordinates for the cruise missiles."

"Well, we know they are somewhere between Vladivostok and Seattle. That cuts down your search corridor to a line between the two. And as for the missiles, I was thinking more along the lines of you creating a typhoon right on top of them."

I laughed. "A typhoon? I'm not that powerful."

"Your sister can help. She's as powerful as you, right. Thalia, too."

"If you can get a storm going, I can manipulate the air and the charges," Thalia confirmed.

"Wind and lighting?" I asked.

Thalia nodded. "Yep."

"Well, a typhoon still isn't exactly going to sink any ships," I mentioned. "A big one hit Halsey's fleet in World War Two, and all he lost was three small Destroyers, and that was because they were low on fuel."

"Yes, but it will slow them down. It'll disperse the fleet, and force them to stop in order to regroup," Annabeth said.

I thought for a moment, realizing that this might just work. So I strode over to the phone on the wall. "Bridge, this is Admiral Jackson."

"Bridge here," answered the on duty communications officer.

"Get Captain Jackson sent over here from the Poseidon ASAP. Tell her to come down to my quarters when she lands."

"On it, sir."

"Thanks. Jackson out."

I went back down to the sofa and sat down and closed my eyes. As I started in Seattle and began to search towards Vladivostok with my mind, I muttered, "make yourselves comfortable. This may take awhile."

Half an hour later, Claire had joined us in my quarters. I had found the Russo-Chinese fleet and had told Claire the coordinates. We were both working through profoundly uncomfortable tugging feelings in out guts as we brewed the storm. Thalia sat idly, waiting to be called in to assist in the mayhem.

Somewhere in the North Pacific….

Admiral Malishenko, a son of Nemesis with a Russian father, had never liked the Ocean. But the Titan he served had assigned him the task of leading the invasion fleet despite his protests. Now he found himself throwing up into a plastic bag in his, by request, windowless quarters.

He was interrupted from his… retching by the intrusion of Captain First Rank Nikolai Romanov into his quarters. The Captain became stiff as a board as he entered a military salute.

"Admiral Malishenko, sir. We need you on the bridge."

"Da, da," Malishenko muttered as he stumbled out of his quarters.

By the time he reached the bridge, the storm was in full swing. Thick sheets of rain were falling down from the sky, reducing visibility to a few meters, unless a fork of brilliant lighting would chance upon a silhouette in the distance. The ship was pitching and rolling violently over sixty-foot waves

"When did this happen?" demanded Malishenko.

"I don't know. It was clear skies just twenty minutes ago, sir."

"What happened, starshina," he barked at the Petty Officer who was supposed to be their weatherman.

"I don't know! Nichego ne ponimaju!" the weatherman cursed as he confusedly examined his readings. "This should not be happening!"

"Jackson," muttered the Admiral under his breath.

"Sir?"

Malishenko shook his head. "Never mind."

Sorry it took me so long to get a new chapter up. I'll get the next up sooner; I promise. I've got…three other things I'm working on right now, besides my usual running and my actual book. So the goings are a little slow all around.

Nichego ne ponimaju is transliterated from Ничего не понимаю. Google translator will probably tell you it means "I understand nothing," but a more accurate translation would probably be "I don't understand shit." I think.