The Silent Service

Chapter One

Tuesday, 15 March 2005

Assembly Building
Submarine Yard, Electric Boat Division
Groton, Connecticut
1553 hours EST

"You're aware, of course, Commander, that I am completely opposed to this ... this tax-dollar-guzzling hole in the water?"

Tom Garrett glanced at the man beside him, wondering if Blakeslee was deliberately trying to push his buttons, or if it simply was the man's acid attitude. How, he wondered, could such an unpleasant man be a successful politician? Damn this asinine babysitting duty, anyway. There were better uses of a boat captain's time.

The two of them were walking through the mammoth assembly building above the New Groton ways, Garrett in his blue uniform with its three bright gold stripes like rings at the ends of his jacket's cuffs, Congressman Blakeslee in a conservative gray suit. Both men, however, as per shipyard regulations, wore bright yellow construction helmets against the possibility of tools or other deadly objects dropping from overhead. Above them, like a huge tapered cigar, the pressure hull of the submarine yard's premier construction project hung suspended from overhead cranes.

"Oh, yes, Congressman," he replied with as e ... read full excerpt from The Silent Service: Virginia Class ebook