Imperial Japanese Navy Submarine I-13 Third War Patrol, Position Unknown. February, 1942 "Let's take a look see, shall we?" the Captain said eagerly to the assembled officers and crew in the cramped Control Room of I-13. He checked a few gauges on the ballast control panel and then turned to his Diving Officer. "Come to periscope depth," he ordered. "Come to periscope depth, aye, Captain," the fat and bespectacled Diving Officer, Genma Saotome, repeated. "Pump two-hundred," he directed Petty Officer Kuonji, who manned the ballast control panel. Kuonji began winging on valves to pump out the required mass of water from the tanks. The Diving Officer checked the clinometer bubble over his head. I-13 began to "get light," that is the submarine's buoyancy shifted from neutral to slightly positive. The depth gauge needle moved slowly through 50 meters. "Up five on stern planes," he directed the planesman, Daisuke. "Maintain two degree up bubble." Daisuke began turning the oversized wheel before him, intent on keeping the air bubble in the clinometer at +2. The stern planes of I-13 responded to his motion through hydraulics, which hissed ever so slightly as he turned the wheel. To his right, Hiroshi, the helmsman, adjusted the motion of his bow planes to help maintain the proper ascent angle. The two sailors had been together for some time, and they worked with an unconscious teamwork to control I-13. "Passing five-zero meters," Genma called out. The submarine's hull creaked as the pressure decreased upon it. The snapping and popping went unnoticed as their sonarman, Hikaru Gosunkugi, listened intently through the directional hydrophone transducer. In the dim lighting of the cubbyhole his equipment occupied, his face seemed even more sallow and sunken than usual. He lifted his face to the control room party, shaking his head slowly. "No close contacts," he said quietly. Genma's attention shifted from the depth gauge to the clinometer and back. "Passing three-zero meters," he announced. "Rig for red," Soun Tendo, the Executive Officer, ordered. Ukyo flipped a series of circuit breakers near her panel, and the dim normal lighting shifted to four red incandescent bulbs, which bathed the cramped control room in sanguine light. As I-13 approached periscope depth, Genma ordered the planes to level, allowing the submarine to drift up to fifteen meters depth under the keel. "The ship is at periscope depth," Genma announced. The Captain nodded approvingly. It was a text-book approach. He beamed with pride at his fine crew. "Up periscope!" he ordered. Ukyo leaned over to throw a hydraulic actuator, which drove the periscope up through the conning tower to break the surface of the water in the predawn darkness. "Someone give me a hand here," the Captain demanded. Soun was quick to grab his commanding officer under the arms and lift him up to the ocular of the periscope, while Genma produced a tall stool for the Captain to stand on. "Much better," Happosai purred. He peered through the ocular, his withered face wrinkling further in concentration. As he made his slow 360 degree circuit, Soun would move the stool to keep it under him. "Ah," he said. "We're right on position, wherever that is. Good work, Navigator!" From the Quartermaster Stand, Ryouga Hibiki blushed through a tangle of mis-folded charts and nautical almanacs. The rest of the control room silently chalked it up to blind luck. "Just in time, too," Happosai mumbled to himself. "The sun is starting to come up. Secure the rig for red, I just like to set the mood with it, anyway." Ukyo sighed and switched the control room back to normal lighting. Happosai made a second circuit with the periscope before stopping suddenly. "Target sighted!" he cried happily. An electric thrill shot through the crew. At last, first contact with the enemy! At the Fire Control panel, the Weapons Officer, resplendent in his dress blue uniform, rapped his diminutive fire control operator on the head with a bokken. "That hurt, master," the fire controlman cried softly. "Pay attention, Philistine," Tatewaki Kuno ordered him. "At last the might of the great I-13 shall be known, and the pale barbarians will forever shudder in fear of us! See to it that your incompetence does not cheat us of our destiny!" Sasuke, used to such blathering, ignored Kuno, and waited for Happosai to call out target information. "Stand by for bearing mark," Happosai announced. Soun had a pencil and pad waiting as the captain trained the scope on to the target. Above the periscope was a circular gradient marked out in degrees. A pointer on the scope would indicate on the gradient the relative bearing of the scope facing. "Mark," Happosai called out. Soun noted the position indicator. "Target bearing 0-7-1 degrees, relative," he added. Kuno scratched his head and wrote this down at his station. "Mark," Happosai called out again after a moment. "Target bearing 0-7-2 degrees, relative." "Mark ship's speed by log," Happosai ordered. Genma checked a dial. "Ship's speed 3 knots." Happosai nodded as he looked through the periscope. "Helm; All Stop." "All Stop; Helm aye," Hiroshi cried. He twisted two knobs on the bulkhead before him, moving a black pointer to the "ALL STOP" position on the two dials. This was followed shortly with a chime and the movement of corresponding red pointers to the "ALL STOP" position. "Engine Room answers All Stop," Hiroshi reported. "Very well, Helm," Happosai grunted. His attention was focused on the occular of the periscope. "Mark," he called to Soun. "Target bearing 0-7-5 degrees, relative." Kuno traced another line on a piece of paper along that bearing track. He was plotting their position, figured by their course and speed versus elapsed time. Each bearing mark called out by Soun was traced from the estimated position of the submarine at that time. With enough bearing marks he could determine the target's course, bearing, speed, and range. The fire-control panel would crunch the numbers, but it was slow. A man of skill like Tatewaki Kuno was often faster than the machine, and usually as accurate. What he saw puzzled him. The target was very close, perhaps only three hundred meters away, and not moving. A ship at anchor? The tension within the control room was mounting as they waited for the order to attack or flee. The minutes dragged on as Happosai occasionally called out a bearing mark, which Kuno dutifully sketched on his targeting plot. The target, whatever it was, was not moving, and neither was the submarine. Why weren't they smiting it? "Captain, sir," Kuno said in the dead silence of the control room. "Should we not make the torpedoes ready?" Happosai didn't seem to hear him. Soun could see a thin line of drool dribbling down his lip as he jammed his face into the occular. "Hotcha!" Happosai cried. "That's it, ladies! Take it all off! Sweet-o!" The assembled control room party face-faulted. The first to recover from his face-fault, Soun pulled the stool out from under Happosai, causing him to crash on the deck. He then brought the stool down on him with great force. Happosai groaned in pain, little swirlies swam in his eyes. "Really, sir!" he cried. "What kind of officer do you think you are! There's a war going on!" As he brushed his hands in satisfaction, he noted that Genma had left his post and was now grinning lasciviously into the periscope ocular. "Not you as well, Saotome!" He pushed the Diving Officer aside. Peering through the occular, he noted a bevy of high school aged girls running naked from their early morning romp in the surf to the beach, presumably to get dressed and go to class. He trained the scope about and saw the familiar peak of Mt. Fuji, hazy but awesome, in the distance. "We've been on patrol for a month and we haven't even left Japan!" he cried angrily. The rest of the crew slapped their hands against their faces while shaking their heads. Soun selected a channel on the squawk box, and thumbed the 'call' switch. "Yo, Torpedo Room here. What's up? We finally gonna shoot something?" the Torpedoman of the Watch, Ranma Saotome, replied over the intercom. Genma winced at his son's lack of military formality. Soun looked to the dazed form of his Captain. "Have the breech door for Torpedo Tube One open when I get there," he ordered solemnly as he reached for Happosai... Coming Whenever I Get Around To Writing More Of It, From Fission Park Press: -A *DBF* Production- ARU FUNE (The Boat) Featuring: The Officers and Crew of the I-13, Third War Patrol, 1942 --------------------------------------------------------- Commanding Officer: Happosai Executive Officer: Soun Tendo Ship's Surgeon and Acting Engineering Officer: Tofu Ono Navigator: Ryouga Hibiki Weapons Officer: Tatewaki Kuno Diving Officer: Genma Saotome Chief of the Boat: Principal Kuno Sonarman: Hikaru Gosunkugi Fire Control: Sasuke Auxiliaryman Forward/Ballast Control Panel: Ukyo Kuonji Helmsman and Planesman: Hiroshi & Daisuke Mess Steward: Kenzan Konatsu Laundry Queen: Tsubasa Kurenai Torpedoman Third Class: Ranma Saotome ...and special guest star Pantyhose Tarou as The Bilge Monster DBF!