Dark Transit

Executive Officer Lieutenant Commander Jeremiah Seamus Quinnivan, Royal Navy, wasn’t English, but rather an Irishman from County Cork, having enlisted in the Royal Navy in his youth as a choice, since it was either that or being tossed into jail. It hadn’t taken long for the service to realize he had talent and after getting an engineering degree, he’d eventually found his way into a series of assignments on Astute-class fast attack submarines and from there to the U.S. Navy / Royal Navy joint exchange program. Quinnivan wore dark blue pants and shirt, with an emblem of his rank in the center of his chest, the emblem a dark blue background with three horizontal gold stripes, the middle stripe narrower than the others, the top stripe making a loop-the-loop in the center. On his fold-down desk was a black beret with a gold crown surrounded by laurel leaves as the center emblem. Over Quinnivan’s pocket were embroidered gold submarine dolphins, their design starkly different than the American version, but still recognizable. On one shoulder was sewn a patch with the flag of the United Kingdom. On the other was an embroidered patch with the Vermont logo.

Quinnivan was short and slight, his close-cropped hair salt-and-pepper, the gray invading his Van Dyke beard and mustache, both of which lent him a somewhat sinister look when he frowned, but when he smiled, his spirit seemed barely contained by his body as his eyes crinkled at the corners, revealing teeth that had been capped — some thought from a fight when he was young that had knocked them all out.

Quinnivan leaned back in his swivel chair and looked up at the captain, who stood in the doorway to their shared bathroom, the CO / XO head. Captain Timothy Talisker Seagraves was tall for submarine duty, his head threatening to bang into numerous valves tucked into the overhead, and solid as well. He had slightly longer-than-regulation black hair that swooped over his head with streaks of gray over his ears — gray arriving early for the 39-year-old — with heavy black eyebrows, dark brown eyes, a straight nose, stark cheekbones, thin lips and a square jaw, with a dimple centered in his chin. Quinnivan once joked with Seagraves that the captain looked like he could be a senator, a judge, a news anchor or a daytime soap opera star. Quinnivan considered that he and Seagraves must have looked an odd couple, with his humble looks and Seagraves’ physical near perfection. Seagraves stood with an attitude of unquestioned confidence and authority as he leaned casually against the door jamb. On the collars of his working khakis, he wore silver oak leaves. Over his left pocket he wore gleaming gold submariner’s dolphins, and below them, a gold capital ship command pin.

Quinnivan picked up his pad computer, which was displaying the classified service jacket of the newly reporting officer, Anthony Pacino. “Skipper, ya had a chance to look at this wee laddie’s personnel file?” Quinnivan’s Irish brogue was comically thick unless he was briefing senior officers, when his accent would calm down somewhat.

“I looked it over,” Seagraves said in a commanding baritone voice with just a hint of a Southern accent, Atlanta or Savannah, perhaps. “I got a call from Admiral Catardi, who recommended Pacino in glowing terms. You know we had to cash in favors to get NavPersCom to assign Pacino to us, right? Are there issues or concerns, XO?” Seagraves never called Quinnivan “Jeremiah” or “Seamus,” as he’d prefer to be addressed, only using his official title of the executive officer, “XO,” but not from stuffy formality but the feeling that he might lapse into calling the Irishman by the crew’s nickname of “Bullfrog,” from some forgotten rock ’n roll lyric about his first name.

Quinnivan stroked his short black-and-gray beard, his gesture when he was carefully choosing his next words.

“Ya know, Skipper, this kid Pacino, back home we’d call him a ‘chancer.’ He’s got a propensity to take risks, yeah? Smart lad, good grades at the Academy and his graduate school, but almost got kicked out of Annapolis for conduct offenses. Going over the wall at three in the mornin’, ya know, yeah? and then getting caught drinking in Baltimore as an underclassman. Then the kid parks his fookin’ hotrod Corvette in the parking space of the Commandant of Midshipmen. That was almost the last straw, since the commandant was late for a meeting with the admiral. Sure, Pacino’s brave, yeah? but reckless. I’m not sure how well I’ll sleep with him standing officer-of-the-deck watch on the conn.”