Free Seas of Crisis by Joe Buff

approving jab in the shoulder.
    “Why the depth charges, then?” Bell demanded. “It could still be a trick.”
    “One depth charge from each ship, it wasn’t a trick. It was two bored Russian surface-ship skippers, using a good excuse to liven up their day with some fireworks on the Kremlin’s dime.”

Chapter 6
    O nce the patrolling Russian forces departed, Challenger wormed her way north through the strait and entered the Chukchi Sea, where for hundreds of miles the bottom was less than two hundred feet deep. With Meltzer’s assistance, Bell chose a course slightly west of north. This led toward a canyon in the continental shelf, giving a little more depth to play with. The canyon would pass safely east of craggy Wrangel Island—more properly, Ostrov Vrangelya, since it was Russian territory.
    Tension of a different sort started to increase in the control room, and throughout the ship. If Challenger encountered the edge of the ice cap while the water was still very shallow, broken slabs projecting down by many feet, called bummocks, could block her path frustratingly. There was also real danger that she could hit a massive bummock head-on, doing damage where the ice above precluded any emergency blow to the surface. Crippled or sinking, with no way up or out, Challenger might be stranded, or lost with all hands. Advance intel showed this probably wouldn’t happen, because global warming from natural and man-made factors, combined with normal random year-to-year fluctuations, had pushed the start of the solid pack ice in the Chukchi Sea more northward than usual. The ship had sonars specifically designed to warn of inadequate clearance between the bottom and the irregular ice. But using these systems meant radiating, which, as before, compromised stealth, so Jeffrey had forbidden it. This time, Bell didn’t argue with him.
    The gravimeter, though excellent for pinpoint navigation under the ice, by orienteering against finely detailed charts of the Arctic Ocean floor, unfortunately couldn’t distinguish between sea water and the ice cap. Their densities were too similar; this was why ninety percent of an iceberg floated beneath the surface.
    Jeffrey knew he was taking a serious risk, proceeding toward the hard roof of treacherous ice with all active sonars secured. But the data he’d been given, and the urgency of his mission, told his gut that the risk was worth it, even necessary.
    Satisfied that Meltzer and Finch and their men were working in good order under Bell’s leadership, Jeffrey went to his office to reread his orders. He also wanted to practice his Russian in private, using language tapes in the ship’s huge e-book library, accessible through the LAN. He wasn’t at it long when someone knocked.
    “Come on in.”
    It was Bell. He shut the door behind him.
    “Good afternoon, Commodore,” Bell said gravely.
    “Why the sudden formality, Captain?”
    “I wanted to apologize.”
    “For what?”
    “I was out of line, in the control room back there.”
    “How so?” Jeffrey knew, but wanted to hear Bell say it. He knew Bell needed to get it off his chest.
    “I argued with you about tactics, in front of the rest of the crew. I feel . . . well . . . it undermined discipline and might have verged on insubordination.” Bell exhaled deeply.
    Jeffrey sat back. “Yeah, I admit it’s different, with you being captain of Challenger . We had our knockdown, drag-outs often enough in the heat of battle, when it was us sitting at the command console, side by side. The dynamics have changed, that’s for sure. . . . But it’s still your job, in part, to advise me, backstop me—and don’t forget filling in for me if I keel over from a stroke. You’re my flagship captain, for God’s sake.”
    “Still, I don’t feel right about how I handled it.”
    Jeffrey flashed Bell a friendly grin. “I didn’t exactly win any prizes myself.”
    Bell smiled for the first time in hours.
    “Look,”