jeriendhal | FYS: Still on Patrol

U.S. Navy submarines paid heavily for their success in World War II. A total of 374 officers and 3131 men are on board these 52 U.S. submarines still on "patrol."

-Memorial plaque outside the Independence Seaport Museum, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Up until today, Admiral Josiah Adamson had thought his position was mostly a bad joke. The United States still existed, technically, even here on the Ring. So therefore the U.S. Navy existed, even if today it was mostly to support the Naval Academy's touch football team, with a few individuals making plans to restore the Navy's military glory One of These Days. Adamson was one of those individuals, who had held on even as the meetings became more and more infrequent, because dammit, someone had to hold onto the traditions, else they be forgotten.

That said, it was rare that he bothered to wear his uniform anymore, even to meetings with the President. Being asked to wear it by the Groupmind was strange indeed.

"Why does it want me in uniform?" he asked Jerry, his ottermorph.

"The Groupmind has not conveyed that information to me, sir," Jerry answered. "It wishes to explain the situation to you when you arrive at the site."

Adamson tugged his tie snug, and checked his service ribbons to see that they were all in place. "Site of what?" he asked.

"I don't know."

"You're useless, Jerry."

"Yes, sir."

There was a transport cart waiting for him and Jerry outside his house, which whisked him over to the the community's hypertrain station. Adamson's eyebrow went up when he saw SPECIAL TRANSPORT added to the schedule display. It arrived inside of two minutes, because of course of the Groupmind would be able to time it that close.

The next surprise was the group of uniformed men and women waiting for him in the passenger compartment. Admiral Kedrov of the Russian Navy, Shimamura of the JMSDF, Ruge of the Deutsche Marine, Tyler of the Royal Navy, and finally Devereaux of the European Union Combined Forces all looked up at him as he entered, all of them in uniform, their morphs sitting beside them.

"Before you ask, we don't know either," Tyler said dryly, as Adamson strapped himself into his seat.

"Great," he replied. "I guess this is definitely a military operation then." That got a round of wry laughter from everyone. Adamson supposed the same joke had to have been shared as far back as the age of Greek triremes, at least.

The hypertrain whizzed silently through its vacuum tunnel, travelling to the Groupmind only knew where. Adamson barely felt the acceleration, though the fact that it went on for so long hinted that the must be going to a far away section of the Ring, perhaps even one of the Reserved areas, where humans were not normally permitted.

After a half hour's travel the train came to a stop, and they were let out into a relatively small antechamber, bare except for a display wall, grey carpeting, and a comfy chair for each of them.

"Good morning, ladies and gentleman," the wall greeted, the abstract screensaver pattern fading out, to be replaced with the emblems of their respective navies. "We are Groupmind, and we thank you for coming here today."

"We had a choice?" Kedrov muttered.

"You always have a choice," the wall replied. "Though if you had not agreed to come here, we would have then requested one of your subordinates."

"Why are we here?" Devereaux asked.

"Before We answer that question, We would like to draw your attention to a specific United States Navy tradition, of the so called 'Eternal Patrol.' Are all of you familiar with it?"

"I am not," Shimamura replied. The youngest among them, she had come of age on the Ring, and of all of them never had the chance for a Lost Earth ship command.

"It's a tradition that rose up during World War II," Adamson explained to her. "When talking about a submarine what was lost at sea, through accident or action, it was never referred to as being destroyed. We just say that it's on eternal patrol, to keep up the hope that someday its crew might come home to a friendly port." He smiled in a bittersweet memory. "When I was a lieutenant, I helped to transmit the Christmas greetings to all the crews that were at sea, and couldn't celebrate the holiday with their family. We sent them out to each ship by name, even the ones that were lost, to let whomever were listening know, alive or not, that they weren't forgotten."

"Which brings us to our current situation," the Groupmind said. "In our efforts to cleanse the Earth of the pollution that poisoned it, we of course wished to remove the wreckage of military vessels, which are often vectors of specific contaminants that might harm sea life."

"You can't move those!" Tyler objected. "They're burial grounds!"

"We knew that would be a serious objection," the Groupmind replied. "Which is why went to such lengths avoid offense."

There was a soft hum, and wall slide to one side. Adamson gasped, as did his fellow admirals, at the sight before them.

It was a single enclosed room, the contents too sacred to call it a warehouse, too plain to be called a museum. The roof soared a full half-kilometer above them, dwarfing the contents despite their size.

An uncountable number of sealed water tanks, ranging in size from a few meters long, to well over a two or three hundred, filled the enormous space. Within each of them, seemingly lifted in situ off the ocean floor, judging from their mud and sand filled bottoms, were ships and submarines as they had come to rest after sinking. Most of them were barely identifiable metal hills, though some were more obvious, battleships, cruisers, and carriers mostly. 

Adamson's eye was drawn to the series of metal containers in front of each ship, guarded by a pair of military morphs, in the uniforms of the modern navy descended from the period they sunk. He stepped up to one, with the words Motor Machinist's Mate, Second Class, Louis Dixon Ball, USS Grampus (SS-207). Born June 22,1920. Died March 5, 1944.

He felt his heart seize up in his chest. There were tens of thousands of the containers throughout the room, all neatly set before their individual ships, all guarded by the uniformed morphs.

"We identified the remains as best we could," the Groupmind said, its voice echoing through the chamber. "Using dog tags, or DNA markers, tracing them to their surviving descendants that were brought to the Ring, if any. We could not leave them in the ocean, so we treated them with respect, as much as we could manage, not being human."

Adamson felt tears running down his face. "Why?" he choked out.

"So We could ask you what you wished to be done with them. So you would know they would never be forgotten."

Adamson snapped a salute to the containers before him, knowing that the last Christmas broadcast to these ships had gone out, never to be repeated.

Their eternal patrol had ended. 

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