I know it's been so long, I made the chapter extra long because of it :-)

"Sir" someone said, shaking me awake. "Captain." I opened my eyes, shaking my head and looked at the time.

"Claude you'd better have a frikin good reason for waking me up at 0530" I said, annoyed.

"We've got something on the sonar Sir" Claude said.

"Like what? Engines, what?" I asked, pelting him with the questions.

"I... I don't know Sir. I wasn't trained for sonar. I have no idea what it is. I haven't spent much time in the sonar room during training but I know enough to know this isn't any machine I know of" Claude replied.

I sighed, getting out of the bed. I sat up and put on my shoes, slowly walking towards the hatch. I shook my head,waking up. "Why'd I even sign up for this?" I asked myself. Cause you're an idiot I thought to myself. Oh well, I was here, may as well make use of it.

I walked through the hatch and walked the few feet into the sound room.

The radar, for when we're above water, was off. Until that time, I hadn't realized we were underwater.

I checked in with the sound man, James.

"Whats all this claptrap I hear about mysterious sounds in the ocean?" I asked him.

"I don't know Sir, some kind of odd moaning or creaking from the ocean. It started only a second ago, you got here pretty quickly. It's been off and on and I haven't been able to tell what it is. I don't think I learned it in training. It doesn't sound familiar, Sir."

"How often does it play? And for how long?" I asked him.

"It stopped as you walked in but it happens every twenty seconds or so and usually just thirty to fourty seconds. It's not loud either so it's- There it is again!!!" James said quickly.

I took the headphones from him and put them on.

I heard it. It was like a deep rumbling moan mixed with some splashes... from a big creature of some sort. Some kind of large animal. Possibly a deadly, dangerous animal. I tried to think of what made the sounds, and I think I got an idea. I wasn't sure but I thought of knew.

I took the headphones off, gave them back to James. He put them on, listening closely.

"What is it Sir?" James asked. He looked a little shaken up.

I responded by leaving the room and walking to the control room.

"Bring us up to periscope depth please" I asked politely, tensed up.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr went the periscope as it's small motor pushed it up towards the surface. It made a final clunk as it reached up as far as it could go.

I looked through the periscope, turning to see. I saw what was making the commotion, and sighed in relief. I was right. It was an animal. A big animal.

"Bring us up" I called.

"Aye Sir" the engineer called back.

After finally surfacing, I climbed onto the conning tower to look. I saw them. A giant pod of Blue Whales, the biggest whale known to man and a endangered species.

"Call the crew up, this may be the last time they'll ever see a blue whale." I called down. Pretty soon after paralleling the pod, the crew was on the deck, looking at the whales in wonder.

Every couple of minutes one would surface, blow a mountain of water up a hundred feet or so, and sink below the surface.

After a hour of watching these incredible creatures, everyone finally went back to their stations.

I walked down onto the deck. I was still looking at these incredible creatures. They were massive, bigger than I thougt anything could get. They were gentle giants, slow moving and gentle. I wondered what it must be like, to be such a massive creature. I'd have to eat a lot, I thought, and chuckling. I took one last look before leaving. We went a few degrees off course when we first found them so now we were about 100 miles off course. Time to return. We had a job to do after all.

"Nothing like a good, calm day at sea eh John?" Claude said, walking up to me.

"Gotta love the ocean. It's a beautiful thing out here, alone, free range to do whatever we want... I'm gonna miss it." I replied.

"Ah see we still have a couple weeks before we have to start our return. We can enjoy it while we can." Claude said back.

"Yeah but America is at war, were in possibly the most dangerous area we could be in, and, if we see combat, were stuck in a big metal cylinder that could implode if we go too deep and explode if we're not deep enough." I told him. "What could go wrong?"

"Well you see there's a lot of things we could-"

"Shut up Claude" I interrupted smiling. Claude would always cheer you up. Didn't matter how depressed you felt, he'd always manage it. He was that kind of guy. Best guy you could ask for. Best kind of friend.

"You know I'm right." He said.

"Still. Shut it." I replied with a grin. No matter how hard you tried, you'd never successfully stop smiling around him. The best I'd seen someone do was a small smile. No one has done better.

"So what about family Claude? Have anyone waiting for you at home?" I asked him.

"Yeah they aren't waiting patiently. They don't like being away from me." Claude replied.

"Oh you know what I mean" I said, rolling my eyes and chuckling.

He chuckled. "Wife and a couple of brats. Emily is my 4 year old. She loves to sing and she's a not too bad artist either. Jack is my little 8 year old. He wants to follow his dad and lead. He's already started with his friends. And he's a better shot with a .22 than I'll ever be." He said as a fond smile crossed his looks. "Sarah is my wife. We've been married for about 10 years now." He pulled out a picture in his wallet and showed me.

Sarah, his wife, was a little shorter than him. She had dark hair with blonde streaks, pale green eyes, and bronzed skin. She was a very beautiful woman. Emily, his daughter, took after her mother, dark hair with blonde streaks. She had her father's brown eyes though, a pretty combination that went well with her dark hair. She had a nice smile too. Jack was more like his father. Dark hair with brown eyes and a slight build. He'll be a handsome man in a few years, I thought.

I had a quick thought cross my mind and couldn't resist saying it. "Well, you've got a beautiful wife, a beautiful girl, and a handsome boy... but one question?"

"What would that be?" He said.

"What the hell happened to you?!" I said laughing aloud.

He joined in, laughing. "Well, I guess I should've seen that coming" he said laughing. "What about you? You have any family waiting?"

I tensed up. Family was a tight subject with me. I wasn't sure if I should tell him yet. Or at all. It wasn't something I liked to be common knowledge.

All of a sudden my train of thought was interrupted by a crew member calling up from the ladder.

"Sir, we have something on the radar. Don't know what it is yet." He said.

I hurriedly walked over and let Claude go first, climbing down after him. I reached up and shut the hatch, turning until it was shut tight. I quickly got to the control room. I picked up the radio and talked into it to James.

"Periscope depth, now. What is it James?" I asked quickly.

"Large engines, slow moving. Possibly a Trader of some sort" he replied instantly.

"Periscope, up" I barked.

Brrrrrrrrrrrr clonk

I looked through. I saw the ship. A big, fat, trader. I looked through the book to see if I could see what it was. I found the ship. It was the Mamiya, a Imperial Japanese Navy food supply. It was our first contact, and, it was armed.

Hey guys sorry for such a long update, I know it's been like 3 months and all but I've been snowed over with work. I should be doing the 3 hours of HW I have but I wanted to get this out to all of you. I've been really busy with NJROTC and I don't have a lot of time. I volunteer a lot for ROTC so not a lot of time. I have Orienteering Regionals this Friday and Saturday too. (For those that don't know, orienteering is where you use a map and compass and find a amount of points on a course through the woods. The courses vary on the lengths so it depends pretty heavily on endurance.) On the 9th and 10th this month we had a orienteering meet in which we placed 2ed overall. We placed 2ed in green course (the hardest) and 3rd in yellow (the easiest. I ran yellow because it was my first orienteering meet and I placed 8th overall for yellow. I did like 3.2 miles in 30:55 minutes. I got chosen for regionals so I guess I did pretty good XD) ill try to update you guys some more but I don't think it'll be this week.