Phoenix Sub Zero

The engine order telegraph chimed again. The deck began a slight vibration, the tremble growing to a shaking force. To Kane it felt like an earthquake. The deck began to tilt into a port list, then inclined forward, the inclinometers showing the angle to be two degrees port, three degrees down, the slope of the deck sounding small but exaggerated greatly by human perception, the few degrees enough to roll pencils off tables and slide books to the deck. The second hand of an old-fashioned brass chronometer ticked slowly around the clockface as the shaking of the hull became more pronounced.

Kane was about to order Houser to put on the full bell when the ship lurched.

“Keep backing down.”

The deck angled further downward, and with the ship bottomed out, that meant the stern was rising, the ballast tanks’ air pulling the stern up. The ship lurched again, this time violently, sending Kane into the number-two periscope, and the deck fell away beneath him to a large down angle. He glanced at the inclinometer, which shook its bubble at around thirty degrees.

“Keep it up, Houser,” Kane ordered, a shot of adrenaline hitting his midsection, his heart beating hard. The deck angled further up until he could stand it no more. “Okay, cut it.”

“Helm, all stop!”

The ship’s speed indicator still showed zero but it didn’t work in the astern direction.

“Bubble forward with the EMBT blow,” Kane said.

Mcdonne glared at Kane, but Houser made the order.

Once more the chief reached into the overhead and put the forward lever up to the blow position. The high-pressure air bottles blew into the forward ballast tanks.

“High-pressure banks are coming down, sir,” the chief said.

“Secure the blow,” Houser ordered, shrugging to Kane.

“Houser, put on a one-third bell and get your planes to full rise.”

“Aye, sir. Helm, all ahead one-third. Dive, full rise fairwater and sternplanes.”

Kane and Houser hunched over the ship-control station watching the depth meter as the ship was ordered ahead.

There was a good chance, Kane thought, that he was doing nothing except driving her back into the mud of the bottom, but with a down angle that steep he couldn’t keep driving her back. There was no control going backward, the water and screw forces on the stern planes, made them unreliable.

The ship could go full vertical, spill all the air out of the ballast tanks and sink back to the bottom like an arrow stuck in mud, and the steam plant would shut down on them, the gravity-draining systems good only for forty-five-degree angles.

They would be stuck forever on the bottom, forced into a sub-escape from test depth — a certain death. The deck trembled again, just slightly, the needle on the ship’s speed indicator climbing off the zero peg up to one knot, then two.

The fairwater plane angle indicator showed the control surfaces mounted on the sail were tilted to thirty-five degrees of rise, the stern plane meter showing forty degrees of rise. The down angle of the deck very suddenly leveled and tilted upward, the speed indicator needle picked up to four, then six, then ten knots. The deck continued into its up angle, past thirty degrees, up to forty.

“Take control, Houser, and use ship’s speed to fight the buoyancy!”

“Dive, bubble less than five degrees; helm, all ahead full, steady as she goes. Chief of the watch, vent all main-ballast tanks. Dive, bring her up to 500 feet.”

Kane glanced at the analog depth indicator. It was unwinding rapidly, the deck’s up-angle still at nearly forty degrees, the air in the ballast tanks trying to rocket the ship upward in an uncontrolled emergency surface. The ballast-tank vents indicated open on the ballast panel, trying to let the seawater back in and the air out. The speed indicator climbed, fifteen knots, twenty, until the speed of the ship overcame the huge buoyancy forces, as if the submarine had changed from blimp floating upward to airplane, buoyancy no longer as important as the water force on the control surfaces.

The deck angled back down to level, the shaking calming. The depth needle slowly climbed from 650 feet to 500, the speed needle stopping at twenty-five knots.

“Bring her slow, officer of the deck. Ten knots, see if the ballast tanks still have air in them.”

The ship slowed as Houser made the order, the depth steady. Kane brought speed down all the way to five knots, with no change in depth. The ballast tanks were again flooded.

“Shut the vents.”

“All vents shut, sir.”

Kane looked at the panel. All seemed healthy enough to drive home. He felt his heart slowing back down to normal.

“Very well,” Houser said. “Captain, ship’s course is two nine zero, depth 500. I recommend we come shallow and communicate.”

As far as the surface commanders knew, Kane thought, they were dead, a debris field on the bottom. Houser was right. It was time to tell the world that Phoenix was back.