Voyage of the Devilfish

A booming noise diverted him from his inspection of the escapepod release-system, and he looked over to the port side to see the signal-analysis console explode. The deck was too steep to climb far enough aft to see exactly what had happened. But he didn’t have to see the console at close range to know the cause of the console explosion— the titanium inner-hull framing was sticking out in a large bulge just on top of the console. The hull was beginning to fail, and as he thought this, the console under the bulge started to leak seawater onto the deck. Vlasenko stared at the leak, refusing to believe that this high-tech hull had actually been breached… Titanium failure could only mean that they had gone below 2000 meters, the maximum-safety depth, though there were no working pressure indicators in the space now that the computers were dead. The ominous flicker of the overhead battle lantern brought him back to grim reality. The water stream was raining down at him now, the forward bulkhead was a deck as the submarine dived at a 90-degree angle. Vlasenko looked over at the ladder to the escape pod — it was completely horizontal. He realized he had only moments left to get the crew out before the hull of the compartment gave way. He decided on Ship Control Officer Katmonov, still strapped into his seat. He tried to release the five-point seat-harness, but with Katmonov’s body weight on it the release lever wouldn’t work. He left him and pulled Ivanov’s body up by his armpits. Ivanov was still breathing, going in and out of consciousness. Vlasenko hauled him up and staggered over to the ladder to the pod. The straightdown angle of the ship actually helped at this point, giving him a level surface on which to carry Ivanov. But the treads of the escapepod ladder would trip him. Vlasenko set Ivanov down on the ladder and slid him over to the hatch, then with one final push he got the man into the pod. The compartment shuddered, the flooding got worse.