Voyage of the Devilfish

The lights were still on in the narrow fore-and-aft passageway. As Pacino went toward the control room he nearly tripped over a body, half lying in the passageway at the door to Sonar, half in the sonar room. Chief Sonarman Jethro Helms was dead, eyes staring at the overhead, blood running out of his mouth. As Pacino forced himself forward past the door to Sonar, the overhead lights went out. The battery he thought. The battery has flooded with seawater and it’s shorted out and the ship is dying with no power and the hull is filling with chlorine gas from the reaction of seawater with the huge wet cells. He ran forward until he was in the control room, feeling his way by instinct from years of living with the geometry common to all Piranha-class submarines. He felt the deck under his feet give, he was sliding in the darkness, something wet on the deck. He reached into the overhead for the switch to a manual lantern, not sure if he was slipping on oil, water or blood. The lights came back on as he struggled for the switch to the battle lantern, but he switched on the light anyway in case the overhead lights went out again. He realized the ship was running solely on battery, and when it went he would be in an uncontrollable hulk, suspended in seawater with no depth control. It took several seconds for him to take in the scene in the control room. Filled with smoke. No one moved. Watchstanders collapsed on the deck surrounded by the broken glass of the video firecontrol and sonar screens and instrument faces. The plot table of the geographic plot had smashed itself into the narrow aisle behind the firecontrol cabinets and the curving starboard bulkhead. The ship-control team was still strapped into their seats, their heads lolling on their shoulders. The Chief of the Watch was nowhere in sight. The OOD, Nathanial Stokes, was collapsed on the periscope stand, a phone handset resting on his face, the smashed panel that was once the sonarrepeater screen half-lying on his chest. Jon Rapier sat on a firecontrol bench, his head on the console, his arms dangling. Behind him the Pos Two console was in flames. Lieutenant Scon Brayton had fallen between the bench and the lower portion of the Pos Three console. Ensign Brett Fasteen, the Pos One operator, was lying on the deck with his arms and legs in unnatural positions, his chest toward the deck, his head twisted clear around so that his face was upward. No sign of Steve Bahnhoff or lan Christman, but there were still unexplored shadows and piles of rubble. Pacino heard a brief sound of an electrical arc. The sound of flooding had stopped, leaving the room deathly quiet. Pacino grabbed the P.A. Circuit Seven microphone, clicked on its speak button: “Engineer, Captain.” Pacino was talking to himself… the microphone was hanging from the severed cord. He threw it to the deck, grabbed the phone handset off of Brayton’s chest: “Maneuvering, Captain. Engineer, pick up the Circuit JA phone!” Lieutenant Commander Matt Delaney’s voice came over the JA phone circuit. Pacino got out his question before Delaney could finish saying, “Engineer.”

“Eng, what’s your status?” Delaney was shouting, as if the line reception was poor. Or maybe he was just scared, Pacino thought. He had a right to be.

“Flooding in port main seawater isolated by the chicken switch. We took on maybe two feet of water in the bilges and I need the drain pump but it takes too much current for the battery. Battery’s got maybe five minutes left. We had a fast leak. in the primary coolant system. Not sure where it was from but I isolated both loops with the main coolant cutout valves and the leak stopped. We were watching loop pressures when you called — okay, it’s starboard.” There was the sound of Delaney’s voice getting distant as he shouted instructions to the maneuvering crew, probably the reactor operator.

“Skipper, you still there?” Delaney’s hoarse voice.

“I’m here, Eng.”

“I’m opening up the port loop cutout valves. Okay, pressurizer level’s holding.” For a moment Delaney’s voice was muffled. “Charge to the port loop.” Delaney’s voice came back as he screamed into the phone. “Skipper, we gotta restart the reactor with an emergency heatup rate. If we wait any longer we won’t have enough juice to run a main coolant pump to start up. We need an emergency fastrecovery reactor startup.”

“Engineer, conduct a fastrecovery reactor startup. Put the switch in battleshort and use an emergency heatup rate on the reactor. Do an emergency warmup of the turbines, SSTG’s first. I want propulsion in four minutes.”

“Cap’n, we’ll be up in three.” The phone clicked. Pacino slowly put the phone handset back in its cradle and turned to look at the XO. Rapier was breathing. When Pacino touched his cheek, his skin was warm. Pacino slapped his cheek gently, trying to bring him to. Rapier moaned, slowly moving his head from side to side.