by Mike Kraus
“Take us to four thousand.”
“Aye, sir.” Stanski repeats the command to the pilot.
The nose of the sub dips further into the darkness, and Arkin instinctively grips the closest handrail. He watches as the depth meter ticks downward fifty feet at a time, eyes flicking between it and the large monitors that have been hastily bolted to the far walls that show a visual of the exterior environment. As they pass thirty-five hundred feet, a rush of turbulence shakes the entire sub like a gentle earthquake.
“I felt that,” he murmurs, gazing at the screens.
“Incoming,” Stanski announces calmly as a rock roughly the shape and size of a human head glances the top of the hull, zipping past the mast at about sixty miles an hour.
Arkin jerks back slightly. “A little more warning next time.”
“Sorry sir. The turbulence is throwing off the sonar. Everything's moving around down there like a boiling pot of soup. I’ll have to filter for objects greater than two meters.”
The steady thrum of the engine and air circulation units calm Arkin’s nerves even as they pass through more clouds of debris, rocks and dirt pinging against the ship’s hull, but none are large enough for them to cause damage.
“Where are we in relation to the anomaly?”
“This is the last known mapping from the Marin.” Stanski gestures to a side screen displaying a three-dimensional view of the continental shelf. The anomaly crevice stretches ten football fields long from north to south with spider-web cracks branching throughout the earth’s crust. He points to a green dot slipping along the shelf wall, indicating their current location. “We’re approaching the thickest part of the anomaly between these two branches, as we planned in the briefing.”
“Good,” Arkin nods. “Start the advanced scan of the ocean floor. I want to throw everything we’ve got at it. Get me something I can use.”
“Initiating scan using BQQ active sonar and engaging hull panels. Give me fifteen minutes, sir.”
“We’ve reached four thousand feet, sir,” Stanski announces.
“Full stop. Let’s settle in and wait for the scans.”
***
Down in the engine room, Chief Petty Officer Lane Nelson shakes his head and adjusts his earpiece. He felt the abnormal turbulence from a minute ago, and though alarming, there are very few things short of a direct collision with another ship that could displace the 7,800-ton South Carolina. He maneuvers expertly through the cramped engine room with its rows of high-tech gear, leaving only two feet of space to slide by. Squeezing between compression systems with digital gauges, pump regulators, and turbine casings, he observes his crews’ actions.
Six petty officers and specialists stand at workstations, monitoring the ship’s balance and speed, watch engine health and pipe the information to Chief Engineer Trent up in the control center with the captain. Nelson walks behind the sailors, inspecting their screens and pointing where he wants adjustments made. During the briefing, Captain Arkin mentioned the nature of the mission and the inherent danger of approaching the volatile crevice. But Nelson was skeptical until he felt the ship’s hull shimmy and shook like an airplane cabin in low altitude turbulence.
He relays the most recent command to his sailors. “We’re going to four thousand feet. Be ready for more turbulence. We may need a throttle adjustment to handle the heavier currents. Keep an eye on the power ratios.”
“Can we take that kind of pressure, Chief?” Smith asks. “The most I’ve been is two thousand on my previous assignment.”
“Not officially,” Nelson grins. “But I know for a fact we can dive past five thousand. We did it before the last scheduled maintenance.”
“Good to know.” She appears relieved.
“I’m not worried about the depth.” His grin falters as he looks at a feed from engineering that shows the ocean crosscurrents rising from the floor in strange patterns. “But I don’t like those. Not one bit.”
***
The submarine rattles again, causing Captain Arkin to snatch the rail. “Can someone let us know when these waves of turbulence are about to hit us?”
“We’re getting a lot of noise,” Trent replies. “I’ve never seen thermohaline currents like this. And the mixture of debris is only adding to the force.”
The ship shakes again, tilting ten degrees before stabilizing.
“Depth?”
“Three thousand eight hundred and twenty-two.”
“I said I want us at four thousand.”
Stanski works the controls on his panel. “We were, sir, but it’s almost impossible to maintain our depth with the freshwater surge coming up from the bottom.”
“I understand there’s a surge,” Arkin takes his eyes off the screen and leans over the deck officer’s shoulder, “but how can it be pumping out with that much force still?”
Trent calls from the port where she and her sonar specialists work. “Can you look at this, sir?”
Arkin lets go of his rail and steps over to her side, gripping an overhead handle to steady himself, peering at a screen that depicts a model of the South Carolina and its position. Digital lines flow over the hull, representing the forces surrounding them. The surge is clearly coming from the ocean floor, separating around the ship before drifting upward and the digital lines turn yellow and red whenever an especially strong current hits them.
“After I apply these two filters,” she adjusts some knobs, “this is what I’m seeing.”
He watches as the radar range increases so they can see water rising a hundred feet below them. Not only does it surge upward, but it’s rife with dangerous cross currents. A sudden swell rises in a burst of red lines, and Arkin clenches the handle as the submarine takes another hit of turbulence, rattling his thermos where it rests in a nearby cup holder.
“Those will only get stronger the farther we descend,” the engineer says. “If we want to see the anomaly from this position, we’ll have to dive through them. It’ll be like plunging into a blender.”
“Can we handle those pressures?”
“Technically speaking, yes. But it might not be a fun ride.”
Stanski gets the captain’s attention, pointing at a side screen once again. “Rather than dive straight down, we can back off to here, dip beneath the current, and approach along the sea floor.”
“What’s the depth on that?”
“Five thousand two hundred, sir.”
The captain releases the handle and makes a grab for another handrail, swinging around to his chair. The USS South Carolina is a three-billion-dollar submarine, one of the best-equipped in the country’s arsenal. Not only is it of significant dollar value, but it remains a major military deterrent to anyone threatening American shores A hundred and seventeen crew members and fifteen officers are onboard and going deeper would put the ship and all those lives at risk. His mission is to get a visual on the anomaly and re-map the ocean floor around it, though, and the depth is within known operating parameters, and the turbulence – though annoying – has been minimal so far.
With a grim expression, he nods to Deck Officer Stanski. “Take us on that course to a depth of five thousand two hundred feet. And I want eyes on that floor as soon as we have it.”
“Aye, sir. Pilot, reverse to the heading on your screen, then descend to five two zero zero. Fifteen degree down bubble. Full speed.”
***
“We’re diving to fifty-two hundred feet,” Nelson tells his sailors, Smith visibly paling at the news.
“Jeez.”
“It’s not our job to question the depth,” he says as he passes behind her, “just get us there. Now increase the throttle sensitivity so we can power through that mess of currents down there.”
“Yes, sir,” she replies, making the adjustments on their screen.
The mysterious elevator-like motions of the ship cause his stomach to flutter and sink. “No matter how many years I spend in a sub’s belly, I’ll never get used to descents.” Smi
th gives him a half-smile before returning to her task.
“How’s the pressurizer look?” he asks another sailor.
“No adjustments required, sir. It’s handling the ask for more power just fine.”
“Good. This will be our girl’s first big test in a while,” Nelson muses. “Let’s keep her humming people--”
The sub tilts forward, and his feet slide from beneath him, forcing him to snatch a rail as they begin a rapid descent. While he can’t see a single thing outside the ship, he feels the weight of billions of gallons of water pressing down on their heads, a small part of him wanting – and resisting the urge – to scream. His training kicks in and he shuts down the claustrophobic feeling, focusing on the task at hand.
“You’re sweating on me, sir,” Smith says.
“What?”
“You’re sweating on me.” The sailor reaches down and swipes her finger on a screen, lifting it to show him a bead of moisture she’d picked up.
“Sorry.” Nelson shifts his position so he’s not hovering over her and draws his arm along his sweaty forehead. “It’s damn hot in here. Can we cool it down?”
“Got it,” a sailor calls. The air circulation unit kicks up, driving a gust of cool air across his face.
“Thank you,” he murmurs, moving quickly down three stations where a man monitors the primary circuit of the nuclear-powered engine. The diagram and overlay show the reactor, pressurizer, main coolant system, and steam generator, the latter of which is operating at fifty percent capacity and inching upward.
The chief petty officer starts back to Smith when the submarine jerks like it hit a wall. Nelson barely snatches a rail before he slides toward the front of the engine room, grabbing at air while several sailors grumble and groan as they hang on against the tilting vessel. Something grips the submarine and shakes it, and he bangs his knee on a pipe before he can brace himself. Half hanging from the rail, feet spread on the floor, Nelson grabs the tether on his belt and looks for a hook. He spots one next to a stabilization pump behind him and takes a swipe at it, missing badly, falling so that he hangs by one arm. They’re pointed downward at a forty-five-degree angle, and if he lets go, he’ll tumble over Smith and slam into the front of the engine room.
“A little help!” he calls.
Smith turns and puts her foot against Nelson’s hip. He counts to three and lunges for the hook while Smith shoves, their combined effort giving him the momentum he needs to reach the hook and snap his tether in place. He holds on and waits for the tumultuous shaking to stop, the hull groaning as the HY 100 steel absorbs the massive pressures squeezing it. Shoulders drawing tense, Nelson’s stomach and legs lock tight as he presses his feet down. Craning his neck, he sees the other sailors clinging to rails or interlocking their feet around pipes, keeping their faces on the screens.
The turbines whine powerfully in the next compartment over, the submarine jerking and wobbling as it remains on course. Nelson can’t begin to guess the amount of force gripping and squeezing them and a warning note rings out in the back of his mind. At fifty-two hundred feet, with the convulsions and juddering, the hull could certainly crack open like an eggshell, the pressure crushing them to death before they have a chance to blink.
At least it would be fast.
“You okay, sir?” Smith calls over the rattling, squalling ship. “You look pale.”
“I’m fine. You look a little pale yourself.”
Smith looks at him with a calm expression, but fear dances behind her eyes. “That’s because I’m holding in a scream.”
The pair stare at each other, and Nelson grins, spitting out the first part of a phrase that’s all too common aboard the USS South Carolina, one of their crew mantras.
“I have faith in my maker!”
“And I have faith in this magnificent machine!” she fires back.
Nodding, grinning, his stress tenuously under control, Nelson’s eyes search the surrounding screens for warning lights or a sign something is wrong. No alarms blare and none of his sailors shout and blessedly, finally, the boat levels out, the turbulence fades and his body uncurls, relaxing.
“Smith, I’d have a general report.”
“Everything is stable,” she glances over her shoulder. “I made some adjustments to the generator, topping it out at sixty-five percent capacity. The pressurizer was barely taxed. They had all the power they needed up top.”
“That’s what I like to hear. Send that up to Trent.” Nelson releases a sigh of relief, then he unhooks himself and moves down the line to do a quick review of the gauges. “Stay sharp. We’ve still got a return journey to make.”
***
“Report!” Arkin calls out from his chair in the control room.
“Engines are stable,” Trent reports calmly. “Minor leaks but nothing major. We have some damage to one high frequency sonar mast. Communications remain up.”
“Good work.” Arkin nods, then he glances at the deck officer. “Are we where we should be?”
“The undercurrents shoved us about three hundred yards south,” Stanski says, “but otherwise, we’re looking good.”
The captain nods and folds his arms across his chest. “Okay, good. Now give me a visual of the ocean floor.”
“Screen one,” Stanski points.
Arkin shifts his eyes to the leftmost screen, watching as the panorama ahead of them changes to an angle beneath the boat. They hover forty feet above the ocean floor. Spotlights illuminate a sandy bottom covered with debris and massive basaltic stones. He marvels at the sight, in awe that they’ve come through the intense pressures to reach what seems like an alien world.
“I'll never get used to a visual like this. Those stones looked like they were freshly cracked off,” he says. “See how the sharp color contrasts? They haven’t been sitting there long.”
“Could they have been thrown up by the anomaly?”
Arkin shakes his head. “I don’t think regular currents could do that, but based on what we just experienced, I’d say yes. How are you coming on that advanced scan?”
There’s a pause, then Trent replies, “Eighty percent done, sir. The filters we applied are taking some additional time.”
“Let’s move ahead while we wait. One quarter.”
“Aye, sir. Pilot, ahead one quarter.”
The submarine eases forward, and the seafloor slips by beneath them as they approach a cluster of boulders the size of cars, one as long as a bus, appearing both on the jerry-rigged monitors and on the sonar scans.
“Those are big,” Stanski whispers.
Trent cranes her neck to see. “They must have been part of the original blow out.”
Sprinkles of debris filter down from above like a dark rain as particulates swirl and gust in the quieter currents, swishing back and forth in front of the camera lens. Stones the size of fists smack the top of the hull and bounce harmlessly off.
“It seems to have stabilized,” Arkin says. “Point the bow lights down. I’d like to see out ahead of us.”
Stanski reaches across his console and uses a joystick to angle the powerful bow spotlights at the ocean floor. The bright glow illuminates a debris field that stretches ahead as far as they can see.
Arkin glances to the map on his left and sees their green dot approaching the anomaly’s edge. “We’re getting close to the original mapping.”
“It’s a little less than a quarter of a mile.”
“One tenth.”
“Aye, sir. Pilot, take us to one tenth.”
They slow to a crawl, cruising along the sea floor like the silent killer the sub was built to be. They aren't killers today, though, instead merely observers in a dangerous, alien world. A bead of sweat trickles down Arkin’s temple, and he quickly wipes it off in annoyance. A dark line creases the horizon as the submarine shudders through more turbulence, though this time the rumblings are tight and intense.
“We’re running into surge-currents from being so close,” Trent says.
“Are we in danger?”
“These are green currents, according my feedback. Gentle compared to what we saw at higher depths.” Trent taps on her keyboard. “I wouldn’t recommend hovering above the opening, though... wow, that’s incredible.”
Arkin turns his attention to the screens and watches as they approach a scene that defies all imagination. The anomaly extends as far as he can see, its edge made up of jagged rocks. Parts of the crust of the earth have punched upward a hundred feet while other sections have fallen away, lending a raw, untamed look to the place. His eyes dance over the rugged cliffs and gullies it left as water shoots through a hundred gaps, blasting silt and stones directly at the camera. The endless, yawning darkness beyond devours the spotlights, wordlessly threatening to devour the South Carolina as well.
“All stop.”
“Aye, Captain. Pilot, all stop.”
“We can’t even see to the other side of it,” Arkin says. “I think the original mapping showed it was a single football field across. The spotlights they rigged should reach that far at this depth, or so the techs said.”
“It does appear to have changed in size.” Trent types something before looking up. “I just grabbed a snippet of the data being compiled. It’s definitely expanded… looks to be twice as wide it had been originally.”
“It’s doubled in width?” Arkin stares at the massive fissure, knowing what it did to the Marin and a dozen other ships up at the surface. He looks into those black depths, and a chill runs up his spine. “How far are we away from finishing the mapping? The faster we can send that upstairs, the faster we can bug out.”
“Less than two minutes now, sir.”
The ship shakes again, quickly followed by a side current that sweeps the bow ten degrees to starboard.
“Pilot, hold position.” Stanski sounds annoyed as more debris blasts from the gullies, bigger stones tumbling out amidst a cloud of dust that momentarily blinds the camera.