Cold Choices jm-2

by Larry Bond

  “So you think we should expend our last UUV getting more atmosphere control chemicals to them?”

  The torpedo officer shrugged and looked uneasy. “I don’t like it, but it’s that or wait for them to suffocate…”

  “And what happens once we’ve sent them more cassettes?” Palmer didn’t answer right away, and Jerry continued. “Everyone is already doing everything that can be done.”

  Jerry forced the words out. “If this second try fails, and I was Petrov, I don’t know if I’d want more chemicals.”

  Palmer shuddered. “You might be right. But choosing to end it, just giving up. ”

  “The extra time would just give them more opportunity to think about what’s coming.”

  “Unless someone can come up with something else.”

  Jerry joked, “Sure, the Jolly Green Giant with a big-ass fishing net,” but neither he nor Palmer smiled.

  “But it’s an option,” Palmer countered.

  Jerry made a face. “All right, make up a checklist and a timeline. I’ll make sure the XO and the Skipper know we’re ready.”

  “For the unthinkable,” Palmer added.

  “For the unfixable,” Jerry replied.

  Severodvinsk

  Petrov kept them out of the escape chamber for as long as possible, but even huddled under their blankets, dozing and coughing in the foul air, he could feel the energy. He had skipped the last round of sleeping pills, and the crew was rousing, starting to feel restless. They wanted to move, but he told them to stay put, stay quiet. Save your strength.

  He tried to rationalize it. It was colder in the escape chamber. All the food and medical supplies had been removed days ago. The wounded were more comfortable where they were. The rescue force wouldn’t be ready on time, or there would be some last-minute snag.

  There. That was it. He couldn’t bear the thought of them going up into the chamber and then climbing back out of it again. They’d done it once already, and while most of his men had kept up a brave front, some had broken down, given up.

  The arrival of the Norwegians had given them new hope, sustained by the letters from their families and the supplies from Seawolf. With tangible support from three nations, they’d found the strength to endure, but Petrov knew how fragile that endurance was.

  Besides, his men had waited for so long. He would enjoy making everyone else wait for them for a change.

  Petr Velikiy

  Borisov watched from his command chair as they ran down the checklist. He fought the urge to ask questions. The timing was calculated almost to the second, and he’d checked their calculations over and over. He even had a copy in front of him.

  The real question was, what else should be on that list? Like a traveler leaving the house, the question nagged at him. What had they forgotten?

  Halsfjord was positioning its remote vehicles now. The American remote, “Maxine,” was already in place, while Seawolf herself had withdrawn to three kilometers, close enough to maintain acoustic communication, but clear of the three small underwater vehicles or anything that might go over the side.

  The three unmanned vehicles, two Norwegian and one American, were spaced equally around a circle three hundred meters in diameter. If the rescue went well, they’d be able to record the process. If there was a problem, there was a small chance they would be able to correct it.

  He scanned the monitors that filled every spare corner of the flag command post. Most displayed status reports: helicopter fuel, weather, equipment breakdowns. One showed a video image of someone in an impossibly bright blue parka, standing on the fantail of one of the tugs. A crawl across the bottom in alternating Russian and English identified him as Britt Adams, a reporter for Skynews aboard the tug Pamir. Thankfully, the audio was off.

  Patterson had convinced the admiral that the tug was the best place for a reporter to be. He was going to report anyway, she argued, and Borisov had conceded that point. And he certainly wouldn’t find any state secrets aboard a tugboat. The admiral had agreed with that as well. And what better way to show the Russian effort to save their crew than a live feed of Pamir straining at the cables?

  Borisov had given his permission, and Adams had been helicoptered over to Pamir at dawn. A condition of his presence was that his video signal was relayed from Pamir to the flagship, and then to a satellite. Borisov could cut this transmission at any time — rather, the English-speaking captain-lieutenant who’d been ordered to watch Adams’s broadcast could.

  The tugs and Halsfjord were all in position. In fact, they couldn’t move out of position, and that was beginning to make him impatient. The rest of the task force had assumed stations one mile away from Severodvinsk, and every ship had at least one boat out with a crew standing by. Legkiy’s boat was already in the water, standing by with a line she’d attach to the escape chamber.

  Every ship with a helicopter had it fueled and ready. Every sickbay, including Petr Velikiy’s extensive medical facilities, was on alert. Everything that could be thought of had been done.

  Borisov would not give the order. As far as that went, he’d already given the order, back when he took over the rescue. Lindstrom had control of the detonators and a Russian liaison on Halsfjord would tell the two tugs when to start pulling. And Lindstrom would give the signal only when Petrov said he was ready.

  Severodvinsk

  “It’s time,” Petrov announced softly. Kalinin stood slowly, favoring his sprain, ready to direct the evacuation, but everything had been thoroughly planned. Even if they hadn’t held evacuation drills before the collision, they’d dreamed of little else since. Petrov had even calculated and recalculated how long it would take them to reach the surface. From their current depth, he figured one minute and forty-nine seconds. That was all it would take.

  Now, with few words, and not as quickly as he would have liked, men pulled themselves up, taking care to stay wrapped against the cold.

  Senior-Lieutenant Shubin did show some energy as he opened the access hatch, hopefully for the last time, Petrov thought, and then climbed up into the chamber. A moment later, he poked his head out and looked towards Kalinin. After reporting that everything was in order, a weary smile appeared on his tired face. “Why am I looking forward to going somewhere even colder than this place?”

  Senior-Lieutenant Kozyrev, waiting for his turn to climb, answered, “I’d take up with a polar bear and live on the ice to get away from your breath.” Several crewmen laughed. Nobody had been able to brush their teeth for several days, and there were worse odors.

  “Yours is no better,” Shubin countered. “You can use yours to stun a bear. I now know why it is so hard for you to find dates.” That made everyone laugh, and the pace increased a little.

  Once a dozen able-bodied men had climbed into the escape chamber, it was time to send up the wounded. The sixteen injured crewmen all had injuries that prevented them from climbing the ladder into the chamber: sprains, broken bones, wrenched backs. Kalinin was the first to go up. He would supervise the men in the chamber, and he wanted the men to practice with him.

  It was a slow process. In drills they’d held before the collision, they’d gotten eighty-five men into the escape chamber in seventeen minutes, beating the navy requirement by three minutes. Now, even with fewer men to load, Petrov guessed it would take an hour.

  One by one, the injured were gently lifted and carried to the base of the ladder. Some could stand, but many had to be held upright while a line was passed under their shoulders. Then the men above gently, carefully, brought their disabled shipmate up into the chamber and belted them in place. The exertion made the men on the ropes cough, and it took five or six to do what would normally be the work of two men.

  The escape chamber was a cylinder two decks high. Each deck was a circular space with seats lining the bulkhead. The upper deck was open in the middle, and little more than a wide ring, allowing the men to move to and from their seats. It was not the best of accommodations. The injured were
all strapped in on the lower deck, with healthy men on either side. Sadilenko was a special case. Dr. Balanov had insisted on keeping him completely sedated, and in a straitjacket as well. He was sent up last, after the injured men, limp as wet paper. A rope harness added to the seat held him upright.

  Maybe it was the thought of escape, or the increased activity. Certainly the coughing and moans of the wounded hadn’t helped, but Petrov felt a wave of claustrophobia wash through him. Suddenly he couldn’t draw a full breath. The cold air filled his lungs and refused to sustain him.

  The last of the men were climbing now. Lyachin, the senior officer after the starpom, reported to Petrov, “Codes and classified material have been passed up, sir.” He held up the logbook. “I was going to take this up myself. We are the last two.”

  The engineer’s report pulled Petrov out of his funk, and he instinctively looked around the command post, as if to make sure nothing had been left behind. Lyachin saw him look, and said, “We’ve had two people count, and they matched. Sixty-five men are in the chamber, comrade Captain. You and I will make it sixty-seven.”

  Petrov nodded and walked over to the underwater communications station. “Halsfjord, this is Severodvinsk. Everyone is in the rescue chamber.” He looked at his watch for a moment, then said, “We will flood the starboard ballast tanks in one minute. mark!”

  “Understood, Severodvinsk. Good luck to you.”

  Petrov hung up the mike and reflexively switched off the set, smiling as he realized how ridiculous that was. Tracking the second hand on his watch, he hurried over to join Lyachin at the engineer’s post.

  Thirty-five seconds. Petrov looked around the central post again. He tried to take it all in, fixing it in his memory. His first, and very likely last command. Regardless, he’d never be back here again.

  Fifteen seconds. “On my count,” Petrov ordered.

  Lyachin nodded silently, his hands hovering over the switches but not touching them.

  Ten seconds. It was foolish to time things to the second, but Lindstrom was watching his own clock on the surface. Petrov wouldn’t be the one to mess up the timing.

  He watched the second hand, and called “Five seconds,” resting his hands on the controls. He counted down the last few seconds, and at “Zero,” both he and Lyachin pushed the valve controls opening the vents on the starboard main ballast tanks. Suddenly, there was a loud roar coming from Severodvinsk’s starboard side as the air in the ballast tanks surged their way to the surface. By putting all their reserve air into the port ballast tanks, and flooding the starboard ones, the engineers hoped to create a torque on the submarine’s hull; a torque that would help rotate Severodvinsk upright.

  Petrov waited for the few seconds it took for the indicators to change, then told Lyachin, “Go.”

  Halsfjord

  The passive sonar on the Norwegian ship wasn’t nearly as sensitive as a military suite, but they were sitting almost directly over the bottomed submarine. The operator reported, “I can hear mechanical noises, and air moving.”

  Lindstrom nodded and said “Good,” never taking his eyes from the second hand. He’d conferred with the Russians about how long it would take the water to fill Severodvinsk’s ballast tanks, how long it would take for thousands of tons of steel to start to move. Some of her port tanks were ruptured, though, and some of that air would be lost. The next step was timed, hopefully, to coincide when the sub began to twist.

  He turned to the Russian officer. “Tell the tugs to go. Full power.” It would take them some time to come up to full power as well.

  “Thirty seconds.”

  Severodvinsk

  In spite of his haste, Petrov took extra time to double-check the hatch, then carefully climbed to the seat reserved for him next to the starpom. Kalinin was staring at his watch. Petrov looked again at the inclinometer. It showed thirty-six degrees of port list. They had to get within ten to fifteen degrees of an even keel.

  According to the briefings he’d received, the escape chamber should not be released if the submarine was moving too much. He hoped a sideways roll wouldn’t be a problem, because the instant they showed less than twelve degrees, he was pulling the release.

  “Ten seconds,” Kalinin announced.

  Petrov called out “All hands brace! Remember, I can’t pull on the release until we roll vertical, so stay braced after the explosion. I don’t know how long it will. ”

  The shock and noise were as violent as anything he’d ever imagined, almost as bad as the collision itself. A Russian PLAB-250 depth charge held sixty kilograms of high explosive. Dropped close enough to an enemy submarine, it could crack the pressure hull and shake equipment off its mountings. Now, dozens of charges were exploding in a ripple fashion, not a hundred meters away, or fifty, or ten, but directly against the hull. Two rows of gas bubbles abruptly appeared, shoving the water and mud away from the sub’s hull, then collapsed in on themselves.

  Like driving fast over a washboard road, or a hailstorm of hammers, Petrov felt each blast, or imagined he could. The seat he was strapped to carried the shock wave right into his body, jarring his spine and giving him an instant headache. The sound seemed to come from the water outside the chamber, from the hull below them, and from inside the chamber itself. Many of the crew yelled in surprise, and the injured men cried out from the pain. It was rough treatment, and Petrov felt their pain, helpless to avoid or forestall it.

  In spite of the violent motion of water and gas under the hull, the list remained. He waited for them to roll, or at least shift position, but the inclinometer stayed frozen at thirty-six degrees.

  The force of the explosions lasted for only a fraction of a second, but Petrov continued to feel, or imagine that he could feel, the wham-wham-wham vibration they had caused. Then the feeling became a real sensation, and Kalinin remarked on it as well. Still half-deafened by the explosions, Petrov couldn’t distinguish any sound, so he placed his palm against the metal bulkhead of the chamber, listening with his hand.

  There was a vibration, low and jumbled. He tried to visualize it, but nothing in the submarine was working, so.

  “It’s the tugs,” Petrov announced. Others mimicked his actions, feeling the rumble of the tugs’ engines carried through the cables to the hull.

  Petr Velikiy

  Borisov found himself watching Adams’s transmission, even ordering the sound turned up. Maybe he was attracted to the video image. Adams’s camera was trained on Pamirs fantail, wreathed in white froth. Three thick black lines led in a tight fan from her fantail into the water.

  “I’m standing on the topdeck of the Russian salvage tug Pamir. Those cables you see lead to the crippled submarine Severodvinsk, its half-frozen crew critically short of breathable air.” The camera swung to show the Norwegian ship, perhaps half a kilometer away. “Moments ago Halsfjord detonated thirty-two explosive charges on both sides of the stranded submarine’s hull. These are supposed to free her from the bottom suction and jar her loose of the rock ledges. Now the tugs are straining to pull the twelve-thousand-ton submarine upright.”

  The camera shifted again to show Pamir’s sister Altay, just a hundred meters to port. With her white superstructure and a dark gray hull, she made an impressive picture as she strained at the cables. “Although a fraction of Severodvinsk’s size, each tug’s engines produce nine thousand horsepower. Their combined. ”

  The image tilted suddenly, then shuddered and spun. It stopped to show a portion of Pamir’s deck and handrail. Voices in Russian and one in English shouted, but the words were drowned out by an angry howl from the tug’s diesels. The engine noise quickly stopped, and someone, probably Adams, picked up the camera. There was an “I’ve got it” in English and the image steadied again, to show Altay heeling over to starboard, sliding sideways across the water toward Pamir.

  A shout in Russian made Adams swing the camera to Pamir’s fantail. Two of the cables were no longer taut, and the third draped over her stern and was visibly m
oving to port, increasing the angle between it and the other two.

  It had taken moments for Adams’s video to show the disaster. By the time his camera steadied on the limp cables, Borisov was on his feet, shouting orders. “Call the tugs! Talk to both of them, find out their status! Call the Norwegians. I want to speak to Lindstrom! Kurganov, call Severodvinsk.”

  “I can’t,” the admiral replied, “they’ll still be in the escape chamber.”

  Borisov paused. “You’re right, of course. Then call Seawolf. See what their remote vehicle saw.”

  “I’ve got Lindstrom on the radiophone,” a lieutenant announced. Borisov hurried over and took the handset. “Borisov here. What happened?”

  Lindstrom’s voice showed his confusion. “I don’t know what’s happened. Both tugs suddenly veered to starboard. It looks like the cables to the sub’s bow are slack on both tugs.”

  Nicherin, one of Borisov’s staff, interrupted, “Admiral, I’ve got reports from both Pamir and Altay. No casualties, but each has lost the cable to Severodvinsk’s bow.”

  “That still gives them two cables each. Tell them full power!” Nicherin nodded quickly and hurried off.

  Borisov returned his attention to the handset. Lindstrom was speaking, and Borisov asked him to repeat. “We’re moving the ROVs in to get a closer look at the cables.”

  The sailor in Borisov thought about the forces, the way they were applied. “Concentrate on the bow section. The cables must have come loose somehow.”

  “I agree. The chance of two breaking at the same moment is incredibly small.”

  “How long until you can see?” Borisov asked.

  “There’s a lot of silt from the charges,” Lindstrom answered. “We’ll have to get in very close, almost on top of the submarine. With the tugs still pulling, there is a risk we could lose one.”

  “I understand,” Borisov answered. “Go ahead.”