Attack of the Seawolf

CHAPTER 32 MONDAY, 13 MAY 1204 GREENWICH MEAN TIME

BOHAI HAIXIA STRAIT

USS SEAWOLF

2004 BEIJING TIME

Lieutenant Tim Turner was able to grab a rung of the ladder on the way down, preventing himself from falling the distance down to the deck below, but breaking his fall sprained an ankle and dislocated his shoulder.

The pain shot through his body and he winced, certain he had broken something. He reached for the next rung up in the tunnel ladder, and as he looked up he could see water beginning to trickle down the hatchway.

Below him the hatch to the upper level of the forward compartment shut as the petty officer sent to warn him to come down shut the lower hatch.

Which left Turner alone in the sealed-off trunk with an open hatch overhead, the water ready to drown him. With all his remaining strength he moved up the ladder to the hatch and reached for the hatch ring, feeling the gusher of water in his face as he tried to reach to the hatch and pull it down.

He was only able to pull it a few inches, the roar of water down the hatch threatening to wash him down the tunnel, but the water flow beat against the closing hatch and slammed it into the hatch seat. The flooding stopped, but left Turner hanging over a fifteen-foot-deep hole by one hand. He reached up with his right hand, engaged the hatch dogs, and felt for the ladder rung with his foot, then lowered himself down the tunnel to the deck and found himself in water up to his waist.

He banged on the hull with his flashlight, and after a moment the water began to drain slowly out of the tunnel as the man below opened a drain valve. After another few minutes the hatch opened and Turner could climb down the ladder to the deck. He dogged the lower hatch over his head, and had turned to the petty officer who had abandoned him, ready to say something, when he was thrown to the deck by a violent force, barely conscious as he slid over the wet deck to the door of the galley. The deck tilted, and looking aft, it seemed the hundred-foot-long passageway was a stairwell, a ramp, inclined toward him, the lights no longer illuminating it, just some automatically activated battle lanterns. Turner wondered if it was his head injury that caused the illusion, but then a flashlight loosened from its cradle fell to the deck and rolled down to his position at the galley door. No illusion, he realized, the ship was diving. And with no lights.

The detonation of the depth charge made the deck jump more than Pacino would ever have expected for a ship of nine thousand tons, and he was thrown into the periscope pole, banging his forehead. The lights went out, the room lit only by battle lanterns. The firecontrol console displays went blank for a second time. The sonar repeater stayed blank, never having come back up from its initial injury.

A dim voice came over the emergency communications network:

“Flooding in auxiliary machinery, flooding in—” Pacino shouted over the announcement: “Chief, make the phone announcement and send the casualty assistance team to the torpedo room.”

Before the chief could do it a speaker in the overhead “REACTOR SCRAM, REACTOR SCRAM,” Engineer Linden reported.

Pacino turned to the ship control console and the Diving Officer.

“Flood depth-control tanks and put her on the bottom.” He reached for a phone to the aft compartment.

“Maneuvering, Captain, report cause of scram.”

“Sir,” Engineer Linden’s voice said over the connection, “I think it was just shock to the scram breakers, or a rod jump that caused a flux spike that tripped the protection systems. We’re setting up for recovery—”

“Don’t,” Pacino ordered.

“Shut down the engine room Shut the main steam bulkhead valves and shut down all your pumps. Shift the reactor to natural circulation and keep that compartment quiet. Have your guys take off their shoes if you have to.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Chief of the Watch, have you got a report from the torpedo room?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“XO, go to the torpedo room and take over. Get that flooding stopped and do it quietly.”

Keebes took off his headset and dumped it on the Pos Two console, then quickly headed for the aft stairway.

“Attention in the firecontrol team,” Pacino called.

“We’re out of weapons, we’re surrounded by aircraft, we’ve shut down the engineering spaces and we’re sitting on the bottom. Within minutes I expect that the aircraft will be turning around and coming for us with more depth charges, and the surface forces will soon be here with their own weapons. Meanwhile, we’re not going anywhere until the flooding in the lower level is stopped, particularly since the flooding is too close to our only power source, the battery. In any case I’m hoping that with the reactor shut down we won’t be detected by passive sonar. And that since we’re on the bottom, active sonar won’t be much good either. The only thing we have to worry about is magnetic detectors, and there’s nothing we can do about that. Carry on.”

“That’s it?” Morris said.