Attack of the Seawolf

In the control room Pacino tried to open an eye but couldn’t. Had he gone blind? He reached up and put a hand to his face and felt that his right eye was swollen shut. His left seemed normal. While he tried to open his good eye, he tasted copper, as though he were sucking on a penny. He stuck his tongue out in distaste, but his tongue seemed to dissolve into a ball of sparks, the feeling from his mouth turning into an odd combination of partial numbness and coppery taste. He felt something with a part of his tongue that wasn’t numb. A tooth. He spit it out, tried to raise his head but vertigo hit him so hard that he had to drop his head again.

After a moment he heard a pinging noise, a sonar ping. Only then did he fully realize where he was. He grimaced as he tried to stand, pulling himself up to a seat at the attack center’s Pos Two console. He looked around the room, his good eye blurry, and saw only dim lights. He took a headset and called into it for someone, anyone. He tried to move to the aft end of the room but immediately felt tired and dizzy. He found a cubbyhole locker and pulled out a gas mask, wrapped it on his sore face and plugged it into an air manifold in the overhead.

He took a slow breath, wondering if the air system might be contaminated, it seemed dry and stale. He took another deep breath, feeling his head clear. It had to be the levels of oxygen in the ship. For a moment he considered going to the lower level to the oxygen bottles and opening up the bleed valve, then dismissed the idea. Oxygen was not enough — they needed to clear the air of carbon dioxide. Hell, they needed to get the hell out of the bay.

Pacino began to make his way aft to the shielded tunnel, unplugging and re plugging his mask every forty feet until he was in maneuvering. He pulled a mask out of the overhead and strapped it onto the engineer’s face. Ray Linden opened his eyes, shook his head to clear it.

“We need to restart the scrubbers and burners,” Pacino told him.

“We need to restart the reactor,” Linden managed to get out.

“The battery’s down, must have shorted out and opened the battery breaker …”

“We’re in big trouble with no battery,” Pacino said.

“Don’t need it to restart,” Linden said, getting fresher.

“The reactor protection circuitry has backup batteries and we don’t need coolant pumps. You say the word and we’ll start this thing out of here.”

Another reverberating sonar ping through the hull.

“Not yet, they’re still looking for us. Get everyone into a mask. I’ll call you.”

Pacino headed forward to the control room and began strapping masks on the men. When two, then three regained consciousness Pacino told them to help get the rest of the crew in masks and went into the sonar room and found Chief Jeb in a mask staring at him, his face badly swollen.

“Hear the pinging?” Pacino asked. Jeb nodded.

Pacino figured as long as they could hear the pinging through the hull they wouldn’t need sonar and could stay on the bottom.

After a few moments the pings died down.

Pacino went back into control, trying to find out how many men were hurt seriously. So far the worst had been some broken bones. The men had fairly well recovered with the breathing air, but the supply was limited. One way or another they had to get the hell out of the bay. He checked his watch. It had been a half hour since the last sonar ping he could remember.

He called Linden aft.

“Start up the reactor and get the atmospheric equipment up, full power lineup, but no main engines yet.”

In twenty minutes the fans were working, blowing cool air into the stuffy room. The ESGN navigation system came on with a moan, its ball spinning up to several thousand RPM. The firecontrol and sonar screens lit up as the ship’s computer came back to life.

The control panel’s displays flashed up. Seawolf was back.

Pacino pulled on his headset over the straps of his air mask.

“Chief Jeb, can you hear me?”

“Yes sir.”

“Is sonar up? I’m getting a waterfall screen.”

“I’m initializing, sir, but we’ll be up in no time.”

“Listen for surface and aircraft contacts. I want to know if they’re still waiting for us. There hasn’t been an active ping in a while.”

“Yes sir.”

Pacino hoisted a phone to his ear.

“Eng, how’s the plant?”

“Normal full power lineup, turbines working in spite of the heel. But I’d like to get us horizontal. The condensers don’t drain very well like this.”

“I’ll get back to you. How’s the air?”

“Analyzer says we have high CO and COz, very low oxygen. We should all be dead.”

“Clean it up as fast as you can.”

“Conn, Sonar,” Jeb’s voice announced, a ring of pride coming through.

“Sonar’s up, no surface contacts, no air contacts. We’re cleared for takeoff, Captain.”

Pacino liked the sound of that.

“Eng, start the main engines and prepare to answer all bells.”

Pacino leaned over the chart, wondering where the ship was. The navigation systems were out of line after the depth charging.

“Conn, Maneuvering. Propulsion is on the main engines, ready to answer all bells,” Linden said.