Phoenix Sub Zero

Ten meters above the command module, the submarine’s fin neared the surface in an attempt to reach the air, to bring it into the ship to feed the hungry diesel. The snort mast, a pipe with a water-sensing valve at the top, pointed to the waves, finally broaching the surface and extending toward the night sky.

“Control, Quzwini, snort mast is up.”

“Depth is two seven meters.”

“Mast is broached. Draining the induction manifold.”

Quzwini manipulated several more hydraulic controllers that operated large shutoff valves in the piping from the snort mast to the diesel engine induction. He was careful, since flooding the diesel with seawater would ruin their chances of restarting his reactor in the next minutes. He lifted a metal cover from a high-pressure air station and operated a valve that would blow out the water from the exhaust piping. Finally the engine was ready. He hit an air valve that rolled the massive engine, ensuring the bearings were lubricated with oil before he started the diesel. He reached below the panel and pulled a plastic cover off an electrical knife switch, the circuit connected to several car batteries housed inside the console, the electricity that would energize the field coils of the generator and allow it to produce power. He rotated the knife switch, flashing the field, then smashed his palm against the start button set in the air-control valve manifold.

Immediately the high-pressure air flowed loudly into the diesel intake manifold and turned the machine, the heavy engine accelerating slowly until it was at speed. Quzwini, going more by feel than any operating procedure, stabbed another air-control valve, commencing diesel engine fuel injection, hoping the engine would continue to roll. Its own compression would have cylinder temperatures high enough for ignition. Reaching again by feel, he cut off the high-pressure starting air just as he heard the engine roar to life, the sound loud even though the beast was three compartments aft. The deck trembled as the machine came up to speed, the sound violent and painful. He watched the output voltage meter, coaxing the machine under his breath, watching the needle rise from the zero peg and climb steadily until it stopped at 250 volts. Quzwini wiped his forehead with his sleeve. The diesel had made it up. Normally he would nurse the engine, giving it twenty minutes to heat up and stabilize the bearing oil temperatures and jacket water outlet, but this was no training exercise.

He popped a cover off a large electrical breaker and punched the red button marked close, then watched the battery bus voltage meter needle zip up to 250 volts. Up on the main panel he checked the engine speed and diesel voltage.

The engine had held now that it was loaded with the current drain of the dead battery. He stood and walked forward along the panels of the Yokogawa Second Captain supercomputer until he reached the 400-hertz motor generator control cubicle, one of the power generators for the computers.

He shut its breaker and shone his flashlight on its voltage and current meters. The motor generator set came up to speed in the steam module compartment, supplying the computers with their odd 400-cycle AC power. He stepped to the 120-volt 60-cycle panel and performed the same function for the computer’s 60-cycle power generator. When it came up to speed he shut a breaker and reported to the control room that they could restart the Second Captain. He took a walk back to look at the diesel panel, scanning its instruments one last time. Time to get back to the control room and restart the reactor.

He grabbed his battle lantern and started the walk. By the time he reached the stairs, the overhead lights had come back on. He hurried back to the control room’s aft starboard corner, acknowledging Sharef’s smile, then sat in the control seat. The reactor core display took some time coming up on the console, but finally the Second Captain had warmed up and the display showed core status. Quzwini selected the electrical distribution network on an adjacent console and pointed to his subordinate to energize the main ship service AC motor generator set. Lieutenant Kutaiba, the propulsion officer, brought the machine up, energizing the high-voltage AC bus network. Quzwini now had power to his control rod drive motors, and he stabbed the soft response key that was configured to commence reactor startup.

Two modules aft, in the reactor bay, the rod drive motors began pulling control rods out of the uranium core, the power module that had once been eyed by Sihoud as raw material for his desired nuclear weapon, but the fuel would have taken over a year to reprocess with an entire reprocessing plant to isolate the uranium — the reprocessing plant itself would have taken over a year to build, so Sihoud had left the Japanese-constructed core alone and searched for nuclear weapon material elsewhere.