Piranha: Firing Point

It would be a relief, Pacino thought, to be able to see the world around them. He was wrong.

The screens flickered to life again. Pacino strapped on his helmet.

“Goddamn it,” one voice.

“Shit,” a second.

“Torpedo in the water!” a third.

“Emergency flank!” Patton said. “Course one six zero!”

Pacino’s display showed the Piranha on the surface, no one nearby, no Rising Suns, but one lonely incoming Nagasaki torpedo, less than one thousand feet from their position and targeted at the Devilfish.

The deck began to shake as the ship sped up to emergency flank. Pacino sincerely hoped that they could outrun it. He was thinking that thought when Patton made some odd orders.

“OOD, get on the circuit one and order all hands into emergency breathing masks.”

“Aye, sir.”

The circuit one announcing system blared out, “Torpedo in the water! All hands don EABS.”

“OOD, arm the fire-suppression system.”

“Aye, sir, urn. Captain, won’t that kill the Cyclops and all the other electronics aboard if we use that?”

“Better than dying in a fire,” Patton said.

Pacino looked at him but decided not to interfere.

Maybe it was just a quirk he had come upon after the Annapolis sinking.

Pacino strapped on his gas mask and plugged it into a receptacle. The air he found was dry and canned and hot.

The deck continued to vibrate beneath their feet as they ran. Pacino wondered if this torpedo was programmed to execute a termination-run detonation. His next thought was of Colleen, whether she was wearing her gas mask, and what she was doing. He stood up and reached for his hose connection at the manifold, planning to unplug it and walk forward to check on Colleen.

He never made it.

The termination detonation of the Nagasaki torpedo knocked him to the deck. Then there was only darkness.

The first few seconds after the torpedo impact seemed almost calm, due to the temporary deafness experienced by the crew.

Pacino found himself on the deck, lying on top of someone groaning in pain. He untangled his emergency-air-mask hose and pushed himself up. Seeing a handrail of the periscope stand above his head, he grabbed it and hauled himself to his feet. The lights overhead were flickering, but electrical bus fluctuations were normal after loss of the reactor. As the electrical turbines dropped off the grid, the battery’s motor-generators picked up, dumping the nonvital buses and carrying the vital loads.

He looked over at the ship-control panel. The ship was maintaining depth. That meant the helmsman was still able to control the ship’s angle and the planes.

There didn’t seem to be any immediate danger. They’d have to restart the reactor — that was strange, he thought, that the officer in maneuvering hadn’t reported the reactor scram. The engine-order telegraph was set at all stop. Pacino craned his neck to find Patton, who was pulling himself up from the other side of the commander’s panel. He seemed okay, as did the officer of the deck. Each of them set about adjusting the rubber masks on their faces, then the hoses and regulators clipped to their belts.

Battle control was down again, but after a shock like they’d just experienced, Pacino expected it to be in trouble.

All told, they’d been able to outrun the Nagasaki torpedo, and they had come out whole. Pacino found Patton’s eyes, and pointed at his gas mask. The masks were now unnecessary with the ship relatively safe. He was reaching for the straps when a booming voice stopped him dead.

The word came into the control room on the circuit four emergency voice line, which amplified a voice in any of the ship’s phone circuits and broadcasted it over the shipwide PA system. The man on the phone shouted: “Fire in the torpedo room! Fire in the torpedo room, weapon-fuel fire!”

Pacino felt a surge of adrenaline slam him in the gut.