Piranha: Firing Point

A weapon-fuel fire was the death certificate of any nuclear submarine, because peroxide torpedo fuel, in the booster stages of the Vortex missiles and the main fuel for the two room-stowed Mark 52 torpedoes, burned without a source of oxygen, the oxidizer chemically contained in the fuel itself. While this made for ideal torpedo propellant, it meant disaster if a weapon broke open and began to burn, because there was no way to put the fire out. The peroxide would bum until it burned all the fuel, and the fumes from it were so toxic that a single breath would drop a two hundred fifty-pound man in his tracks. Pacino had been faced with this issue during the design phase of the SSNX, and had met the challenge two ways. He had installed a liquid nitrogen fire-suppression system in the room, a liquid nitrogen hose forward and one aft, and had stiffened the bulkheads of the torpedo room. With the hatches to the room shut, the room could be flooded by opening it up to sea and pumping seawater through the compartment. The water wouldn’t stop the fuel fire, because it would simply keep burning underwater, but the water flowing through the flooded space could possibly cool the burning fuel enough to keep the hull from rupturing until the fire was burned out.

He had run simulations of a weapon-fuel fire, and every one had showed the ship sinking, the fuel fire too catastrophic to recover from. He had made a modification, ejecting the torpedoes that weren’t on fire, and by doing that the nitrogen and flooding systems could handle the casualty, with skillful ship and depth control.

His thoughts flashed to Colleen. Her computer room was located just above the weapons. An image came to mind, of her struggling in a toxic-fuel fire, dropping to her knees and collapsing. Before he realized what he was doing, he took a deep breath and disconnected his hose and dashed through the aft door. Since he was not a member of ship’s company, he had no assignment at battle stations or during a casualty, although U.S. Navy regulations were conflicted about his role at a time like this.

He didn’t give a damn right now. He had to put out that fire. He dashed to the ladder outside the executive officer’s stateroom. He slid down the slick stainless steel handrails, his feet dangling, until his shoes hit the lower-level deckplates. He raced through the berthing room to the forward door, the door to the torpedo room.

The door was a heavy steel hatch with a small window set at eye level. All he could see in the window was black smoke and the haphazard orange flash of flames.

For a fraction of a second Pacino froze in place. If he opened the door, he would admit air and oxygen into the existing conflagration, making it worse. But then, he reasoned, what was burning inside didn’t need the oxygen out here; it had plenty in liquid form.

He opened a locker marked o2a and pulled out a large contraption resembling a scuba buoyancy compensator, a sort of artificial lung with a gas mask — OBA stood for oxygen-breathing apparatus. He pulled it on, leaving the mask hanging by its hose, and grabbed a cartridge, a chemical oxygen generator, from the rack inside the cabinet. He inserted the canister, pulled the pin on it, and lit it off. The cartridge took thirty seconds to come up to temperature and generate the oxygen Pacino would need inside the space.

“Fire in the torpedo room,” the circuit one PA system boomed from a speaker in the overhead. “Fire in the torpedo room. Casualty assistance team, lay forward.

Admiral Pacino is in charge at the scene. Ship is emergency-blowing to the surface. Prepare to flood the torpedo room.”

Pacino was joined by a burly man, his shirt soaked in sweat.

“Who are you?” Pacino asked through his gas mask.

Taking one last breath, he ditched the mask and put his face into the new mask of the O2A. The air in it was rubbery and hot, but he took a breath. It would keep him alive, if barely.

“Chief Hanson, torpedoman, sir,” the burly man said.

“I’m getting an O2A on myself.”

“I’m going in and forward,” Pacino said to the chief.

“I’ll hit the liquid-nitrogen suppression system. If I can, I’ll get the LIN hose on the fire from forward, you get it on from aft. Then let’s get the room empty. You know how to handle weapons from the aft panel?” “Yessir,” Hanson said.

Four more men showed up. Hanson had already donned his O2A, his canister lit off.

“Get them in OBAS and into the room. Chief. Let’s get these missiles out of here! If we get a solid-rocket-fuel fire, we’re all dead men!”

The solid-rocket fuel of a Vortex missile would put a four-foot hole in the hull, pressurize everything inside to a thousand pounds per square inch, and fill the ship with hydrogen cyanide, a gas capable of killing a man from a teaspoonful in a gymnasium.

“Sir, you’ve got to get into the steam suit or you’ll be burned alive!”

“No time!” Pacino shouted.

“Take the gloves, then!”

Pacino strapped on the gloves the chief handed him.