Piranha: Firing Point

A second explosion followed, an eruption from a deck below. The ship lurched from the force, and then the roar increased. Just then Patton smelled smoke, and the lights nickered out, every one of them. In the darkness a hot, rolling, heavy cloud of a horrible chemical smell swarmed over him, the first taste of it souring Patton’s mouth, crawling down his throat and grabbing his lungs.

He felt himself begin to convulse, vomit spurting from his mouth.

It was as if a rocket had ignited under him. He fairly sailed to his feet, his hands instinctively reaching into the overhead. He missed the first time, missed the second time, the third time grasping a box nestled in with the other equipment. The latch of the metal box snapped open, and his hand scattered a dozen breathing masks down to the deck.

The hot black chemical smell was overwhelming him.

With his arm he tried to lift a mask, but a shooting pain exploded in the forearm. Dimly he remembered hitting the deck with the arm cushioning him. The thought was instantly discarded as his other arm reached for the mask and put it on his forehead, down to his chin, then cinched up the straps. Yet there was no air. His eyes bulged and his lungs were bursting. Chemicals! fire! no air! dying!

Desperately he struggled for control against the surge of panic. With his right hand he found the hose from the mask’s regulator, touched along to its end, the hose connection a cone of metal. By feel he reached up to the manifold, a series of pipe stations six rows across, each row a place to plug in a mask. He’d done this a thousand times in drills, blindfolded, feeling his way, but in those drills there had been one element missing — raw animal fear. Finally the hose connection clicked into the manifold, and he sucked in a huge, whooshing breath of air. His rib cage expanded to three times normal size, like some kind of cartoon character, and he breathed out his lungful of chemical smoke, the smell of it rank in the mask. He sucked in a second breath. With the air came mental clarity, his faculties returning.

He realized that he was standing in a dark room, full of noxious smoke, with a dying crew, a sinking submarine, and he had no idea what was going on. With his good arm he reached into the overhead and found a battle lantern. It was supposed to click on automatically but hadn’t. With a flick of a switch a beam of light came on, yet the smoke in the room was so thick, the beam penetrated only halfway to the deck. He then located a portable flashlight in its cradle and shined it until he found the ship-control panel. There two unconscious men lay half out of their seats. He was peering through the smoke when the deck seemed to throw him forward, into the panel this time. He shook his head feeling dizzy.

That sense of being thrown hadn’t been his equilibrium, but the deck suddenly coming level, he realized.

The depth gauge on the ship-control panel read 33, and Patton could feel the deck moving beneath his feet, rocking gently. The ship was on the surface. The chief must have heard his order and hit the “chicken switches” that had activated the emergency ballast-tank-blow system.

For a second Patton searched for the chief who’d followed his orders, thinking that the ship had emergency-blown from damned near test depth, and now they were safe on the surface.

The third explosion in sixty seconds disrupted his fleeting sense of safety. His thoughts shifted to the smoke and what could be causing it. An oxygen fire?

Burning torpedo self-oxydizing fuel? A battery fire, hydrogen lighting off in the compartment? Or was it chlorine gas generated by seawater flooding into the battery well? Or even the cyanide gas that would come from burning rocket fuel from the Vortex Mod Charlie missiles?

Or was it all of them? Did he and his ship have mere seconds left?

A fourth explosion went off, the roar of it not dying down but continuing. The darkened room was lit by glaring flames climbing up the aft door to the room. Its light diffused by the heavy smoke, the flames spread onto the overhead, making their way toward him, eating the insulation of the hull, creating more black smoke. Patton shook himself. He’d been staring transfixed into the flames, not moving.

Only seventy seconds had passed since the first explosion, but already he knew his ship and his crew were doomed. The flames kept growing, until the aft half of the room was engulfed in the roaring violence. No longer thinking, Patton took five steps forward to the lower bridge tunnel hatch. The tunnel led to the sail high above. Furiously he spun the hatch wheel, undogging the hatchway. With just one arm the hatch took forever to open. He pushed hard, and the hatch lifted into the darkness of the tunnel and latched open.