Terminal Run

“Loss of Cyclops ship control,” Pacino reported, his voice a little too loud. He pulled off his visor and focused his eyes on the wraparound panels. Now the computer would be useless in helping him stay on depth when they went shallow. He’d have to do a mental buoyancy calculation and hope for the best. Even with Cyclops operating he had been taught to do the mental calculation and check it against Cyclops, but he and the computer had yet to agree, and worse, the computer had always been right. Pacino pulled on a wireless headset like the one Crossfield was wearing.

“Loss of Cyclops, aye. Messenger of the Watch, get the firecontrol technician of the watch to control.”

“Aye aye, sir,” a young enlisted sailor called out.

“Dive, all ahead standard.”

“All ahead standard, aye, sir, throttle advancing to turns for all ahead standard.” Pacino put his right hand on the central console’s throttle lever and pushed it gently toward the forward bulkhead. Pacino found the old-fashioned tachometer meter, showing the speed of the propulsor winding up from thirty RPM to ninety.

“Making turns for all ahead standard, sir,” Pacino reported.

“Very well, Dive, make your depth one five zero feet,” Crossfield ordered.

“Make my depth one five zero feet, aye, sir.”

Pacino pulled back on the control yoke, watching the stern planes respond by tipping downward like the horizontal stabilizers of an airplane during ascent. The ship’s depth indicator changed, the depth display of 700 feet changing to 690, then further upward as the ship’s angle — the “bubble”—increased from level to five degrees upward and beyond, until the deck was at an uphill angle of ten degrees. It seemed steep when even a half degree could be sensed by the body. The Piranha rose from the murky depths of the central Atlantic toward the warmer water of the shallow thermal layer.

“Passing depth four hundred feet.”

“Rig control for red,” Crossfield ordered. Pacino reached over by feel and clicked the white lights of the overhead to red.

“Rig for red, aye, passing three hundred feet, sir.”

“Very well.”

Pacino watched the temperature plot as the ship ascended through the layer, the temperature changing from twenty-eight degrees Fahrenheit to sixty almost instantly. The warmer water would be making them heavy, while the shallower depth was making them light. Pacino lined up the trim system to flood seawater to depth control two, the tank closest to the ship’s center of gravity. Six thousand pounds, he decided. Better too heavy than too light. He opened the trim system’s hull and backup valves with a double toggle switch and pulled the joystick of the trim system down to the flood position, and sea water came roaring into the ship through the eight-inch ball valves.

“Flooding depth control, sir,” Pacino reported. “Two hundred feet, sir.”

Pacino eased the yoke back toward the panel, taking the angle off the ship as he pulled out of the ascent. The depth control two tank level had risen five percent. Pacino secured the flooding operation, putting the joystick back to the neutral position and using the manual valve switches to shut the hull and backup valves, an operation that Cyclops would normally have done on its own.

Suddenly an alarm rang out in the cockpit.

“Loss of main hydraulics, sir,” Pacino called out, squelching the alarm. He reached for a hydraulic valve control knob to reposition the valve to the right, but it had shifted itself, as it was designed to do. “Hydraulics shifted to auxiliary.” If the auxiliary hydraulic system failed, there was always the emergency hydraulics. Schultz and the captain standing behind the cockpit were obviously making life difficult for him.

Pacino pushed the yoke further down as the ship approached the depth of 150 feet, the angle coming off the ship, while he pushed down on the pedals, the bow planes angling downward to help him level off. He steadied on 150 feet, testing to see what happened when he put the bow planes and stern planes on zero degrees. The ship was steady on the depth, neither rising nor sinking, Pacino’s guess at the amount of water to bring in correct, although they were still flying through the water at all ahead standard, almost fifteen knots.

“Sir, one five zero feet,” Pacino called.

“Very well, Dive, all ahead one-third. Sonar, Conn, prepare to clear baffles to the right in preparation to coming to periscope depth.”

Pacino tensed. At a one-third bell they might rise like a cork or sink like an anvil, depending on his buoyancy calculation. “All ahead one-third, aye, sir, easing throttle to turns for all ahead one-third.” Pacino found the tachometer gauge and pulled the throttle back, watching the needle wind down, his other eye on the depth. When the vessel slowed he might be out of control with all these people watching. The sub was no longer an airplane, it was now a slow zeppelin.

“Conn, Sonar aye,” Sonar Chief Reardon’s voice sounded in Pacino’s headset.