Terminal Run

“Aye, sir, seven four feet.” Pacino’s sweat droplets flew in the cockpit as he pulled up higher on the bow planes until they were at the full rise position, but the ship was heavy as lead. He pulled up on the stern planes to use the ship’s angle, putting a one-degree up bubble on the ship to get up to periscope depth, but the depth meter wouldn’t budge. He needed to pump out some water, and quickly.

“Seven five feet, ship’s heavy,” Pacino reported. He selected the trim system’s hull and backup valves, then reached by feel and found the rotary switch to energize the massive trim pump in the auxiliary machinery room in the lower level. Nothing happened. He rotated the rotary switch again, but the trim pump didn’t start. Instead a red annunciator alarm flashed on the display panel, reading trim pump trouble.

“Trim pump fails to start, OOD, pump trouble light, lining up the drain pump. Seven four feet, sir.”

“Scope’s awash, goddammit. Dive, get us the fuck up!” Crossfield’s irritation was becoming fury. “Handle your fucking casualty and get us up!”

“Aye, sir.” Pacino’s hand shook as he flipped the toggle switches to line up the large bore ball valves from the drain system to the trim piping, then valved out the malfunctioning trim pump. Holding his breath he grabbed the rotary switch for the drain pump and turned it to the start position. Nothing happened. He tried again, a second alarm light popping up to read drain pump trouble. There was only one thing left to do. He clicked the toggle switches to pressurize the depth control two tank with medium pressure air.

“Drain pump trouble light, pressurizing DCT two with seven hundred psi and blowing, sir.”

“Dive,” Crossfield called in exasperation, “scope’s awash, get us up.”

Pacino opened the DCT2 hull and backup valves and raised the hovering system joystick to the blow position, normally a forbidden operation because of the noise it made. Immediately the air in the top of the tank blew its contents overboard into the lower pressure seawater, the ship finally lighting. The depth meter flashed a few feet upward rise.

“Seven four feet, sir. Seven two feet. Seven zero. Six nine feet, sir.” God, Pacino thought, finally. He took the bubble off the ship and relaxed the bow plane angle, the ship steady on depth.

“Scope’s clear!” Crossfield called, the navigator now furiously doing a surface search for close surface contacts, the smallest surface ship able to cut open their hull. By the standard operating procedures, there would be complete silence in the control room until the officer of the deck said the words to stand down, “no close contacts.” Anything else, including the expletive “oh shit,” would be interpreted as an emergency order to go back deep to avoid collision with a surface ship. The submarine’s hull was strong and thick, but it was built to withstand the pressure of the deep, not a puncture force from a surface ship hull.

“No close contacts!” Crossfield called out. Pacino exhaled in relief.

Pacino shut the depth control tank’s hull and backup valves and vented the tank’s pressurized air to the machinery room.

“Six eight feet, sir.”

But now the ship was rising with no angle on the planes. Had he gone too far? He put the bow planes on down one, then down two. “Six seven feet, sir.” Dammit, he was roller-coastering again. Using emergency hydraulics was impossible. “Six eight feet, sir.”

Pacino noticed he’d drifted off course by three degrees. One eye on the depth, he pushed the emergency lever to move the rudder to the right by half a degree, and when he was back on course east he pulled it back to zero degrees. The ship was on ordered depth with zero angle.

“Starting high-power search,” Crossfield called. “Dive, raise the BRA-44.”

The AN BRA-44 was the radio mast to grab the satellite broadcast, Pacino thought, its nickname the BIGMOUTH. He found the lever on the starboard vertical panel toggled it upward. A moan of hydraulics lifted the mast, the emergency system much slower than the main hydraulics normally would be.

“BRA-44 up, OOD,” Pacino said.

For the next two minutes Pacino adjusted the ship’s depth, the vessel much steadier now that it had the proper weight. He was fighting a slight nose-heaviness, but adjusting it could begin the oscillations again, and he figured it would be easier to counter it with the bow planes

The hydraulics thumped again, the BRA-44 being lowered by the radiomen.

“Conn, Radio, broadcast aboard, BRA-44 comin’ down.”

“Radio, Conn, aye,” Crossfield acknowledged.

Behind Pacino XO Schultz tapped Crossfield on the shoulder. He peeked out of his periscope helmet to see her holding a picture of an approaching aircraft carrier, the photo shot from low in the water directly in the path of the behemoth. Schultz had just initiated another drill.

“Emergency deep!” Crossfield called.