Under the Ice

Little prepared for such a lengthy narrative from close-lipped Cliff Ano, Jack Redmond grunted.

“No wonder you’re not exactly thrilled with our current destination. Do you still have people living in Arctic Bay?”

“Though my parents are both long in their graves, I believe my father’s brother and his family still live there. I’m not certain though, for I haven’t been back since I left for school over fifteen years ago.”

“Then I don’t suppose you’d remember the terrain we’ll be facing as we take off from Arctic Bay for the northern coastline of the Brodeur Peninsula?” queried Redmond.

Cliff Ano’s face broke out in the slightest of grins.

“It hasn’t been that long. Lieutenant. As a matter of fact, I remember making this same trip several times as a teenager. There were some Inuit on the peninsula who had long ago left all civilization behind to live off the land like their ancestors did. My father wanted me to see such wise people firsthand, and learn their ways. I did, and will be eternally grateful for this invaluable lesson in the real science of survival on the ice.

“Now as to the terrain we’ll be facing… The most direct route from Arctic Bay will take us over Admiralty Inlet. This narrow tongue of water empties directly into Lancaster Sound and is over two hundred kilometers long. Depending upon weather conditions, we should find it solidly frozen by this time of the year. Thus, except for an occasional pressure ridge or open lead, our going there should be swift.

“The peninsula itself is another story. Formed out of solid granite, it’s home to treacherous crevasses and deep, unforgiving rifts. Bloodthirsty polar bears also abound here, and more than one Inuit horror story tells of the huge packs of marauding wolves that make this desolate land their home.”

“Sounds like just another ordinary mission for the Arctic Rangers,” offered Jack Redmond, who was forced to reach out for one of the snowmobiles to steady himself as the airplane violently shuddered in a sudden gust of turbulence.

“It’s certainly nothing that we can’t handle,” reflected the Inuit.

“Though for the peninsula portion of our journey, it would sure be nice to have a first-rate dog team leading us onward. For some uncanny reason, a good sled dog can sense a lurking crevasse, long before an unwary man in a snow cat can.”

“Do you think such a team would be available?” questioned Jack Redmond.

“For our sake, I sure hope so, Lieutenant. Otherwise, this is going to be the longest eighty kilometers of our lives — and the most dangerous.”

Captain Matt Colter was up bright and early, and after a quick breakfast of half a grapefruit, oatmeal, and coffee, he initiated his customary morning walk through of the ship. He began this tour in the engineering spaces that filled the sub’s aft portion.

Almost directly amidships, he entered a narrow, forty-foot-long passageway, completely lined with steel tubing. He smelled the familiar wax like scent of warm polyethylene, and could hear the barest of throbbing noises coming from the padded deck beneath him. Halting in the center of this passageway, he kneeled down and lifted up a circular metallic cover that exposed a thick, heavy, leaden glass viewing port set flush with the decking.

Almost twenty feet below him he could now view the heart of the Defiance’s propulsion unit, its nuclear reactor. Lit by a pulsating, golden glow, the sealed reactor vessel contained a vast grid of uranium plates, and was filled with water so highly pressurized it could not boil. Control rods kept nuclear fission from occurring until the reactor went on line. At that time the rods were slowly removed, and as the uranium-235 fuel elements began interacting, the unit went critical.

To achieve propulsion, the hot pressurized, contaminated water was pumped through a series of heat exchangers. Here a second loop of uncontaminated water absorbed this heat, which turned to steam, that subsequently spun the turbines producing both power to drive the ship and the electricity needed to operate the rest of its systems.

Continually amazed by the efficiency of such a relatively simple propulsion system. Colter closed the viewing port, stood, and continued to make his way aft into the maneuvering room. The sign above the hatch he was soon stepping through read Defiance Power and Light. Inside this all-important portion of the ship, three seamen sat before a massive console filled with dozens of complicated gauges, digital readout counters, switches, and dials. The senior of these individuals was responsible for monitoring the power level of the reactor itself. He did so by keeping a close watch on the gauges showing the temperature of the water flowing out of the containment vessel, its pressure, and its velocity. To influence these factors, he merely had to trigger a compact pistol switch that was directly connected to the control rods. Beside him, his two shipmates kept a close watch on gauges showing the state of the sub’s electrical and propulsion systems.