Phoenix Sub Zero

by Michael Dimercurio

  Vaughn glanced up now at Pacino, showing pleasure at escaping the shipyard and getting back to sea.

  “We’re set to bust this joint. Skipper,” Vaughn drawled, handing Pacino a briefing sheet with a tabulation of the river’s levels and currents, the tides in the sea-lane past Nor folk, and the weather report. “Court’s got the conn on the bridge, we’re manned belowdecks and the yardbirds are ready to winch us out of the bathtub as soon as you’re on the bridge.”

  “Status of the reactor?” Pacino asked, pocketing the data sheet and grabbing a safety harness and strapping it on.

  “Been a while since I asked. Hobart was complaining about your emergency

  orders but he should be warming the turbine generators about now.”

  Pacino grinned and reached for a phone handset. “Maneuvering, Captain.”

  “Maneuvering, Engineer, sir,” Hobart’s voice replied.

  “Where we at, Eng? I want to drive out on our own steam.”

  “If you’ll just hold your horses, there. Captain, I would have called you. We should be switching to a normal full-power lineup in about twenty minutes, then I’ll be cooling the diesel. It should be shut down in another hour.”

  “No. As soon as you unload the diesel, shut it down. The fumes and noise are screwing up the bridge watch.”

  Pure heresy. Submariners protected the emergency diesel above all else. Hobart paused, obviously unhappy, acknowledged and hung up.

  “Must be pretty important,” Vaughn said, still leaning over the radar display. “You gonna brief us once we’re out?”

  “That will take all of two minutes,” Pacino said, cinching up the final strap of his safety harness and reaching for the heavy parka. “Once we clear the Norfolk traffic separation scheme, gather the officers in the

  wardroom. Chiefs too.

  This will be a trip.”

  Vaughn turned to the navigator. “Nav, you ready?”

  “First fix is in,” the navigator said from the plotting table.

  “It’s off by maybe ten feet. Not bad on a global basis.”

  “See you at sea, XO. Take care of these guys.”

  Pacino left through the open door forward, the steep and narrow staircase leading up to the upper level, past the galley door to the long passageway set at the ship’s centerline.

  He strapped his binoculars around his neck and climbed the ladder to the hatch set high in the arch of the overhead, the thick steel of the circular hatch rotated up and over by hydraulics.

  He climbed up, vanishing into the circle of darkness, and emerged into a dimly lit vertical tunnel full of cables and junction boxes and valves. He switched ladders and continued the climb, a dim light filtering down and growing until he reached the top of the tunnel, where he could see grating covering the opening, shoes standing on top of the grating

  surface.

  “Captain to the bridge,” he called. The grating was pulled up on a hinge and the men cleared the way. Pacino climbed up into the bridge cockpit, a small cubbyhole on top of the sail crowded with officers and enlisted phone-talkers. He concentrated on the dock below, noting the lines tying them to the pier cleats, the two heavy ones running from the bow to huge winches on either side of the drydock entrance, the flow of water in the river. The weather was wet, not from rain but from mist, heavy and clammy, blown by the wind, the millions of droplets visible as they drifted past the glaring cones of the light from the floods. The noise level was near deafening from the diesel, the exhaust note rumbling as it came out of the sail. It would make communicating difficult but Pacino was not willing to wait for reactor power. In the wet weather the exhaust was white and smoky, but at least the wind was from the head of the dock and blowing the fumes away from the bridge crew.

  “What’s the status, Scotty?” Pacino shouted over the roar of the diesel to the combat-systems officer, young Lieutenant Commander Scott Court, a smart officer with a hundred-dollar haircut and impeccably starched uniforms who always seemed to say the right thing, another politically astute mid-grade officer who had already been marked for early promotion and command, a bit too slick for Pacino’s taste. He’d been encouraging Court to get his hands dirtier in the day-to-day operations of his department.

  “Good morning. Captain,” Court said in his official speaking-to-the-captain voice. “The yard is ready to winch us out on your concurrence. Maneuvering watches are manned. The reactor is critical. We’re about fifteen minutes from switching to a normal full-power lineup. Last lines to the dock are seven and eight with the exception of the winch lines. Conning us out is Mr. Pseudo. I’ll retain the deck.”

  Pacino nodded, looked up and aft at the top of the sail. On the top surface a set of temporary steel handrails were set up, the flying bridge. He climbed up the aft wall of the cockpit to the flying bridge and looped his harness’s lanyard over one of the rails. He waved to Ensign Ed Pseudo to climb up next to him, the young officer extending the bridge communication box microphone with him up to the top of the sail. Pacino looked down at the dock and from his vantage point could see the ship below remarkably well—it was not a place for those wary of heights—and down at the head of the dock he could see Emmitt Stevens standing and watching with a visitor next to him. Pacino checked through the binoculars, not surprised to see Donchez standing next to Stevens. The admiral waved. Pacino dropped the binoculars and turned to Pseudo.

  “Your ship, Mr. Pseudo. Take us out of here.”

  Pseudo raised a bullhorn to his mouth “On deck! Take in seven and

  eight!” He picked up his walkie-talkie and called for the dockmaster. “Dock Four, this is U.S. Navy Submarine.

  Commence winch-out.”

  “SUBMARINE, DOCK FOUR, COMMENCING WINCH-OUT,” the radio squawked.

  The motion was barely perceptible at first, but Pacino could see the winches turn, reeling in the lines on either side leading to deck cleats at the ship’s bow. Slowly, steadily, the dry dock began to drift away from them. Aft, the rudder began protruding into the river channel. The motion of the ship—a ship that had been a shipyard building for the last four months—was intoxicating to Pacino. Must be the lack of sleep, he thought, but the swaying of the deck beneath his feet made him feel almost drunk. Enjoy it now, he told himself, it’s the last underway you’ll have with Seawolf.

  Pseudo ordered the backing signal sounded, six short blasts on the ship’s air horn, the deep throaty horn the equal of the Queen Elizabeth II. The stem was far enough into the river to bring on the first tug on the starboard side. The lines were brought aboard to the tugboat and pulled tight to the deck cleats. The dock lip was now even with where Pacino stood, forward on the sail, the land moving away rapidly now as the ship developed momentum. The second tugboat came alongside, aft of the sail amidships on the port side. By the time its lines were fast the

  bow of the ship was almost clear of the dock.

  “Cast off port and starboard winch lines!” Pseudo broadcast on the bullhorn to the deck crew. As the last line was tossed off to the dock the ship was officially underway, no longer bound to the shore in spite of the fact that her power plant was still asleep and she was being towed down the river by tugs. Pseudo barked down at Court, “One long blast on the ship’s whistle, shift colors.”

  The horn blew an earsplitting blast. Aft of Pacino on the top of the sail Pseudo snapped a lanyard hoisting a large American flag to the top of a temporary flagpole. Pacino checked his watch—zero four twenty-five, a half-hour ahead of schedule. A dim shout came from the port side, a request to come aboard. Pacino nodded to Pseudo, who granted the permission, and from the port tugboat an older man with a life-jacket climbed the ladder rungs set into the sheer side of the sail, up over the lip of the bridge and to the flying bridge. The pilot.

  “Mornin’, Skipper. Name’s Jake. I’ll be helpin’ yuh out today.”

  Pacino nodded. The use of a pilot had always irritated him. Like the tugs. He could make it out of any port by him self if the charts were good,
and Norfolk’s charts were dead on. But he had no horsepower until Hobart cranked up the reactor, and as long as the tugs pulled him down the channel, they shared the authority with him. There was only one way

  to get rid of (he tugs and that was to get the reactor. He was about to prod Pseudo to call maneuvering and get the status of the reactor when Hobart’s voice boomed out of the communication box.

  “BRIDGE MANEUVERING, THE ELECTRIC PLANT IS IN A NORMAL FULL-POWER LINEUP. REQUEST TO COOL THE DIESEL.” Hobart still didn’t believe Pacino would shut it down without a slow cool, but Pacino hadn’t changed his mind. He made a chopping motion across his neck to Pseudo.

  “Maneuvering, Bridge, negative. Shut down the diesel now.”

  “SHUT DOWN THE DIESEL, BRIDGE, MANEUVERING, AYE.” Hobart’s annoyance rang out through the circuit. Within seconds the loud roar of the diesel exhaust vanished, crashing the bridge into relative silence, the smoky plumes vaporizing. The only sound on the river was the faint hum of the tugboat motors.

  For the next minutes there was little to do but watch as the tugs pulled the ship down the river, the predawn scenery of downtown Portsmouth, Virginia, a handful of glowing lights, an occasional passing car. Jake the pilot chattered on his walkie-talkie to the tugs and tried to make small talk.

  Pacino mostly ignored him, watching the bridge box, waiting for Hobart. Finally the announcement came: “BRIDGE, MANEUVERING, MAIN ENGINES ARE

  WARM, PROPULSION SHIFTED TO THE MAIN ENGINES, READY TO ANSWER ALL BELLS, ANSWERING ALL STOP.”

  “Well, thanks for the lift, Jake. We’ll take it from here.”

  The pilot looked at Pacino. “We ain’t at Thimble Shoals yet, Cap’n. I’m supposed to—” “I said we’ll take it from here. Shove off your tugs.”

  The pilot shrugged. “You run aground, it’s your neck.” He climbed back down the sail and into the port tug. The tug crews pulled in the lines and backed away.

  “Navigator, Bridge,” Pseudo said into his mike, “log that the captain has shoved off the pilot and the tugs.”

  “BRIDGE, NAVIGATOR, AYE.”

  “Five knots, Mr. Pseudo,” Pacino ordered. “Rig the deck for dive and get the topside crew below.”

  “Helm, Bridge, all ahead one-third.”

  The comms box crackled the helmsman’s acknowledgement. For the first time in almost four months the Seawolfs screw turned aft, boiling up a white foamy patch. Ahead, the water began to flow smoothly over the

  bullet-shaped bow until it rose over the first fifteen feet of the top surface of the ship. The foam aft turned into a wake while the deck be neath Pacino’s feet shuddered slightly. The tugs had faded several hundred yards behind, their diesels no longer audible above the slight rushing sound of the bow wave. Below on the deck, the topside linehandlers moved quickly, stowing lines in cubbyholes with flush doors, rotating deck cleats into their stowed position, ducking down the hatches. Within a few minutes the deck was clean and streamlined, ready for the ship to submerge.

  “Topside’s rigged for dive, sir. Last man down.”

  Pacino scanned the dark river ahead, the channel deserted.

  “Increase speed to fifteen knots.”

  “Helm, Bridge, all ahead standard.”

  The bow wave, a slight wetting of the nose cone forward, now splashed over the top surface of the hull, sliding aft all the way past the sail, the waves of the wake building up and washing aft. The sound of it rose like the surf in a heavy windstorm. Pacino felt the ship’s acceleration, felt it all through his body. The heaviness of being in the shipyard had been washed away by the bow wave, replaced with the exhilaration of taking his submarine, his command, back where it belonged—at sea.

  The wind from the ship’s motion built up, the combined whistle of the wind and roar of the bow wave filling Pacino’s ears, the sound of Seawolfs tremendous horsepower.

  The ship followed the river until the Norfolk piers passed by on the starboard side, the Squadron Seven submarines lit by floodlights, the ships quiet. Further north, the destroyer and frigate piers, then the cruisers, and finally the giants, the aircraft carriers, their decks towering over the sail. They too faded astern as Pseudo made the turn to the east and entered Thimble Shoals Channel, a slender highway of lit buoys extending southeast to the vanishing point.

  “Increase speed to flank,” Pacino ordered.

  Pseudo smiled. “Speed limit in the channel is fifteen knots, sir.”

  “Ask me if I care.”

  “Helm, Bridge, all ahead flank.”

  “BRIDGE HELM, ALL AHEAD FLANK, AYE, MANEUVERING ANSWERS ALL AHEAD FLANK.”

  “BRIDGE, MANEUVERING,” Hobart’s voice rang out, even more peeved now

  that Pacino had ordered the flank bell without first lining up the circulation pumps. He now had to do an emergency procedure to lower plant power, start the pumps and bring the power back under control.

  “COMMENCING FAST INSERTION … STARTING MAIN COOLANT RECIRC PUMPS …”

  Aft the screw’s foamy wake boiled up as the ducted propulsor doubled its speed. The deck shuddered, more pronounced this time, as the bow wave rose, no longer smooth but full of phosphorescent foam, past the sail to amidships before breaking into the wake. The bow wave kicked up spray onto the bridge, the noise of it growing. The land, now some three miles distant in the widening bay, slipped past faster. By now the ship would be doing twenty-five knots.

  “BRIDGE, MANEUVERING, ANSWERING ALL AHEAD FLANK.”

  The sky ahead of them began to show signs of dawn’s approach, the clouds taking on a slight glow. Astern of Pacino the flag flapped in the wind of the ship’s motion, the bow wave shrieking, the wet wind deafening. Behind them the two periscopes rotated rapidly as the navigator took visual fixes on the way out, the radar mast rotating once every second. By the time the ship turned south into the exiting traffic-separation scheme, passing Virginia Beach, the sun had climbed above the horizon. Pseudo turned east, the ship finally clear of restricted waters. The land faded astern until only the tallest hotel buildings of the beach

  were visible. Then they too vanished and the ship was alone on the sea, the early morning vista nothing but dark blue ocean, clouds, patches of sky and the sun. Pacino checked his watch; by noon the ship would clear the continental shelf.

  “I’m going below, Mr. Pseudo. Good job driving us out.

  Continue at flank to the dive point.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Pacino lowered himself to the bridge, clapped Court on the shoulder and took one last look at the seascape, breathing in fresh air before consigning himself to the ship. Always before he had been able to laugh off the voice that said this lungful of fresh air might be his last, but this time there was someone, something out there waiting for him, some thing with an unknown purpose that was committed to his ship’s destruction. And the only thing standing between him and death was skill and heart—his own and his crew’s.

  He climbed down the ladder into the belly of the ship, chiding himself for thinking too damn much.

  Tuesday, 31 December eastern atlantic When Captain Kane walked through the hatch to the forward compartment he felt for the first time since

  being fired upon by the Destiny that his ship might make it out of the near-sinking after all. It had been an hour since he and Mcdonne had resuscitated the reactor plant, which now idled at eighteen percent power, and waited for the order to spin the main engines. The atmospheric-control equipment had been started up, burning the carbon monoxide and hydrogen.

  Mcdonne had started a high-pressure oxygen bleed and brought the oxygen generator—called the bomb for its production of oxygen and hydrogen from distilled water, the mixture highly explosive—up on the oxygen banks. Kane unplugged his air-mask hose and hurried to the hose station at the analyzer panel, a small cabinet that took air samples and examined the levels of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and other pollutants. He opened the face of the cabinet and rotated a selector switch to sample forward compartme
nt upper level. All readings on pollutants were normal, though oxygen was high out of specification, which was okay. If anything, the oxygen content would help the crew wake up—those who were still alive. He wondered how many had died. Feeling a sudden anger at the Destiny, he hurried through the other compartment-level readings, all of them the same readouts as the upper level forward. He uncinched the rubber straps cutting into his sweat-soaked hair and pulled off the mask, tentatively breathing the ship’s air. He continued forward, stowed the mask in a cubbyhole and climbed the ladder to the upper level.

  In the control room he could see that Lieutenant Houser was on his feet, rubbing his shoulder.

  “Atmosphere’s in spec,” Kane said. “Pull the masks off the men and stow them. Find the corpsman or one of his first-aid people and let’s get the casualties into the crew’s mess. Grab whoever you can find conscious to help you.”

  “Reactor okay. Skipper? Everything up?”

  “So far. Full power lineup, running the atmosphere equipment.

  XO’s warming the main engines. He’s got the show aft. Once you get the casualties below we’ll see who we’ve got to man the watches, check out the hovering system and see if we can drive off the bottom. Go on, I’ll be putting the healthy folks on the gear, see how bad things are forward.”

  Houser felt like asking where they would go if they got off the bottom, but he moved to his task, pulling one of the plotters up off the deck and taking off his mask.

  Kane walked through the forward door to sonar, careful not to step on the prone forms of the sonarmen. He found Sanderson rubbing his forehead, in obvious pain.