Ice Station Nautilus

by Rick Campbell

  “Why did they halt production?” Christine asked.

  “Most likely for an upgrade. What type, we don’t know. They must be back in production, however, because they loaded missiles aboard Dolgoruky, which raises some concerns.”

  “What concerns?” Christine asked.

  “Missile production hasn’t resumed at their manufacturing facility, yet Dolgoruky was able to load out. That means there is a second production facility we know nothing about, and without the ability to target it for intelligence gathering, we’re completely in the dark as to what kind of modifications they’ve made and what type of payload is installed.”

  “That would certainly explain why they don’t want us to inspect the Bulava missile,” Christine said. Turning toward Hartfield, she asked, “Do you know of any reason why the Russians wouldn’t want START inspectors aboard Borei class submarines?”

  Hartfield answered, “It’s possible the launch system displays the number and type of warheads loaded on each missile, as well as its countermeasures, so operators can monitor their status as the missile is spun up and target packages are assigned. That’d be my guess.”

  Christine asked Captain Brackman, “Do you have any questions?”

  Brackman shook his head. “I think we’ve covered everything.”

  Christine turned back to the two men. “Thank you, gentlemen. You’ve been very helpful.”

  14

  K-535 YURY DOLGORUKY

  After two days, the emergency lanterns in Compartment One were starting to dim. Stepanov had divided them into four sets, so that all together, they would last eight days. As the light decreased, so had the temperature. It was just above freezing. Although their survival suits guarded against hypothermia, it was still painfully cold. Thankfully, the air regeneration canisters generated heat as they produced oxygen and absorbed carbon dioxide, and Stepanov’s men took turns gathered around the air regeneration unit.

  Stepanov was in the midst of a round through the compartment, checking on his men. His First Officer was still unconscious, and Medical Officer Kovaleski was worried he might not recover. Stepanov stopped by Starshina First Class Oleg Devin, who was taking air samples. He broke the tips of the glass tube and inserted it into the handheld pump, then squeezed it five times, drawing air through the tube. This tube measured oxygen, and read 17.2 percent.

  Stepanov moved on, stopping by Senior Lieutenant Ivan Khudozhnik, the Torpedo Division Officer, whose men were taking turns manning the sound-powered phones, staying in communication with the men in Compartments Four through Nine. Stepanov found it both odd and comforting; this was the Torpedomen’s compartment, and it was their duty to man the phones during emergencies. It was as if they were oblivious to the fact that their submarine was wrecked, that they would likely not survive. The adherence to their obligation to man the phones, however, provided a sense of normalcy.

  “How is everyone doing?” Stepanov asked.

  “It is quiet,” Khudozhnik replied.

  Khudozhnik’s response was as close to all is well as one could expect.

  15

  USS NORTH DAKOTA

  Commander Tolbert headed aft, stepping from the freezing Forward Compartment into the welcome warmth of the Reactor Compartment Tunnel. Even though the reactor was shut down, it was still generating heat from the decay of fission by-products. It was probably only sixty degrees in the passageway, but compared to the other two compartments, it was downright balmy. It was now thirty-five degrees inside the Forward Compartment and Engine Room.

  Tolbert stepped through the watertight doorway into the Engine Room. Inside the near-freezing compartment, his breath condensed into white mist. Several crew members wore the orange “pumpkin suits,” thick full-length foul-weather gear worn by personnel on the Bridge in harsh weather. However, the ship had only ten suits, and the rest of the crew had donned Submarine Escape Immersion Equipment suits to preserve body heat. The insulated SEIE suits, also orange, came with flexible black neoprene gloves and a polar fleece head mask.

  Upon entering the Engine Room, Tolbert took in the scene. It was a virtual rain forest. As the temperature plummeted, the water vapor in the air condensed on the cold metal surfaces, and water was dripping from piping, machinery, and walkways. Tolbert entered Maneuvering, a ten-by-ten-foot control room. Normally occupied by an officer and two enlisted, there was only one man present. Petty Officer Second Class Allen Terrill manned the Electric Plant Control Panel, monitoring battery discharge rate and voltage.

  “What do you think?” Tolbert asked.

  “It doesn’t look good, Captain,” Terrill replied. “The battery is already down to thirty percent; enough power for one more day. It’s probably the low temperature, reducing capacity.”

  The battery was draining faster than expected. They needed to return a condensate pump to service soon. He had headed aft to get an update, and the answer better be—within a day.

  Tolbert left Maneuvering and descended to Engine Room Forward, where he found the Engineer Officer, Lieutenant Commander Roger Swenson; the Electrical Division Chief, Mike Moran; and two first class electrician’s mates, Art Thompson and Tim Brandon. Thompson was working on a condensate pump controller, while Brandon was repairing one of the pumps.

  The covers were off both controller cabinets, and as Chief Moran aptly described it, they were a hot mess. Almost every circuit card had been damaged, some with charred components, while other cards were more difficult to diagnose. Even the smallest component gone bad could prevent operation. Supply didn’t have a spare for every card in the controller, forcing Thompson to triage the cards with no spares. He had picked the best one between the two controllers, and was now diagnosing which components had been damaged. The cards were laid on a rubber mat, keeping them away from dripping water, and he was taking measurements with a multimeter.

  Brandon was working on the pump. Normally, a wetted pump had a decent shot of returning to service. However, Number One Condensate Pump had been running for several hours, and when its hot internals had been doused with twenty-nine-degree salt water, the pump had turned into a rotating molten fireball. Number One Condensate Pump was unrepairable.

  That left the second pump. Unfortunately, Number Two Condensate Pump had turned on when its partner tripped off-line, starting up at the same time it was submerged in seawater. It had fared much better, but its stator had been damaged. There was little Brandon could do to fully repair it, but he was giving it his best shot.

  Chief Moran was supervising the two first class Petty Officers, studying the controller schematic in the tech manual. At the end of the day, they didn’t need to fully repair a controller and pump. The pump just had to run. Moran was figuring out how to circumvent the bad components that could not be replaced.

  Moran had his four best electricians working the problem. Thompson and Brandon had this twelve-hour shift and Bowser and Radek the other. By the time the electricians were done, the controller and pump were going to look like little Frankensteins, pieced back together. Tolbert didn’t care as long as they came alive when the switch was flipped, and that the repairs were completed before the battery was expended.

  The Engineer Officer wasn’t much help when it came to controller and pump repairs, but there was nothing more important than restoring the condensate system, so he hovered in Engine Room Forward like an expectant father.

  “Eng, how much longer?” Tolbert asked.

  The Engineer looked at Moran. The chief must have felt eyes on him, because he looked up from the schematics. “Three, maybe four days.”

  Moran’s response hit Tolbert in the gut. The battery would be drained in one day.

  “You’ve got twenty-four hours, Chief,” Tolbert said. “Make it happen.” Tolbert often challenged his subordinates to meet tight schedules. This time, however, it didn’t work.

  “It can’t be done, Captain,” Moran replied. “We’re going as fast as we can. Three or four days is what it’s going to take.”r />
  Tolbert looked to his Engineer, but Swenson confirmed his Chief’s assessment. “It’s the best we can do, sir.”

  “Then we need to solve the battery problem,” Tolbert said.

  The Engineer replied, “We need to preserve enough power to complete a reactor and engine room start-up. I recommend we open the battery breaker.”

  Tolbert considered his Engineer’s suggestion. North Dakota would become completely dead—a cold metal carcass beneath the polar ice cap. However, he could think of no alternative.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll let the crew know what’s going on. In the meantime, you’ll need to set up to continue repairs using emergency battle lanterns.”

  * * *

  A few minutes later, Tolbert entered the Control Room. Even though the tactical systems had been deenergized, he had left the normal underway watches stationed; they were performing an important task. Moisture was condensing on the metal surfaces, including the sonar and combat control consoles, navigation plot, Radio Room equipment—everything. It was one thing for water to drip from piping and machinery in the Engine Room, another to allow it to seep inside the tactical consoles. Each watchstander was armed with Kimwipes, the Navy version of lint-free paper towels, and the men were wiping down the consoles.

  Tolbert stopped beside Lieutenant Molitor, who was stationed as the Officer of the Deck, and explained the plan. Molitor passed the word to all spaces, and a few minutes later, he retrieved an emergency battle lantern mounted in the overhead, then gave the order.

  “LAN Technician, open the battery breaker.”

  The Petty Officer repeated back the order, then headed to lower level, where the battery was located. Shortly thereafter, the Control Room went dark. There was no electronic life aboard the submarine, not even a solitary indicating light. Molitor flicked on his battle lantern, and a bright shaft of light pierced the darkness.

  Tolbert reached up and retrieved a second lantern. As he debated where to head next, he realized he had lost track of time. He turned on his lantern and checked his watch. It was 0855 Greenwich Mean Time. North Dakota’s next report was due in five minutes.

  16

  NORFOLK, VIRGINIA

  In the U.S. Navy compound off Terminal Road, Petty Officer Second Class Vince Harms sat at his console in the Communication Center. It was approaching 4 a.m., but as usual, the message traffic was brisk this time of day. With submarines synchronizing their day to Greenwich Mean Time, it was almost 0900 on every American submarine on deployment. The workday had begun, and those authorized to transmit had uploaded their radio messages.

  Harms checked the printout listing the submarines due to report in during his watch. It was only a few minutes before North Dakota’s deadline, but Harms wasn’t worried. She was on a northern run, and submarine crews in trail often pushed it to the limit as they waited for an opportune time to come to periscope depth and transmit, without losing contact of their adversary.

  He busied himself with additional message traffic, then checked the message queue again at exactly 0900. No message from North Dakota. He waited another minute to be sure, then looked around the Communication Center, spotting Chief Marc Arsenault, the supervisor during tonight’s mid-watch, standing behind another radioman on duty.

  “Chief,” Harms called out. Chief Arsenault looked over as the junior radioman added, “We’ve got an issue. North Dakota is overdue.”

  The Chief stopped behind Harms and examined the printout by his console, then glanced at the time displayed on the Communication Center wall.

  “Yep,” Arsenault replied, “we got a problem. Draft a message to North Dakota, directing her to report in ASAP, and a SUBLOOK message for all commands. I’ll brief the Watch Officer and get authority to release.”

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, sitting at his desk in COMSUBLANT’s headquarters, Vice Admiral Bob Tayman waited impatiently for word from North Dakota. She was now twelve hours overdue. It wasn’t the first time a submarine had failed to report in, the crew engrossed with the tactical situation, unaware the clock had struck midnight and they had turned into a pumpkin. However, the probability that something had happened to North Dakota was increasing with each passing hour.

  A SUBLOOK had been issued, but the timeline to implement SUBMISS procedures wasn’t written in stone. It was a judgment call, depending on the situation. Twelve additional hours would normally be enough time to convince him something had gone wrong. But North Dakota had gone under the ice, and her ability to transmit would be affected by the availability of open leads or polynyas, or ice thin enough to surface through. Still, North Dakota’s commanding officer would have taken that into account.

  If he initiated SUBMISS procedures, he would expend millions of dollars in the effort, perhaps for nothing more than a false alarm. However, if North Dakota was in distress, there was no time to waste. His head hurt as he thought about the implications—a submarine sunk under the polar ice cap. How would they find it? The 406 MHz transmission from their emergency SEPIRB buoys wouldn’t penetrate the ice.

  There was a knock on the door and Tayman acknowledged. Captain Rick Current, his chief of staff, entered. It was the end of the day and time to make a decision.

  Tayman gave the order. “Initiate SUBMISS procedures for North Dakota.”

  17

  NORTH ISLAND, CALIFORNIA

  It was mid-afternoon in San Diego as Commander Ned Steel leaned back in his chair, taking a break from reviewing the paperwork in his inbox. Steel was the commanding officer of the Navy’s Undersea Rescue Command, located on the western shore of North Island, across the water from Naval Base Point Loma, home to Squadron ELEVEN’s fast attack submarines.

  Steel’s second-story window overlooked the test pool, a twenty-by-fifty-foot pool used to train pilots for the Atmospheric Diving Suit, and Steel took a moment to observe the latest training dive as the launch system lowered the suit into the water. Built from forged aluminum with sealed rotary joints, and attached to an umbilical for power and communications, it could descend to two thousand feet.

  Because the inside of the ADS was maintained at normal surface pressure, it wasn’t a diving suit at all. It was actually a deep submergence vehicle, operated by the pilot inside the contraption. Maneuvered by two thruster packs and with a light and camera on one shoulder and a sonar transducer on the other, the ADS’s primary mission was to determine the condition of a sunken submarine and clear off any debris from the hatch area so the rescue vehicle could mate.

  As the command’s name implied, rescuing a distressed submarine’s crew was what the Undersea Rescue Command was all about. Although the ADS could investigate a sunken submarine, the rescue effort fell to the Submarine Rescue System. Steel’s eyes shifted to the SRS, staged not far from the test pool. The SRS consisted of three main components: the Pressurized Rescue Module, the Launch and Recovery System, and two hyperbaric decompression chambers.

  Steel’s BlackBerry vibrated at the same time his personal cell phone and desk phone rang. He checked his BlackBerry as the two phones continued ringing. It was a text message from the Squadron ELEVEN Operations Center. Steel answered his desk phone and, as expected, heard an automated message. A SUBMISS message had been sent. He turned to his computer, where another prompt was displayed on screen. He pulled up his email, and the unclassified message was at the top of his inbox.

  Steel read the message quickly, and as he finished, his XO and lead contractor arrived. Lieutenant Commander Marlin Crider and Peter Tarbottom had their cell phones in hand. Tarbottom was an Australian expatriate who made America his home when he joined Phoenix International twenty years ago. The fifty-year-old with the colorful language was the senior supervisor for the contingent of contractor personnel supporting the Undersea Rescue Command.

  “What are the details?” Steel’s XO asked.

  “North Dakota is twelve hours overdue.”

  “All right,” Tarbottom said as he interlocked his fingers
and cracked his knuckles. “I’ll get the men packing. What port will we be loading out from?”

  “I don’t think we’ll be loading out from a port,” Steel said, as he tried sorting through the implications of North Dakota’s location.

  “What do you mean?” Tarbottom asked. “We have to load onto a ship somewhere.”

  “I don’t think a ship is going to take us where we need to go.”

  “And where might that be?”

  “North Dakota is under the polar ice cap.”

  “Aw, crikey!” Tarbottom exclaimed. “Under the ice?”

  Tarbottom had summarized the problems facing them in one succinct question. Could the ADS and SRS function in subfreezing temperatures? How would they get the equipment onto the ice cap? Five C-5s or fifteen C-17s were required to transport the equipment to an airport, where it would be trucked to a nearby port and loaded aboard an awaiting ship. However, there was no ship that could transport the equipment to the rescue location and serve as a base of operations.

  Even if they got the equipment onto the ice, what would they anchor the Launch and Recovery System to? The hydraulic lift system was normally bolted to supports welded to the deck of the surface ship, holding the A-frame in place as it lifted the twenty-ton PRM and lowered it into the water. Without being secured to something, the A-frame would topple over when it tried to lift the PRM.

  “We’ve got our challenges,” Steel replied, “but the Navy has an even bigger problem.”

  “What’s that?” Tarbottom asked.

  “How are they going to find North Dakota?”

  18

  POINT LOMA, CALIFORNIA