Ice Station Nautilus

by Rick Campbell

  Having temporarily staved off hypothermia, she evaluated the prospect of being rescued. The PRM had almost certainly been destroyed, and she wasn’t aware of a replacement. Refusing to concede defeat until the air gave out or she froze to death, she decided to put her time aboard Dolgoruky to good use. She headed aft into the missile compartment, where the missile tubes and associated equipment resembled that aboard USS Michigan, and searched for the Russian version of Missile Control Center.

  There wasn’t one at either end of the compartment, so Christine returned to Compartment Four, stopping in the passageway lined with equipment. On the inboard side of the passageway was a door with a five-button cypher lock. She pushed the cypher lock buttons, hoping by sheer laziness the combination was something simple, like 1-2-3 or 1-2-3-4, but each attempt failed. The door remained locked.

  An ax. If she could find one, maybe she could break through the door. A search of the missile compartment produced fire hoses and extinguishers, but no ax. With her hope of gaining access to Dolgoruky’s Missile Control Center fading, she headed forward to check Compartment Four.

  As she passed by the missile tubes, her flashlight beam reflected off a small circular window in the side of a missile tube. She stopped and scraped the ice from the glass with her flashlight, then peered inside. To her surprise, the tube appeared empty.

  There was an access hatch on the side of the tube. She wedged the flashlight between a piping run, then twisted the hatch ring open slowly, in case the tube was flooded. The hatch cracked open, and after no water came out, she spun the handwheel and pulled the door back, then peered inside.

  There was no missile. She looked down and spotted a lead ballast can instead. She moved to the next missile tube, clearing the ice from the portal. It too appeared empty, and an inspection of the tube produced the same result. She checked the next missile tube and the next. Neither contained a missile; only lead ballast.

  She leaned back against the missile tube.

  So this is Russia’s big secret?

  The United States had been worried about the warheads carried by the new Bulava missile, and especially the possibility it carried advanced anti-ballistic missile countermeasures. But that wasn’t what Russia was hiding. The problems plaguing the Bulava missile had not yet been solved, and with the last Typhoon and remaining Delta submarines reaching their end of life, Russia had been left with no survivable leg of their nuclear triad. Dolgoruky’s deployment had been a ruse, designed to fool America into believing the Borei class submarines and their new ballistic missiles were operational.

  * * *

  Christine had no idea how long she leaned against the missile tube, but decided it was prudent to get moving again. The excitement of uncovering Russia’s secret was wearing off, and she was starting to feel lethargic. She could no longer smell the stale air, but she could tell the carbon dioxide concentration was high; her head was pounding. Still, the greater threat was the low temperature. Despite the dry clothing, she was shivering more violently than before. Finding a heat source was critical.

  She decided to head aft to the auxiliary machinery compartment. Upon entering the reactor compartment passageway, she slowed, hoping to sense heat from the bulkheads. They were cold. She continued into the next compartment, pausing at the walkway running across upper level. As she examined the equipment, she wondered why she was bothering to look for a heat source. There was no power to run anything, and it wasn’t like she was going to find a stack of firewood, kindle, and a match to light it with. Even so, she decided to check lower level. After finding a ladder near the aft bulkhead, she climbed down, and another search with her flashlight produced the same result. Nothing but machinery.

  Christine started climbing the ladder to the upper level, but pulling herself up was more challenging than the descent. Her hands were numb and she had difficulty gripping the metal rungs, and had to resort to wrapping an arm around the ladder before moving each foot up. The going was slow and her strength was fading, but she finally reached the upper level and pulled herself onto the walkway. She rolled onto her back and caught her breath for a moment, her exhale turning to white mist in the frigid air. As she wondered if she would freeze to death aboard Dolgoruky, she realized she wasn’t shivering anymore, and knew it was a bad sign.

  Pulling the flashlight from her coverall pocket, she examined the compartment again. She was back where she started, beside the watertight door she and Brackman had shut. She pushed herself to a sitting position with her back against the bulkhead and pulled her knees to her chest. After considering her options for a moment, she wrapped her arms around her legs, placed her head on her knees, and closed her eyes. There were no options.

  She could hear the subconscious screams—if she fell asleep, she would never wake up. A surge of adrenaline lifted her head and she opened her eyes, examining the cold, dark compartment again. The flashlight on the deck was already starting to fade, a fitting analogy for her life. Death wasn’t something she feared; it was unavoidable. But this wasn’t how she had envisioned her life ending. As a child, she pictured herself as an old woman, spending the last moments of her life in bed surrounded by her family, holding the hand of her granddaughter. But she had no family. Only regrets.

  Regrets for the missed opportunities; for the poor decisions she’d made throughout her life; guilt for what she had done moments earlier in this very compartment. There was no fear, only regret. And fatigue. Her eyelids began drifting shut. She placed her head on her knees again, closed her eyes, and yielded to the inevitable.

  101

  BARENTS SEA

  Near the bottom of the Barents Sea, a bright shaft of light descended through the darkness. Inside the Atmospheric Diving Suit, Navy Diver Roy Armstrong peered through the murky water as the light affixed to the cage he was in panned back and forth. He’d been descending for fifteen minutes, lowered by a cable attached to the ADS Launch and Recovery System. The topside controllers had informed him he would reach the bottom any time now, and through the bulbous vision dome of his diving suit, the bottom of the Barents Sea came into view.

  Armstrong called to the LARS atop the ice, communicating with personnel through the umbilical attached to the top of his suit, that the bottom was in sight. The cage Armstrong was descending in came to a halt twenty-five feet above the bottom. Armstrong powered up his thrusters and the light on his right shoulder, and after topside lowered the crotch support, he flew down and out of the cage. After several thruster adjustments, he landed gently on the ocean bottom.

  He checked his compass. Based on his earlier trip to Yury Dolgoruky before commencing rescue operations, the ballistic missile submarine lay on a bearing of one-seven-eight. He rocked the right foot pedal inward, activating the lateral thrusters attached to the back of his suit, and he turned slowly until he was headed south. Directly ahead, the outline of Yury Dolgoruky’s propulsor appeared in the distance, illuminated by the light on his suit. He leaned forward on the right and left foot pedals, activating the thrusters, and he began gliding toward the Russian submarine.

  As Armstrong approached Yury Dolgoruky, it became obvious why the PRM’s Launch and Recovery System had retrieved only a severed umbilical cable. There was a gaping hole in the stern of the submarine. One of the Russian torpedoes had indeed been fired at Yury Dolgoruky. The Compartment Nine hatch, where the PRM would have been attached, was open, but there was no sign of the PRM.

  Armstrong hovered near the hole in the stern and examined the jagged edges of the hull, bent inward from the torpedo explosion. He activated the lateral thrusters again. The light from his suit cut through the darkness as he turned, and the PRM came into view. The submersible was lying on its side next to Dolgoruky. The pressure wave from the explosion must have broken the suction seal between the PRM and the submarine, shearing the PRM’s umbilical in the process. Armstrong leaned forward on both foot pedals again and flew toward the PRM. A closer inspection revealed the transfer skirt hatch was open. The in
side of the PRM was flooded. There would be no one alive inside.

  He turned back to the hole in Dolgoruky’s stern. Compartment Nine was flooded, which left Compartments Four through Eight. Before descending, Anderson had learned the Russians kept the aft watertight doors open on the latch, so that a greater volume of air could absorb the increasing carbon dioxide level. That being the case, all of Dolgoruky’s aft compartments were likely flooded.

  He could not proceed inside to check, however. The bulky metal ADS wouldn’t fit through the watertight door into Compartment Eight. Plus he couldn’t risk entering Compartment Nine, potentially cutting his umbilical, his only source of power and communication, on the sharp metal edges of the hole.

  Instead, Armstrong tilted his left foot pedal backward, and he rose toward the top of Dolgoruky’s hull. After several thruster adjustments, he landed on the deck and headed forward to the missile compartment hatch. If there were survivors, they would be waiting below the hatch for help to arrive.

  After reaching the hatch, he leaned forward and tapped on the fairing with his manipulator—a metal claw, on the end of his right hand.

  There was no response.

  He tapped again, harder this time. After no response, he banged as hard as he could.

  Still no response.

  The conclusion was grim. There were no survivors.

  Armstrong called to the LARS, informing them he was ready for retrieval. A few seconds later, the slack in his umbilical was removed and he flew back into the cage, and the crotch support was raised. The cable attached to the cage retracted, and Armstrong began his ascent. As he rose, the lights from his suit and cage illuminated Dolgoruky and the PRM until they faded into the darkness.

  102

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Seated across from the president in the Oval Office, Chief of Staff Kevin Hardison listened as the president’s phone call drew to a close. Based on the president’s comments, Hardison learned SecDef Richardson was on the other end, informing the president that a second Russian submarine had attacked USS Michigan and the guided missile submarine had been damaged during its torpedo evasion. More troubling was that the Russian submarine had fired a torpedo at Yury Dolgoruky with Christine, Brackman, and the ONI team aboard, and there had been casualties. With a grim expression on his face, the president hung up the phone, then filled in the missing details.

  “Christine and Brackman are dead.”

  Hardison sat frozen in disbelief as the president added, “They were aboard Yury Dolgoruky when the Russian submarine torpedoed it. We lost the entire ONI team and the rescue submersible crew as well.”

  Hardison digested the president’s words. It was difficult to accept the death of Christine and Brackman, with whom he had worked for the last three years.

  After a long silence, Hardison asked the critical question.

  “How do you plan to respond?”

  The president answered, “I prefer not to go down a path that takes additional lives. However,” he added, “I want to hear Kalinin’s explanation first.”

  The president picked up the phone.

  103

  ICE STATION NAUTILUS

  Standing in the command hut beside Verbeck, McNeil, and Commander Steel, Lieutenant Harrison listened intently to Steel’s report.

  “Falcon is flooded. Dolgoruky’s hull has been breached and it appears all aft compartments are flooded as well.” Steel turned to Harrison. He had quickly realized the SEAL had a special interest in the personnel who had boarded Dolgoruky. “I’m sorry.”

  “She could still be alive,” Harrison said.

  He had meant to say “They could still be alive,” but the one word had come out wrong.

  Harrison continued, “The Russians are preparing to rescue survivors from their two attack submarines, and they could send their submersible to Dolgoruky first, accessing the submarine through the missile compartment hatch.”

  “The ADS pilot checked the hatch,” Steel replied. “There was no response. That means anyone inside either can’t make it to Compartment Five or they’re already unconscious from hypothermia or carbon dioxide toxicity. Either way…”

  Harrison knew quite a bit about both dangers. The air should have been able to last several more hours, plus the effects of hypothermia varied by individual, as well as their ability to recover. If Christine was alive, even if she was unconscious, there was still a chance.

  “There’s only one way to know for sure,” Harrison argued. “We need to check. If the missile compartment is flooded, then we have our answer. If not, we need to board Dolgoruky and verify there are no survivors.”

  Steel considered Harrison’s request. If there were survivors aboard Dolgoruky, they had far less time than the men aboard the two Russian attack submarines. If it was his decision alone, he would give it a go. However, he would need to discuss the issue with his Russian counterpart, Julius Raila, and attempt to redirect their rescue efforts.

  “Okay,” Steel replied. “I’ll try to talk the Russians into checking Dolgoruky first.”

  He pulled a handheld radio from its holster and contacted the Russian ice camp. It wasn’t long before Raila and a translator were on the other end, and Steel made his case, requesting the Russian submersible investigate Dolgoruky first. Raila was hesitant to agree; the odds of survivors aboard Dolgoruky were extremely low, and there were over two hundred men on the two Russian submarines whose status was unknown. A delay in their rescue efforts could be catastrophic.

  Harrison began to fume. One of those Russian submarines had torpedoed Dolgoruky, creating the situation they were in. Commander Steel was about to acknowledge defeat when Harrison grabbed the radio in his hand, pressing the transmit button.

  “You owe us,” he said.

  There was silence on the other end for a moment, then the translator responded, “Our ice hole is not yet ready. If you allow us to use yours, we will send AS-34 to Dolgoruky first.”

  Harrison handed the radio back to Steel, then stepped outside to let off some steam in the cold air. In the distance, the PRM Launch and Recovery System was inactive. The large A-frame was still in the outboard position, with the sheared umbilical cable swaying in the light Arctic breeze, a stark reminder of the PRM’s fate.

  104

  AS-34

  Mikhail Grushenko leaned forward in the Priz class deep submergence rescue vehicle, watching the sonar display over the pilot’s shoulder as the submersible descended toward the ocean floor. Seated beside Grushenko and behind the co-pilot, their medic, Pavel Danilov, kept himself busy, checking for the fourth time the atmosphere monitoring equipment they would use at the end of their long journey. As they approached the bottom of the Barents Sea, a white blip appeared on the sonar display, just ahead and a few degrees to starboard. The pilot activated the forward port thruster, and AS-34 turned slowly toward the object.

  The angle of the submersible finally leveled off, and AS-34 cruised thirty meters above the ocean floor. Grushenko shifted his eyes from the sonar screen to the video display as the co-pilot brought the camera and external lighting systems on-line. In the distance, Yury Dolgoruky slowly materialized, its bow buried in the silt and the stern rising from the bottom.

  AS-34 passed slowly over Dolgoruky from astern, the bright lights from the submersible aimed downward, illuminating the stricken submarine. As they glided above, Grushenko spotted a large hole in Dolgoruky’s stern, the jagged and twisted edges of the hull bent inward. AS-34 continued forward, slowing to a hover over the Fifth Compartment hatch, where the co-pilot adjusted the angle and list of the submersible until it matched that of the submarine. The pilot lowered AS-34 onto the submarine’s deck, then the co-pilot pumped the water out from the cavity between the submersible and submarine hatches.

  It was not long before the hatch beneath AS-34 was opened, and Grushenko dropped down onto Dolgoruky’s hull. Danilov handed him a hammer, and Grushenko banged on the submarine’s hatch, transmitting the prescribed tap code
s.

  There was no response.

  Danilov passed the hatch-opening tool to Grushenko, who inserted it into the center divot of the hatch fairing. He twisted the tool firmly, and the hatch mechanism broke free. Grushenko turned the tool slowly until the hatch popped open a fraction of an inch.

  There was a whistling sound as stale, cold air flowed into AS-34.

  Grushenko monitored the inflow of air with concern. The submarine compartment had been pressurized, which meant it was at least partially flooded. If the compartment pressure had equalized with the ocean depth, they would not be able to gain access; Grushenko and the other men in AS-34 could not be pressurized to twenty atmospheres.

  The pressure inside the submersible increased, approaching the limit where they would have to abandon their effort and shut AS-34’s lower hatch. But then the rate slowed and pressure steadied at five atmospheres absolute. The compartment below was only partially flooded.

  Grushenko resumed twisting the T-bar until the hatch popped open a few inches. He reached down and lifted it to the open-latched position, then aimed his flashlight into the darkness.

  There was no one.

  He lowered the sampling tube into the submarine and Danilov activated the atmosphere monitoring equipment. The oxygen and carbon dioxide levels were marginal, but sufficient to allow access. Grushenko felt his way down the ladder into the dark, frigid compartment.

  Grushenko landed on the sloping deck, and he panned his flashlight slowly around the compartment, the beam of light reflecting off ice-coated surfaces. At the forward end of the compartment was an open watertight door; another one aft. While he waited for Danilov, he called out, then listened for a response. Only a low, metallic groan greeted him. The submarine was above crush depth, but its hull had been compromised by the explosion. They had to move fast.

  Danilov descended, then headed forward while Grushenko checked each level of the compartment they had entered. There was no one present. He headed aft, into the Reactor Compartment Tunnel. The bulkheads were cold—there was no residual heat from the reactor. He traveled farther aft, straining to detect signs of life. As he entered the next compartment, his flashlight illuminated a human figure at the end of a long walkway, sitting on the deck beside a closed watertight door. The person was leaning against the bulkhead, knees drawn to their chest and head resting on their knees.