steel hull.
“Are they the last ones in the compartment?” yelled Petrov.
“Yes, sir! All the injured are out and the belowdecks hatch is shut and dogged!”
As Kalinin hobbled up to the door, his face ablaze with pain, he found Petrov shouting and waving at the men to get away from the forward bulkhead. The hull groaned again, and new streams of high-pressure water shot out from the metal. A jet of water hit one of the men in the shoulder, spinning him violently into the wall; he bounced and fell into the pooling water on the deck. At this depth, the water had the force of a bullet, and it left its victim unconscious.
The larger man, seeing his unmoving comrade in the water, scooped him up and started retreating toward the watertight door. With the water level up to his knees, he waded at an agonizingly slow pace. He kept looking over his shoulder, motioning for the third man to follow, but the man remaining behind waved them on as he struggled to tighten up a brace.
Petrov watched in horror as the bulkhead visibly distorted even more— the low groaning became a high- pitched screech. Reaching through the doorway, he grabbed the injured man, pulled him through, and dumped his limp body on the deck. The larger man leapt through the door just as the forward bulkhead started to fail catastrophically. Petrov slammed the door shut and braced it with his body while Kalinin lunged on the locking mechanism handle, dogging the hatch. Less than a second later, the hull finally collapsed, and the resulting water hammer blasted the bulkhead between the two compartments. The transmitted force sent both Petrov and Kalinin flying, but the bulkhead held.
After a few seconds, the din of rushing water was replaced by the moaning and cries of injured men. Struggling to his feet, wet and in shock, Petrov stared at the watertight door. He’d just lost another man. How many was it now?
“Captain,” Zubov’s voice came from behind him. It was unsteady, broken, but grateful. “Thank you, sir.”
Petrov looked up at the large man clad in the damage-control suit, his face now exposed, and nodded. Turning back toward the secured watertight door, he asked, “Who did we lose?”
Zubov swallowed hard, there were tears welling in his eyes. Fighting his emotions, it took him a few seconds to answer his captain. “Captain-Lieutenant Ivanov, sir.”
Just then, several men came pouring down the ladder, their flashlight beams twitching wildly about as they descended. Chief Engineer Lyachin was in the lead.
“Dear God,” he said as he maneuvered his way to Petrov. “We felt the hull collapse. I was afraid we were all doomed. We were fortunate this time.”
“Some of us were, Chief,” responded Petrov as he helped Kalinin to his feet. His words were heavy with weariness and remorse. “Some of us were spared. At least for the moment.”
With one arm supporting Kalinin, he gestured to the injured men on the deck with the other. “Chief, get these men to compartment three. Set up the engineers’ living quarters as a hospital and alert Dr. Balanov that he has more patients waiting. Then meet me and the Starpom in the central command post; we have much to discuss.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Half an hour later, Petrov and Kalinin met with the surviving battle department commanders and the service chiefs. Petrov needed to hear their reports so that he could understand the full extent of the damage, and to determine what options they had. Chief Engineer Lyachin started off with an assessment of the ship’s overall status. As expected, the news was not good.
“Based on my direct observations, compartments one, seven, and eight are completely flooded. Compartment six is probably flooding slowly, since I heard water flowing as I left. The atmosphere in compartment six is toxic, as is compartment five, from the byproducts of the fire as well as the LOKh suppression system. The watertight bulkheads in compartments two and five appear to be holding. For now, our situation has stabilized.”
Kalinin shook his head and chuckled, “You have an unusual definition of stable, Sergey Vladimirovich.”
“I suppose so, Starpom, but we are in a rather unusual situation,” quipped Lyachin with a weary smile.
“Please continue, Chief,” commanded Petrov tersely.
“Yes, sir. The reactor is secure. The shutdown rods have been inserted and I initiated the emergency cooling system. This means we only have the reserve storage battery for electrical power. Used judiciously, it can last for several days.”
“Thank you, Chief. Captain Fonarin, what is the status of our atmosphere?”
“It is breathable, Captain. Oxygen is at nineteen percent and carbon dioxide is at half a percent. That’s a little high, but tolerable. The existing smoke particulates are annoying but not life-threatening. Pressure in the boat is a little over a standard atmosphere.”
Petrov nodded as he scribbled down the facts in his notepad. “Now for the crucial question, Igor. How long before the air will no longer sustain life?”
“I believe we have several days before carbon dioxide becomes a critical concern. We have plenty of oxygen in the storage tanks, but without the air-purification system, we have limited means of removing the carbon dioxide. I will have a better estimate once I know how many air-regeneration cassettes we recovered and how many. how many of the crew are still alive.” Fonarin’s last sentence trailed off suddenly. Embarrassed at the implication that the deaths they’d suffered thus far were of benefit to the rest.
“Thank you, Igor. Gather your data and make your calculations quickly.”
“Captain,” interrupted Dr. Balanov. “Forgive my ignorance, but why are we even discussing this? Shouldn’t we move the surviving crew members into the rescue chamber and abandon ship?”
An eerie silence filled the central post, as most of the senior officers looked down or away from the doctor and declined to speak. Sensing that he was missing an important point, he asked, “Why are you looking that way? What is it I do not understand?”
It was Kalinin who finally took pity on poor Balanov. “The reason why we haven’t used the VSK, Doctor, is that our port list is too great. The locking mechanism that secures the chamber to the boat is friction-bound. There is no way for us to detach.”
“I see,” said Balanov nervously. “Thank you for the explanation, Starpom.”
“Your report, Doctor,” ordered Petrov.
“We have suffered at least six dead and we have over a dozen moderate to serious injuries. At least eight men are missing and are presumed dead. We are compiling a comprehensive list of the deceased, missing, and injured and you will have it within thirty minutes. We also have one psychological casualty.”
“Psychological casualty?” inquired Petrov curiously. “Explain.”
“I was forced to sedate Captain-Lieutenant Sadilenko. He suffered a total loss of control and he was becoming a danger to his men.”
Both Petrov and Kalinin were now even more confused. Yakov Sadilenko was a most promising young officer with nerves of steel. His performance during the certification trials had been exemplary and he clearly knew his duties. What could have caused him to crack?
Kolesnikov, the chief of damage control, spoke up. “As the commander of compartment five, Sadilenko personally initiated the delivery of the LOKh into compartment six when it appeared that the fire would fully engulf the space. We didn’t know if everyone in compartment six had escaped. We couldn’t see because of the thick smoke and we couldn’t communicate with compartment seven.” There was a pause in the narration as Kolesnikov fought to keep his emotions in check. He too was clearly affected.
“There were tears streaming down his face, sir, as I watched him turn the wheel and flood compartment six with Freon gas. After the fire was out, we went into the compartment and found two bodies. Both men had been suffocated by the gas. One of them was Captain Third Rank Aryapov, the commander of compartment six.”
Kalinin closed his eyes and turned away, hiding the pain he felt. Petrov felt another blow. Aryapov and Sadilenko were exceptionally close. The joke was that they were twin sons born of different mothers. They worked together, played together, and drank together.
“He fulfilled his duty, comrade Captain,” continued Kolesnikov. “But I fear it will cost him his sanity. As soon as he saw Aryapov’s contorted face, Yakov knew he had killed him and his mind snapped. It took four of us to pin him down while the doctor administered the sedative.”
An uncomfortable, haunting quiet fell upon the participants of the meeting. The grief and stress they all felt
