Terminator Salvation: Cold War

railing. Undersea thunder roared in the captain’s ears, along with the clanging of battered metal. The overhead lights sputtered so that, for a few unnerving moments, the control room was lit solely by its glowing gauges and control panels. Losenko glanced at Ivanov. Blood dripped from the XO’s forehead. Losenko guessed that he had cracked it against the other periscope.

“Are you all right, Alexei?”

Ivanov fingered the wound.

“Nothing worth mentioning.” He wiped his fingers on the front of his coveralls, leaving a crimson smear behind. “The ship?”

Emergency power kicked in, bringing maybe eighty percent of the control room’s lights back on. Losenko surveyed the room, spotting extensive damage to both the crew and the equipment. Warning indicators flashed on nearly every console, while bruises, cuts, and minor burns scarred the faces of the frightened sailors. Steam jetted from a ruptured pipe, hissing like an enraged eel, until an alert crewman reached up to close a valve manually. Sparks erupted from shorted circuits, until doused by the fire extinguishers.

A smoky haze contaminated the atmosphere, which smelled of cold sweat and burnt wiring. The men coughed at their stations. Damage reports started pouring in from all over K-115.

“Wounded, but still alive,” Losenko said, assessing their situation. He offered a silent prayer of thanks to the long-dead engineers and shipwrights who had overseen the Gorshkov’s construction. Ordinarily, he would return to the surface to effect immediate repairs and stem any leaks in the ship’s hull, but not with the Smetlivy still lurking above them. Escape was still the order of the day.

But how deep do we dare descend with our hull scarred and our systems compromised?

And was Frantz done with them yet?

A thunderous detonation answered that question. The periscope platform lurched to port, throwing Losenko hard against the safety railing, bruising his ribs. Blue-hot sparks flared from the control consoles, forcing men to leap backward or risk electrocution. Sundered metal shrieked in protest somewhere above the control room. The periscopes rattled in their housings. Helmsmen, securely buckled into their seats, wrestled with their wheels, fighting and failing to keep the Gorshkov on an even keel. Something crashed loudly in the sonar shack. A voice cried out in pain. Losenko stumbled across the platform.

Ivanov reached out to steady the captain.

“Another torpedo?”

“No,” Losenko guessed. The explosion had not felt like a direct strike. “Depth charge.” As he recalled, the Smetlivy was equipped with rocket launchers capable of firing RGB-60 unguided depth charges. The rockets could be fired in multiple rounds, the better to increase the odds of destroying an enemy submarine. Despite the attacking aircraft, Frantz was sparing no effort to sink the Gorshkov. Apparently, Skynet would rather see the ballistic submarine destroyed than beyond its control.

A second charge, even closer than the first, pummeled the sub. Warning klaxons blared, but Losenko was proud to see that not a single seaman abandoned his post. The Gorshkov was taking a beating, but the shock waves were nothing compared to the damage they would sustain should one of the charges score a direct hit. Losenko doubted K-115 could survive another blow, yet it was only a matter of time before one of them came too close. Their only hope was to get away from the warship before that happened.

“Captain!” Pavlinko hailed him. “A VLF transmission via the buoy. The Americans are requesting our assistance again.”

Losenko’s eyes lit up. Perhaps there was another way.

“Are you certain?”

“No!” Ivanov protested, reading his mind. “Captain, you cannot be considering this!”

A depth charge went off several hundred meters above them. Was it just his imagination or were the salvos decreasing in accuracy? Perhaps the Smetlivy was otherwise occupied?

“Those aircraft are fighting our battle for us, Alexei.”

“Good!” Ivanov blurted. “Let them destroy each other! They deserve nothing less!”

His XO had a point. This might be their best opportunity to escape the conflict, leaving the destroyer and the Yankee pilots to fight it out while they slipped away in the confusion. But to where, Losenko asked himself, and to what end? Just to aimlessly wander the seas once more? Without allies or purpose?

John Connor’s stirring exhortations surfaced from his memory. “We can win this war,” Connor had promised, “but only if we come together against our common enemy.” Losenko had listened to those words many times in the privacy of his stateroom.

“If you can hear this, you are the Resistance.”

Losenko made up his mind.

“Full stop!” he ordered. “Ready tubes two and four! Prepare firing solutions!”

Ivanov could not contain himself.

“Captain, what are you doing?”

“The American planes came to our defense, Alexei. We can do no less.” Losenko turned to the weapons officer. “Give me a snapshot... with all due speed!”

Aiming the torpedoes could be a devilishly tricky business, with multiple objects moving in three dimensions. Ideally, there would be time to check and recheck all the calculations before firing; in the heat of battle, however, the best they could do was take a quick “snapshot” of the situation and hope for the best.

Fortunately, the Smetlivy presented a damned big target.

The crew hustled to carry out his orders, realizing that their own lives were on the line. This was the first time that any of the men aboard had found themselves in an actual, life-or-death battle with an enemy vessel, as opposed to war games and drills. Who would have guessed that, when they finally were called to take up arms in a genuine engagement, it would be against one of their own ships?

The irony was almost too much for Losenko to bear.

“Torpedos armed and ready, sir!” Pavlinko reported. He sat at the weapons control console on the starboard side of the control room. A computerized battle management system, Omnibus-BDRM, processed the relevant data and commanded the torpedoes. In a sense, it was Skynet’s ancestor.

“Do we have a firing solution?” Losenko demanded.

“Yes, sir! A good snapshot.” Pavlinko’s fingers stabbed the weapons console. “Feeding the data to the torpedoes now.”

Dasvidania, Mr. Frantz, Losenko thought. “Fire at will. Both tubes,” he said aloud.

Two loud whooshing sounds, one after another, came from the torpedo room at the bow. Two 533-millimeter torpedoes shot upward at the surface. Losenko prayed that the Smetlivy was too busy with the American aircraft to defend itself from the speeding bullets. For a second, he almost felt sorry for the destroyer. It was under attack from both above and below.

“Evasive maneuvers!” the captain ordered. He did not want the four-ton vessel coming down on top of them. “Helm, right fifteen degrees rudder. Full speed!”

As programmed, the torpedoes went off beneath the warship’s keel. The dual explosions, going off above the submariners’ heads, were far too close for comfort. Michenko kept his eyes glued on the glowing green sonar display. His gleeful smile was Losenko’s first indication that their torpedoes had prevailed.

“She’s breaking up, sir! We broke her back!”

Cheers erupted throughout the control room. Even Ivanov permitted himself a thin smile. There had been a time when the sinking of a Russian destroyer would have been cause for dismay, but not today. Losenko let the men savor their victory as he watched the bisected corpse of the Smetlivy drop out of sight on the sonar screen. He could not resist tweaking Ivanov a little.

“Now then, Alexei. I believe you had something to say.”

The starpom shrugged. The cut upon his brow had already stopped bleeding.

“I stand corrected, Captain.” He glanced around the ravaged control room, which had seen better days. “We need to assess the damage, sir, but I suggest that we put some distance between ourselves and the Americans