come forward, please.'
In a moment Shajo Clayton walked through the mini-sub's central hyperbaric sphere and dogged the hatch behind him quietly.
COB juggled the variable ballast, to adjust for the shift in weight. Shajo squeezed behind Meltzer, and looked at the screens.
'Almost show time,' Shajo said. He wore a black body-suit, a black ceramic flak vest, a black ceramic combat helmet, and had his dual-mode night vision visor flipped up. Jeffrey was dressed the same way, except for the helmet and visor.
'Pilot,' Jeffrey said, 'position us over the docking collar.' Meltzer took the main joystick now. He deftly turned the ASDS, using her side thrusters and her rudder and main screw propeller — all battery-powered, and silent. The minisub crept forward.
When they were over the collar, COB turned on the external light and the docking cameras.
Jeffrey could see the international-standard bright white lines and circle painted on the SSN's hull, like crosshairs around the escape hatch.
'I don't like these angles,' Jeffrey said. 'The collar's designed for a boat holding a zero bubble.'
'The way the Texas is lying,' COB said, 'we could damage the collar. At this depth we can't equalize the lockout chamber if it floods. No watertight seal to Texas, no opening the hatches.'
'Can't you, like, tilt the minisub?' Clayton said.
'We're only eight feet in diameter,' Jeffrey said. 'We don't have the lever arm to put on a big list using the trim tanks…. Twenty degrees is too big.'
'We could just flood negative,' COB said, 'come down heavy, and hope we settle on the collar just right.' 'We'll have to try it,' Jeffrey said. Meltzer rotated the ASDS to line up fore-and-aft with Texas. He used his joystick and the side thrusters to fight the crosscurrent, almost two knots up here on the spur. COB worked his ballast control panel again.
Jeffrey watched the video screen. The round edge of the docking collar came at the camera. He could see the outer escape hatch now, down inside the collar. The mini hit the collar hard. There was a scraping noise that sounded all wrong.
'Pull up!' Jeffrey said.
The minisub rose.
'This isn't working,' COB said.
'Do you want me to try again?' Meltzer said.
Jeffrey looked at the screen. The part of the collar toward Texas's stern was slightly dented. Paint particles floated in the water.
Jeffrey shook his head. 'Too risky. We may have blown it already.'
'We've come awfully far to give up now,' Clayton said.
'We're definitely not giving up…. We have to think outside the box, folks. We're not a deep submergence rescue vehicle, we don't have a flexible ball-joint collar. We can't put on a twenty-degree starboard list…. So, what if we come in sideways? We'd only need an eleven-degree list in that case, right? If we could put on twenty degrees fore-and-aft somehow?'
'Urn, yes, sir,' Meltzer said.
'Easier said than done, Captain,' COB said. 'We're not designed for it. We dumped the back seats back at Cape Verde, so we're light at the stern. We can't make the bow any heavier, we've got max hot bodies crammed in here as it is.' That's true, Jeffrey thought. Shifting people around was the time-honored submariner's trick to alter bubble, but it only went so far.
'How about this?' Jeffrey said. 'We bring the SEALs and their gear into the central chamber, and make us as nose-heavy as possible on variable ballast. Then we create a vertical twisting moment with our fore and aft rotatable side thrusters.'
'It's worth a try,' COB said.
'Think it'll work, Pilot?'
'Worth a try, sir,' Meltzer said.
'Let's do it,' Jeffrey said.
Clayton went aft and brought his people and some of their equipment into the lockin/lock-out sphere. COB transferred all variable ballast forward as much as possible. Meltzer turned the ASDS ninety degrees, so it straddled Texas at a right angle, with the mini's bow hanging past the SSN's starboard side.
Clayton came back into the control compartment. 'Everybody lean to port as much as you can,' Jeffrey said.
The SEALs gave each other doubtful looks, but complied.
'How are we doing?' Jeffrey said.
'So-so,' COB said. 'Six degrees port list, and we need eleven to mate with Texas. Ten degrees trim by the bow and we need twenty.'
'Pilot, try using the thrusters.'
Meltzer worked different knobs to position the retractable side-thrusters. 'Thrusters going to maximum power.' The ASDS dipped more, and leaned more to the left. 'We're not there yet,' COB said.
'Best we can do,' Meltzer said, 'and we're drifting away from the collar.'
'Bring us back,' Jeffrey said.
Meltzer did, using the main screw and the thrusters. 'If I hold us over the collar, sir, I can't use the thrusters to angle us properly.'
Jeffrey ran his hand over his face.
'So near and yet so far,' Clayton said.
Jeffrey shot him a look, but Clayton was smiling. 'Think like a rifleman, sir,' Clayton said. 'We need to lead the target.'
'You're right…. Pilot, can you put us upstream in the current just enough, and let us drift back over-the collar as you lever the boat to line up?'
'Understood,' Meltzer said. The ASDS moved forward. He and COB worked the controls. The mini tilted, and drifted crabwise, and descended toward the hatch.
'No good!' Jeffrey said.
Meltzer pulled up, and exhaled deeply. 'I've almost got it, Captain. Let me try again.'
'Begin when ready.' Jeffrey noticed Meltzer was sweating. Once more COB and Meltzer juggled their controls. The mini moved away, tilted, drifted, and came down.
With a satisfying clunk, the docking was perfect.
'Well done,' Jeffrey said. He patted Meltzer on the shoulder. 'Now for the next problem. COB, extend the docking pitot. Equalize the collar to one atmosphere and drain it. See if it's watertight.'
Jeffrey waited tensely while COB went through the procedures.
'Collar is holding a good seal, Captain.'
Jeffrey grabbed the gertrude mike, and kept Lieutenant Bell informed. Then everybody listened. There were no signs of life from below, no loud banging, no gentle tapping, no voices calling, nothing.
'They have to have heard us docking,' COB said.
Jeffrey nodded. 'There's no point in us hammering now'
'It'd just make a datum, wouldn't it?' Clayton said.
'Now comes the scary part,' Jeffrey said. 'We don't know what's on the other side of the Texas escape hatch. Air at one atmosphere or so, or water at a thousand psi?.. And there's no way to know, unless we crack the hatch.'
'So what do we do?' Clayton said. 'If the Texas is flooded, and we crack her escape hatch, we'll all die. The hyperbaric chamber can't withstand the pressure this deep.'
'It's not that bad,' Jeffrey said. 'The dogs are designed to open the hatch gradually, for exactly this reason. If water squirts through, we turn it closed real quick.'
'At least,' COB said, 'that's the theory.'
'Yeah,' Jeffrey said. 'We don't know what a nuclear shock might have done to the mechanism. Even if the forward compartment itself is okay, the escape trunk might have flooded through a broken pipe or fitting…. Or I
