He sniffed the air for smoke, but it just smelled like steam, lube oil, and atmospheric control amines. But the deck seemed to be tilting, just slightly, aft. He forced himself to ignore the deck’s tilt and found what he was looking for in the long rows of cabinets of the motor control center. The battery breaker cabinet was memorized by every sailor onboard as part of qualifying in submarines. Pacino could have found it in the dark, he thought. He put down the battle lantern, reached down to the breaker handle — a large tongue of tough black plastic — and pulled it upward with all his strength. As it came to rest in the closed position, it made a loud thump, and almost instantly the overhead lights flickered on, just for an instant, then went out, then flickered back on, then out again, but the third time they came on and held. In the circle of light between the panels, the electrical division chief, Senior Chief McGraceland, could be seen, face down. Pacino felt for a pulse, but McGraceland’s skin was cold and he was obviously dead. Pacino turned off the battle-lantern and jogged farther aft to maneuvering, the nuclear control room.
He shook his head in dismay. Lieutenant Commander Moose Kelly was on the deck, the body of Ensign Long Hull Cooper on top of her. The electrical and reactor operators were on the deck beneath their panels. Pacino crouched down and verified that none of the prone crewmen had a pulse.
“Mr. Patch!” a voice from the door to maneuvering called. Pacino turned. It was the mechanical division chief, Chief Sam-I-Am MacHinery, his face covered in grease and blood.
“Help me, Chief!” Pacino said. “I can operate the electric plant but I need help starting up the engineroom.”
“Can you get the reactor restarted?”
Pacino looked at the reactor plant control panel. Unlike the electric plant, it was like the ship-control station — all flatpanel displays driven by computers.
“I don’t know. We may need the diesel if we can get the head valve opened. But let me try.”
Pacino reached to the electric plant control panel and snapped shut the breaker from the battery breaker to the port side motor-generator. The motor-generator was a caveman means of converting DC power to AC power, by having the DC electricity drive a motor, connected by a shaft to an AC generator, which then powered the AC buses in the absence of a steam turbine generator. Pacino scanned the voltage at the DC end, then the AC end and the AC frequency, which had stabilized at 60 Hertz. So far, so good. He snapped shut the MG output breaker, energizing the port AC vital bus. He listened and sniffed. No sound of any electrical explosions and no smoke.
The flatpanels at the reactor control panel flashed to life, going from their default screen to a startup display, finally stabilizing with all the normal reactor control indications.
He left maneuvering, MacHinery following him, back to the motor control center, where he found the reactor control rod inverter cabinets.
“Shutting inverter A breaker,” he said, and pulled up a thick black plastic tab much like the battery breaker’s operator. The breaker shut. “No fireballs. It’s a good day, Chief.” He found inverter B. “Shutting the breaker for inverter Bravo.” He pulled it up, the inverter humming with power. “Inverter Charlie now.” He pulled that breaker up and sighed in relief. All three breakers held and there were no electrical shorts.
He stepped out to the row between the cabinets and checked RCP-5, the master reactor control remote cabinet. He opened the plexiglass cover and checked the protection circuits and the instrumentation circuit breakers. Everything was nominal.
“We’re good to go, Chief,” Pacino said. He walked back into maneuvering, found the curled microphone cord for the 1MC general announcing circuit and spoke into it, his voice booming through the ship.
“This is Lieutenant Pacino. Any personnel who are awake and able, report to maneuvering. Commencing fast recovery startup.”
