“No time to whine now, Chief,” Trusov said. “How do we right the ship?”
“Propulsion,” Chernobrovin said.
“What? Talk like it matters, Chief. What did you say?”
“The screw,” he said. “It’s a ducted propulsor but it has a large range of motion, up to forty-five degrees from the long axis of the ship. If I can get propulsion, you can aim the propulsor to get us off the bottom and get the list off the ship.”
“Well, then restart the reactor and do it,” she said.
“I can’t,” Chernobrovin said. “The reactor won’t work unless it’s oriented correctly. Too many gravity systems. Even coolant through the core needs the correct gravity vector, because it’s natural circulation. It won’t work on its side. And the condensers won’t drain so no steam will happen. Hell, the boilers won’t even work on their sides. And the turbine bearings need gravity to drain them.”
Trusov took a deep breath. What was it about engineers, she fumed. Always the thing that had to be done was impossible.
“So connect up the battery and use it to operate the propulsor,” she said, hoping that would be possible.
“Help me,” he said. “We need to get to the compartment’s lower level by this hatch.” He pointed to a hatch that should have been on the deck, but instead was on the bulkhead. “You can take local control there.”
Together they pulled on the hatch opening mechanism until it finally budged and came down, almost hitting her.
“I’ve got to get in there and reset the breakers. Shock makes them open circuit.”
“Well, do it, for God’s sake,” she said. He climbed into the space that was beneath nuclear control but was now a room to port. She climbed in after him and there was barely room for one person. There was a small jump seat at the aft end with a joystick, throttle, and small control panel. Trusov heard thumping as Chernobrovin shut breakers. With one thump, half the lights came back on. With another one, they all lit up. Trusov wasn’t sure what was worse — operating in the darkened hull, or seeing all the crazy damage with the lights on, the disorientation of the ship lying on its side inspiring raw fright.
She took a deep breath and made her way to the jump seat and tried to strap in. She had to stretch and reach up, since the seat was on the ship’s centerline and she was standing on what was the far starboard bulkhead.
“Help me into this seat,” she told the engineer. He pushed while she pulled, and he held her in place long enough for her to fasten the seat belt.
“You should have power to the propulsor,” he said. “If you put on what would be a left turn and backing revolutions, the propulsor should pull us off the bottom into clear water. As you feel it, straighten out, but keep the backing turns on and the propulsor angled upward so it pulls up at an angle off the bottom. Once you get the boat in clear water, it should right itself on its own. At least I hope it does. Just bear in mind, battery amp-hours are a limited resource, so just use enough power to get this done, then stop when we’re level, but don’t be timid, or the suction from the bottom will keep us there.”
“Fine, yes, I have it,” Trusov said impatiently. Goddamned engineers, she thought. She was tempted to let him do it himself, but she was the systems officer and pilot-in-command, and driving the ship was her responsibility. “Turning the prop now,” she said, putting the joystick in her right hand over hard to port. “Backing down now.” Her left hand closed on the throttle and she smoothly but quickly moved it from its central detent to far aft.
The ship vibrated as the propulsor spun up. She monitored RPM on the small control panel. The prop speed went from 30 to 40 to 60, the vessel vibrating harder, but nothing was happening. Trusov pulled the throttle back to full astern. Revolutions climbed to 120, then steadied at 150, and the whole ship shook so hard it jarred her teeth. She clamped her eyes shut for just a half second, hearing her own voice in her mind:
With a sudden jarring motion, the ship angled upward, and slowly the list came off, the wall once again becoming a floor. Trusov pulled the joystick back to rotate the thrust upward to get them off the bottom. A loud scraping noise sounded beneath them, and she could feel it vibrating through the mounting of the joy seat.
“Good,” Chernobrovin said. “Now straighten out the prop and keep backing down. You can ease it to 60 RPM.”
“Wish we had a depth gauge here,” she mumbled.
“That should do it,” the engineer said. “Can you get forward to the cockpit and hover the boat before we sink back to the bottom?”
“On my way.”
By the time Trusov got to the first compartment and the cockpit, she was wheezing and short of breath. She strapped herself into her seat and pulled on her tactical comms headset.
“Chief, once you get the reactor back, you need to restart atmo control, or else we’ll faint before anything else happens.”
