Dankleff vaulted back into his pilot seat, brought up his displays, adjusted the valving to the drain pump to take a suction on the aft compartment bilges, then hit the function key to start the drain pump.
Instead of starting, a large blinking red light lit up his panel.
“Drain pump trouble light,” he said. “Dammit, do we have power available? Is the breaker shut?”
Pacino picked up the 1MC general announcing circuit mike. “Chief MacHinery, 1JV,” he said, then reached for the 1JV tactical phone and put the handset to his ear.
“MacHinery,” the chief’s voice said.
“Chief, check the drain pump breaker,” Pacino said. “And while you’re at it, check the trim pump breaker.”
“Stand by,” MacHinery said.
Pacino waited, impatiently. He looked up at the inclinometer mounted over the portside sonar lineup, and the angle had moved from two degrees up to five. The aft end of the ship was sinking.
“Control, MacHinery,” a breathless voice intoned over the phone circuit.
“Go ahead, Chief,” Pacino said.
“Both drain pump and trim pump breakers are shut. They both have power.”
“Thanks, Chief,” Pacino said, hanging up. “Drain pump and trim pump have power,” he said to Dankleff.
“Let’s try again,” Dankleff said, trying again to start the drain pump, but the trouble light flashed red again. “Drain pump trouble light. I’m cross-connecting the trim pump to the drain system.” Dankleff manipulated his panel, opening some valves, shutting others. “Cross-connection complete. Starting the trim pump to drain the aft compartment bilges.” Dankleff mashed the function key. The trim pump’s red pump trouble light lit. “Goddammit,” he said. “The trim pump has shit the bed.”
The 1MC announcing circuit lit up with MacHinery’s panicked voice. “Flooding from aux seawater in the aft compartment! Chicken switches have failed, they’re not shutting the hull or backup valves! I’ve got—“ MacHinery paused, then shouted, “I’ve got a fire in the motor control center and RCP-5 is in flames! Reactor scram! I’m evacuating forward.”
The overhead lights flickered.
Pacino looked at Captain Seagraves. “Captain, we’re going down. We need to evacuate to the ice and get all the arctic gear out of the hull. We only have ten to fifteen minutes, maybe less.”
Seagraves grabbed the 1MC mike. “This is the captain,” his voice boomed throughout the ship. “All hands, listen up. We are going to offload all arctic gear to the ice and set up an ice camp. Once we’ve gotten the crates off the ship, we will be evacuating to the ice camp and abandoning ship. Permission is granted to attempt to open forward and plug trunk hatches. That is all.” He replaced the mike in the overhead cradle and looked at XO Quinnivan. “Let’s get the torpedoman chief up here.”
“Torpedoman? Why, Skipper?”
“We’re losing the boat in shallow water where the Russians can salvage it.” He glanced up at the inclinometer on the port side, which was showing a seven degree up angle. “I’ll need him to rig up some explosive charges.”
A half minute later, Torpedoman Chief Gordon “Fleshy” Fleshman arrived in control. “You wanted me, Captain?”
“Chief,” Seagraves said, “can you pull two warheads out of the Mark 48s to use as demolition charges? With a detonator rigged to a long wire and a switch?”
Fleshman’s eyes widened. He nodded. “I can, sir. I’m not sure how long it will take. Why two?”
“One for the torpedo room. That will take out the forward half of the boat when the other torpedo warheads go off in sympathetic detonation. One for the reactor compartment.”
“I’ll get on it, Captain.”
“Sir, Short Hull and I can help,” Pacino said.
“Go with the chief,” Seagraves said. “XO, make sure we’re organized on the arctic gear offload.”
“Captain,” Quinnivan said, putting down a phone, “A-gang Leading Petty Officer Naughtright opened the plug trunk hatch. He reports the dry-deck shelter has been completely blown off, but the upper hatch is operational. He requests we try to thrust over to port to get closer to the edge of the polynya. Otherwise we can’t cross over to thick ice to offload material — or personnel.”
Dankleff vaulted into his pilot seat. “Rigging out fore and aft thrusters,” he said. “Thrusters trained to two seven zero. Starting thrusters.”
“XO,” Seagraves said, “Go supervise and let us know when we can knock off the thrusters. When the battery goes, we’re going to lose the lights.”
Systems Officer and Pilot-in-Command Irina Trusov had driven the
