Panic Switch полностью

Finally, Fleshy Fleshman climbed out of the plug truck, two engineering watchstanders helping him with the wire coils, another three emerging after Fleshman. They unwound the wire spools along the gangway, which was splintering and disintegrating. Fleshman approached and saluted again. “Everyone’s out of the hull, sir.”

Seagraves and Quinnivan returned the salute. “Very well, Chief,” Seagraves said, his voice cracking. He sniffed, then blew his nose into a handkerchief.

Fleshman took a knee at Seagraves feet, stripped the wires on the spools and terminated them onto the detonation triggers he pulled out of his oversize parka pockets.

“Hurry up, Chief,” Quinnivan said, looking at the New Jersey. The hull had settled to the point that water was about to pour into the open plug trunk hatch. “She’s about to go down.”

Fleshman finished with the wires and handed the two switches to Seagraves. “The T-switch rotates ninety degrees clockwise, Captain. That will detonate the charges. You’ll want to start with this one, which is the reactor compartment. Then, immediately after, the torpedo room.”

The crew had abandoned their chores of hauling equipment and material up the hill to the shelter and assembled in a large group behind Seagraves and Quinnivan. In the front row, Pacino rubbed his fingers together with his gloves half-off, the cold starting to soak into his bones the minute physical activity stopped. A gust of wind blew off his hood. He shivered and pulled it back on, tightening it with the strings on either side.

“You should say some words, Skipper,” Quinnivan said to Seagraves, noting the crowd of the crew behind them, all there to witness the death throes of the New Jersey.

“I’m not much of a man for speeches,” Seagraves said. “But I’ll try.” He cleared his throat and turned toward the crowd, then glanced back at the New Jersey hull, which had begun to ship water into the plug trunk. “Crew,” he said loudly. “At this time, I commit the United States submarine New Jersey to the depths of the Arctic Ocean. I know I speak for all of you when I say to this sacred collection of steel, cables, and electronics, thank you for safeguarding us to this point in our lives. We will all go on with those lives, but none of us will ever forget you, and the immortal spirit of the USS New Jersey will perpetually be in our hearts and in our souls for the rest of our days.”

Seagraves twisted the first T-handle and a resounding thump came from the hull, and the ship seemed to rise slightly from the water for just an instant. Seagraves looked back at the crowd.

“All hands, back up twenty yards,” he ordered as he dropped the first detonator to the ice. “This one’s going to be a bit more violent. You too, XO.”

When the crew had backed up, Seagraves twisted the second detonator, and a similar loud thump sounded, the bow lifting slightly out of the water, and then the secondary detonations started, and a tremendous explosion blew the bow wide open, shrapnel blowing over the ice and what was left of the open water, a huge billowing orange mushroom cloud rising over the ice and into the heavens.

After that, it only took the USS New Jersey four seconds to depart the surface. What was left of her hull hit the bottom seven hundred feet below less than two minutes later.

Seagraves wiped dust and soot off his parka, his hood, and his face, dropping the second detonator to the ice. Twenty yards up the slope of the hill, Pacino could swear he saw a tear streaking down the captain’s sooty face.

“Pilot, Engineer,” Chief Engineer Chernobrovin said in Systems Officer Trusov’s headphones. “We’ve lost the reactor.”

Trusov’s voice was biting over the intercom. “What do you mean, you lost it? Did it wander off somewhere?”

“Pilot, all reactor control rods are fully withdrawn from the core, but reactor coolant temperature is dropping, as is steam pressure to the turbines. We’re thirty seconds from reactor plant shutdown due to fuel exhaustion.”

Trusov looked over at Captain Sergei Kovalov. “Why the hell did they send us out with three percent fuel, Captain? Why?”

Kovalov looked at Trusov, frowning. “Continue on with battery power,” he said, as he vaulted out of his mission commander seat to the space behind his and Trusov’s seats, but in front of Vlasenko’s and Dobryvnik’s seat.

“Engineer, Pilot,” Trusov said over the intercom, “continue propulsion on the battery.”

“I’m raising the periscope,” Kovalov said. “I might be able to find open water from the Gigantskiy detonation from the light filtering down from above.”

The sudden and violent explosion from behind them shook the ship hard, the vessel heeling over thirty degrees, then slowly returning to an even keel. The overhead lights flickered, but mercifully, they stayed lit.

“Captain, what was that?” Trusov asked, even though she knew Kovalov knew as little as she did. “What bearing was it?”