Cameron Poe: Red Agenda

They crossed the corridor and squeezed their way through the hatch and closed it tightly behind them.

Inside the pod was an eerie silence, and for a second, they both were caught in that. The ship tossed again, sending them tumbling over each other and calling them to their situation. Nick reached and pulled the lever that exploded the bolts and released the pod from the ship. They heard the simultaneous small explosions as the bolts disintegrated, but the pod didn’t budge.

“Where is it? Where is it?” Nick searched for the depth gauge in a small panic. “Ah, here, ah, fuck!”

“What is it? What is it?”

Now Nick was irate, and he lost all his composure. “I told that son of a bitch that this piece of shit wouldn’t work.” He banged furiously against the walls. “It doesn’t fucking work. We’re too deep.”

“What do you mean?”

“The pressure is holding us against the ship, see!” He pointed to the gauge as it wound past three hundred meters. “We’re too deep to get away.”

Marina only knew that what he meant was bad news for their survival. “What can we do? How do we get free?”

“We can’t.” Within one instant, Nick seemed to regain his composure. He seemed to reconcile himself with death. “The only way we get out is if the pressure on the inside of the ship is equal to the pressure on the outside of the ship. For that to happen, the bulkheads must blow. By then we’ll be too deep.”

A small rapping interrupted. The ship tumbled again, and it was several moments until they could see out the small view hole in the pod’s hatch. There on the other side was Sasha. His head was bleeding, and he was begging to be let in. The ship fell faster into the rift.

“Fuck you!” screamed Nick in what he thought to be a last stand of defiance. “Hey, you dumb fucker, I’m one hundred percent true-blue American. What do you think about that?” He had dropped the Russian language the second he saw Sasha pleading. “This at least serves you right.”

Marina pulled him back. “Nicholas, Nicholas! Please don’t. Hold me right now. Please hold me.”

He ignored her. His rage was too great, and he continued to scream at the pathetic Sasha. Clearly, he had lost his mind.

They weren’t watching the gauge when it passed four hundred meters. The bulkhead between the reactor room and the corridor had been too badly damaged to withstand any more pressure. It only took a millisecond for the door to fly off its hinges and flood the compartment. The instant compression of the air blew the pod from the ship like a rocket, leaving Sasha crushed in the depths. The Saratov fell to an unknown grave in the gorge, signaling the end of a few men’s ideals.

Claustrophobia came back. Nick knew why, and it took every ounce of him to control his mind. He and Marina waited for the pressure to crush the pod, but it didn’t come. Instead he heard the balloon eject and then inflate. He looked wildly for the gauge and saw it squashed to the bottom of the dial. Feeling around the seams he couldn’t tell if the pod was sweating from the pressure or if it was him. How deep can this go? We’ve got to be at the limit . It didn’t matter, though. There was nothing he could do.

“Oh God. Oh God, oh God, oh God.”

“What does this mean, Nicholas?” Marina knew for now they weren’t going to die. They were away from the sub, and everything seemed to be holding, but Nick looked terrified.

“I don’t know. We’ll have to wait.”

She didn’t understand the possible dangers, nor did she care. She knew that suddenly their chance of coming out alive were better than a moment ago. That was something to be grateful for. Marina pulled herself closer to try to calm him down. It was reaction that their mouths touched, and at four hundred meters underwater in the Arctic Ocean, their primal instincts kicked in. Nick became very relaxed.

After Kyle reported the sub destroyed, Sukudo took the next flight off the deck. He ordered Booker to turn the Toledo around and head for home.

Book was glad to hear it, but he was still upset that Kenneth hadn’t confided in him the true nature of the mission that was taking place out there. He knew that there was no reason to sink the disabled vessel. It should have been boarded.

He stood on the bridge and watched as the transport plane was catapulted from the deck. His XO joined him with a cup of coffee. “We’ve got another transmission from Whiskey Bravo Seven.”

“What is it?”

“They’ve got a survivor.”

“Really?”

“Well, it sounds odd, but the man is pleading for them to hold position and wait to see if any of his crew comes up.”

“His crew? His crew? The fucking captain got off?”

“That’s what they gather, but they say his English is terrible and hard to understand.”

Booker almost laughed. “Okay. Why not? Have them stay a reasonable amount of time, then head in. I imagine he won’t go anywhere.”

“Aye, sir.”

Jim leaned against the bulkhead in the sonar room. Bumper had played the tape of the Saratov plunging to the deep several times for him. “We know for sure that’s she’s dying?”

“Yes. Mostly it’s water filling the ship, and the air being forced out. Without a doubt, she’s not coming back.”

“Anything nuclear?”

“No, I’m sure of that. There weren’t any real big explosions, so I believe that the emergency shutdown on that sub worked perfectly, and the reaction was stopped. We didn’t pick up any increased radiation, either.”

“No fanfare, no celebrating. We’ll head home.”

Bumper had been looking at Jim strangely, trying to convey that something was wrong. Jim looked over his shoulder and saw Mikhail standing behind him.

“Mik. Oh, sorry. Sorry about your boy, but we had—”

“I understand. It was a known risk from the outset. I just wanted to hear the tape myself.” Mikhail was rather subdued but not on the edge of depression.

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

Jim gave the nod for Bump to play it again. This time for Jim and Bumper to listen to it was uncomfortable because of Mikhail’s presence. As the ship drowned, so did Mik’s hopes of seeing his grandchild alive. It showed on his face.

The recording played, and the sounds of twisting and imploding metal were reproduced, then with one loud crunch the soundtrack went virtually silent.

Bumper turned in his chair to address the men. “That’s it. From here, she drops to the bottom. I’m not sure how far down. We didn’t pick up the vehicle hitting the floor. The ravine is deep.”

“That’s it, Mik—” began Jim.

Mikhail interrupted. “What was that?”

“What?”

“There was a sound there. When everything was silent.”

Bumper rewound and replayed the end. There was no sound except for a small hiss, which appeared from nowhere. “Oh that. Yeah, I heard that when I was listening. It sounds like a fuss in my equipment. Something interfered for a second.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. It was probably something small.”

“Was your system ready to be tuned?”

“Mik, I’m sure it was nothing. If Bump says it was nothing, then it was nothing.”

“Just enhance it for me.”

Bumper didn’t move. It was ridiculous for him to humor the old man. He was sad that his grandkid died, but he didn’t have to put up with being second-guessed by a civilian. Sub designer or not.

“Please. Enhance it.”