Larry Bond - Cold Choices

“Understood, Severodvinsk. Good luck to you.”

Petrov hung up the mike and reflexively switched off the set, smiling as he realized how ridiculous that was. Tracking the second hand on his watch, he hurried over to join Lyachin at the engineer’s post.

Thirty-five seconds. Petrov looked around the central post again. He tried to take it all in, fixing it in his memory. His first, and very likely last command. Regardless, he’d never be back here again.

Fifteen seconds. “On my count,” Petrov ordered.

Lyachin nodded silently, his hands hovering over the switches but not touching them.

Ten seconds. It was foolish to time things to the second, but Lindstrom was watching his own clock on the surface. Petrov wouldn’t be the one to mess up the timing.

He watched the second hand, and called “Five seconds,” resting his hands on the controls. He counted down the last few seconds, and at “Zero,” both he and Lyachin pushed the valve controls opening the vents on the starboard main ballast tanks. Suddenly, there was a loud roar coming from Severodvinsk’s starboard side as the air in the ballast tanks surged their way to the surface. By putting all their reserve air into the port ballast tanks, and flooding the starboard ones, the engineers hoped to create a torque on the submarine’s hull; a torque that would help rotate Severodvinsk upright.

Petrov waited for the few seconds it took for the indicators to change, then told Lyachin, “Go.”

Halsfjord

The passive sonar on the Norwegian ship wasn’t nearly as sensitive as a military suite, but they were sitting almost directly over the bottomed submarine. The operator reported, “I can hear mechanical noises, and air moving.”

Lindstrom nodded and said “Good,” never taking his eyes from the second hand. He’d conferred with the Russians about how long it would take the water to fill Severodvinsk’s ballast tanks, how long it would take for thousands of tons of steel to start to move. Some of her port tanks were ruptured, though, and some of that air would be lost. The next step was timed, hopefully, to coincide when the sub began to twist.

He turned to the Russian officer. “Tell the tugs to go. Full power.” It would take them some time to come up to full power as well.

“Thirty seconds.”

Severodvinsk

In spite of his haste, Petrov took extra time to double-check the hatch, then carefully climbed to the seat reserved for him next to the starpom. Kalinin was staring at his watch. Petrov looked again at the inclinometer. It showed thirty-six degrees of port list. They had to get within ten to fifteen degrees of an even keel.

According to the briefings he’d received, the escape chamber should not be released if the submarine was moving too much. He hoped a sideways roll wouldn’t be a problem, because the instant they showed less than twelve degrees, he was pulling the release.

“Ten seconds,” Kalinin announced.

Petrov called out “All hands brace! Remember, I can’t pull on the release until we roll vertical, so stay braced after the explosion. I don’t know how long it will. ”

The shock and noise were as violent as anything he’d ever imagined, almost as bad as the collision itself. A Russian PLAB-250 depth charge held sixty kilograms of high explosive. Dropped close enough to an enemy submarine, it could crack the pressure hull and shake equipment off its mountings. Now, dozens of charges were exploding in a ripple fashion, not a hundred meters away, or fifty, or ten, but directly against the hull. Two rows of gas bubbles abruptly appeared, shoving the water and mud away from the sub’s hull, then collapsed in on themselves.

Like driving fast over a washboard road, or a hailstorm of hammers, Petrov felt each blast, or imagined he could. The seat he was strapped to carried the shock wave right into his body, jarring his spine and giving him an instant headache. The sound seemed to come from the water outside the chamber, from the hull below them, and from inside the chamber itself. Many of the crew yelled in surprise, and the injured men cried out from the pain. It was rough treatment, and Petrov felt their pain, helpless to avoid or forestall it.

In spite of the violent motion of water and gas under the hull, the list remained. He waited for them to roll, or at least shift position, but the inclinometer stayed frozen at thirty-six degrees.

The force of the explosions lasted for only a fraction of a second, but Petrov continued to feel, or imagine that he could feel, the wham-wham-wham vibration they had caused. Then the feeling became a real sensation, and Kalinin remarked on it as well. Still half-deafened by the explosions, Petrov couldn’t distinguish any sound, so he placed his palm against the metal bulkhead of the chamber, listening with his hand.

There was a vibration, low and jumbled. He tried to visualize it, but nothing in the submarine was working, so.

“It’s the tugs,” Petrov announced. Others mimicked his actions, feeling the rumble of the tugs’ engines carried through the cables to the hull.

Petr Velikiy

Borisov found himself watching Adams’s transmission, even ordering the sound turned up. Maybe he was attracted to the video image. Adams’s camera was trained on Pamirs fantail, wreathed in white froth. Three thick black lines led in a tight fan from her fantail into the water.

“I’m standing on the topdeck of the Russian salvage tug Pamir. Those cables you see lead to the crippled submarine Severodvinsk, its half-frozen crew critically short of breathable air.” The camera swung to show the Norwegian ship, perhaps half a kilometer away. “Moments ago Halsfjord detonated thirty-two explosive charges on both sides of the stranded submarine’s hull. These are supposed to free her from the bottom suction and jar her loose of the rock ledges. Now the tugs are straining to pull the twelve-thousand-ton submarine upright.”

The camera shifted again to show Pamir’s sister Altay, just a hundred meters to port. With her white superstructure and a dark gray hull, she made an impressive picture as she strained at the cables. “Although a fraction of Severodvinsk’s size, each tug’s engines produce nine thousand horsepower. Their combined. ”

The image tilted suddenly, then shuddered and spun. It stopped to show a portion of Pamir’s deck and handrail. Voices in Russian and one in English shouted, but the words were drowned out by an angry howl from the tug’s diesels. The engine noise quickly stopped, and someone, probably Adams, picked up the camera. There was an “I’ve got it” in English and the image steadied again, to show Altay heeling over to starboard, sliding sideways across the water toward Pamir.

A shout in Russian made Adams swing the camera to Pamir’s fantail. Two of the cables were no longer taut, and the third draped over her stern and was visibly moving to port, increasing the angle between it and the other two.

It had taken moments for Adams’s video to show the disaster. By the time his camera steadied on the limp cables, Borisov was on his feet, shouting orders. “Call the tugs! Talk to both of them, find out their status! Call the Norwegians. I want to speak to Lindstrom! Kurganov, call Severodvinsk.”

“I can’t,” the admiral replied, “they’ll still be in the escape chamber.”

Borisov paused. “You’re right, of course. Then call Seawolf. See what their remote vehicle saw.”

“I’ve got Lindstrom on the radiophone,” a lieutenant announced. Borisov hurried over and took the handset. “Borisov here. What happened?”