Larry Bond - Cold Choices

Frustrated, Sadilenko commented, “It’s sad, Admiral. We are leaving here with no new information. I am disappointed that the commander of the Northern Fleet knows so little about our loved ones.”

Another accusation, but Kokurin refused to be drawn out.

“Blame the Americans, who have admitted their role in causing this crisis. The Navy is doing everything it can. As sailors’ mothers and wives, your role is hard, but there is little to do but wait.” Kokurin tried to sound paternal. It might not have worked, but at least they were finally leaving.

The women filed out, grumbling. Once the door was shut, Kokurin let out a whoosh of air and slumped with fatigue. That was over, thank goodness. He was still coming to grips with Severodvinsk’s loss himself, and he found the mere mention of it created a storm of emotions.

Grief, certainly, if they were dead, but did he dare hope they were alive? All of them? And anger at Petrov. He’d congratulated the boy how many days ago? Was this his fault? He was bright, an able commander, but certainly inexperienced. Could they have picked the wrong man to be captain?

They’d given Petrov Russia’s newest boat, the best in the fleet. Could it be a materiel failure? Subs were designed to resist that, but others had succumbed over the years and Severodvinsk had spent an insane amount of time on the building ways. What did her loss mean for the Navy, and its future? He didn’t know how he was supposed to feel.

Finally, he pushed the questions back into the shadows. Nothing would be resolved soon. Endurance was the only answer. He turned back to his desk and to next year’s budget submission.

Outside the headquarters building, the women sheltered in a corner. Olga Sadilenko listened to their complaints and protests for a few minutes, making sure everyone had a chance to speak. When there was a lull, she was ready. “I didn’t expect that walrus to tell us anything. Who are we to them? Nothing? We give them our sons, our husbands, but they don’t believe they owe us a thing.”

A cold wind eddied into the corner where they stood, as if to confirm her statement. “Yelena.” She turned to the young woman who had asked Kokurin about the phone call. “I’m proud of you for standing up to the admiral like that. Can you do more?”

The young woman nodded, her unhappy expression carved from stone.

“You and your friends call as many other families as you can. Find out which ships are still in port, or when they left. Get me what you can by noon tomorrow.”

“Galina, do you have the notes?”

A middle-aged woman held up a stenographer’s pad. “I’ll have these typed up by this evening.” Her face started to fall. “With my Yuri gone, there’s little to do.”

A young woman reached out to hug her. “Then come and type them up with me. I’m alone, too. And when you’re done, I’ll add them to our web page.”

The older woman dabbed at her eyes, “Thank you, Irina.”

Sadilenko added, “And make sure everyone gives Irina a photo and information of your family member. Include as much biographical information as you want.”

Irina, a pale woman with straw-colored hair, nodded emphatically. “There’s plenty of room on the server, and it takes no time to add the text and images. We need photos of every crewman, and also photos from parties and other gatherings while Severodvinsk was under construction.”

As the group acknowledged their instructions, Sadilenko added one more task. “Nadya, make a list of every news organization you can find on the Internet — from every country in the world, if you can. As soon as Irina’s page is ready, I want to send them the link. They have to be hungry for news about our submarine. We’ll give them what we have.” She smiled grimly. “And we’ll tell them why we don’t have any more.”

Severomorsk Naval Base

Mikhail Rudnitskiy

Captain Second Rank Yefim Gradev stood back a fair distance. Even in this obscene weather, sparks flew about wildly, and the language the petty officers were using would certainly be grounds for disciplinary action, if he could actually hear them. They’d rigged a makeshift canvas shelter as a windbreak, but the men welding were sandwiched between fire and ice.

Gradev was captain of Mikhail Rudnitskiy, one of the two submarine rescue vessels assigned to the Northern Fleet. An alert like this was something they planned and trained for, but dreaded at the same time. Nobody wanted submariners to be in danger. Sailors’ lives were at stake, and his ship, neglected and undermanned, was a weak reed.

He’d hardly slept since the alert two days ago. There would have been much to do, even if they were in perfect order. But maintenance had been deferred, supply requests denied. Suddenly they had priority, but the supply system was slow to respond, and repairs took time.

Their sister ship, Georgi Titov, was down with a bad turbine, and Gradev had been given permission to raid her for supplies and spare parts and even crewmen. He knew the entire rescue depended on this one ship.

They needed at least one of the fifty-ton cranes working. The foundations were fatigued, and the only way to strengthen them in time was unsafe, unauthorized and uncomfortable for the men welding the supports in place.

But it would last until Severodvinsk was found. Combined with the motors they’d cannibalized from Titov, the portside crane would be back.

“Captain, we need you to look at AS-34.” Alex Radimov, Rudnitskiy’s starpom, intruded on his thoughts.

“What, are the supports still giving us trouble?”

“No, sir, that work is proceeding. It’s the batteries again.”

Shaking his head, Gradev turned and headed for the forward hold. Rudnitskiy was a timber-carrier design adapted to carry two rescue submersibles in what had been cargo holds. Originally, the after hold had carried a larger rescue vehicle, AS-36 Bester, but that vessel had been taken out of service years ago. With AS-26 out of commission owing to a main thruster motor failure, there was only one rescue sub available, and any problem with AS-34 Priz was a potential showstopper.

She sat in the roofed-over hold, out of the weather, but still surrounded by a storm of activity. Sparks bathed her sides as sailors expanded and reinforced the cradle that held the vessel. Nobody had ever imagined Rudnitskiy venturing out in such heavy weather, and Gradev had ordered extra battens fitted to brace the rescue sub in place. The thought of her breaking loose in seven-meter seas invoked several nightmares.

From the deck of the hold, AS-34 didn’t feel like a “minisub.” It towered over Gradev, with its 13.5-meter-long white-and-orange-banded cylindrical hull taking up half of the storage bay. From afar she resembled a traditional submarine, but she seemed a bit odd, misshapen. The miniature sail that protected the main hatch from the sea was out of proportion to her hull, and her diminutive ducted propulsor aft could only make about three knots at full power.

But she wasn’t built for speed. Rudnitskiy was supposed to lower AS-34 into the water as close to a downed sub as possible. Priz would then use high-frequency sonar to find the victim, maneuver over it and lock on to one of the emergency escape hatches. The trapped submariners could then climb into AS-34 for a ride to the surface. She could hold twenty passengers on each trip.

When she was working. One of the engineers climbed out of the access hatch and threw a tool away in disgust. It clanged loudly on the deck.

Gradev looked at his starpom. “The batteries?”