Larry Bond - Cold Choices

“I’ll give it all to Severodvinsk, if it would help,” Vidchenko answered. He felt a vibration in the deck. They were moving, and it felt good. He’d been eager to go, of course. The urgency had been overpowering. The storm had kept them bottled up, like a pressure cooker, tension and worry building up with no way to release it.

Let the American show himself. Vidchenko was ready for him.

7 October 2008

1830/6:30 PM

Severodvinsk

Petrov stretched his aching body as he climbed out of his command chair in the central post. While his engineers had rigged it so he could sit safely, the significant port list had the back of the chair carrying a lot of his weight. Of course, this wasn’t part of the design specifications, and while it could easily carry the load, it did so at the expense of human physiology. As he worked the kinks out, Petrov looked around at his watchstanders. Anatoliy Rodionov, the torpedo and mine commander, had the deck watch, while Maksim Tylik was over at the engineer’s post. Fonarin sat cross-legged against the BIUS console with his log sheets and a calculator. He punched away at the buttons with dogged determination, a pencil clenched between his teeth. Petrov smiled at his chief of chemical service’s dedication.

A sudden crunch announced the relief of stress in his spine, and even though this reduced the pain in his back, he still felt tired and sore. The lingering headache was also still there, more noticeable now that the back pain had subsided. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much he could do about that. Looking down at his watch, Petrov reminded himself that they had been on the bottom now for over three days. So far, the emergency measures they had taken were working. Besides being a little chilly, the crew was holding up very well. Morale was still quite good. But the “easy” part of this endeavor was about to end. The next three days would see things get steadily worse. And there was still no sign that the fleet had found them.

The sound of heavy footsteps drew Petrov’s attention to the passageway behind him. Kalinin emerged from the dim light carrying a steaming cup in his hand. “Your evening tea ration, sir,” he said as he offered the cup to his captain.

“Bless you, Vasiliy,” Petrov replied gratefully. Slowly, he sipped the hot liquid and felt its warmth penetrate his body. Despite wearing the insulated green survival suit, he still felt chilled and the hot tea seemed to melt away the cold. “Hmmm, good tea. Thank you.”

Kalinin smiled and said, “You’d probably say the same thing about hot piss right now, but I accept your compliment.”

Petrov grimaced at his first officer’s crudity and gestured for him to sit down. “I see that even in these adverse circumstances you’ve retained your belowdecks sense of humor, Vasiliy.”

“You know what they say, sir. You can take the sailor out of the bilge, but you can’t take the bilge out of the sailor,” Kalinin quipped as he plopped down on the deck.

Shaking his head in mock despair, Petrov sat back down in his chair. Then in a more serious tone asked, “What’s our status, Starpom?”

Pulling out his notes from his breast pocket, Kalinin started going through the now all-too-familiar list. “The reserve battery is at fifty-eight percent, but a number of the emergency battle lanterns have depleted their batteries. Per your orders, I’ve secured all nonessential lights to preserve them for use in critical locations and for when we abandon ship. We are okay on food and water, although we are down to the less tasty bits. We have plenty of stale hardtack and a couple more days of canned meat paste, at least that is what the label says.”

Petrov grinned as he recalled the popular debate of the last two days as to whether or not the contents of the cans were indeed a meat product, and then as to what parts of what animal it came from. All concerned had decided in the end that, in this case, ignorance was not necessarily a bad thing.

“What about the tea and coffee?” inquired Petrov as he raised his cup. Under normal conditions, such a question would be considered trivial in the extreme. But given the powerful effect it had on his crew’s morale, being the only real creature comfort they could offer, it was of considerable importance to Petrov.

“We have both in abundance,” Kalinin replied. “We’ll run out of power long before the engineer’s cache is consumed.”

“Very good. It’s important to the men. It gives them something to look forward too. Please continue your report.”

“There has been no change, good or bad, in the condition of the injured, although Captain-Lieutenant Sadilenko had to be sedated again. The doctor says there is little that he can do for Yakov, and that it is best to keep him unconscious until we can get him to a proper mental health specialist.”

“Ever the optimist, our good Dr. Balanov,” remarked Petrov.

Kalinin nodded his agreement as he turned the page in his pocket notebook. “The quality of the atmosphere has declined slightly; oxygen has dropped to sixteen point five percent and carbon dioxide is up to one point two percent. The increase is due to the fact that there are now only four air regeneration units online, using the last of the V-64 cassettes, I might add.”

“How long before this last set’s chemicals are depleted?”

“We have less than an hour. After that, the air will slowly get worse and worse.”

“Has Fonarin revised his estimate on the amount of time we have?” Petrov asked as he jerked his thumb in chemical service chief’s direction.

“Igor has triple-checked — no, correction, quadruple-checked his figures. Taking into account the number of survivors and our rate of breathing, which will increase as the carbon dioxide levels climb, he believes we have until around midday on the tenth before we reach a lethal concentration. By the evening of the eleventh, we’ll all be dead, unless we’re rescued, of course.”

Both men fell silent as Kalinin concluded his report, put his notebook away, and pulled himself up. Petrov could tell his starpom was exhausted; he had slept very little since the incident.

“Anything else, sir?”

“Yes, Vasiliy. Have Lyachin start recycling the used V-64 cassettes in the air-regeneration units. I know they’re probably next to useless, but at this point I’ll take every molecule of carbon dioxide that they can remove from our atmosphere. After that, I want you to get some sleep.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” replied Kalinin wearily. “I will see to both requirements immediately.”

As Kalinin started to hobble toward the ladder well, Petrov called out to him, “Vasiliy, just one more item. Please confer with Dr. Balanov on the possibility of administering sleeping drugs to the majority of the crew.”

The starpom was both surprised and shocked by Petrov’s order and his expression showed it.

“Think about it, Vasiliy,” explained Petrov has he stood and walked over to Kalinin. “If we can’t remove carbon dioxide from the air, then we have to reduce the rate at which it is produced. The only way I know how to do that is to get a large number of the crew to sleep more.”

“Yes, sir. You are correct, we do need to consider what options we have in case… in case the fleet takes longer than we would like to find us.”

“Let’s pray that it is as drastic as we need to get, Starpom. But on the good side, it appears that the storm is finally waning. Within twenty-four hours we’ll know if Kokurin has sent anyone out to look for us.”

USS Seawolf

Jerry was one of the last ones to arrive in the torpedo room, trailing down the ladder behind a couple of sonar techs from control. The captain, the XO, and even the chief engineer clustered around the UUV console. Behind them, edging around the officers for their own peek, were the off-watch torpedomen and other stragglers. The crewmen saw Jerry and quickly made a hole, and the officers edged over just a little. It was enough to see.