1252:26:398 UTC: The pressure build-up inside the reactor vessel ruptured all the hold-down bolts at once and the heavy pressure vessel lid blew off into the overhead and smashed into the insulation covering the hoop steel of the compartment, rupturing a steam line coming from a steam generator before the lid started to fall back on the reactor core.
1252:26:436 UTC: The power increase in the core blew the nuclear fuel all through the compartment, the pressure in the compartment rising past its design pressure, the pressure rise stopping the flooding but collapsing the shielded tunnel that allowed human access from compartment two to compartment four.
1252:26.598 UTC: The pressure fell as melted fuel pooled below in the compartment bilges, and with the lower pressure, the flooding began again. A small rupture in the forward water-tight bulkhead to the second compartment opened, and seawater began to flood the second compartment.
1252:26.866 UTC: All personnel throughout the ship had been thrown into their consoles or across the spaces they occupied. The deck had tilted so far to port that the deck would seem more like a wall.
1252:26.943 UTC: Water from the third compartment flowed swiftly into the second compartment, the water running along the deck of the lower level and splashing into the space below the deckplates, into the battery well.
1252:27.096 UTC: All personnel aft of frame 208 stopped breathing as the massive shock, steam leak from the secondary loop and the radiation level at ten thousand times the normal dose irradiated the fourth compartment. The high radiation level was somewhat attenuated by the shielding of the forward bulkhead of the third compartment, yet still invaded the second compartment and mercilessly irradiated the crew in the central command post.
1252:28.304 UTC: The deck rolled back to normal but the bow had begun to point downward and the ship took on a five degree down angle, the depth rapidly increasing from the speed they’d been going before the explosion.
The roaring of the supercavitating torpedo was deafening as it roared past, the noise going deeper in pitch as it sped past, and not long after a series of loud explosions came from the bearing of Master One.
Romanov looked at Quinnivan.
“Raise a glass to our lads on the Panther,” Quinnivan said.
“Thank God for them,” Romanov breathed. “Pilot, all stop, left ten degrees rudder, steady course two-one-zero, mark speed ten knots.”
“What are you doing, Nav?” Seagraves asked.
“No sense running north now, Captain. We should go to the site of the sinking and see if anyone survived that. Or at least confirm the kill.”
Seagraves nodded. “When you get close, take her up.”
Romanov nodded. Maybe, like that submarine Novosibirsk, there would be an escape chamber.
Captain First Rank Georgy Alexeyev pushed himself off his console in the dark, his head pounding. He reached under his console for the battle lantern, clicked it on, and unbuckled his five-point harness. He shined the lantern in the room and shouted, “who is awake?” It was then he realized he was deaf. Whatever it was that had caused the noise, probably a Shkval from the Panther, had hit them, and the explosions had deafened him.
There were a few people moving. He realized shouting was futile. Everyone else would be as deaf as he was. A second battle lantern came on. He waved the beam of his battle lantern to the aft door, to the direction of the ladder to the escape chamber. He couldn’t say exactly why his instincts were screaming at him to get the crew to the chamber, but he’d lived with this ship since its first hoop of steel was laid down in the drydock. He’d served as its weapons officer, first officer, and finally as captain. He knew her as well as a long-time husband knows his wife’s body. And Kazan was dying. If she were not already dead. As were all of them if they didn’t abandon ship.
He hated the sounds of those words: abandon ship. He shook his head and vaulted out of his seat, his head spinning so hard with dizziness that he had to grab a handhold, hard, to keep from falling. And it was either his own vertigo or the deck had done another list. He waved his light to the aft door again. Three people started toward him. Alexeyev opened the door and the massive smoke came into the room. The passageway was solid smoke. He decided against returning to his console for an air mask, but instead pushed the half dozen central command survivors aft down the passageway. He knew the exact number of steps to the ladder.
Gathered at the ladder bottom were several other crewmen who had had the same idea as Alexeyev, several of them with battle lanterns. As Alexeyev grabbed for the ladder, an explosion from directly beneath them rocked the ship, flipping the deck to a twenty-degree roll.
“What was that?” It was Svetka Maksimov’s voice, the navigator. Alexeyev could hear, just barely, he realized.
Alexeyev sniffed the smoky air, the unmistakable smell of chlorine detectable. “Dammit, battery explosion! Everybody to the chamber!”
One of the crewmen under the hatch had opened the mechanism, the hydraulics self-contained and local. God help them all if the explosive bolts failed, Alexeyev thought.
In two more minutes, the air was completely contaminated. Alexeyev was the last man standing in the passageway, shining his light fore and aft, to see if there were any more survivors, and he could see Pavlovsky come out of the door of the central command post and fall to the deck, gasping and coughing. Alexeyev dropped the battle lantern and lunged for the young electrical officer and pushed him to the ladder to the escape chamber.
“Help him up!” Alexeyev yelled, the crew pulling Pavlovsky into the chamber. Alexeyev took one last look at the smoke-filled passageway of his command, the supreme attack submarine on the planet, and tapped his ring on the ladder rung as a farewell, just before climbing the ten steps up into the escape chamber. As soon as he got in, Maksimov shut the hatch and pulled the lever to disconnect the chamber from the sinking submarine.
One last prayer, Alexeyev thought, realizing he’d prayed more today than in his entire life. Oh God, please let the explosive bolts fire and disconnect us from the ship.
Surfacing the Panther without air in the high-pressure banks had turned out to be more of a challenge than originally thought. Dankleff had had to have Aquatong use the ship’s speed and bowplanes and sternplanes to fly the ship to the surface, then raise the induction mast and start the air compressors to try to fill the air banks. It had taken a half hour to get enough air in the banks that they could blow main ballast, the air compressors still clanking away to refill the tanks after the blow. By the time Panther heaved to at the escape chamber, the USS Vermont was already there.
Pacino stood in the bridge cockpit on top of the conning tower and put a bullhorn to his lips.
“Ahoy, there, Vermont!”
Eisenhart was on the bridge of Vermont and shouted back. “About time you slackers got here. We’re loading them on your boat. Same idea as last time.”