Just as Alexeyev’s backside hit his seat, a side door opened and servers in formal dress brought in trays of exotic crackers and caviar with bottles of vodka and glasses. The servers arrayed plates and napkins and poured generous portions of vodka for everyone.
“So,” Stanislav said. “Let us hear the story. Tell us everything. Start from the beginning. Captain Orlov, perhaps you will start?”
Alexeyev traded wary glances with Lebedev, then cautiously picked up the vodka glass and took a sip, certain that it must be poison.
Orlov told the story of the Novosibirsk taking the nuclear strike, how all their systems seemed to conspire against them, and a massive fire broke out from machinery two, then about their struggle to save the ship and the crew, then the story of the rescue by the Panther, and how the Americans had repatriated them without even interrogating them.
Stanislav nodded. “I don’t know if any of you have heard, but the Voronezh crew died before the nuclear strike. The second captain AI system sent us a message detailing the event. Apparently a design flaw in auxiliary machinery room two took out both oxygen generators and the oxygen storage system, and the ventilation system pumped toxic smoke throughout the boat. That was not long before it took a nuclear depth charge close enough to scatter it to atoms. So, Captain Alexeyev, tell us your story.”
Alexeyev did his best to tell the tale, at one point putting his hand to his bandaged eye. The hospitals had been unable to save it. In a few weeks, after the surgery to remove the infected eye healed, they would fit him for a glass eye. Until then, he’d have to have the dressings changed every few hours. When he finished, Stanislav nodded in approval.
“So, you all see how Captain Alexeyev and his crew learned from the incident on the Voronezh and before engaging the enemy, shut down atmospheric control to harden the ship. But the Shkval detonation in the third compartment caused a severe reactor casualty. So Engineer Voronin, you see that you have major design flaws in your Yasen-M, yes?”
“Admiral, yes,” the slight civilian engineer in the business suit said to Stanislav. “We will redesign the entire atmospheric control layout and systems. And the ventilation systems. And the reactor core must be hardened from shock. The rod drop that Captain Orlov suffered on the way to the Gulf of Oman was also a flaw on the Kazan, making it more volatile from the shock of a torpedo hit. We’ve already started on a new design that rectifies these flaws while keeping the supreme acoustic advantage of the Yasen-M. We will call it the Yasen III.”
“For the sake of good luck, Anatoly,” Stanislav said to Director Voronin, “name it something new, yes?” He looked at Orlov, then at Alexeyev. “Gentlemen, you and your crews represented the Russian Republic with courage and a fighting spirit. And believe me when I say, no Russian attack submarine will ever again sail without nuclear-tipped Kalibr antisubmarine cruise missiles. That mistake is all mine and it shall not recur. Now, please, everyone, drink up while we await the main course. Aleksandr,” Stanislav said to the Pacific fleet commander, “perhaps you would care to give the evening’s first toast.”
Alexeyev turned to Ania Lebedev. “I guess we’re not in trouble after all.”
She looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Do you get the funny feeling this whole battle was some kind of test? A drill?”
He nodded. “I’m not sure why I feel that way, but the bosses are going awfully easy on us for losing a submarine. And a battle.”
A few minutes after the meeting at the Admiralty ended, the limo took Alexeyev to the airport, where he wearily climbed into the first-class seat on the flight to Murmansk, sleeping most of the way, getting up only once to go to the bathroom to change the dressing over his eye. The jet landed and taxied to the concourse. Feeling like he weighed eight hundred kilograms, Alexeyev walked down the jetway into the concourse.
Lebedev caught up to him. “Where do we report for duty, sir?”
“Pass the word to the crew, Ania. We all have three weeks of stand-down while the bosses try to figure out what to do with us. Take some time off. See your family. Relax.”
“I’ll put out the word, Captain, but call me if we have orders.” She touched his shoulder, then turned to walk to the baggage claim room. Alexeyev stared after her. She’d changed, he thought. Or maybe he had. The other officers and crew filed past him, all of them hollow-eyed and exhausted, all on their way to get their bags, mostly full of the uniforms the Admiralty had given them to replace all their belongings lost on the Kazan.
Alexeyev walked through the door where the inner security ended and people gathered to meet family or friends after arrival. As he walked, he stared dejectedly at the floor when something made him look up.
Natalia Orlov stood there in a simple white dress, her platinum blonde hair flowing around her shoulders, her romantic blue eyes done with light makeup, her impossibly long lashes that made her so beautiful one of her best features. She was crying as she ran toward him and threw her arms around him and started kissing his neck.
“Georgy, Georgy, Georgy, I am so sorry! I love you so much, I thought you might have died, I hurt you so deeply, oh please forgive me!” She would have gone on and on, but Alexeyev put one finger on her lip, her tears running down the back of his hand. He always had been a sucker for a woman’s tears, he thought. He hugged her back, and the two of them walked down the concourse.
“My eye,” he said. “It was an infection. They say it was herpes.”
She looked at him. “As soon as I heard I had myself tested. I got it, all right. From that bastard Boris Novikov. If he hadn’t died, I would have killed him myself.”
“What about that guy you wanted to have in my bedroom? In our bedroom?”
“None of that was true, Georgy. I was angry at your disappearance and your silence. I had no idea you were going off to war and couldn’t transmit. I’m sorry I thought the worst. It was a last resort. I wanted to get you to talk to me.” She went on again about how sorry she was, and again he had to silence her, but this time he did it with his own lips.
They walked on down the concourse and he smiled at her, and lovely Natalia Orlov smiled back and put her head on his shoulder.
Now, he thought, part of his life had healed. But what of submarine command? Command at sea was an experience like no other, he thought. Ah well, eventually he would have had to give it up. Maybe the time had just come a little sooner than expected.
Vice Admiral Robert Catardi stood at the podium, resplendent in a starched service dress white uniform with full medals, swordbelt and ceremonial sword.
“Now that I’ve given out the Presidential Unit Citations to the crew of the USS Vermont and given the silver star awards to the Panther boarding party, I have one very special award I’d like to make. Could I have Lieutenant Anthony Pacino approach the lectern?”
Pacino looked at Catardi and broke ranks to walk to the podium, the formal choker whites distinctly uncomfortable in the summer sunshine on the pier overlooking the USS Vermont. The starched whites were one of those uniforms one would want to tear off after twenty minutes in it. It was so stiffly starched that it looked great for half an hour, then resembled an unmade bed after that. Pacino had no idea what Catardi could be bringing him up to receive. He’d already gotten the P.U.C. and the silver star. What could be better than that? He stepped up the three steps to the raised platform at Catardi’s podium and came to attention.