“Call out his range.”
“Two point three miles. Two point three seven, sir.”
“Beam release,” called Nikki.
“Beam release. Beam tracking, tracking.”
The Helix lit up with an unnaturally baleful light. It wasn’t natural, but unworldly.
The Kamov helicopter bucked and turned towards them. Smoke was thrown away by the rotors. Its windshield was bright beyond the possible. One hundred and fifty kW of laser energy poured into the Kamov.
Camouflage paint below the cockpit of the helicopter fried off. The crew were now blind, their optic nerves cauterised and blackened. Plastic fittings melted, giving off a foul burning smell, not unlike a skunk, and the windshield buckled. The crew’s uniforms melted and burst into flames. Flesh cooked and the beam bore down through the now-vacant eye sockets, brain burned in the dead crew.
The fuel tanks lit jets of flame and an APR-3’s warhead cooked and detonated. The explosion ripped the aircraft apart. The Helix, now in three pieces, fell burning into the Barents Sea. Nikki lowered the mast.
“Planesman, trim for descent, down 15, make your depth 300.”
“Down 300, aye sir.”
USS Stonewall Jackson had her revenge and had used the classified weapon. The Vulture had stared death on the enemy.
20
“Sir, we’re emitting noise,” said Benson. “I think it’s our prop. Request speed change.”
Nikki frowned. “Planesman, drop revs by half.”
“Sir.”
Twenty seconds went by. “That’s it, sir, it’s our prop. It’s a deep sound, like a groan.”
“How loud, Benson?” said Nathan.
“The enemy will hear it clearly, sir. We’re not quiet anymore.”
Nathan looked at Nikki and scowled. “It’s the torpedo near miss: it’s damaged the prop. Shit.” He took the broadcast mike from its hook and selected Engineering. “Chief Engineer to the control room.”
The Chief walked in and Nathan let him know about the problem.
The Chief shook his head. “A permanent fix will require shipyard and drydock, maybe a new prop.”
“A temp fix?”
“Depends what it is. We may be able to lash it up somehow. I guess we’re not in a friendly place?”
“No, we have the Northern Fleet on our horizon.”
“Ok, no surfacing.” The Chief smiled. “Shit always happens at the wrong time; that’s why they call it shit. We’ll have to put a diver out to check it out, sir. He can carry a camera with him and some tools that he may need.”
Nathan leaned over the conn and looked at the Chief. “Get the tools together, whatever may be needed. I’ll get a diver for you.”
“Sir.” The Engineer disappeared aft.
“XO, get Innes.”
She walked aft to Innes’s bunk room. A sailor was sat on his bunk listening to his iPod. He took the headphones off.
“Innes?”
“That one, sir.” He indicated a bunk with its curtain closed.
“Innes, Innes,” she called loudly.
“Sir,” a voice replied.
“Innes, get your hand off it and get your cock back in your shorts. Report to the control room. It’s time for a swim.”
A few minutes later, Innes walked into the control room. “Sir?”
“We have a big problem with the prop. I want you to go out with a camera and tools. Do what you can. You’ll have an engineer watching on. We can’t surface, so what depth can you work at?”
Innes thought. The skipper would want her as deep as possible. He’d be wearing the Poseidon Se7en rebreather, so he could spend a long time at a reasonable depth. “Two hundred, sir.”
Nathan stared at Innes. He knew he had probably one of the Navy’s top divers. “Get us there, Planesman. Once there, all stop and put your hat over the throttle. We’ll have a man out there playing with the prop.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Innes walked aft and put on his suit with an extra thermal shirt; this was the Arctic. He got his rebreather ready, mostly for checks; he had it ready after every dive.
He carried the device with its two ten-litre tanks to the base of the sail, where two A Gangers waited with their engineering equipment. There was a bag of tools, sockets, hammer, a saw and other things. Two large cylinders with cutting gas stood there, strapped together.
“Fuck,” said Innes. “I’m going back for a buoyancy bag. I can’t carry that thing.” The lower hatch was opened, and the A Gangers pushed the gear up inside. Innes returned.
“You lucky bastard, Innes,” said an A Ganger.
“Yeah, enjoy your swim, you soft midships cunt.”
Innes climbed up inside and donned his set, secured some simple tools to ring on his suit, and pulled on his hood and mask.
He looked like an astronaut in a black spacesuit. His rebreather set would scrub the CO2 from the expired air and reuse it. The Poseidon Se7en would greatly increase the time he could spend out there and allow him to dive deeper with less absorbed nitrogen, reducing the chance of a ‘bend’.
Built in Gothenburg, Sweden, Poseidon had purchased many patents used in the top-class CIS Lunar rebreather. The CIS Lunar’s designer had contributed to its design.
The lower hatch was closed. He tapped on the insides of the tall cylinder with its now useless ladder. Water poured in and rose up the chamber; his light was a red ceiling lamp.
Innes switched on his helmet lights. Soon the chamber was flooded. He opened the upper hatch; it opened to the black dark sea above. A creature swam by, emitting a flashing luminous glow, no doubt trying to attract prey.
Buoyancy lifted his equipment up and out onto the sail’s deck. Innes kicked off over the sail’s wall and off towards the rear end. He scanned his instruments; gas and decompression ratings were well in the green, of course. His depth was 208 feet. The rebreather’s twin hose gas supply and exhaust had been modified to fit the G Mod full-face mask, allowing him to talk.
“Innes to Jackson, comms check.”
“Jackson receiving, in the green, Innes.”
Innes finned along the upper deck. He saw the large VPM doors; they spanned the deck. The hull started to slope downwards and soon he saw it: the multi-bladed prop. It looked like a fan of Arab swords, and there were maybe sixteen of them.
It didn’t take long to see the problem. He swam over to the blade disk and looked at it from the rear of the boat. He hung using buoyancy over the thousand meter abyss below. Two of the blades were badly twisted and a third was a little twisted, but not by much.
“Jackson, I see the problem. Twisted blades. I’m going to film then now.”
He lifted the video camera in its housing and started it. He ran the camera slowly over the damaged blades. Inside the boat, the Chief Engineer and his two IC watched the camera take.
“Innes, Chief here. Can you scan around the whole blade ring? Let’s see the lot of ’em.”
“Ok, sir.” He ran slowly around the whole disk.
“Ok, get back to the twisted blades, zoom in and slowly follow them down to the root.”
He did as the engineers asked.
“Ok, get to the leading edge of the disk and film the blades from that side.”
Innes did so.
“Get back to the trailing edge side and zoom in on the root.”
He swam to the rear and faced the prop and took the film they’d asked for.
Onboard, the two engineers discussed the problem.
“Ok, Innes, we have a solution. You’re going to have to cut off the two blades close to the root. You have cutting gas with you. Then, for balance, you’re going to have to cut off two good blades opposite. I’m told you carry tie-wraps.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then mark the good blades with a wrap on each.”
Innes pulled out wraps from his left leg drysuit pocket. He looked at the bad blades and attached the wraps to good blades opposite. Finally, he filmed the prop roots.
“That’s it, Innes, good. Now get your gas and cut off the good blades first.”
“Sir.” He swam back towards the sail along the hull, and the sail came into view, towering upwards. He swam up and dropped into the sail, then attached the lift bag to the gas set. Putting some gas into it, to bring it up and away from the sail, he adjusted the amount of gas so it carried the cylinders.
He set off back to the rear, pulling the bag after him. It took him several minutes to add and vent the gas to bring the cylinders into place.
Innes unfastened the torch, turned on the gas, and it bubbled away upwards. When he set the cutting gas off, it would bubble upwards into the lifting bag and add to the buoyancy. It would be a continuous effort to vent the bag to stop it pulling the torch away.
The torch had a self-ignite system, so he switched it on. The flame spouted out and blew bubbles at its end. Innes found a tie wrap and started cutting through one of the good blades. He knew it would be a battle and it was. Cut blade, vent bag, cut blade. It went on and on.
Finally, he’d cut through the first blade, and he moved back and pulled the blade clear. It fell away into the darkness. Now for the next one.
Innes played the flame on the next blade. It took time, but he got most of the way through. Soon it would be ready to pull away.
“Innes, Chief here.”
He stopped cutting. “Sir?”
“I have the XO here. She wants to speak to you.”
What? That’s odd. What does Boat’s Thong want with me?
Some of the crew called Nikki that after Seaman Vasqez said he’d seen her leave the mid head, the one with a shower installed, in a thong and bra. Then she’d headed forward to her bunk room. Nobody believed him; it was 40 yards and the next bulkhead to her bunk room. Quizzing her female roommates got people nowhere as there was a brick wall of female solidarity. They knew if one of them had her secrets revealed, then all would be next.
“Innes?”
“Yes, sir, what’s wrong?”
“We’ve got an unwelcome visitor,” Nikki said. “Upstairs we have a Kamov Helix, dipping his sonar in. He’s a mile away, but we want to play safe. So, it’s no noise until we call you. Sit there until he goes.”
“Ok, sir, will do.”
He turned the gas off, held onto a blade and hung there. Minutes went by, and the cold started telling on him. He hung in the black, 200 feet down. He knew the cutting wouldn’t be loud, but the bubbles would be an odd sound, and a blade could clank on another while freeing it. He had to wait.
He got to thinking about the mission. What if they needed to get away? They’d use the prop. There’d be no time to warn him. It would spin up and rip him half to death before moving away. He’d be injured, arms or legs wholly or partly cut off. He’d be bleeding to death, the suit ripped open, buoyancy gone.
He remembered the lifting bag. It’d be hard to control, but it would get him to the surface. Then again, bleeding as he would be, limbs partly missing, he’d die up there. Stop it, you damn fool. He told himself not to dwell on it.
Time dragged on. He started to think about the prop starting… Shut up, you idiot.
“Innes?” It was the XO.
“Yes, sir.”
“The Helix is dipping closer. Keep quiet.” He knew it was inevitable this goddamn disk would soon spin up. He thought about standing off, but he knew there was a cross current and it would take him faster than thousands of tons of submarine. He’d never swim back.
Hugging the prop, he willed the Russian helicopter away. Please go. His life depended on it. In the deep cold blackness under the Barents Sea, Innes wrestled with his demons.
“Innes, it’s the Chief.” Thank God. It had been 23 minutes; he’d just checked for what must be the twentieth time.
“Here, sir.”
“The Helix has gone off miles to the west. Start your cutting again.”
“Yes, sir. Thanks, sir.” He started the gas and ignited it again.
He was soon through the good blade, and he pulled it away. He turned and started on the damaged blades.
Finally, he got through the last damaged blade, and when he pulled it away, it fell into the deeps.
He shut the torch off and brought the camera up. He started filming. “Jackson, Innes here. I got them. Filming the prop.”
A minutes later, his earphones sounded. “Chief here. That’s it; good work, Innes. Get yourself back inside.”
“Yes, sir.” Great.
He made his way back to the sail, pulling the lifting bag and gas cylinders behind him. All were loaded into the sail chamber.
He took a final look around outside and closed the hatch after himself, spinning the wheel closed. The water drained away, the hatch was opened, and he handed down his gear and was then bundled onto the companionway floor.
The XO stood there smiling. She looked as beautiful as ever.
“Well done, Innes. Get yourself to the galley and then to your bunk. Your duties are covered for now.”