Dr. Nassiri slid down the ladder, dropping down beside her. She watched as he holstered his pistol and triaged the head-shot man and the two now-silent, foam-spitting sailors, no hope of survival. His eyes fell on the handsome Russian with the two chest wounds, and his training took over. Dr. Nassiri put both hands on the slight man, dragged him to his feet and slammed him on top of a chart table, then went to work to save his life.
“Give me the medical kit from the wall,” he ordered.
Alexis looked over and saw it — it was one of the massive full-emergency-care ones, including emergency oxygen facemasks and splints. But the nature of his demand completely baffled her as gunshots continued to echo through the claustrophobic chamber.
“Are you for real?” demanded Alexis.
“Please!”
With no time to protest, Alexis crawled across the compartment, grabbed the medical kit and heaved it towards the doctor.
“Thank you,” said Dr. Nassiri, ignoring her glare.
Jonah started shouting at them from two chambers up in the bow, his words scarcely intelligible over the din of the fighting.
“I’ve got two pinned down here in the bow!” he shouted. “Alexis, Doc — if you’re alive, I need you to capture the stern!”
Alexis racked another slug into the shotgun and considered his words. Goddamn fucking motherfucker. She really didn’t want to do this and certainly not alone. She was fucking scared, really fucking scared. And there was the doctor, wrist deep in one of their enemies, trying to save a life while bullets rained down around them.
“Doc, you hear that?” she shouted. “Let’s go, let’s move!”
Doctor Nassiri ignored her. She could see on his face that he’d completely fallen back on his training. Maybe he couldn’t even hear her. In the midst of the carnage, he had become a battlefield surgeon once again.
Screaming inside her own head, Alexis grabbed the 9mm out of the back of the doctor’s waistband and stuck it into the front of her cutoff shots.
And there she was, shotgun in hand, skinned-up knees, and wet, tangled hair. At least she had on her utility boots. Weapon leveled, she charged back into the throbbing engine room. Movement on her left — she fired, blasting apart a chunk of the battery bank, spitting debris in all directions. The sailor — maybe an engineer? — swore and twisted away, trying to escape the leaking acid. She fired again, the slug ricocheting off the interior walls of the submarine. Movement, and she fired again, blasting apart an instrumentation panel. And there he was, an older, darkly tanned man with a gaunt face and a buzz cut holding a steak knife.
Alexis took aim and pulled the trigger, but the shotgun clicked empty. Knife in hand, the engineer lunged towards her as she dropped the shotgun, drew Dr. Nassiri’s pistol and traced five shots into his upper chest.
Alexis burst in through the next hatch, 9mm raised, fully expecting to find herself in a hail of bullets. In most military submarines, this compartment would have been the aft torpedo room, perhaps with a few bunkbeds. Instead, Alexis found herself within the most spectacular armory she’d ever seen — even better than a Texan gun emporium — rows and rows of German assault rifles, handguns, grenades, breaching charges, all manner of armor, and both engineering and combat SCUBA gear.
Gunshots rang out from the command compartment, two compartments forward. It sounded as if Jonah had been forced to retreat, assuming he was still alive. She knew he wouldn’t last long, not with a rapidly diminishing supply of ammunition and two trained men after him.
Alexis snatched the nearest weapons she could find, a phosphorous grenade and a breaching explosive, then charged headlong out of the compartment towards the command compartment. Bullets zipped around her, as expertly-placed shots rang out from the forward bunkroom, the last stand of the surviving crew of the submarine. She headed back towarad Dr. Nassiri, and fired a few shots at the unseen attackers as Dr. Nassiri just stood there, not ducking, not even wincing at the loud retorts.
Jonah was still a chamber forward, no help to her. And there was no way she could get the grenades to him without being shot herself.
As if to add to the perfect scene of chaos, a thousand gallons of freezing seawater poured down the conning tower ladder, gaining momentum like a flash flood down a box canyon. The cold water jolted Alexis out of her shock. She leapt to her feet and ran over to the control console, fingers dancing over the complex, seemingly endless control schematics, looking for a solution to the rapidly filling submarine.
“Are we sinking?” shouted Dr. Nassiri. At least he’d found his wits.
“I found it!” sounded Alexis. With a mechanical whine, the hydraulics to the hatch kicked in, forcing it shut. The massive surge of water cut off immediately, leaving a strange silence as seawater dripped from the closed hatch. Then more gunshots. Jonah shouted something to her, but she couldn’t make it out.
The submarine creaked loudly, a metallic moaning sound ringing throughout every compartment, structural members shifting and settling as the pressure around the vessel increased.
“I think we’re still sinking,” said Dr. Nassiri, quieter this time. Alexis looked up, seeing an analog depth gauge central to the command panel where the Russian sailor had been shot. The needle of the gauge edged slowly to the right as the submarine plunged ever deeper. They were sinking fast — too fast. Eighty feet. A hundred. The ribs of the submarine shuddered with the rapidly increasing pressure. Alexis heard a loud scraping sound, and the entire submarine shuddered again.
Then she realized what was happening. It was the wreckage of the Fool’s Errand, still clinging to the submarine, dragging all aboard into the crushing abyss.
CHAPTER 9
The submarine plunged into the depths, steel hull groaning with long, low rumbles, creaks, and the pinging of re-settling rib joints. As gunshots continued to ring out within, Dr. Nassiri hunched over the chart table in the command compartment, his forehead sweating the type of itchy beaded sweat that only forms when your hands are inside the chest cavity of a living patient. The young man in front of him, mid-twenties at most, stared up at him, passing in and out of consciousness.
My kingdom for an anesthesiologist, thought Dr. Nassiri. But this was battlefield medicine in all its butchery, a fight between him and hemorrhaging wounds. No intubation, no ventilators, just a blade, bandages, and bare hands.
His young Russian patient came round into consciousness with an ugly, violent flailing that knocked off his own oxygen mask, gasping, wheezing, spitting up foam and blood. Sometimes they did this towards the end. Eyes wide, the man screamed in Russian. Something-something-something-babushki. Dr. Nassiri tried to translate it in his mind, but only recognized the word grandmother. The Russian didn’t have enough undamaged lung tissue to spare, and his left lung immediately began to collapse. He lapsed into unconsciousness again.
The doctor snuck a glance towards the gunshots echoing from the corridor leading towards the bow. Jonah and Alexis had taken cover behind a locker. Through the open hatchway, Dr. Nassiri had seen Jonah turn and catch his glance for a moment. Jonah’s look wasn’t judgmental, it was a quizzical what the hell are you doing? Why help a man who tried to kill us? Jonah would have no idea as to why he’d even attempt to save the Russian — after all, Jonah had done his utmost to put the man down for good. But when bullets started flying, all Hassan Nassiri knew to do was save lives.