“Technical problem first, sir. The multifunction transmitter cabinet is blowing fuses. It’s eaten two circuit boards for the signal drivers. We’re trouble-shooting it now, but I’m beginning to think the UHF to the satellite may be out of commission for some time.” Vlasenko shrugged. Routine trouble and they would soon be under the arctic ice cover where there would be no need to transmit to the satellite. Emergency systems could handle the communications if they needed a rescue.
“Well, sir, that leads us to the second problem. Admiral Novskoyy… he wants the UHF systems of the multifunction antenna ready at all times, commencing now.”
Son of a bitch, those were orders that should have originated with him, Vlasenko thought, not with a visiting flag officer.
“I will talk to the admiral, Ivanov. Meantime, keep working on the problem. Are you going forward?”
“Yes, sir. I expect I will be there until the equipment works. The admiral wants the gear to be up by this evening.”
“Tonight? Did he say why?”
“No, Captain. Just that I will be sorry if the equipment is not working by then.”
Ivanov looked ready to deal with Novskoyy personally as he hurried up the ladder to the upper level. Vlasenko understood, but hoped the young headstrong Ivanov could keep his temper under control this run. He knew it wouldn’t be easy… not for any of them.
Vlasenko, aborting the tour of the second compartment, headed aft to the nuclear control room. Nuclear control was really just a large waist-high computer console that wrapped around a right angle with an elevated platform behind it. The platform had a command chair reserved for the Chief Engineer, who was sitting in it and looking altogether regal.
Captain-Lieutenant Mikhail Geroshkov plainly loved his job and little wonder. The propulsion plant of the Kaliningrad was far superior to any other in the fleet, for that matter was much more advanced than anything the Americans had, with their low-power density, water-cooled cores. The Kaliningrad had two reactors, each cooled by highly conductive liquid sodium. Pumps had no rotating parts and pushed the coolant through the loops using magnetism. It was very quiet. Vlasenko did not pretend to know much about nuclear power. The Russian fleet was split into two tracks — the seamanship officers, of which he was one, and the engineering corps that had the responsibility of running and repairing the plants.
“Any problems with the plant?” Vlasenko asked Geroshkov.
“So far, perfect. Captain.”
“Computers working out okay?”
“Very well, sir. I was skeptical at first but they make this operation very efficient.”
Vlasenko watched the screens for a while, wishing he shared Geroshkov’s optimism about the computers. “Did the admiral happen to come back here?”
“No, sir. Why would he?”
“No reason. I’m going forward. The spaces look shipshape.”
Vlasenko had intended to confront Admiral Novskoyy over the admiral’s giving direct orders to his men, but on reaching the upper level of the second compartment a messman indicated the admiral was in his stateroom sleeping. Well, he’d check out the control compartment and wait to confront Novskoyy after figuring out exactly what he would say. He didn’t want to start a war aboard his own ship. Still…
CHAPTER 8
Commander Jon Rapier started his walk through of the submarine, ensuring the ship was rigged for sea. This had always been Pacino’s duty — the captain insisted on seeing every corner of the boat himself. But today he had asked Rapier to do the walk through and had remained in his stateroom. Something was definitely wrong with him. Rapier thought. The last two years had been tough with home life and navy life seemingly at cross purposes. But even during the stormiest times Pacino had kept a sense of humor. This run was different. Something had changed the captain and it seemed to be much more than any family squabble.
In his stateroom Rapier had changed into his underway uniform, a one-piece cotton overall with his name sewn above the right pocket. He strapped on his khaki belt and radiation dosimeter, pinned his dolphins on, got into his at-sea boots, left his stateroom and walked forward along the central passageway through operations-compartment upper level and down narrow stairs to the middle level, then turned left to officers country. Each “stateroom” occupied by three officers was six-by-six feet, with two chairs and two fold-down desktops, a few lockers recessed into the fake wood panelling and three “coffins,” racks shaped like drawers in a morgue except each had a side-entrance curtain and a reading light. The coffins were stacked three high in the staterooms, four high for the enlisted men. Those high-ranking enough got coffins to themselves; many hot-racked, shared a coffin with someone on a different watch section. That still left about twenty men who had to make a rack on top of the torpedoes in operations lower level. At the aft end of the officers-country passageway was the wardroom, about twenty-by-fifteen feet with a table in the center. At the aft end was the door to the small pantry, which further aft opened into the main galley. The wardroom was used as a dining room, tactical-planning room and end-of-watch reconstruction room. One of the largest open areas aboard, the crew’s mess, could seat about thirty men. The starboard bulkhead was painted with a mural of two square-rigged ships sailing on a stormy sea.
The central columns were covered with hemp rope spiralling around, with brass lanterns at the top. The forward bulkhead had a mirror framed in more hemp rope. The leather bench seats and tablecovers were done up in blue. The deck was tiled in blue and white. Actually the mess looked more like a cheap fish house than a combat submarine. Never mind. Rapier told himself, at least the crew liked it. At the aft end of the crew’s mess was the Trash Disposal Unit room. The TDU was a vertical torpedo tube used to eject compacted trash through a ball valve at the hull. The garbage was sealed in plastic and weighted with lead bricks so no floating waste would give away their position.
By the TDU room was a steel ladder to the lower level that Rapier slid down. Rapier’s inspection now took him through the gyro room below the crew’s mess, to the Auxiliary Machinery room, then the torpedo room. In each space he made sure there was no unsecured equipment that could get damaged if the ship took on a severe angle or suddenly went into a roll. He lingered in the torpedo room, a long wide space built for weapon storage. A central aisle threaded between the waist-high storage table for the upper tubes. The port and starboard tables were packed with Mark 49 torpedoes, each painted green and stencilled with white block letters— MOD B HULLBUSTER. At the centerline were the experimental Mark 50’s, painted glossy red and stencilled HULLCRUSHER and looking long and graceful and fast. Forward of the weapon-storage area was the central-torpedo local-control panel, where the torpedo chief flooded and drained tubes and where the weapons could be moved from the panel with powerful hydraulic rams. On either side of the local control panel were the tubes themselves, canted outward from the centerline because the torpedo room was amidships. Since the torpedoes were socalled smart weapons, it no longer mattered in which direction they were launched… they would turn toward the target impact point by themselves. The tubes were embedded in water tanks, which were piped to the ship’s high-pressure air-system. Air pressurized the water tank, which was open to the aft end of the torpedo tube. The pressurized water pushed the weapon out of the tube, flushing it out. No air bubbles would escape to allow them to be detected. On each tube’s inner door hung a sign, WARSHOT LOADED.