Conventional wisdom held that nuclear reactors couldn’t explode like nuclear weapons. Natural uranium, melted together with the zirconium fuel metal and control-rod hafnium, ordinarily would not sustain a critical mass to explode like a bomb. Of course, the key was the natural uranium fuel. The reactor of the Devilfish was not a natural uranium low-power density core like a civilian land-based unit. The Devilfish’s fuel modules were packed with uranium-238, highly enriched uranium. The core had the power of a reactor thirty times its size. If the fuel modules ever did melt down there was a slight chance that the core could form a critical mass and go critical. The result would be a “prompt critical rapid disassembly”—jargon for a detonation. Well, if they melted down and went prompt critical, he wouldn’t be around long enough to worry about it.
He began his string of orders, each vital to waking the beast in the reactor compartment: “Check battleshort switch. Secure emergency cooling— shut XC-9. Pass the word to the Engineering Watch Supervisor, shut all scram breakers and equalize around and open Main Steam Two. Manderson, take the operational-mode selector-switch to cutback override, low-pressure cutout switch to low-pressure cutout, source range channel selector switch to star-up rate scram cutout. Ready? Start number-two main coolant pump in slow speed.” Petty Officer Manderson, the reactor operator, stood and pulled up on pump two’s T-handle. With a thump of check valves, the pump started. The battery amp-hour digital meter on the electrical panel immediately began clicking.
“Battery discharge rate is 800 amps, Eng,” the electrical operator said. Delaney frowned. They were sucking a tremendous current from an almost dead battery. This would be a helluva race against time.
“Apply latch voltage to inverter alpha.”
Manderson grabbed the pistol grip in the center of the panel and rotated it to the RODS IN position as he pulled it out from the panel face. The chronometer in the maneuvering room over the door clicked off the seconds. The digital amp-hour meter of the plant-control panel clicked three times a second, each click bringing the ship closer to total loss of power.
“Group one rods latched,” Manderson said, releasing the pistol grip.
“TO, pull rod group one to criticality. Nine decades per minute startup rate. Give me heatup of the reactor to 500 degrees.”
Delaney then announced on Circuit Two, a general announcing system in the aft spaces of the ship: “ENGINEERING WATCH SUPERVISOR, COMMENCE COOLANT DISCHARGE FROM THE PORT LOOP. PRESSURE BAND 1600 TO 1800.”
Manderson began pulling the control rods out of the core and the group-one rod position indicator clicked up at tremendous speed. Manderson fought to keep the springloaded pistolgrip switch in the RODS OUT position. Usually during a fast recovery startup, control rods were quickly pulled to criticality at a rate of five decades per minute, ten times the rate of a civilian reactor startup. Today the engineer had ordered pulling at nine decades per minute, the needle at the top of the gage face. This reactor would fry them to a nuclear crisp if the startup didn’t go perfectly.
“Start number four main coolant pump in slow,” Delaney ordered, as reactor power entered the power range. Manderson pulled on its T-handle. The amp-hour meter on the electric plant control panel ticked off the life of the battery.
“Eng,” the electrical operator said, “we’re losing the battery! I’ve gotta lower voltage!”
“No way,” Delaney said. “C’mon, Manderson, heat this bitch up. Pull the rods.” Manderson pulled rods out of the core with the pistolgrip switch. As the rods passed 16 inches out the temperature-needle swam off 350 degrees and headed upward, a second later reading 390, 410, 420, 435, 450, 470. As the core heated, the sound of a creaking, shrieking noise could be heard forward from the direction of the reactor compartment. Manderson yelled over his shoulder, “Sir, it’s gonna blow, thermal stress—”
Delaney yelled back, looking at the dangerously low battery voltage.
“Keep pulling, it’s our only chance—”
“500 degrees, sir.” Delaney grabbed his P.A. microphone. “ENGINEERING WATCH SUPERVISOR, EMERGENCY WARMUP THE STARBOARD TURNBINE GENERATOR.”
“Sir, only seconds left on the battery!”
“Hold on!” Actually, Delaney knew, the electrical operator was just as helpless as he was to keep the battery from dying. If they lost power now there would be no main coolant pumps circulating hot water to the boilers, no steam and no turbine generators. The ship would never recover. It was now, or never. The only acknowledgment from the Engineering Watch Supervisor was the howl of a turbine starting to come up to full revolutions in one massive burst of steam, sounding like a jet engine spinning up to full power. Delaney had never heard so welcome a sound.
A shout came at the door from the EWS, a sweating chief. “Starboard TG at 3600 RPM! On the governor and ready for loading!” Delaney was calling to the electrical operator before the EWS had finished. “Shift to a half power lineup on the port TG.” The electrical operator didn’t need to be told. As he paralleled in the turbine generator’s bus to the battery-powered vital bus, the battery breaker tripped open, the battery completely exhausted. There had, literally, not been a half-second to spare.
The torpedo room was a wreck, a flooded hellhole. Pacino stood in three feet of water, looking at the devastation. He had no idea how the flooding had been stopped. There was not a living person in the space, only men floating facedown in the water. Someone must have died stopping the flooding and had saved the ship.
Shattered weapons were scattered throughout the compartment, dumping explosive self-oxidizing fuel into the water, and self-oxidized fuel was reactive enough to burn underwater, Pacino realized. The water must be flowing into the battery well through the seams of the well’s deck hatch… which meant that chlorine gas would be pouring out of it at any minute.
Pacino reached into the overhead, opened a cubbyhole, pulled out a gas mask and put it on, inhaling stale copper-flavored air. The battery hatch blew open, sending up a pressurized geyser of green chlorine gas. Once the cloud escaped, the water in the space rushed into the battery well. There would be maybe ten or twenty seconds before the battery exploded, Pacino thought. He took a deep breath, unplugged his hose from the manifold of the air line and ran back up the ladders to the control room, thinking that he had not seen a living soul since slapping Rapier’s cheek.
As he rounded the bend at the top of the stairs at his stateroom door, it occurred to him that the lights were still on. In spite of the flooded battery. The engineer must have gotten the reactor critical! He hurried into Control, feeling the first glimmer of hope in a very long time. When the battery exploded below, it was a searing thump. He finally made it into the control room two decks up from where he had unplugged his hose. Lungs near bursting, he found the manifold above the smoking wreck of the Pos Three panel and plugged in. When he had sucked in a few breaths he was glad to see other air hoses snaking through the space. And he saw Rapier still sitting limp on the bench seat, but wearing a gas mask and looking at Pacino.
Suddenly a voice on the P.A. screamed from a speaker: “CONN, MANEUVERING, HALF POWER LINEUP ON THE STARBOARD TG, PROPULSION SHIFTED TO THE STARBOARD MAIN ENGINE. PROPULSION LIMIT, AHEAD STANDARD.”
Pacino reached for the microphone. “ENGINEER, CAPTAIN,” Pacino’s voice boomed throughout the ship! “AHEAD STANDARD! MAX TURNS!” Then as an afterthought: “TOXIC GAS EMERGENCY IN THE TORPEDO ROOM. ALL HANDS DON EMERGENCY MASKS.”