“Beyond forty five degrees,” the helmsman reported. “Still on full dive. Not working.”
Malone gripped the table harder and fought to maintain his balance.
“Nine hundred feet and dropping.”
The depth indicator changed so fast the numbers blurred. The boat was rated to three thousand feet, but the bottom was coming up fast and the outside water pressure was rising—too much, too fast, and the hull would implode. But slamming into the seabed in a powered dive wasn’t a pleasant prospect, either.
Only one thing left to do.
“All back emergency. Blow all ballast tanks.”
The boat shook as machinery obeyed his command. Propellers reversed and compressed air thundered into tanks, forcing water out. The helmsman held tight. The planesman readied himself for what Malone knew was coming.
Positive buoyancy returned.
The descent slowed.
The bow angled upward, then leveled.
“Control the flow,” he ordered. “Keep us neutral. I don’t want to go up.”
The planesman responded to his command.
“How far to the bottom?”
Blount returned to his station. “Two hundred feet.”
Malone’s gaze shot to the depth indicator. Twenty-four hundred. The hull groaned from the strain, but held. His eyes locked on the OPENINGS indicators. Lights showed all valves and breaches closed. Finally, some good news.
“Set us down.”
The advantage of this sub over all others was its ability to rest on the ocean floor. It was just one of many specialized traits the design possessed—like the aggravating power and control system, of which they’d just experienced a graphic demonstration.
The sub settled on the bottom.
Everyone in the conn stared at one another. No one spoke. No one had to. Malone knew what they were thinking. That was close.
“Do we know what happened?” he asked.
“Engine room reports that when that valve was closed for repair, the normal and emergency steering and dive systems failed. That’s never happened before.”
“Could they tell me something I don’t know?”
“The valve is now reopened.”
He smiled at his engineer’s way of saying, If I knew more I’d tell you. “Okay, tell them to fix it. What about the reactor?”
They’d surely used a crapload of battery power fighting the unscheduled descent.
“Still down,” his executive officer reported.
That hour for restart was fast expiring.
“Captain,” Blount said from the sonar station. “Contact outside the hull. Solid. Multiple. We seem to be nestled in a boulder field.”
He decided to risk more power. “Cameras and outside lights on. But this will be a quick look-see.”
The video displays sprang to life in clear water speckled with glistening bits of life. Boulders surrounded the sub, lying at angles across the seabed.
“That’s odd,” one of the men said.
He noticed it, too. “They’re not boulders. They’re blocks. And large ones. Rectangles and squares. Focus in on one.”
Blount operated the controls and the camera’s focus tightened on the face of one of the stones.
“Holy crap,” his exec said.
Markings marred the rock. Not writing, or at least nothing he recognized. A cursive style, rounded and fluid. Individual letters seemed grouped together, like words, but none he could read.
“It’s on the other blocks, too,” Blount said, and Malone studied the remaining screens.
They were engulfed by ruin, the pieces of which loomed like spirits.
“Shut down the cameras,” he said. At the moment power, not curiosities, was his main concern. “Are we okay here, if we sit still?”
“We settled in a clearing,” Blount said. “We’re fine.”
An alarm sounded. He located the source. Electrical panels.
“Captain, they need you forward,” yelled his second in command over the squelch.
He scrambled from the conn and hustled toward the ladder that led up into the sail. His engineer was already standing at its base.
The alarm stopped.
He felt heat and his eyes locked on the decking. He bent down and lightly touched the metal. Hot as hell. Not good. One hundred fifty silver-zinc batteries lay beneath the decking in an aluminum well. He’d learned from bitter experience that their makeup was far more artistic than scientific. They constantly malfunctioned.
An engineer’s mate worked four screws that held the decking in place, freeing them one by one. The cover was removed, which revealed a churning storm of boiling smoke. Malone instantly knew the problem. Potassium hydroxide fluid in the batteries had overflowed.
Again.
The deck plate was slammed back into place. But that would buy them only a few minutes. The ventilation system would soon disperse the acrid fumes throughout the boat and, with no way to vent the poisonous air, they’d all be dead.
He raced back to the control room.
He didn’t want to die, but their choices were rapidly diminishing. Twenty-six years he’d served on subs—diesels