Kuzmin answered his friend with a sarcastic smile.
Yet his grin soon faded as his hand went to his mouth and pulled out a long strand of yellow hair.
“See, he was a blond!” Zinyakin exclaimed and shook with laughter as the which man loudly belched, then pushed the tray away.
“I’ll get us some tea,” offered the still chuckling sonar operator.
Distastefully picking his teeth with his fingernail, Kuzmin hastily scanned the rapidly tilling room. A line had formed at the serving station. The crowd chatter was unusually hushed in response to the continuing state of General Quarters.
As he surveyed the filled tables, Kuzmin noticed an absence of senior officers. The captain was also nowhere to be seen. Previously, he had done his best to share this sitting with them whenever his duties allowed. Remembering the torn plastic cassette in his pocket, Kuzmin wished that Valenko would appear now, so that he could tell the captain of his finding.
Zinyakin returned with their tea. Over a bowl of fruit compote, discussion turned to their families.
Both men proudly displayed the latest pictures of their sons. Since both children were of a similar age, it was hoped that they would grow up together as friends.
But if the navy had its way, there was no telling where either of them would be shipped off to next.
Kuzmin left the mess still a bit hungry but in excellent spirits.
Without hesitation he made his way to his bunk. Far from being afforded the luxury of private quarters, his position as warrant officer still allowed him a greater degree of privacy than the majority of the enlisted men. Most of the conscripts slept in large communal dorms. Even their mattresses were “hot,” meaning that one man slept while another worked.
The which man shared his leisure space with a chief petty officer and two first-class petty officers. Though they had no walls between them, a drawn curtain around one’s bunk guaranteed privacy. Kuzmin kicked off his shoes and peeled off his uniform.
Clothed now in an undershirt and sciwies, he climbed into his bunk, pulled the curtain around him and crawled under the rumpled sheets. As he settled on his back, he burped loudly and again tasted the single bite of greasy sausage that he had consumed at dinner. Three belches later, he silently cursed Chef Anatoly and seriously reconsidered Lev Zinaykin’s tale regarding the mysterious source of the sausage stuffing.
Shifting to his side, he attempted to close his eyes, when an alien discomfort began gnawing in his belly.
This ache continued to intensify until he found sleep all but impossible. He gratefully remembered the bottle of antacid tablets that Galina had forced him to pack along with his few personal toilet items. He sat up with another burp and reached under his mattress for his leather shaving kit.
The thick white tablets had a gritty, chalky taste, yet he managed to force down four of them. Even then, his stomach still burned. To get his mind off his discomfort, he decided that this would be the perfect time to work on’re splicing the broken tape. Since it could just as easily be accomplished in the comfort of his bunk, he reached out for the cassette, grabbed a set of miniature screwdrivers and immersed himself in the job.
The screws that held. the plastic tape holder together were tiny.
After removing them, Kuzmin took extra care to place them in a spot where they would not get lost. Once the two halves of the cassette were separated, he began the delicate task of splicing together the torn ends of the narrow, plastic ribbon.
With steady hands, he used a tiny piece of clear masking tape to do the trick. Careful not to allow the spools to unwind, he screwed the holder back together and wound it tight with his pinky.
With the repair work finished, he decided to listen to the tape and see what it contained. Once again he reached under his bunk, this time removing his prized Sorry Walkman, which he had picked up a year ago in Cam Rahn Bay. This device had afforded him hours of listening pleasure, though both prerecorded tapes and batteries were often hard to obtain. Snapping the Walkman open, he pulled out his treasured tape of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and inserted the tape from the sensor recorder. With the miniature sponge-covered speakers clipped to his ears, he hit the play button and found himself startled by a deafening, grinding roar. Quickly, he reached over and turned down the volume.
Kuzmin was certain he was hearing the explosion that they had monitored earlier. When the sound abruptly ceased, to be replaced by utter silence, he knew that he had reached the spot where the break had occurred. He pressed the stop button and hit rewind.
As the which man sat up, he realized that his stomach ache had passed.
Gone, too, were all thoughts of sleep. Since it was evident that the recording mechanism had been functioning up to the point of the blast, he was confident that he’d be able to identify the doomed vessel. All he needed was access to the Vulkan’s computer.
Kuzmin pulled back the curtain, crawled oft the bunk and got dressed.
To insure a private work space, he chose the sub’s attack center.
Located on the floor directly above him, this equipment-packed compartment would only be utilized during the times of actual combat.
Here, the Vulkan’s various offensive and defensive functions were monitored.
As he had hoped, the attack center indeed proved vacant. After positioning himself before the room’s central keyboard, he inserted the cassette tape into the playback mechanism and tapped into the vessel’s sensor identification banks. With the assistance of a pair of headphones, he listened to the distant surging that occupied the first half of the tape. Though he was unable to make any sense out of this jumble of noise, the computer had much better luck. When the monitor flashed alive, the which man quickly scanned the screen for his requested data.
Propulsion source: Geared steam turbines, 100,000 slip; 2 shafts, 34 knots.
Group Classification: Soviet Kresta-class cruiser. Sensor Deployment: 1 variable depth communications array.
Kuzmin pushed his headphones closer to his ears as an alien turbulence sounded above the steady hum of the cruiser’s turbines. Again he asked the computer to identify the signature.
Propulsion source: Stored chemical energy. Group Classification: Soviet SS-N-7 conclusion tipped torpedo.
Probable source: Alfa-class attack sub.
The significance of this data only sank in when the tape filled with the sound of the massive explosion.
The which man pulled the headphones off and stared out, wide-eyed. The vessel that had been blasted was indeed of Soviet origin. What shocked him was the puzzling fact that the weapon that had sent it to the bottom was also one of their own. Had a tragic miscalculation taken place topside, or was this attack somehow intentional? Kuzmin knew only one individual who could possibly answer this question. With a determined stride, he took off for the cabin of Petyr Valenko.
The warrant officer barely noticed the sour heaviness that lay in his gut as he traversed the hallway leading to officer country. Not really sure what he had chanced upon, he could only be certain that four hundred of his comrades most likely lay dead in the nearby waters. If this meant that the alert they currently found themselves in was not a mere exercise, and a shooting war actually existed, one question remained: who was the enemy? He was still trying to puzzle it out as he turned down the corridor that brought him to the captain’s quarters.
Standing outside Petyr Valenko’s door was a grim faced senior seaman.
Kuzmin was shocked to find the sailor with a holstered pistol on his hip.
“Comrade Olenya, what is the meaning of your current duty? Is something the matter with the Captain?”
The big-boned Georgian sentry returned Kuzmin’s inquisitive glance with one of bored indifference.