He made it all the way to the engine room hatch before he had to stop and take a breath. He was in the “tunnel” the shielded passageway that led from the forward part of the ship, through the reactor compartment, and into the engine room. You weren’t supposed to loiter in the reactor compartment because even with its shielding it was still one of the higher radiation areas of the boat. But, thought Lehane as he caught his breath: that’s the least of my worries now. He took one more deep breath, unplugged, and moved forward.
He stepped over a man in the forward compartment; his face was down so Lehane couldn’t see who it was. Crew’s Mess was filled with men, and he couldn’t avoid looking into their dead eyes. None of them wore EAB’s which, in a strange way, gave Lehane hope. Maybe they hadn’t had time in the forward compartment, where the poison, whatever it was, was strongest. And maybe the EAB would save him.
He made it almost to the control room before he had to stop again, he was seeing stars from needing air so badly. The final few steps into control were blocked by the dead body of the XO. That was bad; the XO was the officer on the boat he trusted the most, and he wished the man would have made it to control.
He plugged in and exhaled, and then sucked in a deep breath as fast as the EAB would supply it to him. He coughed a little then. It occurred to him as he breathed the compressed air that it was just that: compressed air. The same air that surrounded him was jammed into the ship’s air banks by the High Pressure Air Compressors, or “Hipacs,” and redistributed to them throughout the ship by the EAB system of manifolds. If the hipacs took in the ship’s damaged air, then he was breathing that same air now. It all depended on which bank was online and when the air had been compressed. But he remembered the unmistakable sound of those hipacs running in the engine room. He inhaled deeply again, and was interrupted by a cough.
Well shit, he thought. But he was just feet away from control now. He took a final deep breath, slowly, trying to control the coughing welling up inside him. Then he unplugged and dashed into control.
The diving officer had fallen over in his chair, and was hanging across his seat belt. The COW was sprawled on the floor. Both planesmen were dead. Their controls had been usurped by the autopilot. And now it would be usurped again, as he shifted control to shaft alley and Baer to drive them to the surface. Lehane was wracked by a violent cough, but as it let up briefly, he lunged for the space between the two planesmen where he could activate the hydraulic valve that would give Baer control. They were just 150 feet beneath the surface. With the stern planes all the way up, they would be on the surface in seconds.
He had his hands on the valve handle when he got slammed in the head. He fell to the ground, struck hard. Barely conscious, he instinctively rolled away, trying to evade his attacker, but the EAB hose constrained him.
Fuck it, he thought, I’m sick anyway. He stripped the mask from his head. As he rolled away from it, his attacker struck again, bringing a heavy book down upon his now empty mask, crushing it.
Jumping to his feet, his ears still ringing from the blow, he could see it was Lieutenant Dwyer, the Officer of the Deck, who had attacked him. He was wearing an EAB that did not obscure the deranged look in his eyes.
“Sir, we need to shift control to shaft alley!”
“Not without the Captain’s order.” He was brandishing a heavy binder of procedures as if it was holy scripture.
“Fuck that,” said Lehane. He lunged again for the valve and the OOD came at him again with the binder. Lehane dodged it and it crashed into the console.
Jesus Christ, he thought, he’s literally trying to kill me with a procedure.
He moved for the valve again now, when behind him he heard the familiar sound of a .45 ratcheting.
“Don’t move, Petty Officer Lehane.”
He turned to see Dwyer pointing a service .45 right at his head.
“Sir, we have to shift control… Baer is in shaft alley, he’s ready to drive us up.”
“Not without an order from the captain.”
“Sir…”
“Move toward that valve again and I’ll kill you.”
Lehane felt himself growing weak, he didn’t know how much longer he could stand. He needed to cough but was afraid the movement might cause Dwyer to shoot. Dwyer still had his EAB on, it was hissing at him as he breathed hard. Even sick and weak, Dwyer couldn’t miss if he shot him: the control room was too small.
Suddenly the OOD coughed hard, and the inside of his EAB mask was covered in a thick coating of blood.
Lehane seized the opportunity, lunging sideways as the OOD squeezed off a blind shot; it hit the dead diving officer squarely between his shoulder blades with a thump. Lehane jumped on Dwyer as he stumbled backward from the recoil. The gun flew out of his hand.
Lehane punched him once, fought the urge to do more damage to the officer who had just moments before tried to kill him. But the OOD was weak; that shot was clearly one of his last acts. Dwyer laid flat on his back, gurgling on his own blood, and Lehane didn’t think he could hurt him anymore.
He turned back toward the ship control station and lurched toward the valve again. He was wracked by coughing as he went. He found the valve, and between coughs, he pushed in the safety lever, and turned the valve ninety degrees. He slumped to his knees and watched the stern planes indicator.
Nothing happened. They remained at zero degrees as the ship, oblivious to all the chaos inside her, steamed steadily onward.
He waited a few seconds, realized that his friend Baer was dead now too. He started coughing again, knew he was very near the end. He took the valve in his hand again, shifted control back to the control room. He would drive the ship up himself. He pushed Diaz aside and started to get in his seat, but he could no longer maneuver at all. Violent coughs consumed what was left of his energy.
He put both hands on the stern planes, remembered that the autopilot was still engaged. He turned to deactivate it. Lehane passed out as he reached for the control panel. He died ten minutes later.
There was one man left.
Seaman Luke Winn was sound asleep in his rack, that small rectangle of private space the ship had allotted him. He’d gone to bed with the permission of the benevolent Chief Zimmerman, between the jobs of painting and washing dishes in the scullery. He was deeply exhausted, and that fatigue, combined with the gentle motion of the ship as it went to sea, sent him into a deep, dreamless sleep.
When he awoke, he felt more rested than he had in days, happy to his core, deeply grateful to his chief, his chain of command, and to the United States Navy for taking mercy on him and granting him a few hours of much-needed sleep. He thought for a moment how odd it was to be at sea. It was something he’d anticipated, wondered and worried about, for months. At bootcamp he’d imagined his first departure as a dramatic moment, with brass bands playing and waves crashing. Instead he’d slept through the whole thing — and that didn’t bother him at all. Instead, a bolt of optimism shot through him about the adventure he’d just begun, a feeling that had been hard to get in touch with while he was covered in paint in the torpedo room bilge. He was underway on a nuclear submarine! It was weird and cool and something no one else in his high school class could say.
He looked at his watch, pushing the button to light up the blue digital numbers in his tiny pocket of dark space. Panic shot through him: he’d slept for four hours! He was two hours overdue in the scullery. Why had no one come to wake him? How much trouble was he in?