“Pulling group two to criticality.” On the display, he monitored the source range nuclear instrument, the power level slowly climbing out of the startup range. He looked at the startup rate meter, which was climbing up from two decades per minute to three. Each decade was an increase in the neutron flux power level by a factor of ten. Startup rate climbed. Seven, eight, nine decades per minute, a rate fast enough to make a civilian nuclear operator faint dead away, and in fact, the procedure was so dangerous that the ship was required to be more than fifty miles from land to execute it.
Pacino released the pistol grip, the rods holding at eighteen inches from the bottom. At nine decades per minute, the reactor power was screaming out of the startup range and headed for the intermediate range. He reached to the touch screen and deactivated the source range nuclear instrument, which would be burned out by the flux of the intermediate range. The intermediate startup rate meter came alive and showed a startup rate of eight decades per minute. Pacino shimmed out until the needle was steady at nine decades per minute.
Thirty seconds later, the reactor power level had reached the power range, that level of neutron flux where additional reactivity insertion into the core could heat up the water of the primary loop.
Pacino clicked the 1MC mike. “The reactor… is critical.”
Pacino pulled rods out and watched reactor average temperature. Normally, the heat-up rate was required to be slow, to avoid blowing up the reactor vessel from thermal stress, but this was an emergency. The core temperature came up from 300 to 350, then 400. Soon average core temperature was 500 degrees. It was time for the reactor to take over from the battery.
“Reactor is in the power range,” he announced on the 1MC. “Your show, Chief,” he shouted to MacHinery. “Start up the engineroom.”
“Give me main seawater pumps one and two, aux feedwater pump one and engineroom freshwater pump two,” he said. Pacino spun around to the aft panel and hit the toggle switches for the pumps. As he did, MacHinery left to start the steam plant.
The faint hiss of steam could be heard in the piping overhead. On the display panel, Pacino watched the steam generator levels. The trick was to get a steam turbine generator online before the boilers went dry, and since the main feed pump to the boilers couldn’t be started on the battery, there was a huge hurry to get a steam turbine on the grid. Failure at this would mean the reactor plant would die.
The steam sound was roaring and screaming now as the steam headers dumped out the condensation and warmed up. Chief MacHinery skidded to a halt at the door to maneuvering.
“I’ve got full vacuum on the port condenser. I’m gonna crank the port SSTG now,” he said, then disappeared. Aft of maneuvering, on the port side, the sound of a turbine rolling could be heard. Soon it was loud in the space, the sound a bass whining, then starting a soprano scream, almost as if a jet engine were roaring up to full throttle right outside the maneuvering room. Finally, the shrieking scream steadied on pitch, and a moment later MacHinery put his head into the room.
“Port turbine generator is on the governor and ready for loading! I’m going to the feed station! Get that SSTG on the bus!”
Pacino selected the ship’s service turbine generator frequency meter and touched the function to parallel it into the AC bus, whose frequency was managed by the motor-generator. It would be disastrous if the steam turbine came online out of synchronization — it could jump right off its steel foundation. But the auto-synch function worked perfectly. Pacino loaded up the turbine generator, taking the load off the battery.
He clicked the 1MC mike. “Electric plant is in a half power lineup on the port SSTG,” he announced. That was MacHinery’s cue to start one of the massive feed pumps to put water into the almost dry boilers.
He saw the pump energized indication and watched as boiler water levels climbed off the bottom.
There was a damage control saying in the submarine force, Pacino thought. First, save the mission. Obviously, that was no longer possible. Second, save the ship. For the moment, the ship was safe, but that deck tilting aft had to be looked into. It had gotten a little worse. Third, save the reactor. Done, Pacino thought. Fourth, save the crew.
“Chief, can you take over here?” Pacino called.
“I got it, L.T.,” MacHinery said. “Good job, sir.”
“Chief, we’re taking on water aft,” Pacino said. “Deck is tilting since I emergency blew. See if you can find where the flooding is. I’ll call you from forward and maybe I can get the drain pump running.”
As Pacino passed through the forward hatch of the reactor compartment tunnel, he almost ran into Senior Chief Corpsman Thornburg.
“Doc,” Pacino said. “How are we doing?”
Thornburg shook his head solemnly. “I’m setting up triage in the crew’s mess,” he said. “Some folks are walking wounded, but we’ve lost some people.”
“Keep working, Doc,” Pacino said, clapping the chief’s shoulder. “I’ll be in control.”
26
Weapons Officer Captain Lieutenant Ballerina Katerina Sobol lay face down in the central command post, unconscious. Her breathing was slow and deep, her pulse likewise slow. She lay like that for a long time until the pool of blood reached the level of her mouth and nostrils, and she began to inhale blood.
She woke suddenly, spitting and coughing. She tried to sit up, but the vertigo of her sudden movement made her fall back down again, back into that bloody pond. She pulled her face out, wiping off the blood with her sleeve, and blinked in the light of the emergency lanterns at the four corners of the room. They were weak and trying to illuminate the space through a light haze of smoke. Sobol took in a breath but couldn’t smell anything burning. She reached up to her head and found the bleeding gash. It hurt, but it was superficial. She reached up to a handhold at the attack center console, where she had been strapped in by a five-point harness to her seat, but the seat had been ripped from the deck and the seatbelts had broken off, dumping her to the deck. She pulled herself up, noticing for the first time the distinct list to starboard. At least an alarming ten degrees, in an environment where even one degree of tilt was noticeable. She looked around the space. The watchstanders, the captain, and the first officer were all still buckled into their seats, but no one seemed awake.
She stepped to the command console and felt Captain Alexeyev’s cheeks. His eyepatch had flown off in the high-G shockwave and it was nowhere to be seen. His skin was warm. She felt his neck for a pulse, and it was strong and slow. She lightly slapped his face.
“Captain. Captain! Captain?”
There was no response. She tried to awaken the first officer. “Madam First! Madam Lebedev! Wake up, madam!”
Nothing. The right-hand seat of the command console was the watch officer’s chair. Captain Lieutenant Vilen Shvets, the communications officer, was out cold. She tried to rouse him, with the same result. She looked down at the console displays, but they were all black. She looked around the room, and every console was dark.
“Second Captain,” she said loudly to the AI system. “Second Captain, respond!”
There was no answer.
She forced herself to recognize the good news. She seemed to be the only one conscious after the nuclear explosion. And no one seemed to be dead, at least not yet. But the ship, she thought. The ship was dying.