An hour after that the ship had come to mast-broach depth to connect with Yokosuka headquarters for the video conference linking each ship’s captain to Admiral Tanaka. It was then that the nightmare had begun.
The reactor had been tripped. Gama had broken his video connection and run to the control room. Strapping himself into the command console’s cocoon-like wraparound panels, he investigated why the ship had lost the reactor. To his back, his chief mechanical officer insisted on starting the emergency diesel, but Gama held him off, equally insistent that they find out what was going on. Finally he traced the problem to the after escape trunk hatch relay, which made no sense. The loss of electrical power from losing the reactor had killed the video surveillance system, and by the time it was back up, the trunk appeared dry, yet the lower hatch had registered being opened and then shut.
Meanwhile the ship began to behave oddly, acting as if the vessel was heavy aft. After three minutes of interrogating the Second Captain, the computer finally reported a sudden addition of weight near the X-tail rudder minutes before the shutdown. That weight had been added over the exact location of the after escape hatch.
Fumio Sugimota, Gama’s first officer, had gone white, saying that it must be a DSRV, a deep-submergence rescue vehicle, that had added the weight. At first Suruki Gama had disagreed with him. The thought of some sort of commando force trying to take the ship was ludicrous.
But then the video camera on the steam module middle level revealed what looked like a large group of frogmen assembled at the forward hatch, all of them carrying large machine pistols. In what was seeming like a dream, he found himself giving rapid orders to prepare to fight off an invasion of his submarine.
“Ship Control Officer, take the deck,” Gama ordered Lieutenant Jintsu at the ship-control console. Releasing his five-point harness, he tossed his headset to the deck and hurried out of the room.
As Gama dashed aft along the wood-lined passageway, the Second Captain’s voice rang out throughout the compartment, “The reactor is self-sustaining.” That meant the chief mechanical officer had recovered the nuclear reactor. Simultaneously the fans came on, their deep bass reverberating overhead, the ducts blowing frosty gusts into Gama’s sweat-soaked hair. At least one casualty was over.
Halfway down the passageway toward Gama’s stateroom, a few steps from the ladder to the middle level, he saw his stateroom door slam open and his three most senior officers burst from the room. Sugimota was in the lead, carrying an R-35 automatic rifle in each hand, as if he’d known Gama would come. Without a word Sugimota handed over one of the rifles and then followed Gama down the steep staircase to the middle level.
In contrast to the upper level’s functionality, the middle level was more lavishly furnished. Bright crystal light fixtures protruding from the bulkheads near the overhead shone down on polished wood grain paneling and carpeting with a vine and leaf pattern on a blue field.
The bottom of the stairway emerged into the centerline passageway. On the right, a row of doors opened onto the officers’ staterooms. The doors on the left led to the recreational center — the galley and messroom, officers’ conference room, and exercise area. The passageway continued aft to the compartment bulkhead, dead-ending at a hatch to the steam compartment. The hatch on this side was covered with wood paneling, disguising its presence.
Gama paused, aware that he was at a severe disadvantage, despite the fact that defending a piece of territory was easier than attacking it. He thought back to his days as a midshipman, his cross-training with the Self-Defense Force, dashing through a forest with a helmet, dark green facial camouflage, an R-35 automatic rifle in his hand. The whole drill had seemed like a childish game of playing soldier. So it felt now, except his stomach was churning with anxiety — anxiety that he would lose his command, the ship he’d been entrusted, the trillion-yen miracle machine for which he held absolute responsibility.
That, and fear he was about to get killed.
Gama fought to clear his mind, to flush away such negative thoughts. No matter what, he would conduct himself as a commanding officer, the ship’s captain.
His next order was made with a deep voice, hard as steel, without a single tremor. “First, stand by the hatch to the steam module. Navigator, take the doorway of stateroom three. Ops Officer, you take the doorway to the messroom. I’ll help Sugimota. When these men come in, all of you shoot low. They’ll come in crawling, expecting you to aim high. Everyone clear?”
The others were suddenly reassured. Off they ran to their tasks, unaware of the struggle Gama was fighting inside.
Lieutenant Commander Umigiri, the young navigator, looked at him with narrowed eyes, any fear he was feeling masked. Gama frowned at him, surprised that the youth could exhibit such self-control. “Sir, what if these are our men, sent on an exercise by Admiral Tanaka to test us?”
“Impossible,” Gama spat, continuing aft with Sugimota. “I’d have been briefed on it. No more discussion. Everyone, take your safeties to the off position. Here they—”
Chu was about to shove the hatch open when a speaker overhead suddenly blasted out a female Japanese voice.
“The reactor is self-sustaining.”
“What did she say?” Chu asked Lo, but in the next moment he already knew. The eerie quiet of the ship was replaced by a booming roar, coming from the overhead.
Chu realized the air conditioning was coming back on.
“The reactor is back on-line,” Lo said, glancing over.
“Hold it, men,” Chu said quietly. Defenders might already be coming, so it would be best to enter the space prepared. “Weapons at ready. Insert on my mark… three, two—”
Chu was amazed to discover that he fully expected to die. Never before, not even when he had ejected from the exploding wreck of his Yak over Go Hai Bay, had he ever thought he was anywhere near death. But now he could feel it, just on the other side of this hatch.
Beyond was not some uncaring darkness but an animated spirit, ready to take him. It was as if a voice had trumpeted into his skulclass="underline" Chu Hua-Feng is a dead man.
With that thought he became filled with violent fury, anger at himself, at this fouled-up mission, at the killers of his father, at the Japanese, and at life itself. The anger was like a fireball that burned him from the inside. He sneered viciously, baring his teeth.
A furious scream erupted from his lips the instant before he smashed the hatch open with an explosive thrust.
He surged into the compartment, his weapon lowered, the silenced rounds bursting from his pistol.
Just before the hatch, Fumio Sugimota lifted his R-35 rifle, his index finger just barely brushing the trigger. The rifle’s safety was off, the clip loaded, a round in the chamber.
Suddenly the hatch exploded outward at him with a speed he never thought possible for such a heavy device.
With iron force it smashed him in the forearm and spun him around. Even before he could register the snap of his bone breaking, the hatch smacked into the wall of the passageway, then rebounded from the bulkhead rubber stop and cracked into his face, shattering his nose.
He had the briefest impression of figures standing inside the open hatchway. One of them let loose a rasping, phlegm-laced war whoop. Just before the hatch swung back in his face, he tried to raise the weapon to fire it.