Shaking his head, he answered.
“No. Too complicated. The sealed-compartment safety design between watertight decks wouldn’t allow for them. The elevator’s our only means of vertical movement and it would work if we weren’t listing so badly.”
“So, Dr. Bowman,” he asked, “Are they as trapped on Deck 3 as we are on Deck 1? How can we get to the panic room and the EPod without the elevator?”
“We can’t,” he said flatly, “but we’re only trapped until I find an alternative exit. Do not worry. I will find a way.”
“What about using the SeaPods?” another crewman asked. “Can’t we load them up and make multiple trips?”
“You’re talking many hours of up and down travel to clear the station and we’ll still have two men trapped on level three. I expect more pressure breaches by then. The last trips won’t make it.”
Then fortunately, in an apparently premeditated move, Saunders entered the room from the pantry with an armload of MREs and spread them over the serving area.
“Come and get it. This may be your last meal… for a while,” he laughed. “I hate to see bad food go to waste.”
The laughter he created saved Bowman from the lynch mob forming in the mess. As they lined up for food, he nervously sat back with us and bowed his head.
Then he whispered, “What can I do now? I’m done. Someone please help me.”
As we began to discuss possible exit methods around the table, my mind wandered back to my civilian life at MBORC seeking an answer. The Alvin-class submersible, which I drove and had driven for years, had an ingenious emergency escape mechanism where the self-contained bubble cockpit could be released from its wrecked or trapped propulsion hull by a simple pull of a lever sending it soaring free-floating to the surface. I compared that to the station’s design and saw a great similarity: a disabled crawler base with a watertight pressurized dome over it. Could they be separated? I wondered.
“Dave,” I said interrupting his conversation, “Exactly how does the scuttle escape process work? I’ve heard that the EPod sealed in the apex of the dome is released by its crew then as it floats up uncovering the core, water rushes in and floods the submarine core and decks. Then a ton of explosives blows the station to smithereens. Is that an accurate view?”
“Not entirely, Matt. Scuttle is only intended to destroy all the computers, the terminals, and their data,” he answered with a glimmer of curiosity in his eyes. “The EPod is manually released by its occupants and does float to the surface as you said. But then to prevent the destruction of the nuclear power plant in the base with all the radiation it would spew, the dome mounted on explosive bolts, is released, floats up, and at a preselected distance, I think around five-hundred meters above the base, sixteen-hundred pounds of C4 explosives obliterate the station and spread it widely over the ocean’s floor. It’s basically like an underwater fireworks cannon.” He tilted his head. “Why do you ask?”
“Dave, your station is similar to our submersibles only they don’t blow up the life-saving sphere. Why use the EPod? We can’t access it anyway. Use the entire station as the rescue pod. Save everything don’t destroy it.”
“Hmm. Interesting idea, Matt.”
I could see the gears churning as he considered my idea. It was a slim hope but the only hope for us.
Briscoe catching on added, “So we release the dome without flooding it and ride it to the surface? Can that be done? It won’t have power without the nuclear plant. And we’ll be blown to bits halfway up.”
“But that can be fixed, Mr. Briscoe. The station has an internal battery bank that runs it for a short while around an hour or two allowing it to rise to its explosion depth. But I can bypass that to prevent the explosion… I think. Then all we have to do is break through the dome once it surfaces since there are no escape doors above the Pod Bay doors. Those doors will be useless without main power. And since we’ll still be trapped on Deck 1 we’ll have to break through one of the walls surrounding these four quads.”
“Is there any C4 on this deck?” I asked.
“Yes. One-hundred pounds in each quad placed in the walls around the peripheries.” Suddenly his spirit brightened.
“I see where you’re going, Matt. It’s a very long shot but if I can remember how the explosives are wired I can disable them all from the scuttle panel in my office. Then at the right time, once the dome surfaces I can pick any quad wall to blow, leaving all the others sealed. It’s a hack but it might work.”
“What about the inrushing water pressure when it blows? Won’t it kill us?” Williams asked.
He closed his eyes then answered, “No. The top of the dome should float above the water leaving our deck opening only twenty or thirty feet below the surface. It’s an easy free-dive escape for us. Should take less than a minute to float up and be rescued.
From a nearby crew table Lt. Jill Deason approached and stood over Bowman with her arms behind her back appearing defeated.
“The crew wants a short prayer service, Dr. Bowman, to memorialize those who have already died on the station and those who are about to die. Do you mind?”
Standing from his seat Briscoe offered an answer.
“I’ve given many eulogies for fallen police officers, Dr. Bowman. I’ll do it.”
Bowman nodded his approval.
“But don’t leave them without hope. We’re going to make it. Matt and I will be figuring a way to save the station. We’ve done it before, long ago.”
Watching the Chief walk to the center of the room and bow his head, starting a prayer, I whispered, “Come on Dave. Let’s go save these souls. We don’t have long.”
The normally short trip to his office took longer than usual as we climbed uphill through the vault and Z-room to back of Quad 4. Panting he rested his hands on his knees for a moment then kneeled at a wall plate labeled SCUTTLE PANEL behind his desk and started unscrewing screws. As they released and fell to the floor, I watched them race toward the front of the room and collect at the doorsill leading into the Z-room.
“Back here are the sixteen wire-pairs leading to the blasting caps,” he commented pulling the panel from the wall. “Now all we have to do is disconnect them from the pressure sensing activation probe.”
I peeked into the wall box and saw a rainbow of colored wires connecting to a long terminal strip. “But how do you know which ones to disconnect?”
“We need them all disconnected. Don’t want any automatic pressure detonations or we’ll flood halfway up.”
“Oh, right,” I said.
Then he pointed to the terminal trip.
“See these small labels? They start at D1Q1 and go to D4Q4. All we have to do is decide which quad wall on Deck 1 we want to blow when the time comes.”
“Dangerous voltage on those wires?”
“No, we use twelve volts but it’s the amperage that counts. A flashlight battery will work.” He opened his desk drawer and pulled out a flashlight then unscrewed its back and pitched me a D-cell, keeping one for himself.
Within a minute, back at the panel he had all the wire pairs disconnected and hanging loose from the box.
“Brown, red, orange, and yellow, each paired with white, mark the quads one through four on this deck,” he said. “Remember that in case something happens to me. We can find those wires leading to the C4 packs in each quad and intercept them there. Then all we’ll need is a wire cutter and that D-cell battery across the pair to blow the wall. Got that?”
I nodded yes hoping that I did. It was a lot to remember especially in the panic I expected to ensue.