The concussions of the grenades had damaged the SDV’s air supply and on board navigation system. The result was everyone had to go back on their LAR-7 rebreathers. But with hers damaged, she was forced to leech off the others. The result was she’d been on the edge of panic for the last several hours, fearful of running out of breathable air, fearful of the North Korean’s damaging the SDV further, fearful of drowning, and fearful of being captured. However, despite the terror she’d felt, she’d been forced to set her own fear aside so she could handle Choi.
The doctor had been revived from his sedated state by the cold water. So, in addition to the constant concussions of grenades in the water above them threatening to further damage the SDV or kill them, and her having to suck oxygen from others, she’d been forced to constantly reassure Choi they were going to be okay. She’d managed to hide her fear, but it hadn’t simply gone away. Instead, the fear, the tension, the stress had built up within her, and it felt almost overwhelming now as she fought to hold it together.
Doc Reed asked, “XO, can the Lieutenant come with us to sickbay to help communicate?”
“Yes, but get moving, we don’t have a lot of time,” Graves warned as he hung up a ship’s phone.
“What’s wrong?” COB asked.
“The torpedo has locked on to us, and the skipper is trying to evade.”
“Torpedo?” Kristen asked not certain she could handle much more. The proceeding few days had been a rapid fire series of traumatic events starting with Vance’s suicide. She now felt punch drunk and wasn’t certain just how much more she could take.
The Seawolf heeled hard over and accelerated as four men prepared to lift the stretcher and get the doctor to sickbay. Once Choi was all strapped in and ready to transport with the oxygen positioned between his legs and an EKG rolling, Reed looked to the XO.
“Sir?”
“Go!” Graves ordered as the next group of SEALs appeared from the escape trunk.
With COB leading the way, the four men hoisted the stretcher and started to run. Kristen ran along with them as the Seawolf reversed her turn. They moved forward and came to the first dogged hatch. COB immediately began opening it while the men carrying the stretcher set it down and grabbed onto whatever they could find as the Seawolf’s turn became so severe it seemed the submarine might roll completely over.
The blare of the collision alarm sounded throughout the boat, alerting everyone on board that the torpedo was expected to hit. With this warning, COB immediately reversed loosening the latches, sealing the hatch he’d been opening and once more secured it. Kristen understood. If the Seawolf was hit and began to take on water, their only hope for survival would be to control the flooding by maintaining enough watertight compartments intact so they could remain sufficiently buoyant to reach the surface.
Everyone clung to whatever they could.
Kristen could see terror on many faces. But she felt no fear any more, just a numb acceptance regarding what might happen if the torpedo hit. Instead of fear, she focused on Choi, strapped helplessly to the stretcher. While everyone else grabbed hold of something to brace themselves, she lowered herself over him. She could see the abject fear in his eyes as he lay helpless on the stretcher, and she covered him protectively with her own body. “It’s going to be okay,” she told him over and over again, trying to make herself believe it.
The deck beneath them was literally shaking as the sub’s reduction gears and steam turbines were thrown past red line, driving the Seawolf forward ever faster. She continued whispering to the doctor, fighting to hold it together. Then she heard a sudden, ear-splitting hissing noise above her head. Her first thought was that a steam pipe had burst above her, but then she recognized the sound of high pressure air rushing into the ballast tanks, forcing the water out and making the Seawolf lighter as the bow planes turned the nose of the Seawolf upward. Within seconds, she felt the deck arching up at an impossible angle.
She gripped the stretcher with one hand and a pipe with the others to keep her and Choi from sliding along the deck as the submarine shot upward. “It’s okay,” she kept whispering into Choi’s ear as the Seawolf suddenly leveled out and turned back in the other direction, reversing the turn again. At the same time, the bow came back down and they dove back toward the depths.
Then, just when it seemed things couldn’t get any worse, the torpedo detonated.
For a brief moment it felt as if the deck beneath her had been suddenly removed as the Seawolf was thrust forcefully downward from the blast. The lights flickered and the entire ship shuddered frightfully. She grimaced, tensing every muscle in her body to prevent herself from screaming in terror.
The lights flickered again and briefly went out before coming back on as alarms sounded from several directions. The roar of high pressure water spraying against a bulkhead from a ruptured pipe also greeted her. But, before she could even look up, COB was already reaching for a shut off valve to seal the ruptured pipe.
“Move! Move!” COB ordered as he worked to stop the water spraying from the pipe with the speed of a bullet.
The stretcher team grabbed the litter and resumed heading for sickbay. As they moved, they came across an injured sailor with a wicked laceration across his forehead who was trying to stem the flow of blood with a rag. Graves split from the stretcher team and ran up a ladder to the control room while Kristen and her team continued to sickbay.
Choi was sweating as they reached the small sickbay where he was set on a table. Kristen stood by his head, holding the oxygen mask in place, aware the Seawolf was no longer diving and twisting in evasive maneuvers but was once more cruising straight and level. Doc Reed began checking Choi while she continued talking to him, trying to keep him calm and hopefully prevent him from having a heart attack.
Reed started an IV. “Tell him I’m giving him a little something for his heart and also to help him relax,” he explained.
A few feet away, seated in a chair, Hamilton was already stripped to the waist and being treated by Hoover for a gunshot wound to his upper chest and shoulder region. Kristen thought Hamilton looked far too relaxed as he sat calmly chomping on a piece of gum. She stared at him briefly, wishing she could be so calm, but at the same time wondering just what his life had been like that allowed him to appear so relaxed despite all they’d been through.
“You all right, Ell-Tee?” Hamilton asked.
Kristen nodded slightly, not certain she would ever be okay again, but unwilling to admit it to anyone but herself. Hoover paused attending Hamilton and looked her way.
“You want a tranq, Ell-Tee?”
“A what?”
“A tranquilizer,” Hoover offered, “I’ve got some pretty good shit in my bag that’ll settle you right down.”
Kristen shook her head, “No.” She then added, looking at the bullet wound in Hamilton’s shoulder, “Just take care of Mister Hamilton.”
Hamilton seemed to think anyone calling him “Mister” was humorous and chuckled, “You crack me up, Ell-Tee.”
“Humor,” Kristen said without a hint of it in her voice, “just one of the many services I offer.”