RED LETTER DAY FOR THE SOVIET NAVY
OR
THE HUNT FOR A TITLE NOT CALLED 'RED OCTOBER'
'In case you hadn't noticed, Sir, there's a WAR on!'
The door of the officers' quarters buckled slightly as the thin metal was slammed forcefully in the first officer's face. The disgruntled chief engineer stormed away down the narrow corridor back to his station cursing, not only his own impatience, but his superior officers' ignorance and, in his eyes, sheer stupidity. The first officer, for his part, merely stared dumbfound at the empty space once occupied by the engineer. Obviously keeping this replica sardine tin operational was putting far more strain on the man than he had realised. Especially after the latest radiation scare. One thing's for sure, he mused silently, sinking down into his chair to complete this morning's disastrous log entry; this job's no picnic...
The nuclear submarine Tovarich puttered along at a leisurely 16 knots, 12000 feet under the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, her twin props gleaming bronze in the grimy water. One of the first Soviet Alpha-Class Attack Submarines, her recent voyage and those before it had been nothing if not eventful. Sure, they were designed to be the swiftest and most powerful submergible vessels in the North Sea and beyond nevertheless submarines designed by desk bound engineers, bureaucrats and politicians came with a few major design flaws, apart from the fact that they were completely and utterly impractical. They ran on nuclear power as opposed to diesel which raised many questions as to safety; the hull, while capable at keeping the enormous pressures of the sea depth at bay were extremely susceptible to pretty much everything else; and unlike their American counterparts, Soviet subs were designed to hold the largest complement of torpedoes possible at the expense of, well, just about everything else. Even so, the most commonplace cause of failure and casualties was fire – more so than Allied torpedoes. You can't douse a fire in a submarine with water even though you are surrounded by the stuff. Bit ironic really. All in all, a guaranteed recipe for 'low morale' amongst the crew and 'nervousness' amongst the officers. What the brass in Moskau (Moscow) didn't realise or didn't care was the fact that most of the psychological evaluations rated this feeling closer to 'borderline terror'.
This particular engineer (who had just committed a severe act of insubordination) spent close to every waking hour and then some, staring almost unblinkingly at radiation hazard signs, exposure levels, coolant temperatures and flashing lights - right down to how many people had their table lights on in their cabins. He knew every wire, every button connected to every wire, every switch, panel and vent so he knew exactly how to cripple her and then put her right again if need be. There were men in this war who liked to make their presence known; who liked to stare their enemies in the eye as they pulled whatever metaphorical trigger they had their fingers tightened on but not this man. By all accounts no one would know who had sealed their fate in their motorized coffin, no one would know how or why he had done so and that suited him just fine. They could just stick their narrow minded world into their communist pipes and smoke it. Hopefully choking to death in the process. Besides, because of these men, the very men he sailed with, thousands would suffer. He had no particular love for the Amerikantsi (Americans) and truthfully he had no particular love for his Rodina (Motherland) or his fellow countrymen but that, for the moment, was immaterial. Murderers were murderers no matter what name they bear and now, in a universal fit of irony, he was to become one. Perhaps some of the crew could survive, theoretically, if they reached surface depth quick enough, then again they could not. Who was he to speculate? It was speculation that got them all into this mess in the first place.
Chyort, he cursed silently, singing the pale flesh on the back of his hand on the reactor vent. As he pulled the last breaker from its circuit the entire electrical system shorted itself out and became a ticking bomb without a timer – or a ticking noise for that matter. At the other end of the engineering corridor a row of monitors and banks of equipment exploded in a spectacular shower of sparks.