Sineater asked: Whumptober Prompt
No. 8: SLEEP DEPRIVATION/Isolation Chamber
Thunderbirds with Gordon.
Character: Gordon
Warnings: At War, Mentions of Medical Treatments, Minor Panic Attack
'Full ahead.'
'Full ahead.'
The command was repeated by the engine room as the sub ploughed on through the waters. Nothing was said in the command deck or elsewhere in the sub for several minutes. Then the Commander virtually whispered into the comms.
'Reduce speed.'
'Bring her up as discussed.'
'Silent running.'
And suddenly Gordon's stomach dropped as the full import of the words hit him.
Silent running.
They were at war.
Looking around at those gathered around him he could see the same knowledge manifesting on their faces, and he swallowed. And then everyone got on with their normal activities, only much, much quieter.
Later, as Gordon lay in his bunk for his designated sleep shift, he couldn't help but wonder where Scott was. While he was under the water, the sub tasked with keeping cargo ships safe from Bereznik's own small but deadly fleet of subs, Scott was doing the same thing in the air, flying escort for aid planes.
No one had believed that Bereznik would dissolve into civil war, much less break World Government sanctions and declare war on their neighbours Germany, Denmark and Finland. No one had believed that the war would now be in its third year.
Scott had said it would be over in months, that Gordon would not need to worry about going to war. Scott had been wrong. But then, in a flash of understanding, Gordon realised that it hadn't been Scott deluding himself and others, it had been Scott's hopeful wish that his younger brother wouldn't need to do this…
His fellow submariners were all either green or grey – only just finished training or redeployed from retired. WASP hadn't been prepared for an all-out war, hell – there hadn't even been a sniff of war since the Global Conflict their father had been in – and it had been a general call to arms. Even the sub they were in had needed to be quickly recommissioned.
War does funny things to a person.
Submarines do funny things to people.
War and subs do even weirder things to a person's psyche.
Gordon had wanted to be a WASP almost as long as he'd wanted an Olympic gold. His Dad had been good friends with Sam Shore and had arranged for him to have a look around Marineville and one of the B1 Bathyscapes that was currently at the base. He'd been smitten with the sub from the get-go and had served some of his cadet time onboard a Bathyscape.
He'd loved the little sub, but he had his sights set on a bigger prize. Everyone knew that the Stingray-class subs were the up-and-coming stars of WASP and Gordon was determined to be one of the lucky ones.
His record was spotless and he worked his butt off, but then Bereznik sank a cargo ship in the Atlantic and it was all hands on deck.
The rest, as they say, was history.
The days passed, full of tension and worry. Gordon couldn't call his Dad or brothers, but the tension was getting to him. Mostly because he knew that Scott was in the thick of things and Gordon needed to know that he was alright.
Six hours on, six hours off – that was the routine on the sub. In those six hours off he was supposed to eat, rest and sleep. But he couldn't sleep. Every time he closed his eyes all he could see was Scott's jet being shot down in flames.
Pretty soon he was so sleep deprived he was losing concentration. He wasn't the only one, and soon the powers that be gave them more time to rest by dividing the crew into more shifts.
It didn't help Gordon. He'd never suffered from insomnia before but he knew that Scott had all his life, and he found a new sense of awe that his brother was so…human in the mornings despite getting less than three hours of sleep some nights.
There was a certain irony that he never even considered that his sub could be the one hit, Gordon thought, as seven days turned into eight. But day eight turned out to be their number…
One minute Gordon's eyes are closing, the next they are flying open as Scott's jet once more was taken out by a missile and hit a tree, and then suddenly Gordon was on the floor and alarms were blaring.
He didn't need to be told twice. Grabbing his emergency Submarine Escape Immersion Equipment – also known as the Tango suit because they were bright orange – Gordon struggled into it while heading for his designated escape trunk. It wasn't easy to dress while running, but they had practised this for days on end before leaving Marineville and despite the passageway being full of crewmen doing the same thing no one knocked into each other.
Gordon's designated escape trunk was full by the time he'd got there and he missed being the first team sent up. Each trunk could hold 22 crewmen in their fully inflated special suits. It took 2 minutes from the time the hatch was closed for the chamber to fill with water before the outer lock would open, propelling the men up at a dizzying speed to the surface. The last man out had to close the outer hatch before ascending, and this was Gordon's job.
As he waited for his turn Gordon marvelled at how quiet everyone was despite the emergency. No one had asked what had happened – they were all still alive and that was enough for now.
And then the hatch opened and it was his turn.
He entered the chamber last. Once the door was closed and locked they all set their survival suits off to inflate and then the water rushed in until the room was flooded. It was surreal, even all the training they had done did not prepare Gordon for the total lack of any sound other than his breathing. Shuddering, he tried hard not to think about what was about to happen, all the things that could go wrong, the issues he could have once he hit the surface.
"What-if's never helped anyone," his Dad was quite fond of saying, and Gordon guessed this was a truism.
Two minutes was a lifetime, but then the hatch flew open and he watched as one by one the men shot up until he was the only one left, anchored by the designated rope to the outer hatch so he could close it.
Close it he did, and let go…and up he shot, covering around 250 ft in less than three minutes.
For a brief moment he seemed to hang, unsure whether he was in the air or still in the water, but suddenly there was a bright light on him and there was pain in his head, like it had exploded, and the last thing he saw was a shadow reaching down over him…
After all that he was still going to die. That was his last thought. He'd survived the sub sinking only to be picked up by the enemy on the surface.
Gordon welcomed death.
But death, it seemed, wasn't interested in him. Which was a pity, because he would have liked to have seen his Mom again.
Eventually he realised he could open his eyes. The light was bright and he blinked several times until he could keep his eyes open.
He was on some kind of bed. In a tube. Oh – he knew this one. What was it called? The word danced on the tip of his tongue but Gordon couldn't seem to tie his scattered thoughts down to an answer.
There was a glass panel over his head. He was on a bed. He could reach out and touch the cool metal walls and the glass…suddenly Gordon began to panic. He was trapped! In a…something-or-other…where were his crew? What was going on.
Lifting his fists to bang was so difficult, but he was desperate, and soon he was banging on the walls in desperation, screaming to be let out. He'd never been claustrophobic before, but something about this place…
There was a face in the glass and Gordon flinched back. But as he stared at it he recognised the ship's medic and he began to calm down. There was a strange tone and the voice of the medic came over the comms.
'Cadet Tracy, calm down. Calm down. You're in an hyperbaric chamber, in isolation for treatment. Can you hear me? Tracy – can you hear me?'
'Uh…yeah, yes I hear you. I'm…I'm good. What happened?'
'You got a bad case of decompression illness. This is your third stint in there but the first time you've been awake.'
'So…I've not been captured by the enemy?'
'No, Cadet. You are in friendly hands. Welcome aboard the USS Enterprise.'
Gordon stifled a snort at the name, but at least he knew where he was. The aircraft carrier had been one of the first deployed when the hostilities had broken out.
He was released to the infirmary for further tests and sat on one of the beds. There were two more of his crewmates there but they were both asleep so Gordon tried hard not to fidget and wake them. He'd been the last to be released from the isolation chambers the carrier used for hyperbaric treatment but at least he wasn't alone completely here.
A medic he didn't know came and took bloods and did standard obs. Gordon was relieved when the man disappeared with the simple injunction to "sleep", but sleep was furthest from his mind.
If the USS Enterprise was this close to France then things must be getting bad. He still didn't know what had happened to his sub, and a part of him was afraid to ask, but there was a more pressing question Gordon needed to ask.
Had the rogue state actually carried out its threat for all-out war? And if it had, where did that leave Scott, stationed on the very border between Germany and Bereznik?
Gordon knew he'd have no sleep until he'd received word that Scott was safe.