Dive to Oblivion

21

Igor Valerian remained in the Academician Petrovsky’s reactor compartment, anxiously awaiting word of the experiment’s success. He knew that this would most likely come in the form of a satellite-relayed telephone call from Pacific Fleet headquarters in Vladivostok. If all worked out as planned, he would be notified that the rodina now had the services of the USS Hyman G. Rickover. This would be a great achievement in itself, but it would serve as a forerunner for an even greater feat to come.

Much to his disappointment, the call came from the bridge, informing him of an approaching storm. This news soured his mood, and he wondered if he could spare the time to return to his stateroom for a little liquid refreshment. A good drink of vodka never failed to fortify him, and just as he was about to excuse himself, the sensor operator kept him from doing so.

“Sonar contact. Admiral. It appears to be another submarine.”

Rushing to the man’s side. Valerian worriedly asked, “Can you classify the signature. Comrade?”

While the technician addressed his keyboard. Dr. Petrov sauntered up to the console. The physicist calmly sipped from a cup of tea, and casually commented:

“I wonder who it could be down there.”

“Most likely, it’s just the Pantera” offered Valerian, whose glance nervously scanned the broad-band frequency monitor.

It seemed to take forever for the technician to complete his signature analysis, and the news he relayed was far from heartening.

“I don’t really understand it, sir. But the analysis shows an eighty-seven-percent probability that this vessel is an American 688 class attack sub.”

“That cant be!” retorted Valerian.

“Could the device have failed completely?”

“That’s highly unlikely,” replied the physicist. “You just saw the preliminary reports yourself. Admiral.

And the one thing that we know for certain is that a submarine definitely crossed into the force field and never left it.”

“But the 688 is still down there,” countered Valerian.

Andrei Petrov dejectedly shook his head.

“I told you that we should have waited. But you wouldn’t listen, and now we’ve gone and possibly destroyed one of our very own submarines.

“I won’t accept that!” shot back Valerian.

“Maybe this 688 is a vessel other than the Rickover. Or perhaps our sensors are inaccurate. Whatever be the case, we must act on this find. Prepare to recharge the power grid. Doctor.”

“Absolutely not!” shouted Andrei.

“This insanity has gone too far already.”

“You fool!” spat Valerian disgustedly as he roughly pushed the physicist aside and made his way to the firecontrol console.

“If you won’t do it. Doctor, then I’ll hit the switch myself.”

Ignoring the spilled tea that had scorched his hand, Andrei rushed over to stop Valerian.

“Please, Admiral,” implored the physicist. “You’re only opening us up to yet more tragedy.”

Igor Valerian attacked the keyboard with a vengeance, and as the atoms of the nuclear pile once more went critical, he triumphantly voiced himself.

“The only tragedy here is your cowardly recalcitrance, Doctor. Because your inaction could have very well cost the rodina another chance at future greatness.”

Before pressing the final input key to trigger the power grid, the one-eyed veteran looked up at Andrei Petrov and cried out boldly.

“What you’re about to witness is history itself in the making. For the glory of the motherland!”

At the moment that Admiral Igor Valerian pressed the final input key, the first of the Rickover’s Mk48 torpedoes slammed into the wall of the trench with a blistering blast. The torpedo that followed made a direct hit on the lead generator, and as the concussion from this explosion tore apart the power coupling, a reverse surge of electricity shot up the frayed cable. In a microsecond, this ultra powerful burst of raw energy made its way to the surface, where it streamed into the Academician Petrovsky’s engineering spaces. No one there even had the time to know that anything was wrong, when a tremendous explosion tore the ship apart at the waterline.

No sooner did this secondary detonation fade on the tropical wind, when the Rickover’s electrical systems returned to normal. No one was more relieved than John Walden, who wasted no time ordering his submarine to the surface.

By the time they completed their ascent, and Walden made his way up onto the open sail, the Academician Petrovsky was nothing but a torn hunk of smoldering debris. Yet hopes for survivors from this unexplained tragedy brightened when one of the lookouts spotted what appeared to be the captain’s gig floating in the distance.

Expectations were high as Walden ordered the Rickover to rendezvous with this vessel. They found only three survivors, confused members of the U.N. observer team. Walden took them aboard and sent them below, thus freeing the Rickover for yet another search. Somewhere below, the depths held the secret of the DSRV Avalon, its valiant crew, and the five aquanauts that it had been sent to rescue.