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Chapter 2

It was 8:40, and every man was out on deck, the wind wiping through our fur, piercing out thin uniforms. We stood upright, at attention, as the admiral walked up and down the deck, before taking a stand in front of the middle of the group.

"Men," he said "it is time to show our mother Russia what we can do! We are all children of mother Russia, and we must protect her from the capitalistic dogs!" he yelled. "We must be brave! And not be cowards, NOT BE TRAITORS!"

He yelled, as a cheer went up, "HURRAH!" I yelled, along with the rest of the crew.

"We are going to the arctic ocean, my comrades" the admiral barked. "And from there we shall go down the east cost of America, into our strike zone!" he yelled, "strike zone? Comrade Sir?" someone asked out.

"Aren't we just on a patrol?"

"Patrol zone" the admiral said, "my mistake, we are heading to our Patrol zone!" he yelled. "Now comrades, GET TO YOUR STATIONS!" he yelled, before stepping down the hatch into the hull.

I headed down one of the open hatches on the top of the sub, down into the hull. Squeezing my was through the now crowded passageway, the outer hatches being closed, furs ducking through bulkhead hatches, and room hatches, as I headed for the missile compartment . I skillfully moved through the masses of furs, through the tight cramped rooms, where sailors were busy doing there jobs. Gustav was on the sonar, Dmitriy in the engine room, and I was looking for Boris. Boris was my work partner, a short stocky mass of muscle that called its self a sailor, a very loud sailor. He and I are in charge of missile safety, in charge of fueling them and keeping them in working order, and arming them if ever needed. I came to the closed and sealed hatch, quickly opening it and ducking in closing and locking it behind me. In front of me were three huge pipes, giant red tubs holding the 3 nuclear missiles poised and ready to rain death down on the world. There was some graffiti painted on the tubes, 'Stalin's fist', 'The Red Devil' and 'Lenin's Will'. I shook my head reading these, and chuckled.

"Boris? I see the fools have been in here again." Boris walked up to me, wiping grease off his paws onto his shirt.

"Yeah, comrade Uri, I don't seem to understand why everyone wants to name the missiles" he said, chuckling.

"Yeah, no shit" I said, distracted by the info panel regarding the missiles.

Boris turned on the transistor radio, tunings it through the static, looking for music or something. I chuckled at hearing him curs to him self, as he smacked the radio, trying to find anything on the air. I walked up to missile tube 1, opening the hatch, and leaning into the moist wet tube, the giant green missile stood there, silent yet foreboding. I shuddered, thinking of horror of the weapon, but I had a job to do, so I did it. I looked over the missile, stepping into the wet tube with it, I squeezed my way around the missile, making sure there was no ice formed upon it or in the tub at all, there wasn't. I did the same thing in the two other tubes, finding ice formed up in tube three, a bad sign. I muttered to my self, and hoped out of the tube.

"Boris, we have ice in tube three" I said, writing this down in my service notebook.

"Again?" Boris said, "Goddamn it..." he muttered, kicking tube three as he walked past it to get some warm water to melt the ice.

Ice in tube three, again, I thought, that's bad, "there must be liquid nitrogen from the fuel system leaking into the tube, Boris" I said to him. Boris just muttered to him self, carrying two buckets of hot water. He swore again and poured the first bucket of hot water onto the ice in the tube.

"Uri, have you told the admiral?" he said, pouring on the second bucket.

"Many times," I said, looking over the gages, taping the one for the liquid nitrogen pressure. The needle dropped, it had been sticking.

"Yeah, Boris I have, even showed them the crappy gage, but they don't care, they don't believe it" I said, turning and leaning against the panel. "I don't like our new admiral. He doesn't seem... all here." I said, Boris nodded, writing something down in his service notebook.

"Yeah, Uri... He's out there," Boris said, shrugging. "I don't trust him, nor do I like him."

I chuckled, and stepped up the missile tube three, looking in " I agree, and I don't like these either." I shuddered, looking up at the huge missile, before closing and locking the service door.

* * *

The days and weeks dragged on, the excitement of our new tour of duty now gone. Our routine not changing much, Everyday I wrote down in my service notebook the amounts of ice in missile tube three, every day it got worse. Boris and I were positive that there was a leak in the liquid nitrogen leak, but we couldn't prove it. I was laying there on my bunk, half asleep when I was awoken by a loud grinding noise, mutters of confusion could be heard through out the cabin.

"What's going on?" I heard Gustav mutter from his bunk, above me.

"I don't know..." someone else muttered,

"sounds like we hit something" another said. I rubbed my head, and sat up. There came a pounding at the hatch, and it opened a husky from the second shift (they worked while we slept, and we worked while they slept.)

"HEY, wake up! Were in the arctic!" he said, before ducking out and going down the hall.

"Arctic? Ohh.... That explains is it." I said, getting dressed.

"What do you mean?" Gustav said, getting dressed next to me.

"The sound was the sub breaking through the ice fool" I said, chuckling and ducking out the cabin, Gustav close behind. "Let's go look outside" I said to Gustav, as I climbed up one of the open ladders, following a few furs up.

Once we got out, it hit me, the cold, and the ice, the beauty of the arctic. All that could be seen was white, ice as far as the eye could see. It was amazing, I thought as I stepped out on to the deck, kicking some ice off the hull, watching it slide down the curve of the hull, landing in the snow. The ice surrounding the sub was 18-20 feet thick, with feet upon feet of drifting snow on top of that. Some of the crew had already made it down to the snow, and where horsing about, throwing snowballs at each other, and playing with the ice on deck. This was our first opportunity to have some fun, after being locked up in this tin can of a sub, for a few weeks.

"Wow... look at it," I said, admiring the beauty."

"Yea...."Gustav said, chuckling behind me, before grabbing the collar of my shirt, and dropping a paw full of snow down it.

"GAA BASTARD!!" I yelped, flailing about, trying to get the snow out, rubbing and patting at my back. "DAMN YOU!" I said, finally shaking the snow out. "You're an ass, Gustav, you really are" I muttered. He just grinned, and then stuck his tongue out, his tail swishing behind him in a playful way.

It was a nice break, our stop in the arctic; we had the opportunity to have somewhat of a break. When furs weren't working, there were romping about in the snow, assorted im-maturely positioned snow furs were littered around the sub, and there was an almost constant snowball fight going on. Mostly it was the sailors who horsed around, only a few officers played with them. Most of the upper staff sat up on the coning tower, joking among them selves, drinking vodka and relaxing. They ducked and yelled as the odd snowball came up towards them, but for the mostly part they keep to there selves. I sat there against a mound of snow, sipping vodka, and talking to Vostok, the random off target snowball landing near us.

"So Vostok, anything interesting from Moscow?" I asked, taking another sip of vodka.

"Not much," he said, sipping some vodka, scratching his muzzle, "well.. I shouldn't say that," he said. "In fact we had a coded message come in from Moscow early this morning, around.. Hmm.. 1 AM" he said, taking another sip of vodka.

"Oh? What was it about?" I asked my ears perked.

"I'm not exactly sure, but all I could decode were some numbers," he said, finishing the bottle of vodka, "sounds likes launch codes to me." I almost choked at hearing this, some vodka coming out my nose.

"What?!?, your kidding me!" I said, shocked.

"Hey, man, I'm not sure, that's what it looked like to Me." he said, tossing his empty vodka bottle at a fur who hit him with a snowball.

Later that day, we went back to the sub, and back under the ice, to continue to our patrol zone.

***

The days grew long, or short, I didn't know, no one knew. Day and night had become one, hours were just numbers, pm and am were letters, time was un-known to us, we had forgotten it. There were no windows, no natural light, only the stark white glow from the fluorescent bulbs. In that stark light I yawned, supposedly it was 4am, I didn't know, or care, my shift in the missile chamber was over, and I was going to go find Dmitriy. I walked through the halls, and compartments looking in on furs here and there. Furs who looked like zombies stared at me, with bags under there bloodshot eyes, there ears no longer perky, they were burnt out, tired, but that was the life of a submariner. I passed the admiral in the passageway, stopped and saluted.

"How are you, sir?" I asked,

"fine, comrade, tired, sore, stiff, but fine," that admiral said, half asleep. "Now, comrade, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to bed." and with that, he walked off. I saluted again, and continued on my way through the cramped boat.

Dmitriy was busy working on the starboard diesel engine, swearing to him self, as the huge engine sputtered and stalled.

"Fucking garbage!" He swore as I entered the compartment.

"What's wrong Dmitriy?" I asked, chuckling as I watched him beat on the side of the engine with a wrench.

"Oh, hello comrade Uri" Dmitriy said, his tail wagging. "This peace of shit, useless pile of an engine is staling out again," he said, as he started to work on it, pulling out the glow plugs, looking at each one, inspecting them for problems.

"Oh, that's great that explains our drop in speed" I said, yawning, and leaning up against the wall facing him.

"Il having it running doesn't worry!" he said, with a grin, as he lifted off one of the cylinder caps. He inspected the pistons, feeling in side the cylinders for any cracks. He reached out and wiped his grease covered paw on his shirt, before doing the same with the next cylinder and the one after that.

"What do you thinks wrong?" I asked, scratching my side.

"I believe" he said pausing and feeling around in the cylinder. "I think there's a broken piston," he chuckled," yep, found it here!" he said, rubbing the grease off his paw onto his shirt. He took out some tools and went to work, dismantling this part of the engine, to get at the broken piston. The other working engine throbbed away pushing the boat forward through the deep, cold ocean under the arctic ice.

We chatted a bit more, not about much, there wasn't much to talk about. We discussed the main rumor going through the ship; this rumor was tearing us apart as a crew.

"What do you think?" I asked Dmitriy, as he finished on the engine.

"Bout what?" he asked, starting the engine, listening to it rattle and go silent.

"The admiral... he, I don't know, he seems odd to me." I said scratching my muzzle, as Dmitriy kicked the engine, it rattled to life.

"If the rumors are true..." he said, putting away his tools, "then Id be scared" he muttered, his tail going limp. "Just between you and me Uri, I believe the rumors..." He said, quietly, as he walked up to me.

"If there's nuclear war, comrade, it will be because of him," he said, slapping me on the shoulder and leaving the compartment, to go sleep. I stood there, and digested what he said, many of us on the sub believed he was going to go rouge, but many were sided with him, if anything happened, I knew there would be bloodshed.

I left, and went to my cabin, Gustav was there, already asleep so where a few others. Some other crew furs waking up, to go on there shift. I un-dressed and laid in my bunk, letting the rocking of the sub put me to sleep.