A set of nylon strap and aluminum tube benches were folded up against the starboard bulkhead. Utilitarian in the extreme, Amanda found herself grateful that she wouldn’t have to be riding them for any length of time.
Forward of the missile cell, the bay broke into a cross shaped intersection, the side arms extending out to the side hatches in the hull. Narrowing, the central bay continued on toward the bow. An aluminum ladder also ran vertically to a hatch in the overhead, while a second angled forward and upward into the cockpit.
“Cockpit access and topside access,” Lane affirmed. “Forward here, on the port and starboard sides, are the gun tubs for the secondary armament. Forward of them on the starboard side is our mess room and galley. That is, if you want to consider a microwave and a coffee urn a galley. On the port side we have a chemical head and a bunkroom. Four bunks. Our offboat quarters are aboard Floater 1, of course, but the onboard racks come in handy on a long patrol.”
The hover commander pointed beyond the cockpit ladder. “At the head of the bay and just under the cockpit, you can see consoles of the two main fire-control stations. They’re multi mode—either one of them can access and direct any of the onboard weapons systems.”
“What’s your standard crew complement?” Amanda inquired.
“Nine. Pilot and copilot. Two gunners. Four engineers and a chief of the boat.”
She frowned slightly. “That’s pretty light for a vessel this complex, isn’t it?”
“Oh, that’s just onboard crew, ma’am. We’ve also got a twenty-four-man service and maintenance team assigned to each PG. Sort of like an aircraft’s ground crew. Again, most of our service people are aboard the offshore base, but, as you saw, we keep a small detachment here at Conakry to assist with patrol turnarounds.”
“I see. How about a look at the engines?”
“This way, Captain.”
The two engine rooms flanked the central bay, their access hatches set into the rearward-facing bulkheads of the intersection side arms. Lane popped the latches of the one on the port side, swinging open the sound-insulated thermoplastic door.
If the rest of the seafighter was cramped, the engine compartment was claustrophobic—a fifty-five-foot shoe box crammed almost solid with convoluted ductwork, a massive blower assembly, and two huge turbofan engines lying nose to tail. The main power plants were inert for the moment, but the growling snore of an auxiliary diesel could be heard and the air stank of kerosene, ozone, and a whole family of lubricants.
A brown-haired female rating flowed around the bulk of an intake duct. In addition to the cut-down dungarees that passed as uniform aboard the seafighter, she wore a pair of “Mickey Mouse” ear protectors slung around her neck, such as Amanda had seen used on a carrier flight deck. She came to an easy attention in the closet-size workspace in the forward end of the engine compartment.
“Okay, Scrounge,” Lane said, “this is Captain Garrett, our new TACBOSS. Captain, this is Gas Turbine Tech First Class Sandra Caitlin, our senior engineer aboard. In the family, she’s known as ‘Scrounger’ because she’s our best, uh, ‘acquisitions specialist.’”
Amanda extended her hand to the enlisted woman. “A pleasure to meet you, Miss Caitlin. I’m impressed. In most outfits no one short of a senior CPO can acquire a rating in that specialty.”
“I can manage at it, Commander,” Chief Tehoa commented from the doorway. “It’s just that the Scrounge here is an artist.”
The turbine tech’s dark eyes glinted shrewdly as she grinned back at Tehoa’s comment. “I’m just good at what you call networking, ma’am.”
Amanda nodded soberly. “I’ll keep that in mind, Miss Caitlin. How about a quick look around your territory?”
“Sure thing, ma’am. Watch yourself, though, we’re kind of cramped for space.”
“Lead on.”
With Amanda following, Caitlin started down the narrow access passage that flanked the engines on the inboard side. “Kind of cramped” was an understatement. It was a tight and irregular fit even for a small-framed person, and Lane and Chief Tehoa were reduced to edging sideways in many places.
“First thing you’ve got to remember, ma’am, is that if you ever come in the engine spaces when we’re powered up, you’ve got to wear either one of the command headsets or a set of these ear guards.” The turbine tech tapped the gray plastic earmuffs she carried around her neck. “We’re practically riding these hair dryers bareback in here, and even a short direct exposure to the sound could wreck your hearing.”
“Check.” Amanda nodded. “Carry on.”
“Okay. The propulsion modules on the gunboats are pretty much the same as they use on the standard LCAC. That is, we have four Avco Lycoming TF-40 gas turbines, two in each engine room. We have the uprated C models that put out close to four thousand shaft horsepower apiece. The forward engine in each module drives a pair of five-foot lift fans to pump the plenum chamber. The aft engine drives the propulsion airscrew.”
“I know that a standard LCAC can turn fifty knots in a good sea state,” Amanda commented with interest. “Can we do better than that?”
“Sure thing, Commander. We’re streamlined and have a narrower beam-to-length ratio than the landing craft. Combine that with our hotter engines and five-bladed props and we can pull sixty-five easy.”
“That’s the squadron average, Captain,” Lane added, edging along behind Amanda. “For reasons known only to the Scrounge, the Queen always seems to be able to turn a couple of extra knots.”
The young lady in question shrugged and flashed that sly grin again. “Talent, Skipper.”
Amanda ran a finger along a gasketed seam in the turbine housing, seeking and not finding any residue of oil leakage. “How about fuel consumption?”
“I have to confess she’s a gas hog,” Lane replied. “Roughly eight hundred gallons an hour when we’re running flat out. But in that hour you’ve gone somewhere. Also, since we don’t have to worry about transporting cargo, more of our lift capacity can be used for fuel. Our fixed tankage in the raft gives us a seven-hundred-and-fifty-mile operational radius, and if we need more, we can carry a fuel blivet in the center bay.”
Amanda nodded to herself, adding the factor into the mental operations file she was developing. “That still doesn’t give us a lot of on-station loiter time.”
“We got what we call ‘swimmer mode’ for that, ma’am,” Caitlin interjected promptly. “When we’re off cushion and sitting in the water, we can lower a couple of electric propulsor pods below the skirt. They’re a set of one-hundred-and-fifty horsepower electric drives that run off our auxiliaries. You can only do about five knots, but you can poke around on ’em forever on just a couple of gallons of diesel. They’re superquiet, too. When we’re up on the cushion, you can hear us coming ten miles off. Running swimmer, you don’t know we’re there till we’re alongside.”
Between the two turbofans was another small workspace and another ladder leading up to a hatch in the overhead. A strip of canvas had been tied over the ladder and a set of hand tools were displayed in a neat array of pockets and loops.
“An idea of yours, Miss Caitlin?” Amanda inquired.
“Yes, ma’am,” the rating replied proudly. “It keeps things handy but out of the way.”
“Take it down immediately,” Amanda said flatly, “and get these tools properly secured.”
There was a moment of awkward silence in the workspace, then Amanda continued, mellowing the abrupt command. “I daresay it is handy, Miss Caitlin, but we’re operating in a combat zone now. In the advent of an onboard fire or a sinking, I don’t want a solitary thing between you and that escape hatch. Understood?”
The turbine tech gave a quick acknowledging nod. “Understood, ma’am. It’s history.”
Next on the tour was the PG’s secondary armament. For that
they returned to the center bay and went topside to the weather deck, Commander Lane picking up a command head set en route.
The hovercraft’ s broad and railless back was jacketed with antiskid to provide a degree of security for anyone standing on it. In addition to the hooded throats of the big lift fans, the grilled intake and exhaust ports for the turbines were inset in the deck. Also, two large pocket panel hatches were located side by side, just aft of the cockpit, on what would be the shoulders of the broad hull.
“Okay, Snowy,” Lane spoke into the headset mike. “Open the port-side gun tub and elevate the pedestal to firing position.”
The selected hatch panel slid smoothly aside and a pair of slim gun barrels elevated into sight with a hiss of hydraulics. The H-shaped weapons mount reached deck level and the twin autocannon snapped from vertical to horizontal, training outboard with a final decisive click. Amanda noted the missile-launching rail mounted above each gun and the impressive sensor and targeting array fixed between them.
“We have two of these,” Lane commented. “They’re a modified variant of the Boeing Avenger antiaircraft missile system. Only, instead of a single fifty-caliber machine gun mounted under the launching rails, we carry a pair of thirty millimeter chain guns. Antisurface and antiair capable, they’re the same Hughes M230 model carried by the Apache helicopter gunship. The ammunition load is three thousand rounds, carried in the base of the pedestal. Each mount also has a one hundred-and-sixty-degree field of fire.”
Stepping forward, Amanda peered down into the cylindrical well from which the weapon had emerged. Spaced in slots around the perimeter of the well were a dozen cylindrical and rectangular ordnance pods.
“In addition to the standard four-round Stinger antiair pods the Avengers use,” Lane continued, “our launchers have been modified to also accept seven-round packs of Hydra rockets and laser-guided Hellfire antitank missiles.”
“What kind of targeting and fire control?”
“Take your pick. Radar, low-light television, and thermographic imaging.”
Amanda whistled softly. “Impressive.”
“For our displacement, we’re the most heavily armed warship in existence,” Lane agreed proudly. “Snowy, secure the mount.”
The autocannons went vertical once more and the weapons pedestal sank obediently from sight.
“What other armament do you carry?” Amanda asked thoughtfully.
“There’s a power-driven scarfring in the cockpit hatch that can take either a pair of fifty-caliber machine guns or a Mark 19 grenade launcher, if we need it.”
She nodded slowly, but her thoughts were already racing ahead. “Would there be any problem with our running with the side hatches and tailgate open?”
Lane and Chief Tehoa exchanged puzzled glances. “Not in an average sea state,” Lane replied. “It’d be noisy as hell and we’d take some spray inboard, but nothing that would particularly hurt us.”
“Good.” She turned to the CPO. “Chief, I’ve got a project for you. I want a set of pintle mounts rigged for the side and stern hatches of every boat in the squadron. They’ll need to accept either a fifty-caliber machine gun or a grenade launcher and be designed so that we can unship them and get them out of the way in a hurry for loading and unloading operations. You’ll also need to make provisions for safety webbing across the open hatchways, ammunition storage, and an intercom link for the gunners. Can do?”
Being a senior Chief, Ben Tehoa merely nodded. “You want single or twin mounts on the fifty-calibers, ma’am?”
“Twins, if we can squeeze them in. I want every ounce of firepower that will fit shoehorned into these hulls. Oh, and we might need some kind of quick-release monkey harness for the gunners so they can stay on their feet while we’re maneuvering.”
She smiled at her two subordinates, her hands braced on her hips. “Gentlemen, pound for pound, we may be the most heavily armed craft in commission. However, according to the historical precedents I’ve read, retrofitting additional weaponry is an old tradition in the gunboat navy. We always seem to end up needing a little more punch than the book says we’ll require, so we might as well get a jump on the problem from the start.”
Steamer Lane and Chief had another wordless, side-glance conference. They seemed pleased with the concept. “However you want it, ma’am,” the hovercraft commander replied, “but where do we get the gun crews? We don’t have slots for them in our table of organization.”
“We’ll get into that later. For now, Commander, I’ve held up the wheels of progress long enough. Let’s get underway.”
They dropped through the circular hatch in the cockpit overhead. The service trucks were pulling back from the hovercraft and Snowy Banks was in the right-hand pilot’s seat, working her way down an aircraft-style checklist. The entire cockpit area had an aircraft feel to it, like the flight deck of a big military transport plane. The pilot’s and copilot’s stations were located behind a broad V-shaped windscreen and a bank of multimode telepanels that displayed systems status and navigational data.
A complex lever-studded control pedestal separated the pilot’s seats. Amanda noted a conventional rudder-control dial centered on it, and she suspected that this might be the steering for the swimmer system, operating separately from the two half-wheel control yokes of the air rudders. However, a heavy T-grip joystick was located just below the dial controller, and she had no idea what purpose it served.
A second pair of jump seats were squeezed in behind the pilot’s chairs, as well as a gunner’s saddle for the hatch weapons mount. This latter was swung back against the overhead and latched marginally out of the way.
Lane slid into the left-hand pilot’s seat while Amanda took the jump seat immediately behind him. Wedged in at her side was a small chart table and another set of flatscreen monitors. A button- and trigger-studded joystick suggested that this station might also be used as an auxiliary weapons control point. Amanda elected not to do any experimental button-pushing until she was a little more sure of her ground.
Chief Tehoa slammed the overhead hatch shut and locked the dogging lever. Moving with an amazing ease in the cramped confines of the cockpit, he moved aft to the ladder way and dropped down into the main hull.
“Set to crank?” Lane asked, jacking his command headset into the intercom hardlink.
“Prestart checklist complete and all boards are green. All stations report ready to get under way,” Banks replied crisply. Reaching down, she hit a key on the control pedestal and a row of four red lights snapped yellow. “Auto-start sequence set. All engines ready to crank.”
The hover commander nodded and thumbed the inter-phone button on the end of his control yoke. “All stations, stand by to move out. Snowy, light ’em up.”
Another key was touched. Glowing lines crawled up the scales of tape displays as a low rising whine grew from some where aft. One after another, the row of yellow lights flicked green, the gas turbines coming on stream in a shrill tremolo quartet.
“Cranking … cranking … cranking … cranking … we have power!”
Pilot and copilot lifted right and left hands respectively from the controls, their palms smacking together in a high five. There was an instinctive flow to the gesture, as if it were some personal shared tag-end to the checklist.
“Put her on the pad.”
The young female j.g. interlaced her fingers through the fan control levers and rolled them forward. A deeper contralto howl merged into the chorus as the lift fans spun up. Lane dropped his hand to the T-grip controller.
Once, on leave in the Canary Islands, Amanda had taken a camel ride. The rolling heave she had felt when the dromedary had gotten to its feet was similar to the sensation of the hovercraft lifting up onto its inflating skirts. Abruptly they were six feet farther off the ground and there was a slippery uncertainty to the way they were
holding position.
Lane was rocking the T-grip joystick forward, and a series of explosive roaring bursts sounded from astern. “This is the puff-port controller,” he said, raising his voice over the back ground noise. “The puff ports are a series of vents located around the top of the plenum chamber. When you trip one, it releases a jet of high-pressure air that acts like a steering thruster on a spacecraft. We use ’em for low-speed maneuvering. Right now, we’re riding friction-free. If I wasn’t holding us in place with the ports, we’d slide right off the beach.”
He twisted the controller to the left. With an almost super natural smoothness, the Queen of the West rotated in her own length until she was aimed out across the estuary. Wisps of sand whirled beyond the windshield as Lane deftly canceled out the start of her forward slide with the bow ports.
“I’ve been working on this project for almost two years now, ma’am,” the hover commander said, grinning, “and, begging your pardon, but I still think this is just about the neatest damn shit in the world.”
Peering forward around the pilot’s seat, Amanda found herself agreeing. “You may have something there, Commander. Let’s see what else she’s got.”
“Will comply, ma’am.”
Steamer Lane shifted his hand from the T-grip to the rudder yoke. Snowy in turn came forward on the pitch controls and propulsion throttles.
A third voice segued into the Queen’s bellowing song of power, the full-throated baritone roar of the twin drive propellers. The big machine surged forward down the beach, punching through the surf line in an explosion of sand and spray.
Trailing a scant white-water wake behind her, the Queen of the West arced across the mud-stained outflow of the Tabounsou estuary, aiming for the azure coastal waters beyond. The scattering of fishermen and coastal mariners in their pirogues looked up at the hovercraft’s thunderous passage, lifting their hands in respectful acknowledgment. Steamer Lane replied with a double bark of the seafighter’s air horns and held his course for the southeast, paralleling the verdant coastline.
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