The Cruiser: A Dan Lenson Novel

by David Poyer

  CRP was short for controllable reversible-pitch prop, the nine-foot-diameter screws that were driving them through the water at thirty-plus knots right now. Dan said, “That should be clear.”

  “Right, Cap’n. Should be piss-clear. Trouble is, we run it through the purifier and it comes out clean. A day or two, it’s cloudy again. Thought at first it was condensation from the fuel oil tank, next to it. But we heated that tank and it didn’t clear.”

  “How long’s it been like that?”

  “Long as I’ve been aboard, sir. We had the yard birds check it out, last yard period. They didn’t have any brilliant ideas.”

  “Shall we take a look?”

  “Uh, sure, Skipper. Stant, can you take the captain down? I’d take you myself, sir, but I got the watch. Commander Danenhower’s back in ER 1. You might run into him.”

  “How are we on parts? The loggies taking care of you?”

  “Well, that’s a sore point, sir. This just-in-time system … we don’t carry the spares we used to, when I was a engineman seaman. I know, inventory costs money, but when you need a part, you need it right then. Not at your next port visit.”

  “I hear you. Let me look into that.” Dan gave it a beat, then lowered his voice. “Anything else I need to know about?”

  “What’s that, sir?” McMottie glanced at the others at their consoles.

  “If there’s anything you or anyone else wants to bring me, I meant what I said in the chiefs’ mess yesterday. Bring it to me. If I don’t know about it, I can’t fix it.”

  McMottie’s gaze dropped. “I’ll remember that. The EN2 will take you down to the ER, sir.”

  * * *

  THE engine room felt more familiar. White-painted insulation on pipes and uptakes, rattling steel gratings slicked with the oil that seemed to ooze out of the atmosphere. Ticos were powered by gas turbines, not the steam plants he’d grown up with. Which meant the air was dry, but still hot, and the never-ending clamor of pumps and generators and reduction gears followed them from upper to lower level, growing to an eardrum-numbing roar as they approached the turbines, now at full power.

  He checked the Hydra radio on his belt, making sure he hadn’t lost comms with the bridge. The second class’s shaved head bobbed as he slid down a ladder, showing off, and slammed steel-toed boots into metal with a rattling clang. Dan followed more cautiously, gripping the slick smooth handrails. The space was huge. You could hide something small … like a pistol … down here, and no one would ever find it. As they hit the deckplates Danenhower bustled out of a side alley, locomotive engineer’s cap askew, barking into his own Hydra. Of course, McMottie had called him at once with the word the skipper was poking around the engine room. As was perfectly proper. They huddled to discuss the CRP. “It’s clearly moisture,” Danenhower shouted. “But we don’t know where it’s coming from.”

  “Is this a major problem, Bart? Where you have water, you get corrosion.”

  “I don’t think so, sir. Not if we keep cycling it through the purifier. This is the hydraulic oil that runs through the center of the shafts, to operate the prop pitch and reversing system. Annoying, but it’s not going to rust anything. Not at the levels we’re seeing.”

  “Okay. If you’re not worried, I’m not.” Dan looked around, up, down, at the terra-cotta-painted bilges beneath the gratings. He didn’t see any rust, nor trash, nor torn insulation, nor the other signs of neglect or cut corners. Whatever problems Savo Island might have, they didn’t seem to be in her engineering department.

  Danenhower looked up from his watch. “Leg’s almost over, Captain. We’re ready to go to the crashback phase.”

  “I’m going to observe that on the bridge. You be down here?”

  “I’ll be here, Skipper.”

  * * *

  THE air was icy when he let himself into the pilothouse again. “Captain’s on the bridge.”

  He nodded to the OOD—still Singhe—and eyed her again, wondering how you could escape a grounding board and an admiral’s mast when everyone around you got flushed. But maybe that was it; the process had to stop somewhere, and probably the board had considered her lack of seniority and let her go. She caught his look and smiled over one shoulder, and he immediately averted his gaze. It’s in the past, he reminded himself. You told them that. So act accordingly.

  But why had she smiled that way? And why were those dark eyes so riveting?

  “Sir, three minutes left on this leg.”

  “Hm. Very well, Lieutenant. Just let me look at the training package.” An hour at flank three, then a crashback to full astern. Back for fifteen minutes, then reverse from full astern to flank three again for fifteen minutes more. At that point, they’d finish with a full left and full right rudder at full power ahead, then the same rudder test, going full power astern.

  The 21MC said, “Bridge, Main Control. Standing by for crashback.”

  Another earsplitting whistle. Dan couldn’t help it; he had to plug his ears with his fingers, though he caught amused glances. “All hands stand by for crashback,” grated the boatswain. Singhe reminded the aft lookout to retreat to the 01 level, to get off the fantail.

  Dan looked to the navigator, who held up ten fingers, then began counting down one by one.

  “Remember, one fluid motion,” Singhe said to the helmsman, that cryptic smile still curving her lips. “Don’t jerk it back. All the way from ahead to astern in one smooth pull. Ready? Stand by—all back full.”

  The turbines whined down the scale, then respooled up. He clung to the jamb of the starboard wing door, looking aft. The ship seemed to shudder—if ten thousand tons of metal could be said to shudder. The quivering was slow, but it ran up his legs and shook his guts under his diaphragm. Past the leveled barrel of the aft 25mm a white flood tide churned up, crashed down over the fantail, then surged forward as the stern, quaking as if in a seizure, began to back over their own wake, gathering speed as the propwash turned the sea sliding by beneath the wing to a turbulent cold chartreuse-and-cream.

  A soft, persuasive voice beside him. “Sir, I’d like to talk with you sometime. About our enlisted leadership program.”

  He blinked. Suddenly recalling where he’d seen the name Amarpeet Singhe before. “You wrote an article for Proceedings.”

  “Defense Review, sir.” She glanced aft, then back up at him. “I’ve been trying to put some of those initiatives into practice. Flattening the management structure. It’s standard procedure in corporate management. But the previous CO…”

  “Liked things the way they were?”

  “Pretty much. I guess so.” She glanced aft again, then ducked back inside to bend over the radar screen. He blinked after her, absently noting blue cloth stretched tight over all-too-easily imagined curves and indentations. Where could moisture be coming from in the CRP shaft? No doubt Danenhower and McMottie were right; it was minor. But a full backing bell for fifteen minutes would surface any problems. Better to have it break now, than when they were on station, responsible to CentCom.

  Which was odd, come to think. He massaged his forehead, blinking down into the jade and cream that seethed below. He needed to read his orders again. Jen Roald had passed them to him in hard copy; they were locked in his safe, along with the 9mm Beretta he’d checked out from the gunner’s mates.

  Every Navy ship, whether deployed with a task force or on an independent mission, had three masters. The first was her type commander, who levied requirements based on maintenance, repair, manning, and logistics. The second was her operational commander, in his case Sixth Fleet, which reported to EuCom—European Command—more specifically, to Commander in Chief, U.S. Naval Forces Europe. The third was her tactical commander, usually the commander of a strike group.

  But Savo Island’s orders for Operation Stellar Shield specified that CTG East Med—in effect, Dan himself—was assigned not to EuCom, but to Central Command. CentCom’s area of responsibility was the Mideast. Confusing, for it divided his responsibil
ities in a way he’d never seen before and wasn’t sure he liked.

  Not that liking it had much to do with it. That was why they were called “orders,” after all.

  * * *

  A quarter hour later. So far, no reports of damage. The gently heaving sea lay void all around them. Across the bridge, Singhe was head down in the radar again. He averted his gaze from her shapely derriere under the cotton coveralls.

  The 21MC said, “Bridge, Main Control: coming up on completion of fifteen-minute flank three ahead.”

  “Very well,” Singhe said. She dipped back into the radar, then looked around. Located him, and smiled again. “Captain, next on the training schedule is Event 0124, rudder trials. Nearest contact, skunk papa. Range, twenty thousand yards. Bearing, two two zero. Course, one four five, speed ten. Past CPA and opening. No other contacts. No failure or lube alarms from the engine room. Permission to conduct rudder trials.”

  He shaded his gaze out to starboard, remembering Ike Sundstrom’s nagging insistence that someone always go out and look in the direction you were going to turn. He’d seen his share of crotchety COs. Actually, more than crochets. But you picked up what seemed good from those you served under, and tried not to copy what didn’t. Passing the best practices on to your juniors. One contact, away to the southwest. From the speed and course, a coaster, plodding its way from Cagliari down to Sicily or Malta. He checked in with Danenhower on the Hydra. The engineer said everything sounded fine at his end. Do the rudder tests, and it’d be a wrap.

  “Permission granted,” he told Singhe. “But make sure someone’s out on the wing, or check there yourself, before you put that rudder over.”

  She sent the junior officer of the deck out, a fresh-faced ensign named Eugene Mytsalo. “Clear to port,” he reported back.

  The pipe shrilled. “Commencing rudder tests. All hands stand by for heavy rolls.” Dan took his fingers out of his ears and felt for his seat belt. Snapped it closed, and braced an elbow against a steel ledge. Around the bridge, men and women sought nooks between the helm and the remote operating console for the 25mm, or reached up to the woven bronze cable that stretched across the pilothouse, a handhold when the world tilted far out of vertical.

  “Speed?”

  “Thirty-five knots, sir,” said the navigator from his position over by the chart console.

  “This really fast as we go, Bart?” Dan said into the Hydra. “No rocket boosters you can kick in?”

  “This is it, sir. Do it now, while we got everything cranked up.”

  He nodded to Singhe, who grabbed the overhead cable. “Hard right rudder,” she ordered.

  “Hard right rudder … my rudder is right hard, ma’am.”

  For a long second Savo Island did not seem to respond. She plunged ahead at the same velocity, seemingly unaffected.

  Then she began to lean.

  Dan tightened his grip, unable to discontemplate the hundreds of tons of weight the additional decks in the superstructure added, and what that meant for stability. For a moment the deck under him seemed to lean left. Or maybe he was just braced for it. If she leaned out, that was bad. Very bad. If she leaned into the turn, she’d be fine.

  Then the incline began, the rudder digging in, the deck tilting faster and faster to starboard. Pencils and small objects rolled and clattered to the deck. The helmsman, a small spare woman with blond braided hair, clung grimly to the console. Dan nailed his gaze to the clinometer. Forty degrees. Forty-five. Forty-seven. A rushing roar came through the starboard door, and he glimpsed past Mytsalo a rolling roar of seething sea. The bow wave, crowding into a jostling welter of foam as the bow turned into it.

  Fifty degrees.

  They clung and watched. The needle hung there, and then, all too deliberately, retreated. The cruiser rolled back upright and Dan relaxed. “Speed?”

  “Two-niner by GPS, Captain.”

  Right, they didn’t have a pit sword. “Very well. —Bart, everything cool down there?”

  “Rudder bearings’re fine. No vibration. No indication of stress.”

  “Make absolutely sure. If we had any damage from the grounding—”

  “Everything’s okay so far, sir. Tell you for sure after the port turn.”

  He nodded across the slanting air to the woman whose almond-eyed smile sought his, and Singhe sang out, “Rudder amidships. Steady course three four zero.”

  The helmswoman was echoing the order when a bell cut loose on the bulkhead. Sudden. Peremptory. Strident. At the same moment a detonation shook the ship’s fabric. A soft one, not that distant, and not that loud. A second later, a ghostlike waft of pale smoke breathing out from the ventilators brought the dense, chemical stink of an electrical fire.

  5

  “ENGINES stop!” Singhe shouted, just as Dan opened his mouth to give the order himself. Smoke was blasting out of the ventilator, thicker, whiter. The stink of burning insulation and something else, acrid and poisonous, filled the bridge.

  “On the bridge: Don gas masks. 1MC: Set damage-control status Zebra,” Singhe shouted, her tone slicing through the chatter and hubbub like a cleaver. “Sound general quarters.”

  “Belay that,” Dan snapped. Then, as the helmsman reached for the throttles, added, “Not the all stop—but stand by on the general-quarters alarm.”

  Nuckols had reached up and secured the ventilation; both wing doors were open; the smoke was streaming outside, thinning. Singhe glanced at Dan through the lenses of her mask; then stripped it off and stuffed it back into its case. “Fire, fire, fire,” came over the 1MC. Not from the bridge; from Damage Control Central. “Class Charlie fire in SPY-1 equipment room, compartment 03-138-1-C. Fire, fire, fire. Repair Two provide.”

  Dan leaned to toggle the 21MC. “Combat Systems, bridge: captain. What’ve you got?”

  “Electrical fire, Captain. Equipment Two. The Combat Systems rover opened the door and it’s a sheet of flame in there. We’re securing power.” With the last syllable the bridge powered down. Fans whirred down the scale. Screens went blue, then blank. Silence welled up from wherever it had lurked all this time. The ship … creaked. The wind sighed. Something topside went clunk.

  Equipment Two was a couple decks down. Dan tried to dismount from his chair but got hung up on the seat belt. Unstrapped, he headed for the ladderway. The door was dogged. He hesitated; placed the back of one hand against it. The steel was cool. He barked to Singhe, “Shift to sound-powered circuits. Shift to manual backup. Keep those lookouts alert.” Then sucked a deep breath, heeled the dogs free, and jerked the door open.

  A puff of white smoke welled up. He slammed and dogged it again and stood shaking, trying to regain control. But … but … No. He did not want to breathe that. Icy sweat broke across his back. The nav team regarded him curiously. He shot a glare at them, then instantly looked away, not feeling proud. In fact, deeply shamed.

  “All right, then. General quarters,” he said.

  * * *

  AN hour later he stood in the passageway outside his sea cabin. Contemplating the fact that if he’d been in there, he’d have been trapped. The firefighting team had used water fog to fight their way into the radar compartment, and CO2 to douse the flames. Fortunately they’d contained the fire. The repair team leader stood panting and smoke-stained, mask dangling, sooty gloves tucked into his belt, talking to the Combat Systems watch officer. Past them, through a half-open door with a wavy, melted plastic warning placard that read CAUTION DO NOT ENTER VOLTAGE DANGEROUS TO LIFE, equipment steamed and smoked. “A coolant hose,” a chief missile fire controlman named Slaughenhaupt was saying. “We’ve got six megawatts of power out through here. As much as your typical shoreside power plant. So there’s a lot of heat generated. At an incredible voltage. Come in here while it’s operating, it’s like standing in the presence of Zeus.”

  Dan asked him, “And it’s water cooled?”

  “Yessir, the system runs chilled water through the chassis plates. You’ve got a seawater loop a
nd a secondary distilled-water loop. Looks to me, the hose worked loose. So when we took that heel, it comes off. Shoots water all over, and bam—major-league fireworks.”

  Dan leaned in. Steam eddied up from scorched metal. It stank of pyrolysis and what smelled like burnt chicken feathers. “How long will it take to get everything back in operation?”

  Slaughenhaupt glanced away as Donnie Wenck joined them. Lifted his shoulders, then dropped them. “Don’t think that’s gonna happen, sir. See that silver stuff all over the deck? That’s solder. This is gonna take a complete rebuild.”

  Dan sucked air, looking down at the smoking pools of hot metal. “So we can’t radiate.”

  “Well, not true, sir. This is one driver-predriver. We got six. Three forward, three aft. You need two to operate a transmitter at full power. You leave the other in standby; that’s your backup.”

  “So we can run the forward radar?”

  “Yessir. We just don’t have the backup”—he nodded at the steaming equipment—“in case another DPD goes down.”

  Dan frowned. “But we’ve got two arrays forward. Port and starboard. Are you saying we can only operate one?”

  The chief said patiently, “No, sir, you don’t pulse both arrays at the same time. We shoot one beam at a time from one array at a time.”

  “So we’re, basically, down a sixth of our radar capacity. How about the cooling system? How do we run without that?”

  The chief said they had redundant cooling, too. “I’m telling you, sir, we can run degraded. Everything’s got a backup.”

  “Well, maybe for air detect-to-engage. What about BMD?” He caught uncertainty in the other’s eyes, and pressed in. “Let’s say we get degradation in one of the other predrivers. Can we detect-to-engage on an incomer? Out to three hundred miles? Or will our power-out not be enough?”

  A hesitation told him all he needed to know. He turned to find Almarshadi teetering a step above on the ladder. “Commander? Can you shed some light?”

  The little XO looked uncertain. “Who we really need is Terranova. What do—”