The Command

by David Poyer

  …

  “THIS is it, sir. Confirmed the format in the pub.”

  Dan was in Combat, reading the Camel’s draft message while the corpsman bandaged his arm. Track Alley was dark under the emergency lighting. The screens were blank. Horn was blind and deaf. But that was the least of his worries now. Damage reports were starting to come through. Flooding. Fire. Generators down. Engines down.

  His neck was extended stiffly in a plastic brace. The pain had grown since he got up after the blast, and his neck felt warm. Strange tingles, not exactly unpleasant, like when they went to sleep, ran down his legs. The corpsman said he should be immobile. He didn’t sound happy about the symptoms. Dan had refused, allowing only the brace and a promise not to exert himself.

  He ran his eye down the message. No one had ever sent one of these before, as far as he knew. A NUDET message reported a suspected nuclear detonation. Along with latitude and longitude of the burst, and wind direction and speed, so the course of the fallout plume could be predicted.

  “Where’d this true wind come from?”

  “Helo control. It’s what One-Niner-One launched on.”

  Obliterated, he had no doubt, along with her crew and everyone on the Gold Team as well. At least it’d been quick…. He signed it and handed it back. “Sure you can send it, with the antennas down?”

  “We’ll get it out somehow.”

  “Let me know when you get a roger. I’m going to Central. If you can’t reach me, Claudia’s in command.”

  He took a last look around, told the chief to keep trying to get the circuits up, and headed for the ladder.

  Before he reached it, the corpsman was on him again. “Sir, I told you, you’ve got cervical damage. You need to be on your back in sick bay till we get you out to the carrier for X-rays.”

  “If we don’t get this flooding stopped, we’ll all end up in the water,” Dan told him. “Haven’t you got anybody else to take care of?”

  “I got to tell you this, sir. If you don’t minimize your motion, you could end up paralyzed.”

  “I heard you. Now get out of my way.”

  Aft and down, head stiffly erect in the brace that was already rubbing his skin raw. Through smoky passageways flickering with the beams of battle lanterns and slippery with water and firefighting foam. He stopped at Aux One to quiz an inspector coming out, face bright red with exertion, skin waxy white where his OBA mask had pressed. Then kept going, easing through scuttles, trying not to twist his spine, till he undogged the door and stepped into Central.

  Porter was sitting at the damage control panel. She gave him a quick alarmed glance. “Skipper?”

  “Just get me someplace to sit.” For a moment he couldn’t feel his legs, and it wasn’t a good feeling. He groped for the chair someone shoved under him, eyes on the panel. “Okay, what we got.”

  Porter and the damage control assistant, Danenhower, outlined the damage, using the firemain diagram on the panel as a visual aid. The firemain was the principal means of fighting fire and flooding. A loop of eight-inch pipe circled the ship just below the main deck. Six fire pumps kept the pressure to a hundred and fifty pounds per square inch. Cross-connects running athwartships could divide it into smaller loops to isolate damage. Sitting here he could read the pressure in each loop and monitor the pump and isolating valve status, although you couldn’t actually operate them from here.

  Danenhower had sound-powered phones on and was relaying information as it came in. He pushed an earpiece back, but Lin was already talking. She went methodically from forward to aft. Dan’s unease grew as she outlined the damage.

  Main One reported flooding and fire. Aux One reported flooding from either the seawater service piping or from a fracture to the hull. Aux Two also reported flooding. Main Two reported flooding, probably from cracks in the main drainage piping in the bilge. There was also water in shaft alley, most probably, Porter said, from seal failure in one or both shafts as the underwater shock whip-cracked the hull around them. That was why she hadn’t restarted the engines. The turbines might spin up, but with flooding in Shaft Alley and Main Two the line shaft bearings were likely submerged. Running a shaft with water in the bearings would overheat it, seize it, destroy it. “I thought it’d make more sense to sit dead in the water a little while and get things straightened out,” she told him. “Since there’s no more threat topside. Or is there?”

  “If there is, we can’t do much about it,” Dan told her. “How about the generators? Can we get lights and comms back? We need to let somebody know we’re in trouble.”

  “They tripped off with the shock. We’re checking Number Three out. If it looks good, we’ll try restarting. Number Two, there’s something wrong with the fuel lines. Number One’s half submerged, so I don’t want to screw with it.”

  Danenhower had more reports from the repair parties and Dan sat back and thought seriously about whether he was going to be able to save the ship. Spruances were supposed to be able to flood out any three of the eight primary watertight transverse compartments without going under. But he had flooding in seven, every one except the pump room, all the way forward. What worried him was, no one knew where the flooding was coming from. If it was from piping breaks and valve fractures, they could isolate and repair. But if the hull itself was ruptured, it might not be possible to save her.

  “We’re going to have to prioritize,” he said.

  Porter said rapidly, not lifting the phones off her ears, “Not yet. We have to get the teams down into them.”

  “We can’t concentrate on the aftermost spaces now?”

  “No. If we let any of them flood solid, it’s going to leak into the adjoining spaces. Or what I’m really afraid of, one of the bulkheads is going to give. We’ve got to find out where the flooding’s coming from before we do anything.”

  This sounded right. Or maybe he just didn’t feel like arguing. The tingling prickle was working its way up his legs. Maybe he should do like the corpsman said, and lie down.

  No. The ship came first.

  Porter said, “Stand by on generator number three. Are we lined up? Battle circuits only. High pressure air start, start number-three generator.”

  Chin propped on his hands, he stared at the board as the lights flickered.

  STAGGERING under the spray, Cobie felt the water seep cold into the tops of her boots and flood her feet.

  They were on the IR flat, looking down at black, smoggy night. And now and then through the gratings, a wavering tangerine flicker.

  She was following Helm in, her right hand on his right shoulder. Somebody else’s hand was on her own, she didn’t know who. Behind them, like a supple cross, they were dragging the heavy black rubber hose of the AFFF system. The protein compound mixed with water to make a foam that smothered fuel fires. They had pressure back, at least enough to make the foam. She couldn’t see much through the little dirty eyepieces. She was navigating by feel. Mainly, following the petty officer. She was scared stiff, but she kept going.

  Helm’s battle lantern probed downward. The beam lingered on the main space eductor. A heavy piece of steel lay fallen across it. Water was boiling up, foaming like a geyser. The beam held there a few seconds. Then they shuffled forward again, swaying under the weight of the hose, and slowly and clumsily worked their way down the ladder to the level below.

  Mick reached back and clamped her hand tight on the handrail. She could read that: Stay here. The guy behind stopped, too. She followed the swing and glow as Helm worked his way through and under the debris to where the water was boiling up. He bent and she saw his shoulder muscles bunch.

  He came back, took the nozzle again, and they shuffled forward once more. Everything was slow and clumsy. Water kept pouring in. How much more could it take before all this steel around her just… sank?

  Another ladder. As she wriggled past an obstruction something snagged her coveralls. She jerked free, tearing the cloth, but in the struggle she lost touch with Helm. She hesitat
ed, peering around through the little plastic windows, torn between going ahead and back, and at last shuffled forward. Till she slammed into him.

  On the boiler flat the flames were closer, bigger, and a whole lot scarier. She felt the heat through her coveralls. She couldn’t tell what was on fire. It might be fuel from the gravity head tank. Even busted, though, it shouldn’t be leaking enough for a fire this big. She hoped the seams hadn’t split on the main tanks. If those let go, there was no way they were going to get out of here without getting basted and broasted like so many chicken thighs.

  Helm was wrestling with the hose. She turned around and started pulling at it, too. It came free all at once and she almost fell backward off the platform through a missing section of handrail. All she could see down there was the orange flames and between them surging black water.

  For some time now she’d been smelling smoke and fuel. This meant her mask wasn’t super tight, but as long as she was getting enough air to breathe, it didn’t matter. But now there was more smoke in what she was breathing and less air. She finally had to let go the hose and of Helm and stagger off and pull at her mask with both hands until it fit her face better. Then she went through the restart procedure, although she couldn’t think straight, what with breathing the smoke and not getting enough air. Bright sparklies began drifting in from the edges of her vision. She jammed her face into the rubber and sucked. The candle smell came back and her head cleared, though she still couldn’t see worth a shit.

  But when she groped her way back to where she’d left the hose, she couldn’t find it. She kept running into stanchions she didn’t remember. She sure as hell didn’t want to step into any of these holes. At last she tripped over the hose. She bent and picked it up and worked her way along it till she caught up again.

  Helm was silhouetted against the flames. She caught the dark bloom of the foam. He was sweeping it back and forth, blasting it where the fire glowed and roared. The hose bucked like the bull at the Daiquiri Palace. He hesitated, then went forward; paused again. The flames seemed to be backing off.

  Suddenly the rubber went soft in her hands. Helm started backing out, walking back into her. She felt the hose fill once more. Then it went soft again and she knew it was no good. The flames were roaring now, harsh light glaring all around them. Lord have mercy, she wanted out. They still hadn’t found Pascual. But her mask was so fogged she couldn’t see at all. Couldn’t stop coughing. Somebody shoved her. Arms outstretched, she stumbled toward what she hoped was the ladder up.

  DAN decided to stay in Central. This fight would be decided here. Besides, his neck didn’t want him to go through those scuttles again. By now Porter had number-three generator running but there were breaks and intermittents all over the ship. They’d get light or firemain pressure for a few minutes, then lose it.

  Hotchkiss called down from Combat. She’d pulled everybody off the bridge and sealed topside accesses. The radiological sweep team was out checking for contamination. He told her to keep trying to get comms back. She said Radio was trying to rig an antenna. He told her to keep trying to get through to Vigilant Dragon and Sixth Fleet or at the very least to Moosbrugger so Brinegar could relay Horn was dead in the water and needed help. Beyond that he couldn’t think of anything more to do. Whether they went down or not would hinge on what happened down in the spaces.

  At the moment the board showed half the firemain out of commission. It didn’t hold pressure even when they had power. That meant it was fractured or holed. Without pressure they couldn’t run the educ-tors, which were the major way to get water out of the spaces fast. They had portable pumps, but faced with the rate of flooding the teams were reporting it was a waste of time to rig them.

  Danenhower said, “Main One: Fire out of control. Main space educ-tor broken and nonfunctioning. Investigating team pulled out. One soul remaining in the space.”

  Porter told him, “I’m going to Halon-flood Main One as soon as the team’s clear.”

  “What about the missing man?”

  “If he’s still in there, he’s dead by now. There’s no breathable air.”

  A chief called, “Investigators clear in Main One.”

  “Very well,” Porter said. To Dan, “They report rapid flooding through what we thought was a sheared eductor. They got it closed, but that wasn’t it. It’s still flooding. So it’s more than ruptured piping. There’s a big, bad fuel leak in there feeding the fire. We have to get the fire out, then address the source of the flooding.”

  He nodded, feeling both helpless and enraged. Knowing it’d kill anyone left in the space, if they were still alive and trapped down there. But not having any choice.

  Danenhower said, “Aux Two reports leak located in seawater service pipes. Closed off… no, water’s still coming in from somewhere over by the sewage incinerators. Investigating now.”

  The lights flickered off. Everyone looked up. Then they came on again. At least for the moment. But the ship was protesting. Unsettling cracks and bangs reverberated around them, conducted through her bones. She was settling deeper into the water. Giving up, no, being overwhelmed, smothered, dragged down, inch by inch and gallon by gallon.

  Slowly winding the sea around her like a deep blue shroud.

  COBIE was back in the passageway, bent over and coughing helplessly. They had to seal off the engine room while the Halon snuffed the flames. At high temperatures bromotrifluoromethane turned into poison gas. If anyone went in after this, they couldn’t crack their mask at all. Even if they needed a restart. She felt in her coveralls to make sure she had her little SEED, the pint-sized cylinder of canned air meant for emergency escape. She rubbed her neck, where the mask hadn’t protected. Her hand came away black with soot and grime and fuel. Meanwhile Helm and Chief Bendt were arguing over why the fire-main wasn’t holding pressure. She hadn’t been thinking about it, but suddenly she knew.

  “You saw it go?” Bendt asked her. “Sure?”

  “The flexible coupling, the one that goes from the fire pump to the manifold? It sprayed me when I was trying to get past. It’s fucked, all right.”

  “That might be where all this fucking water’s coming from, too,” Bendt said.

  Helm mused, “If the flex coupling’s busted, you’ll have flooding from two directions at once. Up from the sea chest, down from the firemain system.”

  “Sure, we’re pumping it in at the top, it’s running out at the bottom. That’s why it’s not holding pressure,” Bendt said. He took the sound-powered phones from one of the talkers, spoke to Central. Then gave it back, looking grim. “The remote valve doesn’t work on the sea chest. None of the remote valves are working. The hydraulics are fucked.”

  Helm looked around, past her, pointed to Sanders. “Richochet. Remember where the fire pump discharge valve is? Yellow wheel? Lower level? Under the main engine enclosure?”

  “Uh—sort of.”

  “Sort of. And the suction valve?”

  He shook his head. Helm looked frustrated. Finally he looked to her. “Okay. Cober. You remember where the fire pump discharge valve is?”

  She nodded. “And the sea suction valve’s the red one, with the wheel. Under the deck plates, by the fire pump.”

  He studied her. “We got to close both those valves. First the yellow one. Then the red one. You up for going back in?”

  “But it’s flooded down there.”

  “I know. But we’re all gonna be playing tag with the sharks if we don’t get those valves closed.”

  She was scared. She didn’t want to go back in there. But Mick was right. They had to do it. She put her head down and shrugged.

  HOTCHKISS called down that Radio had rigged a whip antenna and raised a merchant out of Cyprus. She was asking him to relay the information about their sinking condition to any warship that answered up. Dan said that was fine, would he alter course to stand by them? Hotchkiss told him the master said he had to request permission from his owners to alter course more than ten miles. D
an thought this was bullshit, but couldn’t think of anything he could do about it. He told her to keep trying to pass traffic to Moosbrugger and Kocatepe. “How’s the flooding?”

  “It’s not going too great down here, Claudia. We’d better start a life raft inventory.”

  “I sent Yerega out to check, but I don’t want anybody exposed outside the skin of the ship long. He says most of the rafts got blown over the side. Some of the containers are cracked but they might still inflate.”

  “Faith? Fear?”

  “Gone. Wait one.” She went off the line, then came back. “Bad news from the radiological team. There’s heavy alpha contamination all the way up the starboard side. Very heavy—some patches count at three hundred rads an hour.”

  “Three hundred?”

  “Uh-huh. So it was a nuclear burst, all right—and a really, really filthy one. We’ll stay at Circle William and try to get the washdown system going. Are we going to have firemain pressure anytime soon?”

  “That’s kind of up in the air right now.”

  “Okay, but we got to get this stuff washed off. The longer it stays, the higher dose we’re accumulating. I’m stripping everybody who was topside and sending them through decon. I’ve got to rotate my radiological team, they’re over safe stay time already. Everybody else needs to go to deep shelter stations, right now.”

  Dan held the phone, overcome by a sense of disorientation. The U.S. Navy had drilled and trained for nuclear war for nearly fifty years. Now, just as the enemy they’d feared most had gone away, he was facing it for real.

  Suddenly all the material about isotopes and half-lives and biological damage that had seemed so esoteric had become a deadly reality. Three hundred rads an hour was serious contamination. On Horn, the maximum permissible exposure was a hundred and fifty rads, and the dose to be rated as a casualty was two hundred and fifty. The book said half the men who got six hundred rads would die.

  Radiation from a nuclear burst came in two forms. Initial radiation, emitted during the first seconds of the fireball’s existence, came from the actual fission of the warhead. It was powerful but transient, gamma rays and neutrons. No way to estimate how much the personnel topside had gotten from that source. The second wave was residual, from the base surge and the fallout cloud… mainly alpha and beta particles, slower acting but longer-lived.