“Raven’s Roost, do we have a weapons ID yet?”
“Raven’s Roost” was the Duke’s Electronic Intelligence gathering section, one of the four subsystem bays that angled off from the octagonal CIC compartment. A boyishly slender figure appeared at the bay mouth a moment later.
“An Otomat Mark Three, Boss Ma’am,” Lieutenant Christine Rendino replied. “One round. Air launched.”
Again, a little plus. The Italian-built Otomat used a jet propulsion system. Honest flame from burning kerosene and no chunks of unconsumed rocket fuel sprayed around to complicate fire and damage control.
Christine took another step or two into the central compartment.
“How bad are we?”
The little Intel officer’s reaction to the temperature had been to knot the shirt of her work khakis up under her breasts and to bind a sweatband around her short ash-blond hair.
“Real bad. We took the hit right in Power Room Three. Main Engine Control was taken out as well, and we’ve got fires all over the place back there.”
Perspiration stung Amanda’s eyes, and impatiently she swiped it away with the back of her hand. She was feeling the heat as intensely as her subordinates were, but captain’s dignity had limited her to rolling up her sleeves and pony tailing her own thick sorrel-colored mane with a rubber band stolen from a chart table.
“Captain!” It was the rating stationed at the CIC’s helm station. “All rudder and engine control has just gone down. The ship is losing way and is no longer responding to the helm.”
“Damn, damn, damn!” Amanda spun back to the damage control panels.
Chief Thomson was dialing down through the hull schematics to the lower deck levels. By another small miracle, the craggy lieutenant commander had been off station, outside of Main Engine Control, when the missile had hit.
“We’ve lost both primary cable trunks. The portside was cut by the initial explosion, and we just had a burn through into the starboard. The Halon flood didn’t hold it. We’ve lost too much compartment integrity.”
The Cunningham’s spinal cord had just been severed.
“What about the hangar bay?”
“No direct involvement yet, but they have a major fire right under their deck plates. The big problem is going to be the aviation-fuel bunker and the helo-armaments magazine. They’re right down there in the affected frames.”
“Do we still have deluge control in those spaces?”
“So far.”
“Arm the systems and stand by to flood on my command.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
The aft compartment hatch swung open, giving entrance to both a gas-masked sailor and a billowing cloud of white smoke. Amanda slammed the door back against its gaskets and twisted the dogging handle as the seaman tore off his breathing gear.
“Report from DC Alpha Delta,” he reported breathlessly. “All engineering watch officers are dead or missing, ma’am. They were all either in Power Three or Main Engine Control when we took the hit. Chief Nelson reports that we’re holding the fire at frame nineteen, but we’re not getting it pushed back.”
“How bad’s the hull damage?” Amanda demanded.
“One hole on the port side at frame twenty, ma’am. Six by four. Just above the waterline.”
“How are they doing on the farside of the fire?”
“No contact with Delta Fox. We can tell they’re workin’ it, but no commo.”
Amanda internalized another savage curse. With the intercom and sound-powered nets down, she knew more about what was happening two hundred miles away than she did inside the bulkheads of her own ship.
“Captain!” Thomson yelled from the DC panels. “We got a high-temperature warning in the helo-ordnance magazine!”
“Execute the flood.”
“That extra weight aft could put the impact hole under the waterline, Captain. With our internal integrity shot, we could lose the entire block to uncontrolled flooding.”
“I’m counting on it. A little water won’t kill us, Chief, but this fire just might.”
“Captain,” the seaman runner spoke up. “Chief Nelson still has rescue parties aft of the bulkheads looking for survivors.”
“Hold the flood!” Amanda stabbed a finger at the runner. “Get back down to Chief Nelson and tell him that he has … ” Think, Amanda, how long can that weaponry take exposure to direct flame before destabilizing? Three minutes? “… two minutes to pull his teams back behind the bulkheads and get things buttoned up. Then get topside and go aft over the weather decks. Inform the Delta Fox leader of the same thing. Got it? Go!”
“Aye, aye!” He pulled on his gas mask again and plunged back out into the almost solid wall of smoke beyond the hatchway.
The atmosphere inside the CIC was also rapidly becoming contaminated. Soon the duty watch would be needing their smoke masks as well. Amanda ignored the thickening air and returned her attention to the damage-control screens.
She had to get her ship moving again. Thankfully, that task might not be too insurmountable. The Cunningham-class destroyer utilized an integrated electric drive. Her main motors were carried outside of the hull in twin pylon-mounted propulsor pods similar to the engines of a dirigible airship. There were no shaft alleys to flood. No boiler to explode. No reduction gears to strip. One just had to get the power from point A to point B.
She drew a fingertip across the primary display. “We’ve got to run a set of jumpers from the transformer bay of Generator Room Two, here, to the primary propulsor junction box back at frame twenty-two. Then a second set of power cables and a new control linkage back to the steering engine room.”
“Shouldn’t be any problem except for the junction box,” Thomson replied. “It butts right up against that transverse bulkhead there. We got fire just on the other side of it now, and there’s going to be water in a minute. God knows what kind of shape it’s in. I’d better get back there and have a look at it.”
“I’ll take care of that, Chief,” Amanda said. “Notify Commander Hiro on the bridge that he has the con.”
“Begging your pardon, ma’am, but I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”
“Chief, you’re the last of the senior engineering staff we have left. I need you here, so that leaves me. I helped work on the design of the Duke’s drives; I should be able to figure out what’s busted, and what’s not. Anyway, I need to take a look around and see what kind of shape we’re in.”
“As you say, ma’am.”
“I’ll send a runner back with word of what’s going on in the stern. Initiate that magazine flood now. And get the internal communications hack on line! Carry on.”
She removed a smoke mask from its locker beside the hatch. Popping the plastic caps off its filters, she strapped it on. Taking a battle lantern from its rack, she opened the watertight door and plunged out into the vapor-filled passageway.
Throughout the entire explosion of activity within the CIC, two of the naval officers present had taken no active part in the operations. A full captain and a lieutenant commander, they had stood by, silently observing as the men and women of the duty watch had dealt with the developing disaster.
Now, still unspeaking, the senior of the pair donned his own breathing mask and followed Amanda.
The battle lantern had been an act of futility. The smoke killed the beam in only a couple of feet. This wasn’t as critical as it might have been, however. Amanda Garrett knew the Duke’s interior spaces like the back of her hand.
Surrounding her in the murk, handy-billy motors roared, wood slammed into metal as shoring timbers were hammered into place, and the men and women of the DC teams blasphemed their way through their procedures.
She hesitated for a second in the passageway, then turned to the ladder that led one level up.