“Captain who?” Ammermann asked.
“Skipper of that Israeli corvette. That complicates it too — my chain of command.”
“Sorry, I don’t understand.”
“I mean, Iraq’s a CentCom responsibility, but Israel’s always been a EuCom country. And my opcon, and tacom, as CTG 161 is to Sixth Fleet, which is under EuCom. But I’m supporting a CentCom mission — Infinite Freedom.”
The staffer frowned. Dan got up and stretched. Something cracked in his neck, like a pretzel stick breaking, and he flinched. “Like I said — it’s complicated. But don’t worry about that.” Ammermann rose too, and extended a hand. Dan shook it. “I’ll have Dave Branscombe get in touch. He’s the comm officer. He’ll set you up. It’ll be a secure circuit, but I don’t have to warn you not to pass anything classified you don’t absolutely have to.”
“Do you still want me recalled? Sent back?”
“Well … I just don’t think this is a good use of your expertise and influence, Adam.”
Ammermann grinned, as if recognizing a clumsy attempt at disguising rejection. “I see why they still tell stories about you in the West Wing, Captain. You’re not going to make it in politics.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Though I understand your wife’s thinking about a run. She’s a brave gal. After all that. The injuries. Don’t quote me on this, but good luck to her … even if she’s on the wrong side.”
Dan shrugged. He didn’t want to talk about Blair with this guy. For a second he missed her, terribly. He had to look away and take a deep breath. Even just talking to her would help. But he couldn’t cut off phone comms for the crew, then make personal calls himself. He was starting to say thanks, already tapping the keyboard to go back to the high-side chat, when the 1MC chanted, “Fire, fire, fire. Class Charlie fire in Aft VLS. Repair Five provide. I say again—”
Not again was his first conscious thought. Not now. He was on his way out, headed for the bridge, before the word came over again, but doubled back in the doorway, almost knocking down a petty officer. The man backed into the bulkhead, looking alarmed. Dan crossed CIC at a run, barking his shin on the corner of a terminal, and went out the other way, grabbing his Hydra, which he’d socketed into a recharge holder, en route.
13
The CCS space, which used to be called Damage Control Central and often still was, lay one deck below the mess area. It was already standing room only when he got there. Bart Danenhower was there, along with the top snipe, Chief McMottie, and the damage-control officer, Jiminiz. They and the damage-control technicians were so preoccupied they almost didn’t make way for him. But he had no problem with that. They were the ones who were going to have to fight this thing.
A fire in the vertical launching system was a whole other beast than one in the Aegis power supply room. The difference was many tons of high-energy solid fuel and explosive warheads. The aft system held sixty-one missiles, each with its booster, standing vertically in a sealed canister, eight missiles grouped four in a row in a module. The modules were two decks high, separated by shoulder-width metal catwalks.
Standing there, Dan tried to organize his thoughts, but it all felt increasingly fuzzy. Too much. Too fast. The module was normally unmanned. “There’s no one in there?” he said, just to get that clear.
Jiminiz shook his head without looking around. “No sir. We’ve cleared everyone out aft of here. Except for the damage-control teams.”
“No possibility these missiles are going to launch?”
Danenhower said, “No sir. Combat shut down launch control. Those orders come in via a remote enable panel and a status panel.”
Dan was clear on that. Once the fire order came through, the LCUs selected a ready bird and began the prelaunch commands. Part of that algorithm was opening the deck hatch assembly at the top of the selected cells, out on Savo’s main deck. This not only let the missile emerge, but exhausted combustion gases through a separate plenum that vented vertically through one uptake hatch for each cell. “Okay, but I read a class advisory on magazine authorization. It said something about being able to remove mag launch authorization, but the launcher still being able to fire.”
“You’d have to ask the missile supervisor that. Sorry.”
A picture came up on one of the monitors: the passageway outside the module. The heavy steel red-and-white entrance door was clearly visible. As was the damage-control party, in coveralls, hoods, helmets, boots, and gloves; masked, OBA-rigged, dragging extinguishers, hoses, and axes, manipulating stingers into position. Giving the impression of milling around, but actually, Dan could see, getting ready to unseal that door and go in.
The easiest and safest way to deal with an electrical fire was to get in quick, before it spread, and douse it with CO2 or a low-velocity spray, so it didn’t electrocute someone. Though the power supplies in the modules weren’t high voltage, as far as he was aware. He didn’t envy those masked crewmen their mission one bit, and they’d have to do it fast, before whatever was going on in there lit off one of those closely packed solid-fuel rocket engines. “Is this on the video recorder?”
The chief engineer said, “Bringing it up now, Captain.”
“Have we got a camera inside the module, Bart?”
“Actually, we do, sir, but we couldn’t see anything.”
“Put it up.”
Danenhower was right; the interior camera, aimed down the centerline passageway, showed only gratings and the white-painted, black-stenciled vertical walls on either side of the square-canistered missiles. There might be a trace of smoke-haze in the upper field of view. It was hard to be sure.
He crossed to the J-phone and, after some seconds, managed to get the missile system supervisor on the line. The petty officer said yeah, he knew about that advisory, but it didn’t apply to Savo.
“Why not?”
“We got that change in version 2.3, Captain. I tested it and the cue lamp for the VAB blinks right.”
“Does that mean it can’t fire?”
“Correct. But that’s not exactly the problem occupying us at the moment, Captain,” the petty officer explained patiently.
“So what is the problem? Other than that something’s on fire in there?”
“We can’t open the hatch.”
“Oh, fuck me. Why not?”
“Well, that’s the biggest problem with the VLS, sir. The hatches. They get old, the seals fail, or they stick when you try to open them.”
“Wait a minute. We can’t open any of the hatches?”
“No sir, that’s not what I said.”
“What exactly are you saying, Petty Officer?”
“Sir, we can’t open that hatch.”
Dan told him to keep trying, but the tech said there was no power any longer to the module, so it was no use. So actually, Dan thought, they really couldn’t open any of the hatches. Which meant that if a missile caught fire and ignited, he had no way to get rid of it.
Launchers in older cruisers had included provisions for ejecting duds or hot runs, physically booting the round overboard with a big hydraulic ram. But the VLS had no “launcher” as such and no provision for ejecting a contrary missile. He was stuck with it; they had to deal with the thing where it was. He hung up, whispering, “Shit. — Where exactly is the fire?” Danenhower, who was standing in front of the alarm panel, that silly engineer’s cap hanging off his temple, didn’t answer. Dan jabbed him in the ribs and asked again, louder.
The engineer flinched and pointed to a red indicator. “Module two. The GMMs are saying SCMM.”