Even two hundred feet away from the fire, Beaman could feel the waves of heat rolling over him. The fire billowed and roared, battered the overhead, and reached out for them with tentacles of sparks.
“Get moving. Be safe,” the team leader said. He gave Beaman a swat on the rear as Beaman and his designated messenger broke off from the pack. “We’re right behind you.”
As they neared the edge of the fire, the hosemen behind Beaman arced a stream of fog into the air, showering it around him from a safe distance away. It wasn’t particularly useful for actually extinguishing the fire, but that wasn’t the point just yet. The mist cooled the air off to a temperature that his fire-fighting ensemble could withstand.
Never step where you can’t see. Beaman edged out just a bit from the fire, out to the edge of the cloaking smoke that roiled like a snake in the air. The banshee scream of the fire was louder now, reducing the voice of the team leader on his communications handset to a harsh whisper.
The rest of the damage control party was out of sight now as Beaman and his messenger moved around the far wall of the inferno. No secondary explosions yet, and it looked like — two more steps — yes, by God, one break. He could see the hangar queen safely out of the way. Safe for now, at least. Another five minutes and the gutted hulk of the queen would simply be more fuel in the fire. And then they would have a problem — once the aircraft’s metal ignited, there would be damned little chance of extinguishing the blaze.
Beaman backed off a bit until the noise was at a tolerable level. He toggled the transmit switch and screamed, “Hangar queen’s clear. Checking the far side now.” He slipped the walkie-talkie into a pocket on his fire fighting suit and motioned to the messenger to follow him. If he lost communications completely, his messenger would be his only link with the team leader.
Back close to it now, as close as he dared. The air inside his ensemble scorched the delicate lining of his noise, rasped against the back of his throat as he sucked down heaving breaths. Sweat cascaded down his face, his neck, his entire body, trickling down to soak his dungarees and seep into his boots. Another few steps, another one step — Beaman struggled against the blackness crowding in on his vision, knowing on some level that he was too close, too damned close, that he had to —
He felt someone jerk him back by his elbows. He stumbled and fell awkwardly onto the deck. Heat from the steel plates blistered through the fire retardant gear. He could feel the skin along his leg where he landed starting to stick to the fabric. Beaman let out a scream, then shoved himself up and away from the deck, drawing on reserves of energy he wouldn’t have guess that he had.
“Too close!” Beaman could make out the words that the investigator mouthed, unable to hear over the noise.
Too close. Too damned close. Beaman shook his head, clearing away the fog that threatened to consume his consciousness. Get himself killed, pass out or something, and he’d put the whole team at risk trying to come after him.
He nodded to let the messenger know he understood, then motioned them forward. They resumed their achingly slow progress around the fire, inching forward in the near-complete darkness.
Another two steps, and Beaman felt the heat start to decrease drastically. Was it possible — yes, by God. Through the veil of partially combusted missile fuel, burning bits of debris, he could see the open hangar bay doors. Outside, the gale raged, the wind blowing parallel to the length of the ship, sucking the smoke outside and creating a draft on the entire hangar bay.
But how could they contain the fire already raging inside? If only there were some way to channel the force of the storm into the hangar bay, let Mother Nature’s rain dowse the flames, cool the inferno to a point that the man-made fire fighting systems had a chance to beat it out?
Could they push it overboard? Sure, if they were up on the flight deck with yellow gear and Tilly, the flight deck crane that was used to hoist burning aircraft over the side. But down here?
Wait. It just might be possible — he stepped back farther from the flames, felt the air inside his suit start to cool slightly. He lifted the walkie-talkie to his masked face and started shouting.
“He wants to what?” Batman roared.
“Turn abeam to the wind, Admiral,” Coyote said. “Open the hangar bay doors on both sides. According to DCC, it might just work.”
“What idiot is down in Damage Control Central?” Batman snapped. “This is lunacy — the last thing we need is to feed more oxygen in to the fire. All that’s going to do is spread it and gut this air craft carrier like a — like a — ” Batman spluttered to a stop, and Coyote leaped into the silence.
“I think it will work, Admiral. Frankly, with fires topside and in the hangar bay, it’s our only chance. We can fight one, maybe both for a while. But not much longer if we have any chance of ever using the flight deck again. It’s going to buckle — and that will be the least of it.” He pointed at the damage control schematic of the ship. “Another five minutes, and it’s going to get to the catapults. Then you can kiss that flight deck good-bye for good.”
Batman was silent for a moment. Then he said, “What about the men on the deck? We’ve lost internal communications with Repair Eight. The wind shifts and it’ll foul their plan of attack completely.”
“Messengers,” Coyote said. “In the end, it’ll help them, too. They’re going to have to push that flaming mass of metal over the side one way or another, and right now they’re working at cross angles to the wind. We turn, we give them a tail wind.”
“Dangerous.”
“It always is.”
Batman stared down at the flight deck, watching the coordinated chaos that represented one of the finest fire fighting actions he’d ever seen anywhere, in training films, in drills, in actual videotapes of disasters. The missiles that had hit the flight deck had come in at a low angle. One had plowed through four helos parked aft, another had taken out two E-2 Hawkeyes parked next to the island. He shuddered as he studied that particular hit. Another twenty feet and the missile would have snapped the tower right off the ship.
Finally, Batman said, “Do it. But don’t kill anyone in the process.”
“Okay, stand by,” the team leader shouted. “Hosemen, get over to the other side and get the windward hangar door open. It’ll take them about two minutes to get us abeam of the wind.” The team leader looked over at Beaman. “I hope to hell you’re right about this. DCC thinks you are.”
Beaman tried to speak, but all he could manage was a hoarse croak. Pain rattled down his throat as scorched tissue protested. The corpsman leaned over him and pressed a canteen of water into his hand. “Drink a little more — you’re headed down to sick bay, man.”
Beaman struggled to his feet and tried to shove the corpsman away. He took another slug of water in, rolled it around in his mouth and let it seep into the damaged tissue. Finally, he felt the tightness in his throat start to ease up. “Not yet,” he whispered. “I have to see if it works.”
The corpsman grabbed him by the arm and tried to pull him over toward a transport litter. “Going down to triage now.”
The team leader stepped between the two of them, breaking the corpsman’s hold on Beaman’s arm. “Not yet. He earned this.” A hard, shuddering, grating vibration ran up through the soles of their feet, and all three turned to stare at the hangar bay doors slowing inching back along their tracks. The world outside was solid gray, and sheets of rain were already pelting the remaining gear inside the hangar bay. Water slashed across the vastness of the hangar bay, flashing into steam as it hit the still raging fire. The howl of the fire competed with the hiss of steam and the keening of the wind through the four-foot gap in the beam of the ship.