"Aye, sir. Patch coming." Moments later, two suits came past, feeling their way over Paul, Santiago and Yousef, then vanishing into the murk. "Son of a bitch."
"What?" Paul leaned forward as if that would help him see.
"Sorry, sir. That's one nasty hole, and I'm getting fuel all over me feeling it out. Hey, Tatyana, gimme the half-meter square patch and get a brace ready." Silence followed for a few moments, except for an occasional grunt. "Yeah. Gimme the end of the brace… okay, it's set. I'll hold it while you tension it." In his mind's eye, Paul could see the other hull technician spinning the tensioner on the brace, lengthening it until it held the patch firmly in place. "Okay. Lemme kick it. Yeah. That's tight. I got some patching goo around the edge and it seems to be holding. Looks like we got that leak, sir."
"Great. Thanks. DC Central, you copy?"
"Affirmative. We've begun draining fuel from that tank. Are there still flames elsewhere in the compartment? We've lost all sensors."
Paul tried to imagine how bad it had been to kill every sensor in Forward Engineering, then slowly looked around, watching his suit's telltales shift as the temperatures he faced varied. "I think there's still some burning going on. We'll try to knock it down. Is there any way you can get the smoke pumped out of here so we can see what we're doing?"
"Not yet, sir. Based upon your suit readings the stuff in there is too thick to run through our ship purifiers without clogging them. We've got a mass air purifier heading this way, but it's still a few minutes out. Then they'll have to run the suction tube down to you and hook it up."
"Great. Santiago, Yousef, everybody else. Let's head for the hottest spot and try to break the fire up."
"Aye, aye, sir." Santiago moved about a meter, then stopped. "What the — Madre de Dios."
"Santiago? What's the problem?"
"I… I think I maybe found Chief Asher, sir."
Paul eased up beside her, then bent slowly through the still dense smoke until an object lying on the deck suddenly came into view less than an inch from his face shield. He jerked back at the sight, fighting down a tight feeling in his throat.
"You think that's him, sir?"
"It… it could be." Maybe a leg, maybe an arm. Heat and corrosive fuel, perhaps on top of whatever damage the explosion had done, had left very little to tell for sure. Don't throw up. Don't throw up. Think about something else.
"Lieutenant Sinclair?"
"Yeah!" The reply was too shrill, too stressed. Paul forced himself to speak more calmly. "Yes. Who's this?"
"Lieutenant Candon, off the Midway. We've almost got an airlock rigged. May I respectfully suggest you pull your team back and let one of the other damage control teams handle mop up?"
Paul licked his lips, fighting down what he knew was an irrational urge to ignore Candon's advice. But Santiago had been injured, he recalled with a guilty start, and everyone was exhausted from the heat. He checked the blinking warning against suit failure. Putting out the torch had eliminated the firestorm, but the heat was still intense enough to keep the warning fluctuating around perhaps a half hour's time remaining before suit systems might start being overwhelmed. It would take them a good portion of that time just to exit the compartment. "Yes. I think that's a good idea. Uh, we've got fuel on our suits."
"I understand you have fuel on your suits. We've set up a washdown system inside the airlock. Wait one." Paul waited for a moment, one hand on Santiago's shoulder and the other on Yousef's. "The air rig tube is here. They're mating it to the vent now. You should have some visibility by the time you get back this way."
"Understand air venting will start soon. Chief Imari? Is Lieutenant Silver still up there?" Paul found himself frowning as he asked the question, only now realizing he'd heard nothing from Silver since leaving the quarterdeck.
"Yes, sir, he is."
"Does he know our status and that we plan on pulling out now?"
"Yes, sir."
Paul waited again, but nothing more followed. I guess he's okay with it, then. "All right, everybody, change of plans. Somebody else will cool down those hot spots. We're out of here. Fall back slowly to the hatch." The catwalk quivered some more as Paul made his way back, first Yousef and then Santiago coming after him, their nozzles still trained toward the strongest sources of heat. There is going to be one major effort required to get all that water recovered so it can reused.
Conserving water was something of a mania on spacecraft, so pumping out so much seemed almost sinful. But as one of Paul's instructors had advised, plain old water was also the best heat-sink in the universe. Nothing beat it for cooling down a fire. You do what you have to do.
Reaching the hatch out of Forward Engineering offered little apparent change in conditions, but a major psychological boost. As he groped his way onward, Paul finally noticed a thinning in the gloom. Smoke visibly rushed away from him, moving toward the same bulkhead the Damage Control party was headed toward. By the time they reached the outer hatch, they could see it, as well as the nearby vent sucking up the smoke and routing it toward the air purifier where the particles making up that smoke would all be scrubbed out. "Lieutenant Candon? We're at the hatch."
"Roger. Go ahead and open it. The temporary airlock should hold six sailors at a time. How are your suits holding up?"
"They'll last." The automatic openers still worked here, swinging the hatch smoothly open. The Damage Control team members surged toward the opening, but Paul blocked them with an outstretched arm. "We won't all fit at once. Santiago, you first. I'll count off the next ones until the lock's full. Keep your suits sealed until they wash the fuel off you."
The wait seemed interminable as the first group went through washdown, then exited. When Candon finally gave the word for the next group, Paul sent them one at a time until only he was left. Judging enough space remained, he crowded in, unwilling to remain alone in the outer compartment with the hatchway into Forward Engineering gaping behind him. Paul looked back before closing the hatch. The smoke had cleared enough now that he could see partway into Forward Engineering. Black soot covered every surface, except where some still glowed with heat. The familiar shapes of equipment, ladders and piping had all been bent and warped from the heat, melting into odd shapes. In the aftermath of the fire, Forward Engineering seemed to resemble a Salvador Dali painting of hell.
Lieutenant Candon wasn't suited up herself. As Paul exited, she waved her own team forward. "Chief, do what the Michaelson 's DC Central orders. Let me know if there's any problems." She turned to Paul and shook her head. "Looks like it's pretty bad."
"It is." Paul slumped against the nearest bulkhead, suddenly intensely thirsty.
Another figure was before him, this one with medical insignia on the collar. "Lieutenant Sinclair? I'm Midway 's duty medical officer. I understand there was a sailor in the compartment? Did you find him?"
Paul looked away. "Yeah. We… think so."
"You think so? Oh." The doctor grimaced. "Beyond help, then. Are any of your team hurt?"
"Yes. Santiago, get over here and let the doc check your arm."
Santiago grinned with obviously false cheer. "It's okay, sir. I don't need no sick call."
"You told me the fire boiled your arm."
"It's better now, Mr. Sinclair. Really."
The doctor moved toward her, smiling reassuringly. "Can I have a look, anyway?"
Santiago looked around like a trapped animal, then slowly peeled back her suit to reveal a swollen, red arm. "Doc, I ain't gonna need no shots, am I?"
Paul found himself desperately fighting down laughter, afraid it might sound hysterical. Petty Officer Santiago, who'd led the way into a deadly fire, gone face to face with its source and insisted on fighting it even after being injured, was afraid of getting a shot.