"When you get settled in, I'll have MPA come get you and give you a more detailed tour. He can print out some specs for you, too, if you'd like." Cal closed his mind to what MPA's probably profane reaction would be to that much time pulled away from his precious engine room and said, "If we're using only the bow prop we can still make five knots. We can go twenty-nine if we're up on both turbines."
Grinning, Mr. Munro said, "She throw up a rooster tail when you're going that fast?"
"No, sir," Cal said, grinning back, "but she'll put up a pretty impressive wake. Until Deepwater, which is the program building the new 410s, the Hamilton class 378s were the largest cutters built for the Coast Guard. When they were built, back in the sixties and seventies, they were all about speed and endurance, which meant they sacrificed a lot of utility and ease of access. We've got twenty-two different fuel tanks, and it is a genuine exercise in Newtonian physics to get her fueled properly."
"How far can you go on a full tank? Or tanks?"
"Fourteen thousand nautical miles," Cal said, and added, "at twelve knots, that is, on one diesel."
"More than halfway around the world without stopping for gas," Mr. Munro said.
"How many crew members on board?" Mrs. Munro said.
"A hundred and fifty-one." Normally. While many of the crew members were excited about watching the shuttle launch from offshore, many others had opted for leave during what they considered to be at best a public-relations exercise. Munro was running north with a crew of sixty-five, well under strength. Fortunately, all the chiefs except for GMC had elected to forgo liberty until their return. He could run the ship with the chiefs alone if need be, long enough to get her into port, if need be.
He wound up taking the Munros through virtually every compartment from the bow prop room to aft steering, and he was absurdly gratified when they understood the tac number system identifying each individual compartment the first time he explained it to them. "Excellent," he said. "If you understand this system you'll never be lost."
"Good luck," Mr. Munro said.
They all enjoyed a good laugh at that.
Kenai's father had a near miss with the Darwin sorter on the boat davit, and Cal got another big laugh when he described the little PA so blinded by love for Kenai that he'd run right into it. Mrs. Munro-"Call me Doreen."-demanded more news of Kenai's visit.
"What's involved in offshore security for a shuttle launch?" Nick said.
"Now, there's a question," Cal said. They were on the bridge. "Let's go down to the wardroom and get some coffee, and I'll walk you through it."
They disposed themselves around the wardroom table and Seaman Trimble was sent down to the mess deck for some of FS2's baked goodies while Cal made them both americanos. "You have an espresso machine on Munro7." Nick said.
"Well, of course," Cal said with a poker face. "It's probably one of the more important contributors to crew morale."
"It's the single most important contributor to your morale, sir," Seaman Trimble said.
The Munros laughed. "You're on report for insubordination, Trimble," Cal said. "Dismissed."
Trimble grinned and saluted. "Aye aye, sir," he said, and departed.
The baked goodies were found to be snickerdoodles, which Doreen pronounced divine.
"Okay," Cal said, "security on a shuttle mission. To begin with, there's an eight-mile security zone around the launch pad. Nobody unauthorized in or out for the duration."
"That's boats," Nick said. "What about aircraft?"
"There is a no-low-fly zone of twenty nautical miles. Believe it or not there are some private pilots out there who think they can do a flyby of a shuttle launch."
"Oh, I believe it," Nick said. "So, is the Munro the only sea-based security presence during the launch?"
"God, no," Cal said. "There are four small boats, two twenty-five-footers, and two shallow water boats. They're working from the shoreline to two nautical miles out. Then there are two forty-seven-foot MLBs- motor life boats-working two to six nautical miles out. A CPB-a coastal patrol boat, an eighty-seven-footer-usually acts as OSC, or on-scene commander, of all the Coast Guard assets working the mission. They're usually the offshore enforcement and response vessel."
"Usually?"
"Usually," Cal said. "Theoretically, an MEC or medium endurance cutter is the OSC, but in practice D7, the operational district responsible for this area, never has any available MECs. Not enough assets, and of course they never know how long those assets will be tied up."
"Because of launch delays," Nick said. "Kenai warned us. What's the forecast?"
"Weather's not looking like a problem," Cal said. "But it's July. Hurricane season. You never know. At any rate, Munro is OSC for this launch."
Nick smiled at his wife. "Because Kenai's on board the shuttle."
"Yes."
"And because she's related to Douglas Munro."
"Yes."
"Our tax dollars at work," Doreen said.
Cal laughed. "That's right."
"I like boat rides," Doreen said, twinkling at Cal.
"Me, too," Cal said, grinning at her.
"What else?" Nick said.
"We've also got a HU-25 Falcon patrolling a one-hundred-fifty-nautical-mile safety zone."
"Medium-range fan jet," Nick said. "Fast, too, got a cruising speed of over four hundred knots."
Cal shrugged. "If you say so, Nick. I don't do airplanes. The Falcon will make sure there are no vessels in the way of falling boosters."
Or shuttle parts, they all thought.
"Recently, we've added an MH-90 HITRON-an armed helicopter- as an air intercept asset. If necessary, it will enforce the no-low-fly zone."
"Impressive," Nick said.
"Reassuring," Doreen said tartly.
Nick grinned. "Do you report directly to Mission Control, or what?"
"Or what," Cal said. "We report to the Range Operations Center. The ROC reports to the Forty-fifth Space Wing of the U.S. Air Force."
"I didn't even know the Air Force had a space wing," Doreen said. She looked at her husband. "It sounds so, I don't know, what am I trying to say?"
"Thrilling?" Nick said.
"I was going to say Heinleinian," she said.
"Fictional?" Nick said.
"No. More like we've already got such a permanent presence in space that we've got a whole arm of the U.S. Air Force supporting our presence there."