The Cunningham’s wardroom had been converted into a casualty receiving station. Its limited deck space was jammed now with loaded stretchers and cluttered with discarded medical-stores packaging. The Cunningham’s chief hospital corpsman, Bonnie Robinson, was working her way around the compartment running triage on the moaning injured for Doc Golden.
Lieutenant Commander Daniel “Doc” Golden was the latest addition to the Duke’s company. It wasn’t a common thing for a Navy doctor to be assigned aboard a destroyer. Normally, small surface combatants had to make do with only a corpsman and the hope for a fast medivac out to a carrier or tender. However, the Cunningham had been designed for independent operations, and Amanda had recently made herself insufferable in certain quarters until she had acquired Golden. She had lost a crewman on her last cruise because she hadn’t had a physician aboard ship. She would not let that happen again.
“How are we doing on the wounded, Doc?” Amanda asked, lifting her smoke mask.
“We don’t have nearly enough of them,” Golden replied, working over an IV set. “We’ve got a whole lot of Missing in Actions down in the engineering spaces.” Golden moved with a youthful swiftness that seemed incompatible with a head balding toward middle age. His usual air of studied casualness had been transformed into a focused professionalism.
“What’s the status of the ones we have been able to get to?”
“What you’d expect. Flash burns and concussion injuries. We’re getting a lot of smoke inhalation now.”
As if in response to his words the passageway hatch swung open, admitting another billow of smoke and a pair of DC hands carrying a third limp form between them.
“Smoke?”
“Yes, sir. Mask failure.”
“Set her down in the corner and get some O2 into her. Robinson, we’ve got another customer!”
“Aye, sir.”
Golden glanced back at his CO. “And while we’re on the subject, Captain, this place is beginning to remind me of a Ramada Inn I stayed at in Miami Beach once. The air conditioning doesn’t work, and you can’t open the windows. Request permission to start evacuating the wounded out onto the weather decks. These people need uncontaminated air.”
Amanda considered for a few moments. “Negative. We’re still in a combat situation here. We may have to start launching missiles again at any time. I don’t want unprotected personnel topside if it can be avoided.”
“Captain … “
“Hold out here for as long as you can. If evacuation becomes absolutely imperative, notify me. That’s all, Doc.”
“As you say, Captain.”
Amanda Garrett resealed her mask and left the wardroom. The four-striper who had been shadowing her, and who had been observing silently throughout her dialog with Doc Golden, followed suit.
Amanda dropped back down one deck and headed aft, moving through the smoke-saturated passageways with an ease and a swiftness that was almost supernatural. She stepped over unseen hoses and cables and around gaping access panels simply because she projected that they would be there in this given situation.
Passing through another watertight door, she sensed she was entering into a comparatively large open space, the Cunningham’s belowdecks helicopter hangar. Turning to her left, she stepped ten paces off to starboard, station-keeping by brushing her fingertips along the bulkhead. The form that she knew should be there loomed before her.
“Arkady?”
“Right here, Captain.”
Amanda could make him out only as a hazy outline in the smoke, but she knew he would be clad in his inevitable gray Nomex flight suit. She also knew that he was only a few inches taller then her own five feet seven, and that the eyes behind the faceplate of his smoke mask were an exceptionally clear and penetrating blue. In short, she knew Lieutenant Vince Arkady as well as she did the decks of her own ship.
“What’s the bay status?”
“We’ve got a hot deck situation, Captain. No breakthroughs reported, but we’re keeping things hosed down.”
“Okay, we’re going to be rigging a bypass to get power through to the motors and steering gear. Get set for it and have your people stand by to assist the cable teams.”
“Will do.”
“And we’ve got to ventilate these spaces. Drop the helipad elevator and get some of this smoke out of here.”
“Tried it, Captain. No power. We’re trying to get the circuits reenergized now.”
“That’s no good. We’ve got to ventilate now. Pop the safety latches with a crowbar and bleed the pressure out of the hydraulics reservoirs. That should bring it down. If it doesn’t, get a couple of jacks from the DC locker and force it.”
“Aye, aye.”
He gripped her shoulder for a second, then he was gone, yelling commands to his unseen hangar crew.
Amanda continued to follow the bulkhead around, squeezing past the parked bulk of Retainer Zero One, one of the pair of SAH-66 Sea Comanche helos assigned to the Cunningham’s aviation section. Ahead, a man-sized oval of dull yellowish light became visible, and a moment later, she emerged through the open hatchway into the clean air of the small well deck right aft.
Peeling off the mask, she granted herself the luxury of a single unforced breath. The sea breeze blowing across her perspiration-dampened clothing produced a delicious chill, but she couldn’t enjoy it for long. Ignoring the somber featured man who had followed her out of the hangar bay, she circled the aft Oto Melara turret and descended through another deck hatch.
The atmosphere was considerably cleaner in the stern spaces, leaving only the belowdecks darkness to contend with. It took Amanda a matter of moments to locate the aft DC site leader and her team three levels down.
“We’re tight, ma’am,” the Chief Petty Officer reported in the glow of the battle lanterns. “The bulkheads at frame twenty-three are holding with no burnthroughs. The steering engine is okay and I’ve had hands down to check both access tunnels into the propulsor pods. No damage to the main motors. We just need the juice to bring everything back up.”
“You’ll get it. The jumper teams are coming in right behind me.”
“Okay! Hey, Wheeler! Get the access hatches open on the main junction box. Reichsbower, you do the same for the steering engine space. The rest of you guys fan out and start checking breaker panels. We got power coming in. Let’s go!”
“Hey, Chief!” The voice of the man the site leader had sent to the junction box echoed in the passageway. “Come here, quick!”
Amanda followed the CPO as she hurried toward the call.
Seaman Wheeler was kneeling beside an open knee-level access panel in the side of the passageway. He had his flashlight aimed at a double X of blue tape stuck to the inside of the hatch.
“Ah, shit!” the Chief exploded. “Water damage!”
Amanda nodded grimly. “Cracked bulkhead or seal failure, they’ll call it. I should have figured they wouldn’t make it this easy. Okay, new game plan. We’ll have to run a second jump back from Power Room One. We’ll feed the starboard propulsor from One, the port from Two, jacking directly into the feeder cables at the head of the access tunnels. We’ll control the motor RPMs directly with the generator outputs.”
She started back for the decks ladder. “I’m going forward to get moving on the new setup. Have your people get the access tunnels open again and stand by to splice into the main power busses—”
“Hold it, Captain Garrett. No sense in wasting any more of your time, or ours.” The officer who had been trailing behind her stepped into the beam of her battle lantern. “I think we can terminate this thing now.”
Amanda took a deep, deliberate breath. “Aye, aye, sir,” she replied, reaching for one of the “dead” interphones on the bulkhead.