“From the waste-heat boilers.”
“Right. We run the laundry, galley kettles, scullery dishwashers, and the lube and fuel heaters with it. Actually, potable water heaters, too. So we’ve already got steam lines to some of the places.”
Dan asked more questions, and they discussed piping runs, cooling rates, and steam pressure and temperature curves for a few minutes before he sat back. “Okay, sounds like you’ve got a handle on it. How about man-hours?”
“That’s where it gets hard.” Danenhower glanced behind him; the damage control assistant, Jiminiz, and Chief McMottie joined them. “Hector, what’d you come up with for labor loading?”
“It’d mainly be the hull techs, repair lockers, enginemen, with maybe some assistance from the rates that’re used to handling hot water, steam… like the mess specialists. Disassemble, drain, pressure test, tighten all the joints. Replace any corroded piping or worn valves, as long as we’ve got it apart.”
“That’s good, Lieutenant,” Dan said. “Thinking ahead.”
“Apply steam and run it up to temperature. Dwell. Then release pressure, let it cool, retighten, pressure test again, and turn the water on. We got eleven separate shower sets aboard. Unit commander’s cabin, CO in-port cabin, CO at-sea cabin, officer showers, first-class showers, Goat Locker, and five enlisted washrooms: forward Weps, forward Ops, Engineering, after Weps, after Ops.”
“Female showers?” Dan asked.
“Their showers are separate, but the piping systems are common. Anyhow, we can’t do just the showers. Gotta do each hot-water system all the way from cool-water input to the nozzle heads, or it’ll just reinfect. Plus the galleys — Schell says; they’re cooking with bottled water and washing up with salt water, and that’s gonna give us GI problems sooner or later.” The DCA consulted his notes. “For all eleven, and the galley… eighteen hundred and eighty man-hours.”
Dan shook his head, demolished. No fucking way, out here, could they commit that level of effort. Not with a third of the crew already debilitated to the point they could barely hunch over a console. And they’d need hoses, valves, connectors, gauges, chain hoists… not just littering the decks and impeding passageways, but degrading the repair lockers on which they’d depend in case of battle damage. “That’s too much. We can’t do them all.”
“Okay,” said McMottie. “How about four? One forward, one aft, the one in Officers’ Country, and the one in your at-sea cabin?”
Dan shifted in his chair. “Yeah. Whichever has the least feet of piping. I don’t have any problem with water hours, shower hours, male/female even-odd days, whatever. And I don’t need the one in my sea cabin; I’ll use the one in Officers’ Country. Those three, and the galley, make how many man-hours?”
Jimimiz consulted his notes. “Six hundred.”
Dan ran it in his head. Working twelve-hour days, fifty days; with ten hands on it, say five days. “That’s doable. If the balloon doesn’t go up before then. Bart, temperature, pressure?”
The CHENG said, still looking out at the slowly passing sea, “Schell says saturated steam at 250 degrees, sixty pounds pressure, for thirty minutes will kill anything. Good or bad.”
“That long? Never mind, we want a thorough job. But we need at least one set of showers back ASAP. Say, Weps berthing. Where we had our first fatality. Then the galleys, the scullery, so we can start using water again there. Can do?”
Danenhower pushed off the nav console. Looking resigned and, somehow, twice as fatigued. “We’ll get on it, Cap’n.”
At noon BM1 Nuckols tapped off eight bells, stepped aside, and handed the 1MC mike to Cheryl Staurulakis. Dan leaned back in his chair as her voice rolled out over the shipwide circuit, in every working space and berthing compartment and passageway. She started with the reminder that they were patrolling off the coast of Pakistan, awaiting developments. Then explained about the disease. “We’ve been calling it the crud. Dr. Schell tells us it’s a variant of Legionnaires’, a bacterial infection, lurking in our water systems, probably infecting us through the showers. To fix it, our snipes and metal-benders are tearing down the hot-water systems and disinfecting them with live steam.
“I know this will be inconvenient for a while. You can help by standing clear and assisting when appropriate. We hope to have one shower reopened tomorrow, probably in forward weapons berthing. The master-at-arms will promulgate a schedule by departments. Until then, there’s a special on Old Spice and deodorant, half off, in the ship’s store from thirteen to fifteen hundred.”
She said it so drily he did a double take. When she signed off he beckoned her over. “So you do have a sense of humor, XO.”
She cracked exactly one unit of microsmiles. “For official use only, Captain.”
“Okay, what’ve we got this afternoon? I don’t seem to have much to do up here until they decide war or no war.”
“I’m going down to forward berthing. Then talking to Behnam Shah.”
“The Iranian. That Colón said might be the one who assaulted her. What kind of interview?”
“Don’t worry, sir, ship’s legal will be there. He’ll get his rights.”
“What’s your feeling? Anything one way or the other?”
She said she was devoid of any conviction. “All I’m after is whoever dragged that girl into an empty fan room.”
He believed her. Hell, he had little choice. He heaved out of the chair, then doubled, hacking. He straightened and wiped his mouth, to catch her glance. Commiserating, or pitying? Who knew. “Okay, let’s see how they’re doing. But take it slow on the ladders, okay?”
The galley was paved with hoses, tropic with humidity and the smells of steam and food. Chief McMottie handed them half-face filter masks. “In case the stuff aerosolizes as it comes out.” Dan set his cap on a steam table and fitted the mask before following him in.
He did a slow, thorough walk-through. Steam blasted out from special bleeder caps in thin whistling streamers that condensed into white plumes. The holes drilled in them were exactly the size to let steam creep along the pipes, maintaining over two hundred degrees, before exhausting at still near-boiling temperatures. “Anything in there, we’re gonna cook well done,” McMottie promised. Dan attaboy’d the mess specialists standing by to finish scrubbing down; the repair team, in full-face masks, waiting for the system to bake; the chiefs and petty officers supervising.
He even complimented one of the Iranians they’d picked up, who was shoving a swab along the deck, urging the condensate into the drains, and was rewarded with one of the sweetest smiles he’d ever received. He turned away, both warmed and sobered by the reminder of strangers aboard. Strangers who might or might not be what they seemed.
He climbed up a deck and let himself into the Supply Department Office.
Behnam Shah was in blue Savo coveralls without insignia, stiffly upright in a folding chair, dark eyes burning, eyebrows a straight line, fingers white-clutching thighs. He bolted to his feet as Dan entered. “Captain. I do not do. You will kill me? Shoot me? I need mercy. I need to explain.”
Dan closed his eyes and shook his head. He glanced at Hal Toan, who stood to the side, arms folded. “Relax, Mr. Shah. First, let’s clarify something. You’re not a USS Savo sailor. You’re a foreign national, soliciting refugee status. All right? So your standing around here is… someplace between refugee and guest. But no one’s getting shot. Whatever certain elements among the crew may have told you, they’re just spinning you up, okay?”