The Command

Horn had been blasted broadside, and the radar-absorbing tiles on the starboard side were peeling like roasted, sloughing skin. All her antennas were gone, snapped off or dangling by swaying lengths of cable. Her life rafts, davits, and lifeline stanchions were swept clear. What few were left were bent at strange angles. He didn’t see any windows at all, just holes. The starboard fifties and the twenty-five-millimeter looked unharmed, but their covers were ripped off. Only strings and shreds were left.

With a sudden horror he realized what the gritty mist he was feeling on his face might be, and what might be filtering into the ship with it. He slammed the door behind him, dogged it hard. Roared at the dazed boatswain, “Set Circle William throughout the ship. Base surge incoming. Commence water washdown.” Circle William would seal every access to exterior air. And they had to start the cleansing spray before it was too late.

Yet when he peered out again only a few fountains spurted here and there on the forecastle, and none aft of the bridge. Instead of being shriven in cascades of water, Horn lurched and wallowed, scorched and naked, as the murky rain pelted down.

He clutched the compass stand as the damage reports came in.

* * *

This time when the lights went out, Cobie was ready. She knew they’d been at general quarters all night chasing some boats that wouldn’t answer radio calls. She knew they’d fired missiles at the ship but missed and that Horn had sunk them, and now they were tracking a suspicious-looking trawler. The captain had reported all that on the 1MC as it happened. So she wasn’t expecting it when everything slammed around her and the lights went out, when she found herself lying on the gratings with cold water spraying over her. No. But at least she had a clue what was going on.

So she didn’t waste any time looking around to see what everybody else was doing. She just bolted through the spray coming up through the gratings, through the crackling showers of sparks and the deafening blast of suddenly released steam, hauling ass for the ladder. Only she didn’t get very far, because somebody was lying across it at the top where it came out at the boiler flat. She heaved a sodden body out of the way and squirmed up past it.

It might be Akhmeed, he’d been heading down to the PLCC flat to get a wrench when the missile, or whatever it was, had gone off. It must have been a hell of an explosion, she realized belatedly. To whip the ship itself back and forth like that. To break pipes and smash valves so they were spraying water and live steam. The hot oily smog was suffocating her. She had to get out.

But then she stopped, looking back.

Steam rose in an enclosed space. Climb and die was the rule after the first fifteen seconds. But she couldn’t just leave him. She got the unconscious fireman’s leg, then switched off for one of his arms. But no matter how hard she hauled or how mean she swore, she couldn’t budge him.

Someone came out of the smoke and spray and blundered into her. Richochet’s whine. She grabbed him, yelling, and at last he got Akhmeed’s other arm. Together they dragged him to the ladder and with a strength she hadn’t ever thought she had, humped him up it, bouncing his knees off the treads.

When they reached the passageway this time the shouting was louder, the thresh and panic of guys tearing by in the dark faster. She felt her way to the remote station, got her flashlight on the controls, and started isolating, like Helm had showed her. But where was he? She and Richochet had got out, they’d gotten Akhmeed, but she hadn’t seen Mick Helm or the Porn King.

She hoped they weren’t still down there, scalded or knocked out as the steam displaced all the breathable air. She’d glimpsed white water boiling below as they dragged Akhmeed out. She got on the phone, but it was dead. Of course, the power was out. The sound-powered circuit was working, but so many people were shouting on it she couldn’t get a word in. Faintly in the background she could hear the Wizard yelling for everyone to shut up, but it didn’t do any good. After steering, Aux Two, Main Two were shouting they had steam leaks, flooding; they were evacuating.

To her horror, she realized it wasn’t just Main One. It was the whole ship.

Then Helm was there beside her, helping her isolate the space. He must have come up the other way. She felt suddenly better, like everything was in control now. In the beam of a battle lantern she saw he had two guys from the other watch team with him. “Anybody didn’t get out?” was the first thing he asked her.

“I think Pascual. The rest of us made it out. Akhmeed’s hurt.”

“Where is he?” Helm shone his light around, as if they’d left him on the deck somewhere.

“Ricochet took him aft, to Medical.”