Free The Cruiser: A Dan Lenson Novel by David Poyer Page B

way into the radar compartment, and CO 2 to douse the flames. Fortunately they’d contained the fire. The repair team leader stood panting and smoke-stained, mask dangling, sooty gloves tucked into his belt, talking to the Combat Systems watch officer. Past them, through a half-open door with a wavy, melted plastic warning placard that read CAUTION DO NOT ENTER VOLTAGE DANGEROUS TO LIFE , equipment steamed and smoked. “A coolant hose,” a chief missile fire controlman named Slaughenhaupt was saying. “We’ve got six megawatts of power out through here. As much as your typical shoreside power plant. So there’s a lot of heat generated. At an incredible voltage. Come in here while it’s operating, it’s like standing in the presence of Zeus.”
    Dan asked him, “And it’s water cooled?”
    “Yessir, the system runs chilled water through the chassis plates. You’ve got a seawater loop and a secondary distilled-water loop. Looks to me, the hose worked loose. So when we took that heel, it comes off. Shoots water all over, and bam —major-league fireworks.”
    Dan leaned in. Steam eddied up from scorched metal. It stank of pyrolysis and what smelled like burnt chicken feathers. “How long will it take to get everything back in operation?”
    Slaughenhaupt glanced away as Donnie Wenck joined them. Lifted his shoulders, then dropped them. “Don’t think that’s gonna happen, sir. See that silver stuff all over the deck? That’s solder. This is gonna take a complete rebuild.”
    Dan sucked air, looking down at the smoking pools of hot metal. “So we can’t radiate.”
    “Well, not true, sir. This is one driver-predriver. We got six. Three forward, three aft. You need two to operate a transmitter at full power. You leave the other in standby; that’s your backup.”
    “So we can run the forward radar?”
    “Yessir. We just don’t have the backup”—he nodded at the steaming equipment—“in case another DPD goes down.”
    Dan frowned. “But we’ve got two arrays forward. Port and starboard. Are you saying we can only operate one?”
    The chief said patiently, “No, sir, you don’t pulse both arrays at the same time. We shoot one beam at a time from one array at a time.”
    “So we’re, basically, down a sixth of our radar capacity. How about the cooling system? How do we run without that?”
    The chief said they had redundant cooling, too. “I’m telling you, sir, we can run degraded. Everything’s got a backup.”
    “Well, maybe for air detect-to-engage. What about BMD?” He caught uncertainty in the other’s eyes, and pressed in. “Let’s say we get degradation in one of the other predrivers. Can we detect-to-engage on an incomer? Out to three hundred miles? Or will our power-out not be enough?”
    A hesitation told him all he needed to know. He turned to find Almarshadi teetering a step above on the ladder. “Commander? Can you shed some light?”
    The little XO looked uncertain. “Who we really need is Terranova. What do—”
    Dan cut in: “Have you been listening, Exec? How much degradation is losing one of our predriver groups going to inflict on us? How much capability can we lose before we’re out of the missile defense business? And what kind of maintenance lets a coolant hose, a coolant hose, get so loose a fifty-degree angle makes it let go? Those are the first questions I’d like to have answered. If you have the time, that is.”
    “I … believe I’ll have to get back to you on that, Captain.”
    “Good, do that. Within an hour.” Dan nodded once, to them all. He didn’t need to make his expression any harder than it probably already was. And he was already sorry he’d unloaded on Almarshadi. He almost added a word of apology, then thought savagely: Let him take it. He’d certainly had to, when he’d been Jimmy Packer’s second in command. “Where’s Lieutenant Mills?”
    “CIC, Captain.”
    “I want him in my inport cabin too. No later than