The Storm (NUMA Files 10)

“You need more men down there.” The words came from Leilani.

Gamay and the chief looked over.

“If the robots aren’t working, you need to send more men,” she repeated.

“She’s right,” Gamay realized, surprised by her suddenly strong stand.

“We’re trying to get the robots back online,” the chief insisted.

“Forget the damn robots,” Gamay said. “Four men can’t fight this fire.”

“We have only twenty crewmen on board,” the chief said.

That had always seemed like a mistake to Gamay, suddenly she saw why. “Anyone trained to fight fires should be down there,” she urged, “or Paul and the others should pull back.”

The chief looked over at the two men working on the computers. “Anything?”

They shook their heads. “It’s a looped code. Every time we break through the outer layer, it resets and we have to start over.”

Gamay didn’t know exactly what that meant, but it sounded like there wasn’t much point in continuing.

The chief exhaled. “The robots are down for the count,” he said, admitting the obvious. “Go,” he said to the men at the computer terminals. “I’ll have the others meet you at the engine room.”

The two men at the computer stations headed for the door.

“Thank you,” Gamay said, glad to know backup was headed Paul’s way.

Marchetti’s voice came over the radio: “Any luck, chief?”

“Negative,” the chief said into a microphone. “We’re locked out, sending you help.”

“Understood,” Marchetti said. “We’re going for the override.”

“What does that mean?” Gamay asked.

“They’re going to flood the compartment with Halon,” the chief said. “It’ll suppress the fire and put it out.”

“What’s the drawback?”

“Halon’s toxic. And it requires a closed room to be effective. Once they activate it, the doors will shut and lock automatically. They’ll be trapped in there until the sensors determine that the fire is out and the room temperature has dropped below the reignition point.”

Gamay felt sick. She knew what that meant.

“It shouldn’t be a big problem,” the chief said. “Once the compartment is flooded, the fire should burn out in thirty seconds. The temp in there is two hundred and fifty-five now. By my calculations the cooldown time should take about ten minutes if everything goes according to plan.”

Ten minutes with Paul sitting behind a locked door in a cauldron of heat. She could barely stand the thought

. But another thought was worse.

“If everything goes according to plan,” she repeated. “The way things are going, that’s an awfully big assumption. What if the doors don’t shut? Worse yet, what if they don’t open?”

The chief said nothing, but she guessed from his body language that he had already thought of that.

DOWN IN THE ENGINE ROOM, Paul and Marchetti had begun fighting toward the far wall. It seemed to take forever to cross the cavernous space. In one section debris and burning fuel blocked their path. In another, steam was blasting from a broken waterline.

With Marchetti’s crewmen at their backs to keep them from getting cut off, they forged onward one yard at a time, beating the fire back as they went. Eventually they saw a path through.

“Hold the line,” Marchetti said. “Keep the fire back while I run through. I’ll signal you when I get there.”