The Air Force colonel's face turned up indignantly at Dirk's mention of the word Navy. "There's only one Navy base in the country and that's just a small operations support facility in Chinhae near Pusan. I'll send over one of our Air Force S.O. captains. As I think about it, there are SEALs and UDTs running in and out of here all the time. He ought to be able to help you out."
Two hours later, Dirk and Summer climbed aboard a gray Air Force C-141B Starlifter with a large contingent of GIs headed stateside. As they settled into their seats in the windowless transport jet, Dirk found an eye mask and a pair of earplugs in the seat back in front of him. Donning the sleep aids, he turned to Summer and said, "Please don't wake me till we're over land. Preferably, land where they don't serve seaweed for breakfast."
He then pulled down the eye mask, stretched out flat in the seat, and promptly fell fast asleep.
The fire was minuscule by most arson standards, burning less than twenty minutes before it was brought under control. Yet the targeted damage had been carefully calculated with a precise outcome in mind.
It was two in the morning when the fire bells sounded aboard the Sea Launch Commander, jolting Christiano from a deep sleep in his captain's cabin. In an instant he was on the bridge, alertly checking the ship's fire control monitors. A graphic image of the ship showed a single red light on the ship's lower topside deck.
"Conduit room on the shelter deck, just forward of the launch control center," reported a dark-haired crewman manning the bridge watch. "Automated water mist system has been activated."
"Cut all electrical power except for emergency systems to that part of the ship," Christiano ordered. "Notify the port fire station that we require assistance."
"Yes, sir. I have two men en route to the conduit room and am awaiting their report."
While at port, the Commander carried only a skeleton marine crew aboard around the clock, few of whom had any degree of firefighting training. A rapidly spreading fire could easily gut the ship before sufficient help arrived, Christiano knew. The captain looked out a bridge window, half-expecting to see smoke and flames erupting from the ship but there were none. The only indication of fire was the acrid odor of burned electrical components that wafted through his nostrils and the distant shriek of a port fire truck rumbling toward the pier. His attention turned toward a handheld radio clipped to the crewman's belt as a deep voice suddenly rasped through the bridge.
"Briggs here," the radio crackled. "The fire is burning in the conduit room but does not appear to have spread. The computer hardware bay is okay, and the FM-200 gas system has been activated there to prevent combustion. It doesn't look like the fire suppression system was triggered in the conduit room, but if we can get some extinguishers on her before she spr
eads I think we can contain it."
Christiano grabbed the radio. "Do what you can, Briggs, help is on the way. Bridge out."
Briggs and a fellow mechanic he had pressed into fire duty found a smoking rage billowing from the conduit room. No bigger than a large walk-in closet, the room housed power connections between the ship's electrical generator output and the myriad computers aboard the vessel that supported payload processing and launch operations. Briggs leaned into the bay and quickly emptied two fire extinguishers, then stood back a moment to see if the smoke would lessen. A cloud of acrid blue haze rolled out of the room, the noxious fumes it carried filtered by Briggs's respirator. His assistant passed him a third fire extinguisher and this time Briggs burst into the fiery room, directing the carbon dioxide spray at the remaining flames he could see flickering through the billows of dark smoke. His extinguisher empty, he quickly danced out of the room and caught his breath before peering in again. The room was pitch-black, with the beam of his flashlight reflecting only smoke. Satisfied that the flames were doused and not likely to reignite, he stepped into a side hallway and radioed the bridge.
"The fire is extinguished. Briggs out."
Though the flames were extinguished, the damage had been done. It would take another two hours before the melted mass of wire, cabling, and connectors stopped smoldering and the Port of Long Beach Fire Department declared the ship safe. The pungent smell of an electrical fire hung over the ship like a cloud, refusing to go away for days. Danny Stamp arrived at the ship shortly after the fire crew left, the launch director having been summoned by Christiana Sitting with the captain in the adjacent launch control center, he shook his head as he listened to the damage assessment from the Sea Launch Commander's computer operations manager.
"You couldn't have picked a worse place for a fire to break out," the systems man said, his face tinted red in frustration. "Literally every launch ops computer on the ship runs through that room, as well as most of the test and tracking monitors. We'll have to rewire the whole works. It's a complete nightmare," he said, shaking his head.
"What about the actual hardware?" asked Stamp.
"Well, if you want to call that the good news, there was no damage to any of our hardware resources. I was really concerned with the potential for water damage, but, thankfully, our own crew put down the flames before any hoses were let loose on board."
"In order to go operational, then, we're just talking about restringing the hardware. How long will that take?"
"Oh, man. We've got to rebuild the conduit room, order and obtain a couple miles of cable, some of it custom application, and re
string the whole system. That would take three or four weeks at best under normal circumstances."
"Our circumstances are a pending launch with significant delay penalties. You've got eight days," Stamp replied, staring hard into the eyes of the computer manager.
The frazzled man nodded his head slowly, then got up to leave the room. "Guess I've got to get a few people out of bed," he muttered while slipping out through a side door.
"Do you think he can do it?" Christiano asked once the door had closed shut.
"If it can be done, then he'll get us close."
"What about the Odyssey} Do we hold her in port until the damage to the Commander'is repaired?"
"No," Stamp said after mulling over the question. "The Zenit is loaded and secured aboard the Odyssey, so we'll send her out as planned. We can still make the equator with the Commanderin half the time the platform will take to get there. And there's no harm in having the Odyssey wait on station a few days if we're a little late getting out. That's just more opportunity for the platform crew to prep for the launch."
Christiano nodded, then sat silently in thought.
"I'll notify the customer of our revised plans," Stamp continued. "I'm sure I'll have to do a Kabuki dance to keep them calm. Do we know the cause of the fire yet?"
"The fire inspector will take a look first thing in the morning. Everything points to a short, probably some defective cable couplings."