Burden of Proof ps-2

by John G. Hemry

"I'm okay, sir. I can hold out a bit longer. How much do we have to cool that fuel before it stops flamin'?"

  "Uh… I don't know." Paul studied his suit's tell tales. "It is cooling."

  "Yeah. Real slow. Maybe I should go solid stream? Break it up?"

  "No!" Paul had a vision of a solid column of water hitting the flaming fuel and casting it all directions like a bomb. "Just keep cooling the base. DC Central, can you copy my suit readings?"

  "Affirmative, sir."

  "Are we getting anywhere close to cooling down that fuel enough?"

  "Sir, I think so, but — "

  "Wait." On Paul's telltales, the torch heat readings had suddenly plunged, then jerked up again. "What was that?"

  "It flickered, sir. You're getting there."

  Santiago hunched forward a little more. "Santiago! Don't get too close!"

  "I'm gonna put this bastard out, sir. Don't worry. I can handle this."

  "Yousef! Get a little closer to Santiago! Cover her."

  "Yes, sir." The fog from the back-up hose thickened a bit as Yousef followed Paul's orders.

  Another plunge in torch temperature, another climb, then two more plunges in quick succession. "You're getting it, Santiago." A final plunge and it stayed lower. It took Paul a moment to realize that drop in temperature was still far too high. "Keep your hose on it, Santiago. Yousef, get up here and train your hose directly on the leak as well. I need a patch up here!"

  "Aye, sir. Patch coming." Moments later, two suits came past, feeling their way over Paul, Santiago and Yousef, then vanishing into the murk. "Son of a bitch."

  "What?" Paul leaned forward as if that would help him see.

  "Sorry, sir. That's one nasty hole, and I'm getting fuel all over me feeling it out. Hey, Tatyana, gimme the half-meter square patch and get a brace ready." Silence followed for a few moments, except for an occasional grunt. "Yeah. Gimme the end of the brace… okay, it's set. I'll hold it while you tension it." In his mind's eye, Paul could see the other hull technician spinning the tensioner on the brace, lengthening it until it held the patch firmly in place. "Okay. Lemme kick it. Yeah. That's tight. I got some patching goo around the edge and it seems to be holding. Looks like we got that leak, sir."

  "Great. Thanks. DC Central, you copy?"

  "Affirmative. We've begun draining fuel from that tank. Are there still flames elsewhere in the compartment? We've lost all sensors."

  Paul tried to imagine how bad it had been to kill every sensor in Forward Engineering, then slowly looked around, watching his suit's telltales shift as the temperatures he faced varied. "I think there's still some burning going on. We'll try to knock it down. Is there any way you can get the smoke pumped out of here so we can see what we're doing?"

  "Not yet, sir. Based upon your suit readings the stuff in there is too thick to run through our ship purifiers without clogging them. We've got a mass air purifier heading this way, but it's still a few minutes out. Then they'll have to run the suction tube down to you and hook it up."

  "Great. Santiago, Yousef, everybody else. Let's head for the hottest spot and try to break the fire up."

  "Aye, aye, sir." Santiago moved about a meter, then stopped. "What the — Madre de Dios."

  "Santiago? What's the problem?"

  "I… I think I maybe found Chief Asher, sir."

  Paul eased up beside her, then bent slowly through the still dense smoke until an object lying on the deck suddenly came into view less than an inch from his face shield. He jerked back at the sight, fighting down a tight feeling in his throat.

  "You think that's him, sir?"

  "It… it could be." Maybe a leg, maybe an arm. Heat and corrosive fuel, perhaps on top of whatever damage the explosion had done, had left very little to tell for sure. Don't throw up. Don't throw up. Think about something else.

  "Lieutenant Sinclair?"

  "Yeah!" The reply was too shrill, too stressed. Paul forced himself to speak more calmly. "Yes. Who's this?"

  "Lieutenant Candon, off the Midway. We've almost got an airlock rigged. May I respectfully suggest you pull your team back and let one of the other damage control teams handle mop up?"

  Paul licked his lips, fighting down what he knew was an irrational urge to ignore Candon's advice. But Santiago had been injured, he recalled with a guilty start, and everyone was exhausted from the heat. He checked the blinking warning against suit failure. Putting out the torch had eliminated the firestorm, but the heat was still intense enough to keep the warning fluctuating around perhaps a half hour's time remaining before suit systems might start being overwhelmed. It would take them a good portion of that time just to exit the compartment. "Yes. I think that's a good idea. Uh, we've got fuel on our suits."

  "I understand you have fuel on your suits. We've set up a washdown system inside the airlock. Wait one." Paul waited for a moment, one hand on Santiago's shoulder and the other on Yousef's. "The air rig tube is here. They're mating it to the vent now. You should have some visibility by the time you get back this way."

  "Understand air venting will start soon. Chief Imari? Is Lieutenant Silver still up there?" Paul found himself frowning as he asked the question, only now realizing he'd heard nothing from Silver since leaving the quarterdeck.

  "Yes, sir, he is."

  "Does he know our status and that we plan on pulling out now?"

  "Yes, sir."

  Paul waited again, but nothing more followed. I guess he's okay with it, then. "All right, everybody, change of plans. Somebody else will cool down those hot spots. We're out of here. Fall back slowly to the hatch." The catwalk quivered some more as Paul made his way back, first Yousef and then Santiago coming after him, their nozzles still trained toward the strongest sources of heat. There is going to be one major effort required to get all that water recovered so it can reused.

  Conserving water was something of a mania on spacecraft, so pumping out so much seemed almost sinful. But as one of Paul's instructors had advised, plain old water was also the best heat-sink in the universe. Nothing beat it for cooling down a fire. You do what you have to do.

  Reaching the hatch out of Forward Engineering offered little apparent change in conditions, but a major psychological boost. As he groped his way onward, Paul finally noticed a thinning in the gloom. Smoke visibly rushed away from him, moving toward the same bulkhead the Damage Control party was headed toward. By the time they reached the outer hatch, they could see it, as well as the nearby vent sucking up the smoke and routing it toward the air purifier where the particles making up that smoke would all be scrubbed out. "Lieutenant Candon? We're at the hatch."

  "Roger. Go ahead and open it. The temporary airlock should hold six sailors at a time. How are your suits holding up?"

  "They'll last." The automatic openers still worked here, swinging the hatch smoothly open. The Damage Control team members surged toward the opening, but Paul blocked them with an outstretched arm. "We won't all fit at once. Santiago, you first. I'll count off the next ones until the lock's full. Keep your suits sealed until they wash the fuel off you."

  The wait seemed interminable as the first group went through washdown, then exited. When Candon finally gave the word for the next group, Paul sent them one at a time until only he was left. Judging enough space remained, he crowded in, unwilling to remain alone in the outer compartment with the hatchway into Forward Engineering gaping behind him. Paul looked back before closing the hatch. The smoke had cleared enough now that he could see partway into Forward Engineering. Black soot covered every surface, except where some still glowed with heat. The familiar shapes of equipment, ladders and piping had all been bent and warped from the heat, melting into odd shapes. In the aftermath of the fire, Forward Engineering seemed to resemble a Salvador Dali painting of hell.

  Lieutenant Candon wasn't suited up herself. As Paul exited, she waved her own team forward. "Chief, do what the Michaelson 's DC Central orders. Let me know if there's any problems." She turned to Paul and shook her head.
"Looks like it's pretty bad."

  "It is." Paul slumped against the nearest bulkhead, suddenly intensely thirsty.

  Another figure was before him, this one with medical insignia on the collar. "Lieutenant Sinclair? I'm Midway 's duty medical officer. I understand there was a sailor in the compartment? Did you find him?"

  Paul looked away. "Yeah. We… think so."

  "You think so? Oh." The doctor grimaced. "Beyond help, then. Are any of your team hurt?"

  "Yes. Santiago, get over here and let the doc check your arm."

  Santiago grinned with obviously false cheer. "It's okay, sir. I don't need no sick call."

  "You told me the fire boiled your arm."

  "It's better now, Mr. Sinclair. Really."

  The doctor moved toward her, smiling reassuringly. "Can I have a look, anyway?"

  Santiago looked around like a trapped animal, then slowly peeled back her suit to reveal a swollen, red arm. "Doc, I ain't gonna need no shots, am I?"

  Paul found himself desperately fighting down laughter, afraid it might sound hysterical. Petty Officer Santiago, who'd led the way into a deadly fire, gone face to face with its source and insisted on fighting it even after being injured, was afraid of getting a shot.

  Lieutenant Candon came over to Paul again. "I can take over here. You look pretty used up."

  Paul hesitated, his tiredness and thirst warring with his sense of responsibility. "No. Thanks. But I better stay here. She's my ship."

  "Understood. Can I get you anything?"

  "Have you got any water?"

  Candon laughed. "You just used up about ten years worth of an entire ship's water allotments! And you want more?"

  Paul winced. "Hey, that's not funny."

  "Yeah, it is. But you're in luck. We brought some of Midway 's finest bottled water with us. Have a liter."

  Paul was raising the bottle to his lips when he noticed one of his damage control party staring at it. Oh, hell. "Lieutenant Candon, do you have enough water for my sailors here?"

  "Sure thing. Come'n get it, you guys." While Candon passed out bottles to the eager sailors, Paul finally drank, not lowering his own bottle until it was empty. "You need another?"

  "No, thanks." Paul glanced up as someone came down the ladder. "Kris. You're not on duty."

  "Paul, you idiot, when there's an emergency everyone's on duty. They passed an emergency recall for the crew. I got back a few minutes ago and the captain told me to get down here and relieve you on the scene." Kris looked at Lieutenant Candon with a worried frown. As a Lieutenant Junior Grade, she was outranked by Candon.

  But Lieutenant Candon just shook her head and smiled. "It's your ship. My orders are to render all requested assistance. At your service, ma'am."

  "Looks like you're doing everything we need at the moment. Paul, take a hike. You look like ten kilometers of bad road."

  "I wish everybody would stop telling me how bad I look," Paul mumbled. "Where am I supposed to go?"

  "I don't know. The captain didn't say. I wouldn't leave the ship, though."

  Paul glared at her. "Duh."

  "I was joking, Lieutenant Junior Grade Sinclair. Go somewhere and sit down, for heaven's sake."

  "Okay, okay." Paul straightened, and smiled toward his damage control team. "Thanks, you guys. You did a great job. Petty Officer Yousef? I'd appreciate it if you got me a list of everyone who's in this team."

  "No problem, Mr. Sinclair." Yousef grinned. "It's been real, sir. And it's been nice. But it ain't been real nice."

  "You can say that again." Paul saluted Kris. "I stand relieved."

  She flipped a quick salute back. "I've got it. Get out of here before that doc tosses you into sickbay."

  Paul pulled himself up the ladder, then paused, looking around. Where do I go? He eventually decided on the quarterdeck. Standing in one of the hatches leading out onto the quarterdeck, he leaned outward enough to see Lieutenant Silver talking animatedly to the XO, smiles alternating with a studiously serious expression. Feeling a sudden desire to be alone, Paul pulled back and headed down toward his stateroom, then at the last moment turned into the wardroom instead in hopes of finding hot coffee.

  The coffee wasn't fresh but it was hot. Paul hunched forward in his seat, drinking slowly, looking up only when he heard the hatch open, then jumping to his feet. "Captain."

  Hayes gestured Paul back to his seat. "Sit down. You've had a rough night. The fire's out."

  "Yessir. The source, anyway. There were still a few hot spots in Forward Engineering when I left." The words suddenly sounded wrong, as if he'd abandoned his duty station.

  But Hayes simply nodded. "The team from the Midway is cooling them down now. Franklin Station authorities are going nuts over all the water we just used."

  Paul looked down. "Sorry, sir."

  "Do you think I'm complaining? We're already pumping it out of Forward Engineering and back to the station recycling tanks. Do you have any idea how the fire started?"

  Paul looked up again, wanting to know if the captain was watching him like a prosecuting attorney, but saw only a captain's concern there. "No, sir. All I know is there was an explosion, then this fire."

  "Do you have idea why the fire suppression systems in Forward Engineering didn't work? Did you see anything that might explain that while you were in there?"

  "No, sir. DC Central said the systems were out, and later said they'd lost all sensors in the compartment because of the fire, but I didn't hear anything about anyone finding out why the systems didn't work. And I didn't see anything in the compartment, sir. Nothing. The smoke was so thick we couldn't see a thing. Except, um…" Paul unsuccessfully tried to avoid a small shudder.

  "What?"

  "Chief Asher, sir. I think. Some of what was left of him."

  Hayes closed his eyes for a moment. "Chief Asher was in Forward Engineering when the explosion happened?"

  "He must have been, sir. I don't see how after the explosion he could have run as far inside the compartment as where we found his… remains." Paul gulped, fighting down a wave of nausea.

  "Okay. Did you sign-off on any maintenance activity in Forward Engineering tonight?"

  "Sir? No, sir. I hadn't seen Chief Asher since morning quarters."

  "No other engineer came by and asked you to sign off on a work chit?"

  "No, sir."

  Hayes shook his head, his mouth a thin line. "I understand Chief Asher was a good sailor."

  "I didn't know him much, sir, but I never heard anything bad about him."

  "Asher was by the book? He didn't take shortcuts?"

  "As far as I know, Captain. We never had any problems with him during duty days, and nobody ever told me he needed to be watched."

  "How'd you end up leading that Damage Control team?"

  Paul looked down at his coffee. "Uh, well, sir, Lieutenant Silver and Chief Imari and I were on the quarterdeck, and DC Central told us the team had to go in and knock down the fire but Chief Asher wasn't there to lead them. Chief Imari had the deck and Lieutenant Silver was command duty officer, so that left me."

  "Lieutenant Silver told you to go down there?"

  "Um, he, uh, agreed to it, sir." Paul blinked, then looked up again. "Captain, Petty Officer Santiago did a great job. She really deserves a medal. Petty Officer Yousef, too. The whole damage control team did well."

  "I'll keep that in mind, Paul. Go ahead and rest for a while." Captain Hayes started to leave, then paused in the hatch. "What about you, Paul?"

  "Sir?"

  "How'd you do?"

  Paul's gaze was fixed on his coffee again. He felt a great reluctance to speak, to talk of his time in Forward Engineering. Chief Asher was certainly dead, and offering up any praise for himself felt not only inappropriate but simply wrong. I don't want any commendation, not one earned by Chief Asher's death. "I did my job, sir."

  Not long afterwards, Kris Denaldo came in. "Colleen Kilgary showed up to relieve me and check out Forward Engineering
herself. Why isn't Silver doing that?"

  Paul shrugged. "I guess because he's command duty officer."

  "The captain, XO, and just about everybody else is back on the ship. Silver doesn't need to worry about running things anymore. What could he be doing that's more important than checking out his gear and trying to confirm what happened to Chief Asher?"

  "Do I look like I can read Silver's worthless mind?" Paul glanced up at the resulting silence, seeing Kris watching him. "Sorry. I've been under a little stress."

  "That's a given, and you're forgiven for that. But I read some real hostility there."

  "I don't like him. Okay? Silver's a no-load."

  "I heard he handled the fire okay."

  "He was paralyzed! Chief Imari and I were pushing things. I never heard a word from him when I was down there."

  "Really. Have you told anyone else this?"

  "No." His earlier conversation with Lieutenant Sindh came back. "And I'm not going to. It'd just make me look like I was trying to claim all the credit."

  "For heaven's sake, Paul, everyone knows you don't do that sort of thing. Do you really think they'd feel that way?"

  "I don't want to find out." A vision from the burning compartment came back to Paul. "And I sure as hell don't want to seem to be trying to hog the spotlight from a tragedy that killed one of our own."

  She nodded slowly. "I can understand that. Paul, you really ought to try to sleep."

  "Have you got any tranquilizers?"

  "I could get some."

  "I wasn't serious."

  "I was."

  Paul shook his head and stood up. "No. I need to handle this without chemicals. I'll go lie down. I guess if anyone needed me they'd have come by already."

  "If they do need you later, I'll make sure you know."

  "Thanks."

  Before reveille sounded the next morning, Paul stumbled into the wardroom in search of more coffee, his mood unimproved by a short, restless night which had featured only fitful sleep. Commander Sykes, seated in his accustomed place at the wardroom table, raised his coffee mug in greeting. "Good morning, young Sinclair."

  "It's morning, sir." Paul got some coffee, took a big slug, then shuddered as the bitter liquid ran into his stomach. "What are you doing up so early, Suppo?"