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excused himself from so much that was navy custom. The relief in his voice,
however, came through loud and clear. "We're in something of a slippery patch
here."
"On my way, sir," Quant told him. "Suggest we meet on the port wing of the
bridge."
"Yes, fine, Chaz; just hurry."
The port wing was actually just a wide spot on the observation deck
overlooking the flight deck on the ship's bridge level portside. The flight
deck itself covered the Matsya's portside sponson and rested on part of the
main. Quant arrived to find it disturbingly unoccupied. With navy personnel in
short supply, every hand who could be spared had turned to. Regis T.
"Hal-lowed" Hall was watching the preparations on the flight deck with
uncharacteristic gravity. The stiff breeze ruffled Quant's beard as he reached
his captain's side.
"How say you, Chaz?"
Quant had gotten updates via headphone along the way; now he chinned his
visor's display switch. "An aerospace shuttle? Trying a deck landing here?" he
asked in disbelief. "Skipper, wave them off, no matter what it takes. If you
don't "
"Not don't, Chaz can't." For once Hall did not sound amused by life's little
follies. "I've been given my marching orders from on high. We will retrieve
this shuttle and will not fail or we'll all be falling on our swords before
the day is out. I direct you to take the deck."
Quant had been a seafaring man most of his life, while Hall's background was a
university cadet program and a string of political appointments on dry land.
In fact, Hall was on Matsya, like others before him, only to officially log a
sea command, while Chaz Quant pretty much ran the boat.
At least Hall was smart enough to know his limitations. Aware that those on
watch inside the bridge could see him, Quant backed up a pace, keyed his mike,
and saluted exact-ingly. "I relieve you, sir."
Hallowed Hall's salute was for once passable. "I stand relieved. Watch
section, Mr. Quant has the deck. Pass the word."
Not just the conn but the deck. Complete responsibility for and authority over
PNS Matsya, except as Hall might unthinkable as it was countermand.
A pale, undernourished-looking petty officer second class moved up behind
Quant to handle the telephone traffic, leaving Quant free to concentrate. An
odd mix of geek and romantic poet type, Roiyarbeaux looked very grateful for
the transfer of operational control.
Quant reduced speed, got Matsya turned into the wind, and, via Roiyarbeaux,
called away a special sea detail to sever the lines that had been made fast to
the various booms and floats.
Quant got on the channel personally to add, "Don't waste time untying or
uncoupling. Chop 'em away or saw them through with emergency tools."
"Chaz, Doctor Zinsser's out there," Hall blurted, "and he expressly told me
not to do that. Some of his paraphernalia's lost buoyancy& " Seeing the flash
of Quant's eyes behind the HUD visor's racing imagery and readouts, he let his
words trail off. The wrath of Matsya's senior scientist was Quant's problem
now.
With his ship disencumbered, Quant resumed Hall's previous course for open
water, edging around the shallows that had made the captain drag Zinsser's
water-skiing floats through a crosswind. In the meantime, Quant was getting
the particulars from his air boss, Germaine Bohdi.
"Book says we're rated for this retrieval, XO," she reported tightly. "But the
book was written before the navy went on starvation rations. The cross-deck
pendants have me worried."
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The newest of the three five-centimeter-thick arresting cables used to halt a
landing aircraft by means of its tailhook had already logged over two hundred
traps, where under normal circumstances a cable would be consigned to the deep
after logging half that number of retrievals. The problem was that Matsya was
far back in line for refurbishment and replacement parts, twelve years overdue
in some cases.
"We make the trap anyway," Quant told her. "Let's have the barriers. Get your
people set for a rough one."
Bohdi had been anticipating it. The words were barely out of Quant's mouth
when a double fence of thick, woven composite netting sprang up on retractable
hydraulic supports. The barriers were positioned up toward the bow end of the
flight deck, which was angled up at twelve degrees, like a ski jump, for
takeoffs. The shuttle would have only one shot at a landing: If it took out
the barriers without stopping, it would lose too much speed to power-climb
back into the air for another go-round.
Barriers and arresting wires weren't Quant's only concern. The scanty flight
data gave the shuttle a total weight of sixty tons. The SWATHship was an
extremely stable platform her three hulls joined by a prodigiously strong
box-girder structure but a too-hard landing might crumple the flight deck,
heel her over, and even damage the frame.
Around the headland, Matsya hit the violent offshore currents that presided
there, her bows slicing two-meter swells. Quant called for twenty-five-knot
actuator turns and took her into the teeth of the wind. Even with the
shuttle's ducted-thrust STOL capability, the landing was going to be a lot [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]