Flight Of The Old Dog

ABOARD THE U.S.S. ILAWRENCE

"Damage report!All Sections, damage report!"

If anyone could see Commander Markham's hands at that moment, they would see knuckles as white as chalk as they crushed the seatbacks he was gripping for support. Every one of the thousands of lights in the U.S.S. Lawrence's intelligence section had snapped out. A few battery-powered lights automatically came on, but they did little to penetrate the solid darkness of the steel-lined, windowless chamber.

Markham wondered how the order for a damage report was being broadcast.

It had to be a battery-operated backup intercom. Hand over hand, he felt his way along the double rows of seats on either side of the aisle toward the front of the intelligence section. He felt a few men rising from their seats, and he risked letting go of the seatbacks to push them back down.

"Keep your seat, Kelly," he ordered. "The damn lights just went out, that's all. Check your station. "He heard a timid, "Yes, sir" in reply.

Markham made his way to the ship's radio box mounted on the section's forward bulkhead. The radio was hardly ever used-stray transmissions from the intel section's computers could be picked up for miles through such an antiquated telephone. He picked it up.

The hum he heard in the receiver was deafening, but someone was still trying to use it. "Intel section. Do you read me?Intel section-" "Intel, Markham here," he shouted into the phone.

"Bridge, this is Markham. How do you hear?"

"Very weak," replied the voice-Lieutenant Commander Christopher Watanabe, the first officer, Markham guessed.

"Damage report."

"No structural damage noted yet, Chris," Markham said.

"All our power is out. All our equipment is shut down."

"Understand no structural damage," Watanabe reported back. "Could not copy the rest. Send a runner forward with a report on the double. The ship is on Condition Yellow. Repeat, Condition Yellow."

"Copy."

Markham dropped the phone back on its hook.

"All right, now hear this," he called out into the pitch-dark intel section. "The ship is on Condition Yellow. Everyone, one more check of your area for damage and sing out. Kelly!"

"Yes… yes, sir?" came the broken, timid voice again.

"You wanna leave so fast, here's your chance. Get up here. "The young seaman ran forward. "You're the runner for our section. You don't go topside without a parka, arctic mittens, life vest, and a lifeline-and this time use the damn thing."

Markham pushed the youngster aside and peered into the gloom of his now-impotent electronic stateroom. "Listen up.

Any damage? Water? Cracks? Gas? Strange sounds? Sing out.

No reply "Move out, Kelly Tell Watanabe no damage. Tell him I'll give a report on operational status myself later. "Kelly nodded and disappeared through the useless magnetic-lock security door and into the storm beyond.

Markham started to make his way aft through his dark, dead multimillion dollar intelligence section. "Anything?" he asked no one in particular. "Battery backups?Printer buffers?

Anything?"

"I've got nothing," one operator asked. "That entire battery backup system we had installed is dead. It doesn't work for shit."

"What the hell hit us?" someone else asked. "All my sensors and screens flared, like a huge power surge.then-POOF."

"All right, all right," Markham said, pulling on an orange life vest.

"if you don't have anything recoverable, forget it.

Pair up and start collecting your hard copy printouts. You'll have to use the hand-crank shredders if Engineering can't get the power back on. If that doesn't work, or if you start to backlog, we'll bag the printouts and start a bonfire in the dumpster on deck. Masters, Lee, suit up and get that dumpster now. No sense in waiting until the Russians start boarding us.

The two men hurried off.

"Printer ribbons, handwritten notes, logbooks, memos, scribbles," Markham recited as he began to pace the aisle, monitoring the destruction preparations. "Astleman, goddamnit, put that life vest on!" Markham made his way over to Garrity's station and knelt down to face the veteran intelligence man.

"What was it, Garrity?"

Garrity ripped the cover off his computer printer's ribbon cartridge and wadded up the ribbon. When he turned toward Markham, there was genuine fear in his eyes.

"I could see it comin'," he whispered. "It was like… like a wave of energy It kept on building up, then everything went dark."

"Kavaznya?" Markham whispered. "Did it come from Kavaznya?"

Garrity nodded, wiping a carbon-blackened hand across his sweating forehead. "Whatever the Russians got out there, Commander, if it didn't blow us out of the Pacific, it at least tagged something' else for sure.