Read Online Tomahawk by David Poyer - Free Book Online Page B

prospective Tomahawk officer. Perry, Dan Lenson. There a guy named Sakai here?”
    â€œYeah, he’s down tracing hydraulics. We’re gonna all meet in the captain’s in-poft cabin. Want to come with me, I’ll show you the spaces.”
    The passageways were hot and close and filled with noise, cables, paint chips, welding fumes, dirt, sparks, sailors, and yard workers in hard hats and coveralls. Danasked Kyriakou how long she’d been in mothballs. “Twelve years this time,” the lieutenant said. “Actually, she hasn’t spent that long on active duty. They broke her out for Korea, then Vietnam. But what makes a ship old is steaming and shooting, and she’s still got a lot of hours left on her.” He thumped solid steel. “The only thing that was ever wrong with these, they couldn’t hit a target at really long range. And that’s what we’re gonna add. Okay, this is gonna be the Tomahawk equipment room.”
    Dan looked around the gutted compartment, then took his diagrams out. He measured everything, checked everything, traced ventilation and power. Finally, the lieutenant looked at his watch. “We better get on up. I’ll call the chief, see if he can find your guy Sakai.”

    They had half an hour with Captain Foster. The commanding officer fiddled with an unlit corncob pipe as he filled them in on the reactivation program. Then he told Dan something he hadn’t realized about the Tomahawk spaces: that when Adm. Bill Halsey had commanded Third Fleet and Task Force 38 in 1944, those had been his flag spaces and his personal mess. Glancing at Sakai, Foster ruminated about how Halsey had let Jisaburo Ozawa sucker him away with a decoy force at Leyte Gulf. “My dad was on the
Samuel B. Roberts,
and he’s never forgiven Halsey for leaving the San Bernardino Strait unprotected off Samar. This ship could have done what she was designed for—slugged it out with Kurita’s, battle line to battle line. Four U.S. battlewagons against four Japanese. And one of those was
Yamato.
Eighteen-inch guns … Think about that.”
    But at last, Foster hoisted himself from his chair, apologizing. He had to leave, but he insisted they use his cabin for their conference. He invited them back for the commissioning ceremony.
    Dan, Burdette, Sakai, Kyriakou, and the Naval Sea Systems Command representative spent the day going over the master arrangement drawings. Everything seemed okay on the command and control arrangements, but they ran into a shoal on ABL siting. Specifically, the location between the stacks, with a clear area outboard toallow for the missile-loading platforms to be set up. Sakai set the tone when, looking at the diagram, he said, “Uh, guys, this ain’t gonna fly.”
    Dan looked at his new engineer. This was the first time he’d met him; he’d gone through résumés on the Internet and pulled him sight unseen out of the Navy weapons lab at Dahlgren with a Brickbat personnel request. Sakai looked to be about eighteen, though he was actually in his late twenties. He had long black hair and a flowing mustache, with close-set eyes behind Navy-issue birth-control frames. He had on green coveralls and brand-new half Wellingtons. He didn’t want to be called by his first name, which was Yoshiyuki, and Dan was happy to go along. “What ain’t, Sparky?”
    â€œThis siting plan. How hardwired is this thing?”
    The NAVSEA rep said the weight and moment calculations had been done, the Surface Combatant Design Office had signed off on it, and that was that. Dan said, “Why can’t we go as designed?”
    â€œSee this? Look at how close the ends of the ABLs are to the blast shields. Five buys you ten you’re gonna exceed overpressure during launch.”
    â€œThese clamshells are armored against fire and impact.”
    â€œSure, but only if they’re closed. I bet that’s how they