Sea of Shadows eBook - Navy Thriller.com

USS TOWERS (DDG-103)
NORTHERN ARABIAN GULF
MONDAY; 14 MAY
1840 hours (6:40 PM)
TIME ZONE +3 ‘CHARLIE’
CHAPTER 17
Fire Controlman Chief Robert Lowery tapped the video screen with the
tip of his index finger. A bright green wedge of static interference eclipsed
an arc of the SPY radar display. “This is a playback of recorded video
from the Aegis display system,” he said. He looked up at the faces of the
three technicians gathered on the far side of the console. “The interference
lasted about two and a half minutes, which is pretty consistent with the
other two times this malfunction has shown its ugly head.” He tapped the
screen again. That’s pretty much all we know, except that it always
appears in the same sector of the aft port-side SPY array, and that it tends
to show up in the early to mid-afternoon.”
Fire Controlman Second Class Todd Burgess rubbed the back of his
neck. “That’s array number four, Chief. Fish and I have run every test in
the book on that damned thing. Every single module in the array is
operating within design tolerances. Now we’re thinking about a couple of
tricks that aren’t in the book.”
Chief Lowery glanced back down at the partially garbled radar screen.
“Like what?”
Burgess nodded toward Fire Controlman Third Class Daryl Fisher.
“The problem always seems to show up during the hottest part of the day.
Fish thought that some of the emitter-receiver modules might be breaking
down under the heat. If he’s right, we should be able to duplicate the
problem by heating up the array a little bit. We have some ideas on how to
do that.”
FCC Lowery cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “Why am I
suddenly certain that I don’t want to hear the rest of your idea?”
Fisher grinned. “Relax, Chief. We’re not going to burn it up. We’re
just looking to crank the heat up a notch.”
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