Arabian Storm (The Hunter Killer Series Book 5) by George Wallace (different ereaders .txt) 📕

Only a solution for his technical issues and having to listen to less ranting from his new Guard commander would do that.

It appeared that Vassily Godonov, his old Russian friend, had been right about the cell temperature problem all along. They had discussed it at length and had plans to investigate and solve the issue as they prepared the ship for actual duty. During trials, they found that so long as they kept the output at less than eighty percent of design, the operating temperature, though elevated, remained within a safe margin. As soon as they tried to edge the output up, however, the temperature rapidly rose and was very quickly in the danger band.

But that was not the only problem that had Dirbaz’s skull pounding. Something else was happening here that he did not at all understand. Something that may or may not have anything to do with the temperature issue.

He squinted, hoping the pills would go to work soon. He once more checked the readings. Then he performed the calculations yet again, this time even more carefully than the previous half-dozen runs. But the results were the same. Maddeningly the same. They were absolutely using the hydrogen fuel at a much higher rate than they should be. He read through Vassily’s notes and the electronic technical manuals one more time, but they told him the same absolute truth.

The proton-exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell was standard technology. A proven design properly installed and tested. Dirbaz was convinced that the problem could not lie there. He scanned further down in the manual until he found the section on the organic hydrogen storage system. He was no organic chemist and the formulas for the long-chain hydro-polymers read like so much Greek to him. But it looked so simple. You put the right organic liquid in contact with the right catalyst at high pressure and it sucked up hydrogen. Then, to release the hydrogen for fuel, you simply heated the liquid with a different catalyst and out came pure hydrogen. All very neat and efficient. But something was very wrong with the system within his submarine.

Dirbaz had just read down to the section that discussed the effects of possible impurities in the organic liquid when a loud, angry buzzer nearby kicked his headache into high gear.

The atmosphere analyzer. He frowned as he put his laptop down and stepped over to the analyzer’s control panel. He reset the alarm and flipped through a couple of displays before he found the problem. A high carbon monoxide level in the diesel room. Like everything else on this voyage to hell, this alarm did not make one bit of sense. Even when the buzzer once again sounded, right in his face. While submerged, they would not be doing anything in the diesel room—the next compartment aft from where he now stood—that would produce any CO.

His first thought was a bad sensor or a glitch in the computer code. Still, best to be safe. A bad guess could be fatal. Dirbaz re-set the alarm and then grabbed an emergency airbreathing mask and slipped it over his face. The air fed into the mask smelled dusty and stale but it would provide safe breathing air until they could check into and resolve this latest problem.

He grabbed a phone and called the submarine’s control room. They would be seeing the same alarm.

“This is Mohandes Doktor Dirbaz. Be advised we have a high carbon monoxide level alarm in the diesel room. The entire crew should don emergency air breathing masks immediately and we must ventilate the ship.”

The echo of his voice on the announcing system had barely fallen silent before Colonel Sayyed Abdul-Qadir Gilani stormed into the fuel cell room, eyes wide and face livid.

“Dirbaz, what is the meaning of this?” the Guard colonel ranted. “First you come crying to me about your poor, precious fuel cells overheating and beg me to slow down our sacred trek. And now, without even bothering to inform me, you announce to the entire ship that the air is not fit to breathe and demand we come to the surface to ventilate. I swear by Allah, I think you are attempting to sabotage our mission!”

The engineer stared through his mask at the colonel for a long moment. Then he pointed to the analyzer panel and spoke loudly to be heard through his protective equipment. His tone, though, was as if he were lecturing a child.

“Colonel, the carbon monoxide level in the diesel room is dangerously high. It already reads at fifteen hundred parts per million and is climbing. I presume you know this particular gas is deadly. The reading is already at an unsafe level. We must vent it immediately and bring in clean air. And everyone must wear a protective breathing...”

“Nonsense! The air is fine.” He pulled in a deep breath, held it, then exhaled and glared at Dirbaz. “See? I am still alive. And even if there is a little carbon monoxide—maybe from the slop they prepare in the galley—the CO burner will take care of it in short order.” He turned to the shorter engineer and thumped him on the chest with an extended index finger. “You will not further hinder our mission. If you are convinced that you must wear that silly mask, go ahead and do so. There is plenty of air in the banks for you. But you will not become a distraction. The crew will remain at their watch stations and we will continue our voyage submerged as commanded by the Prophet. Our mission will be completed in a day or so and then it will not matter anymore. We will be heroes of the jihad and, in sha Allah, holy martyrs as well.”

After another painful poke in Dirbaz’s chest, Gilani turned and stormed forward, bumping his head on the hatch combing and lurching off in the direction of his stateroom. But as the colonel departed, Dirbaz pondered a question that the irate officer had