Both the 03-level Dirty Shirt and the more formal Officers’ Mess on the third deck were crowded, not only with aviators but with the flight crews that supported them. Brunch had made a comeback, even on this weekday when normally the carrier wouldn’t have been operating at flex-deck operation.
“So where do we stand?” Batman glanced at Tombstone and then continued with his line of questioning. “Somebody tell me this makes sense. We just shot a bunch of precision munitions at Cuba-Cuba, for God’s sake and shot up a soccer field. And maybe, just maybe, some missiles.
Then the ship that shot them runs into a really high-tech threat a mine. Now she’s limping around like a wounded duck and we’re hiding out a hundred miles south of Cuba.” Glancing around the room, he saw agreement on every face, even as the men and women shifted uneasily in expectation of having to try to come up with an answer to the situation.
“Admiral,” Batman continued, turning to Tombstone, “anything to add?”
Tombstone shook his head. “No, that about sums it up.
Once again, politics has played a nasty role in what should have been a tactical exercise.” His voice grew hard. “And, for the record, there will be no further cooperation with any news media from this battle force. Is that absolutely clear?”
Once again, heads nodded, the gazes avoiding his.
Tombstone shifted his inscrutable gaze back to Batman. “I’d be interested in hearing some options.”
“You’ll have them.” Batman pointed at the chief of operations. “Get your brightest minds together. I want plans, options, and at least a decent idea of how you’re going to defend this battle group both from a Cuban navy threat and from mines. You’ve got two hours.” Batman stood and walked out of the room behind Tombstone.
The chief of operations stood as well. “Okay, people, let’s get out of this bird-cage and get back to our spaces. We’ve got some work to do.”
Bird Dog headed straight back for his desk, excitement pounding in his veins. This was his chance, the evolution he’d spent the last year training for at the War College.
Notional flight schedules, concepts of operational art and deception flitted through his head, each one vying for his immediate attention.
It would be, he decided, his finest moment so far in the Navy. Even better than shooting down those MiGs in China, more exciting than flying over the harsh Aleutian terrain as he had in the past-no, this would be the one evolution that broke him out from the pack.
Admirals would be fighting to get him on their staff, and early promotion to commander … well, that was another question, wasn’t it? The war-game instructors back at the Naval War College had said he was a natural, after all.
He slid into his chair, scooted it up to the desk, and fired up his laptop, eager to get started on his plan to win the war.
Just as he keyed up the word processing and planning outline, a stack of envelopes landed on his desk, knocking his mouse away from his fingers.
“Mail call. Bird dog.” Gator’s voice was sardonic, as always. “Looks like you’ve got some incoming fire from Callie. I thought I’d go ahead and read it first, but” “Asshole,” Bird Dog snapped, grabbing for the light pink envelope Gator held just out of reach. “Give it to me, now!”
Gator scampered out of range and dodged behind the filing cabinet.
“Only if you promise to let me read it when you’re done with it.
Though what that woman could ever see in you is a mystery to us all.”
“Gator,” Bird Dog howled, darting around the file cabinet and desperately trying to get his hands on his RIO’s. “I swear to God, you’re going to be puking your guts out in the back of that Tomcat when I get my hands on you. I swear it!”
“Looks like a damned kindergarten around here,” the operations chief snapped. “Gator, damn it, give him his envelope. Let him drool over it a while so he’ll eventually get back to work. You heard the admiral we don’t have time to fuck around with this.”
Gator yielded up the pink envelope to his pilot, but only after running it under his nose and taking a long appreciative sniff of the delicate scent. “It still smells like” “Gator,” the chief of operations said warningly. “Don’t you have to be somewhere else?”
“I guess I do at that,” Gator answered mildly. He ambled to the door, and heading back down toward Strike Planning said, “Let me know when he’s sane again. Captain.”
Bird Dog held on to the letter with both hands and looked pleadingly at the chief of operations. “Could I” The chief scowled at him. “Fifteen minutes. Get the hell down to your compartment, read the letter from your honey, then get the hell back up here. And when you’re back here, mister, I want your full attention focused on what we’ve got to do.
You got that?”
“Yes, sir!” Bird Dog smiled and headed for the door.
Callie’s timing was perfect. A letter arriving just as he made a masterstroke in his career! How could she have known?
Bird Dog darted down to the compartment, dodging other sailors and leaping easily over knee-knockers. He flung open the door to his stateroom, made sure his roommate wasn’t skulking in a corner, and threw himself down on the lower bunk. He paused to take a deep, appreciative sniff of the letter before he delicately teased the envelope flap away from the body of it. The smell of perfume grew stronger. He inhaled deeply, then drew out the two folded pages of paper.
Only two sheet she frowned slightly, then dismissed the feeling.
Callie wasn’t much for long letters, he knew, though he himself could have written ten or fifteen pages to her every night if he had the time, pouring out his need for her, his plans, and his description of the life they’d have together eventually. Still The first words stopped his breath. He read the first paragraph again, trying to understand what his eyes were seeing, at a complete loss as to understand why it sounded like his fiancee was … she was. Dumping him? How could she? Gradually, his heart started to beat again, though it had taken a dive to somewhere down behind his navel.
The possibility that Callie wouldn’t follow through with their plans, would find someone else while he was on cruise, had never even occurred to him.
He let the pages flutter from his hand and land on the worn, nubby carpet on his deck. This would take some time to think through, some planning to figure out just how to convince her that she was making a terrible mistake. Time he didn’t have right now.
When Bird Dog walked back into the Operations Department only four minutes after he’d left, the rest of the staff looked startled, then maintained a cautious silence. There was no teasing, no joshing about what he’d been doing in those moments alone in his stateroom. Whether it was the short time span or the expression on his face, every single officer there seemed to know. Know, and commiserate. At least half of them had had the experience of receiving a Dear John letter while out on cruise. But the predictability of the event made it no less tragic for the officer involved.
Bird Dog seated himself at his desk, toggled his mouse to dissolve the flying-toaster screen saver into shards of color, and called up the beginning of his operational plan. Within minutes, he was immersed in the intricacies of it.
The noise level in the Operations compartment gradually returned to normal. Everyone left Bird Dog alone.
“We’re still afloat, if that’s what you mean.” Captain Heather’s voice sounded infinitely weary. “Damage control is still de-smoking and dewatering the ship, but I don’t think we’re in any imminent danger of sinking. At least I hope we’re not.”
He ran one hand over his face, rubbing wearily at the skin that seemed to sag on his cheeKbones. his leg had been hastily splinted, and he held it out in front of him as he squirmed in his command chair. If the corpsman had had his way, the captain would be down on the mess decks with the other casualties right now.