Viceregal Palace, New Delhi, India.
Sir Martyn Sharpe woke up bolt upright. It was the nightmare again, the one he'd been having now and then, ever since he'd seen that painting in the Thai National Museum. It always started the same way, there were a group of people playing cards in a room. The Ambassador, The Seer, a man in a Navy petty officer's uniform, a grizzled army sergeant, others as well. He couldn't understand the rules of the game so he'd looked closer and realized that he was one of the cards being dealt, so was his country and so was everybody he knew. Then he understood he wasn't just a card, he was part of the stakes as well. And that's when he woke up.
His chest was hurting, a vicious cramping pain that seemed to spread down his left arm. He tried to relax and breathed deeply, feeling the pain ebb as he did so. He'd have to see a doctor about the pain; it was getting more frequent these days. The first few times he'd written it off as cramp or indigestion but it seemed more than that.
It wasn't as if he hadn't enough problems. The long-running insurgency in northern India and Kashmir had turned very ugly after the Caliphate had become a reality. What had been a traditional insurgency now had evolved into outright terrorism. Hindu temples had been blown up or burned down, a few nights ago a crowded cinema had been set on fire - after somebody had chained all the exits shut. More than 300 dead. It hadn't taken long before the Hindu population had started striking back. Mosques had been attacked and there had been communal rioting. The North was on the verge of civil war and he couldn't see any way of stopping it.
The Philippines was being hit as well. Mindanao had always been a lawless area but the never-ending banditry down in that part of the world had taken on an ugly religious overtone. There too, it was the symbols of the religious majority that were singled out for attack. A couple of cathedrals had been destroyed and car bombs detonated in religious processions. The Philippine government had tried to negotiate with the bandits but the response had been chilling. “ Convert to Islam, adopt Shariah, prohibit all other religions and then we'll negotiate your surrender.” So, the Philippine Government had activated the military clauses of the ASEAN agreement and ASEAN had done the same with the Triple Alliance treaty. Now, Thai and Australian troops were helping put the Mindanao insurrection down.
Idly, Sir Martyn wondered if the Ambassador was down there. He hadn't seen her for a couple of years now, but he somehow doubted she'd changed very much. And the mess in Mindanao was the sort of situation she was likely to give her personal attention. Sir Martyn smiled; he'd have to read the local newspapers and see if anybody had died under mysterious circumstances. He poured a glass of water from the carafe and drank it down, the pain in his chest had gone now, just leaving a dull ache. Now, if only the other problems could go away that easily.
Cockpit, RB-58C “ Marisol” , Bunker Hill Air Force Base.
“ I'm bored. We never do anything wild any more. I thought we were going to have a fun time together.”
Marisol's voice was petulant. Major Kozlowski could sympathize, After a lively first year that had put markers for four destroyed enemy aircraft and three radar sets under her cockpit, he and Marisol had spent their time on routine training, enlivened only by the annual Red Sun exercises and the occasional “ Open Skies” demonstration flights. Mind you, Red Sun had become interesting of late, especially since the SAC F-108 Rapiers had joined the battles. That had annoyed Marisol as well, she wasn't the fastest, highest-flying aircraft on the block any more. In a year or so, the NORAD F-l 12B Blackbirds would be around as well; that raised the spectacle of triple-sonic dogfights. It looked like the Air Force was going to have to buy even more of Nevada to keep the range big enough.
Kozlowski felt the thump as Marisol's main wheels touched the ground. The nose reared high and he brought it down gently onto the runway. Then, he popped the drogue chute and lifted the nose again for aerodynamic braking. Slowly Marisol came to a halt on the runway. Kozlowski taxied her slowly into the parking area. With almost 1,200 RB-58s and PB5Ys in service, the aircraft had ceased to become a temperamental hot-dog and was now a routine part of SAC operations, but taxiing the aircraft still took care or the tires would blow.
A few minutes later, he was standing on the runway beside Marisol's nosewheel when General Declan arrived.
“ Good flight Mike. Now tell me, do you like spaghetti?”
Helicopter Deck, USS Austin LPD-4, Eastern Mediterranean
“ A little bird with a yellow bill Came upon my window sill I coaxed him with a piece of bread Then I crushed his tiny head”
“ SOUND OFF”
“ ONE! TWO!”
“ SOUND OFF”
“ THREE! FOUR!”
“ SOUND OFF”
“ ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR! THE CORPS!”
Gunnery Sergeant Esteban Tomas looked at the platoon drawn up in perfectly-aligned attention on the helicopter deck with an expression of undiluted misery and disbelief.
“ How could the Corps have come to this?” His voice was almost - but not quite - shaking with grief. “ A routine morning work-out and you're sprawled on the deck, sobbing your guts out with exhaustion. With a bunch of squids watching as well. What has the Corps come to? When I enlisted we had to run from the barracks to the mess hall and back. For every meal, it was five miles and uphill both ways.” There was a snort of laughter from behind him. Tomas whirled around and unerringly descended on the guilty party.
“ You think that a ten mile run for each meal is funny Marine?”
“ No sir.”
The Marines on either side edged back, the wind cringed, the sky darkened and the ever-present seagulls circling the amphib fled in sheer undiluted terror. “ No... WHAT?”
“ No Gunny.”
“ So if the idea of the run isn't funny perhaps you think I am? Do you think I am funny, Marine?”
“ No Gunny.”
“ Perhaps you need some time to decide what is funny. You know what the distance around this flight deck is?”
“ No Gunny.”
“ It's 524 feet. That means ten circuits of the flight deck are equal to a mile. So Marine, you can run 50 times around the flight deck, about face then run another fifty times. Now.”
The Marine set off on his long, lonely run around the flight deck. Despite its name, the helicopter deck's prime purpose wasn't to operate helicopters but to give the embarked Marines a large flat area they could use as a parade and exercise ground. Like all her fellow LPDs, Austin was primarily designed to keep her Marines tit and in good condition during the long active deployment. It showed in strange ways, the flight deck was just one. Her hatches were sized so a Marine in full combat gear could move through them quickly and easily, the traffic areas were designed so the Marines could get to their landing craft unhindered. Fully loaded, Austin carried a battalion of Marines and could keep them fit for action.
Plowing along beside them was another amphibious warfare ship, USS Alamo, LSD-33. Superficially, she looked the same as the LPD but inside there was a critical difference. LPDs were personnel transports, designed to look after Marines, keep them safe and well and deliver them to the beach-head. LSDs were designed to do the same for their vehicles. The Alamo carried the unit's tanks and self-propelled artillery. As a result, her docking bay was bigger, housing tank landing craft, LCTs, rather than the tracked carriers of the infantry.