The Ronald Reagan is a veritable fortress of modern-day warfare. One thousand feet long, with an island infrastructure towering twenty stories above the waterline, the Nimitz-class “supercarrier” is by far the largest and heaviest object at sea, weighing in at ninety-seven thousand tons. Despite its mammoth girth, the ship is fast, its four twenty-one-foot-wide bronze propellers, powered by two nuclear reactors, able to drive the vessel seven hundred nautical miles a day at speeds in excess of thirty knots.
The supercarrier and its fleet project the awesome forward presence and might of the United States Armed Forces. On its roof lies a four-and-a-half acre airport, managed by a city of six thousand men and women. Positioned along its flattop and in the hangar deck below are more than seventy aircraft, including two squadrons of F/A-18E and 18F Super Hornets, eight CSA (Common Support Aircraft) designed for electronics, communications, intelligence, refueling, and antisubmarine warfare, four AEW (Airborne Early Warning) Surface Surveillance craft, and a squadron of fourteen brand-new, Stealth Joint Strike Fighters (JSFs). Carrying a multitude of offensive weapons, the “swarm” literally sews up all of the CVBG’s airspace.
The carrier’s defensive weaponry includes the Evolved Sea Sparrow shortrange surface-to-air missile (ESSM), three eight-round Mk-29 Sea Sparrow SAM launchers, the SLQ-32 electronic warfare system, and the Vulcan Phalanx close-in missile defense system, a rapid-fire gun capable of shooting nine hundred rounds per second of 20-mm ammunition.
Along with its own defenses, the carrier travels within a multilayered battle group (CVBG), making it nearly invincible on the open sea. Surrounding the Ronald Reagan are sixteen combat ships, ten support ships, and two Los Angeles-class attack subs, the USS Jacksonville, (SSN-699) and the USS Hampton (SSN-767). Positioned along either side of the Ronald Reagan are her two 567-foot Ticonderoga-class escorts, the USS Leyte Gulf and the USS Yorktown.
The two guided-missile cruisers share one mission: protect the aircraft carrier at all costs. Each warship is equipped with the Aegis Theater High-Altitude Air Defense (THADD) program, a highly sophisticated battle-management system designed to shield the carrier from attack. Utilizing an array of sensor fusion computers, the THADD system integrates onboard radar, sonar, and laser systems with its weapons, utilizing recent and real-time overhead sat-data in order to assess enemy threats. Coordinated multistatic radar make it impossible for enemy stealth aircraft or cruise missiles to penetrate undetected, while its multitasking parallel computers can assign priorities and engage incoming targets in the blink of an eye. In addition to its guns, torpedoes, and a full suite of chaff and flares designed to decoy incoming missiles, the two Ticonderogas are also equipped with Tomahawk cruise missiles—long-range projectiles capable of destroying targets up to a thousand miles away.
The United States maintains twelve carrier battle groups, usually deploying only two or three at any given time. In addition to its conventional weapons, the Ronald Reagan is the first aircraft carrier in more than a decade to carry a limited number of nuclear warheads, a policy change dictated by Russia’s and China’s recent push in the nuclear arms race, spurred on by United States insistence on moving ahead with its own Missile Defense Shield.
Captain Hatcher makes his way into the Combat Information Center (CIC), the heavily air-conditioned confines of the darkened chamber quickly cooling his sweaty, half-naked physique. A dozen technicians glance up from their computer screens as the CO walks by. Hatcher takes a quick look around, then spots his executive officer, Commander Shane Strejcek.
“XO, have you seen Bob Lawson?”
“The congressman? Yes, sir, he was speaking with Commander Jackson about ten minutes ago.”
Hatcher proceeds to the central alcove of sensor consoles that encircle a large high-resolution Plexiglas digital display in map mode, depicting the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean Sea. The carrier battle group’s position and surrounding defense zones are color-coded in fluorescent blue, her aircraft in pulsing green, the topography of Europe and West Africa in steady red. Within the multilayered transparent display, both ocean conditions or atmospheric weather status can be shown.
Commander Rochelle “Rocky” Jackson looks up from her sonar console as her CO approaches, tufts of her short, straw-colored blond hair peeking out from beneath the navy baseball cap. “Nice legs, Hatch.”
The heavy air-conditioning is causing Rocky’s nipples to press against the inside of her tee shirt. Hatcher catches himself staring. “Commander, what are you doing working at a station?”
“Ensigns Soderblom and Dodds are out with the flu. You looking for Congressman Lawson?”
“I take it I just missed him.”
“By a good twenty minutes. I tried to entertain him. Guess he got bored.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t from the view. If you’re cold, Commander, I can get you a sweater.”
She smirks, buttoning her jacket, her hazel eyes sparkling in the console’s glow. “I’m fine. Thank you, sir.”
Hatcher leans down, whispering in her ear. “By the way, Commander, happy birthday.”
Her high cheekbones swell with a smile. She turns back to face the sonar screen. “Go away,” she whispers to her husband, “I’m on duty, and you smell. As for Lawson, try Vulture’s Row.”
“Thanks.”
Rocky watches Hatcher leave the Command Center, the sight of the sweat lines running down the fanny seam of his gray Navy-issue shorts causing her to grin.
Commander Rochelle Megan Jackson made her entry into this world thirty-four years and seven hours ago at the Army Base Medical Center in Fort Benning, Georgia. Fully anticipating the arrival of a son, her father, Michael “Bear” Jackson, then a lieutenant colonel with the elite United States Rangers, nevertheless presented his newborn with a baseball glove, football, and his own father’s first name, Rocky, which her mother immediately changed on the birth certificate to Rochelle.
Rocky would be an only child, the product of an interracial, interservice marriage. Her father, whom she affectionately called “Papa Bear,” was career Army all the way. The Bear was a barrel-chested light-skinned African American with a short-cropped auburn Afro and broad smile, who had earned his nickname during his years as a commando in the Army’s Special Forces. Those who served under him knew his bark was worse than his bite, Jackson’s gruff personality hiding a deep loyalty toward his men. Rocky’s mother, Judy, on the other hand, was as quiet as the Bear was loud. A white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, Judy had earned her engineering degree at M.I.T., and had been heavily recruited by the United States Navy. She would meet her future husband in Washington, D.C., during a weeklong munitions convention.
Rocky Jackson might as well have enlisted at birth.
Growing up on a military base with other Army “brats,” Rocky soon began displaying her father’s overly competitive spirit. The fair-headed tomboy not only challenged her male classmates on the athletic fields, but more often than not came out the victor. Much of her “need to exceed” attitude was intended to please Papa Bear, who could always be found hooting and hollering from the Little League bleachers, that is, when he wasn’t traveling abroad on some covert mission.
While her father’s “Special Forces mentality” gave Rocky an edge in athletics, her overly competitive attitude did not mix well in her social life. As she blossomed into adolescence, the beautiful blond teen with the cocoa skin and Jackie Joyner-Kersey physique often intimidated guys and girls alike. Even when she did date, her no-nonsense attitude toward sex quickly earned her a reputation as a prude. This was not to say that Rocky didn’t have the usual adolescent desires—it was just that she was picky. Whoever she might eventually give herself to would have to be able to measure up to Papa Bear, and none of the so-called hotshots at her high school ever did. When her prom date, the school’s starting tailback, decided to push things a bit too far on the dance floor, she calmly reared back and punched the high school all-American in the face, her powerful well-practiced tae kwon do jab shattering his nose.