Just as Irving was starting to sweep the forward segment of his area, the sky cracked in half. An arrow of blue light shot up from the horizon and divided the sky into two equal parts. It seemed to go on and on forever, as high as the eye could see. The light stunned his dark-adapted eyes. Then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone.
He grabbed the sound-powered phone hanging around his neck and depressed the transmit button. “Deck, port lookout, reporting a blue light in the sky,” he said, his words tumbling over one another. Just what the hell had it been? There had been nothing like that in his lookout indoctrination training.
“Port, we saw it!” a voice said sharply. “Keep your eyes peeled, okay?”
It had looked like one of the lasers he’d seen at a concert recently, except that the ones at the concert had been red and yellow. Had there been blue or green lights? He wasn’t sure. But it had been the same sharply defined beam, the same blinding brilliance. He keyed his mike again. “Deck, port. It looked like a laser.”
“That’s what we think it was,” the voice said. “And for future reference, the—”
The man’s voice cut off abruptly. There was a chorus of clicks on the line, as others listening waited for the rest of the explanation. Finally, the voice said, “Wait. Out”
Yeah. Like I’ve got anything else to do.
Groshenko waited, again irritated at Bolshovich’s predilection for the dramatic. If the navy captain had been working for him, this nonsense would have been put to a stop immediately. But he wasn’t, was he? At least not completely.
Finally, Bolshovich broke the silence with “Well done!” He turned to his executive officer, grinning broadly. “Exceptionally well done.”
The executive officer visibly relaxed, tendering his own small, tight smile. “It seemed to go well,” he said self-consciously.
Gorshenko kept his face carefully impassive. How could they tell it went well? There had been little to see on the screen, and not much more from outside on the weatherdecks. One brief flash of blinding light, gone before you could be entirely certain it was there. That was all. Had he blinked at the wrong moment, he would have missed it entirely.
“We will, of course, have to wait for final confirmation of the success of a shot.” The captain glanced at the general, checking to see if he understood the difficulty. “We have no capability for evaluating whether or not there was a hard or even soft kill on the satellite. She is old, of course. Our intelligence people who monitor such things may be able to tell when she does not transmit her downlink at the usual time. Then again, the opportunities for detecting her downlink are relatively narrow.” The captain shrugged, dismissing the matter. “I suspect we will know more quickly from the American reaction and the press.”
“Unless they decide not to say anything,” Gorshenko said.
“Always the possibility. But even if they do, their defense establishment is full of leaks. Sooner or later, we will know.” Bolshovich was ebullient now, triumphant, and the crew was picking up his mood.
“We will know even more quickly if the American carrier opens fire on us,” Gorshenko observed.
“Exactly. That is the reason we’re still on alert, General.” Bolshovich managed to be simultaneously condescending and nominally respectful. “I imagine they will have seen the flash of the laser, even if they’re not exactly certain what it is. They will report it, of course. How much they are told by their superiors in response is anyone’s guess.”
Just as how much you’ll be told is my decision. And under the circumstances, I don’t think it will be much. Gorshenko allowed his face to relax into a congratulatory smile, knowing that the navy captain would never know exactly what was behind the test.
Coyote had just dozed off when he heard a gentle tap on his door. He blinked hard twice, sat up in bed, and switched on the light. The admiral’s cabin was a large one and was between TFCC and the flag mess. His duty officers had had instructions to wake him under certain specified conditions or if anything unusual happened, and he had always emphasized that he would rather be woken up in error than surprised later. Thus, though he silently swore as he heard the door open, he kept his thoughts to himself.
Commander Brian Hanson stood there, a worried look on his face. Hanson was an experienced officer, and one whose judgment Coyote trusted. If he thought it was worth waking the admiral up, it probably was.
Coyote swung his feet to the deck and reached for the shirt hung neatly over the back of a chair. “Talk to me.”
“The lookout and officer at the deck reported seeing a blue laser over the horizon,” Hanson said. “All reports are consistent with a laser. I sent the messenger to wake up Commander Busby.”
“Good move.” Coyote started to button the shirt as he slipped on his shoes. He stopped, kicked the shoes back off, and pulled on his pants. “And?”
“And the position is consistent with the position of the Russian carrier,” Hanson finished.
“And why am I not surprised?” Coyote muttered. “Some sort of show of force, it has to be. It’s not like they’d sit quietly while we test ours. They just had to show us, didn’t they?” He shot Hanson a sharp look. “The Russian carrier, though…” He let Hanson finish the sentence.
“The Russian amphibious transport,” Hanson said, correcting his earlier terminology.
In terms of warfare capabilities, it was largely a distinction without a difference. The Admiral Kurashov amphibious transport was the Russian equivalent of an aircraft carrier, although carrying only vertical launch fighter/attack aircraft and helicopters, and fewer of those than her American counterpart. Still, it was important for international political repercussions to characterize the ship correctly — amphibious transport, not an aircraft carrier. God knows why it made a difference, but it did, and Coyote and his staff tried to remember to use the politically correct terminology.
“Okay, get Lab Rat on it. You already got the message drafted?”
Hanson nodded. “The watch officer has started on it. We made an initial voice report to Third Fleet and CINCPAC before I came to wake you up.”
And that’s what I like to see. Hanson is aggressive, professional — he already knows what I’m going to ask them to do and he’s got his watch officer completing the action checklists while he briefs me. Good man. Aloud, he said, “Any information back from either of them?”
“No, Admiral. Then again, I suspect if they have anything, it needs to be on the intelligence circuits.”
“You’re right about that.” Now completely dressed, Coyote headed for the door. Hanson held it open and stepped back to let the admiral precede him.
A funny thing, that there’s information you can’t even say over a top secret encrypted circuit. But that’s the way the world is these days. More and more stuff is secret, and more highly classified. Hell, I bet next our toilet paper usage report is moved up to secret. As it is, it’s confidential, since it’s logistic data. They’re worried that the Russians can figure out how many people are on board from how much toilet paper we use. Like they couldn’t find out by looking at Jefferson’s web page.