Tombstone’s decades of experience in compartmentalizing his thoughts kicked in. He shoved away the thoughts of Tomboy, feeling not the slightest bit of regret as he did so, and concentrated on trying to stay alive. She would have understood, if anyone would.
“Options?” Tombstone asked, although they both knew exactly what the choices were.
“Japan or the United States,” Greene said. They were both within range — but both had problems, as well. Getting to Iceland meant heading directly back toward the fighters that had launched, and Japan… well, Japan was an entirely different set of problems.
Will Japan even let us land? I’m not so certain, not if they find out what we’ve been up to. Because the last thing Japan wants is a one-on-one confrontation with China, and that’s what she’s going to get once the Russians figure out what happened.
“Our first mission and we blow our cover,” Tombstone said. “Not a good deal.”
“Very much not a good deal. But I’m not sure that that engine’s going to make it all the way back up to Adak, are you?”
“Maybe… no. No, it won’t,” Tombstone admitted.
Suddenly, a thought occurred to him. The United States wasn’t the only aircraft carrier around. He had heard Batman’s voice on tactical, and now he stared at his HUD and mentally reconstructed the last picture he’d seen there. Yes, Jefferson was within range, and a good deal closer that either of their other bingo options.
“Jefferson,” he said, and the moment he spoke the ship’s name he knew that she was the answer. “You got a frequency for her on your kneeboard?”
“Yes, sure, but she’s a supply depot, not an operational carrier,” Jason protested. Even as he spoke, he was thumbing through the laminated plastic cards, looking for the communications index.
“Oh, I’m willing to bet she’s a good deal more than that,” Tombstone said fiercely. “Batman’s in command, and you can bet your ass whatever capabilities she had when she left port, she’s exceeded them by now. He’s put her through her paces, fixed everything that could be fixed, and I’m willing to bet that his first priority was restoring at least some of her flight deck capabilities.”
“Here it is.” Green reeled off the frequency and Tombstone punched them into the communications panel.
Then, with intense feeling of fierce pride, he said, “Homeplate, this is Stoney. I got a problem. Over.”
TWENTY-SIX
Batman paced the compartment, an angry, fearsome presence. TFCC was minimally manned, little more than a radio watch. Yet he could not avoid the compulsion to be here when anything was happening. He paced the small compartment just as he had in the old days, agitated, trying to think of some way he could help, something he could do.
But there was nothing. After all, what was Jefferson now except a spare parts depot? Oh sure, he understood the importance of spare parts in supporting the mission, and knew that he wasn’t just out here killing time. After all, not everybody could be on the front lines, could they? The tooth to kill ratio was always about ten to one, meaning that the fighting forces were always outnumbered by their own support forces by a factor of ten.
Still, why did it have to be Jefferson? Hell, he didn’t even have a normal complement of communication gear — they had cannibalized his crypto to supply other ships, and he was left with just one secure circuit. He listened to the battle going on over it, longing with all of his soul to be part of it, if not in the air, at least in command of the forces.
Suddenly, a new voice came over. “Homeplate, meet me on…” and the voice reeled off a frequency, asking him to reconfigure his secure gear to listen on that channel.
Batman turn to his TAO, or what passed for one on the Jefferson now. “What the hell?”
“New channel assignment, I guess?”
Batman felt the overwhelming sense of frustration. Not only was he not permitted to be in the conflict, he was now not even allowed to listen to it. “Do it,” he snarled.
“Roger, sir.” The TAO made the arrangements for the frequency change, and then turned to him, a puzzled look on his face. “Admiral, that voice sound familiar to you?”
Batman played it back in his mind. A smile started across his face. “Yes. Yes, it sure as hell did.”
As a light went on indicating that the channel assignment had been changed, Batman picked up the mike, and said, “Stoney, this is Homeplate. Go ahead. Over.”
Tombstone smiled at the sound of his old wingman’s voice. There would never need to be call signs or recognition codes between the two of them, not when they recognized each other’s voice so easily. He imagined the look of surprise on Batman’s face, could almost see that shit-eating grin spread from ear to ear. Well, there’d be time enough to explain when he got onboard — and that was the first problem.
“You doing okay back there?” he asked over ICS. He glanced in the mirror and saw Jason’s pale, strained face.
“I’m fine. It’s not serious, I swear. Hurts like hell, but it isn’t going to kill me.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m not worried about that.” Tombstone tried for more confidence in his voice than he felt. “It’s just that you’re getting my cockpit all fouled up.”
“Yeah.” Jason tried to smile, but was unable to quite pull it off. Tombstone switched back to tactical. “Homeplate, I got a situation up here. You got any deck space?”
“That’s about all I got, as you well know,” Batman answered. “How come you’re not heading for big brother?”
“The circumstances are… ah… a bit difficult,” Tombstone said, not wanting to go into detail over the circuit. No matter how highly classified any radio circuit was, he wasn’t sure enough about any system in the U.S. inventory to make him comfortable discussing this. “How about an arresting wire and catapult? Are those operational?”
“Yes. We just use them for post-maintenance flight checks. You’re serious about this?”
“Dead serious, Batman. Clear me out a spot, will you? I can’t head for big brother for very good reasons. I’ll explain it all what I get down on deck, okay?”
“How do you know they’re not listening in?” Batman asked.
“You remember that radio installed just before you left? Well, if you check with your communications officer, you’ll find Pete has some very special instructions that you know nothing about. Just for situations like this. Now, are we going to stand here talking about old times or are you going to get me some deck space?”
“Give us fifteen minutes — hell, I have to wake up half the civilians. But we’ll be ready for you, Tombstone. We’ll be ready.”
As Tombstone signed off, he glanced again in the back seat. Jason appeared to have nodded off. Before he ended the transmission, he said, “And Homeplate? I’ll need medical assistance right after we get down. My backseater.”
“Roger, Tombstone. We’ll be waiting for you. And unless you lost your touch, you won’t need the safety barrier.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Cruiser officers and crew were usually known to be fairly tight-assed, cold professionals when it came to their jobs. But as they watched the number of confirmed kills building on their screens, the captain could hear an undercurrent of muted exclamations and cheers breaking out around the compartment. One of the electronic warfare technicians, commonly known as earthworms, even ran over to give the air tracks supervisor a high five. They both broke away immediately after, looking a bit ashamed of their emotional outbreak, but neither was able to completely hide the grin on his face.