From overhead, they heard the low, hard rumble of Tomcat engines spooling up to full military power. On the plat camera, they could see the flight deck crew scurrying about, preparing for launch. The alert-five Tomcats had already been sitting on the catapult, fully manned up and preflighted. They could be launched within a matter of minutes. The jet blast deflectors, or JBD’s, were already rising up from their flat position on the flight deck to shield the rest of the flight deck from the tornado-force winds blasting out of the jets’ engines.
“Two flights — four Tomcats,” Batman said reflectively. “I hope that will be enough. But since we don’t know what is starting, and what we have to be ready for, we have no idea of what constitutes enough.”
Flight Deck
“Now, this is more like it,” Bird Dog said enthusiastically. “Sure beats sitting in the ready room, doesn’t it?”
Yep, the worst day of flying is better than the best day on the ground. Now, let’s see what Music is made of — damn, I hope he’s not as much a pain in the butt in the air as he is in the on the ground.
Bird Dog pressed himself back against the seat and braced himself for launch. He watched the catapult officer’s hand signals, circled his stick through its full range of motion for a final check on all his control surfaces. The plane captain made one last check of the pin holding his nose wheel steering gear to the steam catapult shuttle, and finally they were ready.
The catapult officer snapped off a salute, then dropped down to touch the deck. With his hand in the air, he pressed the pickle switch on the catapult actuator.
The Tomcat built speed slowly at first, but within a matter of moments accelerated to full takeoff speed. It shot down the catapult, held in place by the shuttle, and was unceremoniously tossed off the pointy end of the ship.
The Tomcat dropped below the level of the flight deck, and, as always, Bird Dog had a moment of shrieking panic that they weren’t going to make it. That was when you knew for certain whether you had gotten a soft cat from inadequate steam pressure behind a catapult, and whether or not you had enough airspeed to overcome both drag and gravity.
But his trustworthy Tomcat bit into the air, enormous engines straining against gravity, and the thrust gradually lifted them up and away from the hungry ocean. Over the ICS, he heard Music start breathing again.
Bird Dog concentrated on gaining altitude, making sure not to go nose-up too fast and stall. As soon as they were clearly flying, he cut hard to the right, breaking off and heading for his CAP station.
“It must be serious, sir — Bird Dog, I mean,” Music said. “They just pulled the alert-fifteen crews out to alert-five.”
“Serious — hell, that’s great!” Bird Dog crowed. “Gator will have his butt parked in the backseat out there just like we were — it doesn’t get any better than that.”
Once they were clear of the ship, his wingman joined him, taking position on his right side and slightly back. Bird Dog didn’t know that much about Fastball Morrow — the gossip in the ready room was that he was a good stick, but anybody could look good in the training pipeline. He hadn’t finished his first cruise yet, so as far as Bird Dog was concerned, he was still a nugget. And nuggets were dangerous, at least until you learned what they were made off.
Inside the combat direction center, or CDC, Captain Henry was just getting a quick overview of the situation from his TAO when the admiral’s call came in. He recognized the admiral’s voice in the call-up and took the mike from his TAO. He listened to the admiral’s suggestion that his CIWS be placed in full auto, and nodded.
“Roger that, Admiral. We’re already in full auto, but I appreciate the heads up. Anything specific we ought to be watching for?”
“Nothing I can pinpoint for you, Captain,” Batman’s voice boomed down over the speaker. “You know how it is sometimes — you get that hinky feeling it’s all about to go to shit. And I’ve got an intelligence officer here who agrees with me.”
“Lab Rat?” Henry asked.
“Yep, he’s the one. You should have Tomcats overhead shortly, Captain. Just keep an eye on them, make sure they don’t get out of line.”
Captain Henry chuckled slightly. Like the cruiser would really have any control over the pilots manning the Tomcats. Still, it was nice of the admiral to ask. “Will do, Admiral.” After he replaced the mike, Captain Henry made a visual check on the CIWS system status.
As he had told the admiral, the key arming it in full auto was already inserted, and all stations were reporting ready for action. But if anything was going down, CIWS would be their last resort.
The Aegis fire control system itself was still in manual, requiring human intervention to launch missiles. They could, if in high tempo operations, configure the Aegis computer for fully automatic operations. But in the constrained waters of the Gulf, with the airspace overhead cluttered with commercial flights, transports, as well as the occasional Air Force tanker who forgot the check-in with Red Crown, full auto was not the preferred mode of operation.
“You heard that?” the captain asked his TAO.
The TAO nodded. “Yes, sir. We’re ready — count on it.”
“I know we are. But the question is, ready for what?” He studied his tactical action officer for a moment.
Lieutenant Commander Abe Norfolk was his weapons officer. Norfolk was a veteran of the cruiser community, experienced and capable, well on his way to a command of his own someday. Captain Henry had liked him immediately from the moment he checked on board. Not that that was a requirement, of course — all he really demanded from his officers was that they demonstrate superb tactical competence. But in the close quarters of a cruiser, it helped that everyone got along.
Abe stood six-foot four inches tall, and weighed in at around 230 pounds. He was a massively boned black man, and one who clearly took working out seriously. Like everyone on the cruiser, he had a difficult time finding both the time and the facilities to maintain his conditioning program. Captain Henry was not entirely certain how he managed it, but he suspected Norfolk had not lost one inch of mass in the three months they’d been at sea.
In addition to his imposing physical condition, Norfolk was also a Rhodes scholar. He had attended undergraduate school at the University of San Diego in California, majoring in physics. He had quickly put that knowledge to use in conducting departmental training, and now most of his enlisted technicians sounded as though they had completed the graduate course in weapons engineering. Captain Henry often found himself chuckling over the phrases that he heard coming out of his enlisted men’s mouths and he felt an intense flush of pride when he saw the occasional equation scribbled on the hard plastic surface of the enlisted mass dining facility tables. Writing on the tables, particularly in pen, was strictly forbidden.
But there was no way he was going to do anything about it — hell, he was tempted to cut those scribbled-on pieces out and mount them on the bulkhead, point to them with pride as he showed others around the ship and shout, “This is what these men and women are capable of, given the chance. Don’t ever underestimate them — not ever.” For some of his toughest cases, kids who had barely graduated from high school, Lieutenant Commander Abe Norfolk was a god.
“Captain, you want to set general quarters or air defense conditions?” Norfolk asked.
“What would you do?” Henry responded. It was his policy to use every second for training that he could, to test his officers as well as his enlisted people on their readiness to advance to the next level of responsibility. Not that he had any doubts about Norfolk — no, not at all.