“Can you continue the mission?”
He started to say “I think so,” but that didn’t sound so good. He cleared his throat and started over. “Yes. But we need help, specifically on repair parts. The message will give you more detail. It’s going out now. Over.”
“What’s your ETA at Point Hotel? Your rendezvous with the task force?”
“Just altered course for it. The full-power run went fine, by the way. I’ll get you an ETA by message.”
“You understand there’s no other unit in the Med, or in the pipeline, with your capability, Dan. And we’re going in. Not for attribution. But there’s no question. So you have to find a way to stay operational. More than that. To be ready for the worst. Over.”
“I understand. Over.” But he didn’t feel that confident about Terranova’s troubleshooting and maintenance. And he obviously didn’t have enough spares allowance. “Uh, but this current problem … it’s the symptom, not the disease. I get the impression the ship — by that I guess I mainly mean the previous CO — depended too much on tech support, and not enough on growing own-team skills. Over.”
Roald said he wasn’t the first cruiser skipper she’d heard this from. “But it’s not a problem that developed in a day, and we’re not going to fix it in a day, or a week. Also,” she added, “I want you to keep all your CASREPs close hold. Please ride herd on that. Over.”
“Already made that clear on this end. Any reference to our capability, or lack of same, is TS.”
“Good. That’s maybe even as vital as actually making sure you have the capability.”
Dan couldn’t help raising his eyebrows. “Even if we’re only a marker on the board?”
He must have sounded sardonic, because she shot back, “Politics is just as real as operational readiness, Captain. Maybe more so. I should think, with your experience, you’d realize that by now.”
“Appearance is reality? Over.”
“Sometimes, Dan. Sometimes it is.” The secure circuit beeped and hissed as she let up on the sync key, then beeped again. “I recommend setting EMCON on all your ship-to-shore comms. And ‘River City’ on your Internet and e-mail. I’ll move heaven and earth to get you that chassis. That will be my staff’s number one priority. In return, keeping a lid on your problems is yours. Over.”
“I need to notify Sixth Fleet. And TF 60. Over.”
“No you don’t. I’ll call Admiral Ogawa myself. Tell me what else you need, if your techs find more shortfalls. Stay on it, Dan. And get down to Point Hotel as soon as you can.”
“Copy all,” Dan said. His gaze met Mills’s. They both looked away. He said, “Over,” and waited.
But heard only the hiss of a circuit with no one on the other end.
6
“Unidentifed sonar contact, bearing one-one-zero, range eighteen thousand yards. Suspected Kilo-class submarine.”
“Hard right rudder, steady course zero nine zero. Engines ahead one-third. Bo’s’un, set antisubmarine condition two.”
Dan sat kneading his forehead in CIC, listening to two circuits at once and watching the symbology pulsing across the displays: circles for friendly, squares for unknown, triangles for enemy. He knew this geography, a narrow, island-littered passage, all too fucking well, thank you. So far this afternoon, fighter aircraft had suddenly broken out of a commercial air route, and been queried, warned, then destroyed. He’d also fought off a short-range attack from what had appeared to be a small fishing trawler carrying a battery of Silkworm-type cruise missiles.
He’d managed to knock the missiles out of the sky and sink the trawler. Now, though, to judge by the submarine contact, plus the pop-up of more small, fast air contacts over the landmass to the east, it looked as if he was going to have to deal with simultaneous air and subsurface threats.
To his right the tactical action officer, Cheryl Staurulakis, spoke rapidly into her boom mike, the words coming through his headphones too. “TAO, all stations: Commence area defense detect-to-engage. OOD: Bare steerageway. Come to course zero nine zero to maximize non-battleshort-enabled illuminator coverage. Disable all doctrine statements.”
“CSC: Doctrine disabled.”
“CIC, Bridge: Steady on zero nine zero. Standing by to comb torpedo track.”
“TAO, Air: Vampire, vampire, vampire! Fifty nautical miles, altitude sixty feet, speed six hundred knots, inbound to own ship.”
“Vampire” was the proword and warning an antiship missile was on its way. Staurulakis leaned forward, sneezing suddenly into a fist.
“TAO, RSC: New track, 0034, bearing one eight five, range forty-eight nautical miles. IFF negative. Unknown, assumed enemy.”
“Very well. Correlates, sir,” Staurulakis told him, without unlocking her gaze from the displays. “Recommend we ID as hostile.”
Dan nodded. “Concur.”
“All stations, TAO: ID’ing track 0034 as hostile.” She hooked the contact, and the symbol on the big screen changed to a vertical red caret.
Dan rubbed his mouth, evaluating the scramble of tracks and callouts that Beth Terranova, with Donnie Wenck sitting close behind her, was putting online. In the center pulsed the blue cross-in-a-circle that meant Own Ship. Surrounding it, nearly obliterating the landmasses that crowded in, glowed the arcane tracery of dozens of friendlies and passing merchants … and hidden among them, fast-moving enemy boats that could change in seconds from innocent transients to mortal threats. Aegis had been designed for the open ocean. For the U.S. Navy, gutter-fighting in crowded, narrow waters was like forcing a falcon to fight a rat in a cage too small to spread its wings in.
“Track 0034, range thirty nautical miles, six hundred and fifty knots, inbound.”
“TAO, MSS: Manually engage when firm track is established.”
“TAO, ASWO: Subsurface contact classified hostile bears one eight seven, range seventeen thousand yards.”
“TAO, EW: Track 0034 correlates to emission spectrum of DM-3B mono pulse radar, Iranian Noor antiship sea skimmer.”
“Permission to engage Goblin track 34 with SM-2, Captain.”
He recognized a scenario from his nightmares. The numbers on the weapon inventory screen were dropping. They were attriting the enemy, but their own magazines were almost empty. He had one Standard left. Save it, and accept the risk of missing the incomer with his close-in weapons? Or use his last long-range round? The right answer depended on how long the engagement would continue. How much longer the enemy could keep taking losses. Staurulakis broke her fixation on the display and glanced at him, pale eyebrows lifting as she coughed.
“Kill track 34 with Standard,” Dan said. He closed his eyes and found the red switch marked FIRE AUTH by feel. To his right Staurulakis typed rapidly, echoing the command as computer code, a backup for switch failure or battle damage.
“Birds away.” A bright symbol detached from the circle-and-cross and winked into a blue semicircle rapidly tracking outbound. It curved, then steadied on a collision course with the red caret. No one around him spoke, though back in the curtained alcoves of Sonar murmurs testified to the slow deadly wrestling match of the antisubmarine battle going on at the same time deep beneath the sea.