Into brilliant light, equatorial heat like a stoked furnace, a dusty tan sky pureed by whirling blades; in his nose the hot blast of ship exhaust, turbine exhaust; sandy grit in his teeth. And bent forward, advancing to meet him, Cheryl Staurulakis’s chunky figure in coveralls and flight deck boots. “Welcome back, Captain,” she shouted.
“Good to be back.”
“Let’s get out of this heat. Captain Racker’s waiting for you in the wardroom.” Making a keep-’em-turning twirl of her index to Strafer, she turned away toward the hangar, her blocky little rear end beckoning him on.
They had iced tea and day-old upside-down cake in the wardroom. The air was so icy he shivered. Wickie Racker, Jenn Roald’s chief of staff, nodded amiably and stood. They were both O-6s; Racker was numerically senior, but Dan’s decorations seemed to even them up. Racker didn’t look reluctant to leave. As they shook hands he said, “Crew’ll be glad to see you. How’d your testimony go?”
Dan shrugged. “Well enough I’m back, I guess.”
“Let’s be grateful for that. Some tea? This isn’t bad.”
Dan took the glass the XO poured, and sucked down half before coming up for breath. Staurulakis was saying, “Bird’s on deck for a hot refuel, but the longer we wait, the farther they’ll have to fly to get back.”
“I’m packed. Dan, any questions?”
“Just, what’s changed while I’ve been gone? Cheryl, you said on the phone we completed the rearm.”
She handed him a clipboard and a Hydra, the intraship radio they used when the J-phones weren’t convenient, and sometimes when they were. “Yes sir. Here are the eight o’clock reports, combat systems weapons inventory, and this morning’s DSOTs and engineering reports. Three hundred and thirty-eight bodies including the air det. Chief engineer reports indications of water in the CRP; otherwise engineering’s green. Inertial navigation was down yesterday, but repaired this morning. Captain’s mast is scheduled this afternoon, unless you’d rather postpone.”
“Might as well hold it now, while we’re in transit. Current orders? Remember, I’ve been out of the loop.”
“Proceed east, refuel in Djibouti, join up with TF 151 near Hormuz. Past that, participate in Malabar exercises and Hash Highway patrol ops in the western Indian Ocean. Then possibly Deep Saber.”
He nodded. Djibouti was a routine refuel. Malabar was a multinational exercise he’d refereed before as a rider. Deep Saber would be new, an antiproliferation exercise out of Singapore. But nothing in this part of the world could be counted on to proceed as scheduled. Which Racker confirmed when he added, “You should know, if you haven’t already heard, the Iranians are threatening to close the strait again, over Yemen. I know, what else is new, but there it is.”
“Okay. Thanks. Cheryl, when’s our next self-defense drill? Damage-control-team training? We’ve got a couple of slow days before the Arabian Sea. Let’s be sure we’re up to speed.” Racker cleared his throat and Dan swung to him. “Sorry, Wickie — you’re still officially in charge.”
“Not much to add. Ready to relieve?”
“I relieve you, sir.”
“I stand relieved, sir.”
With that handshake, those ritual words, proffered on U.S. Navy quarterdecks for over two hundred years, command had officially passed. He felt, almost physically, the weight of his ship descend once more. Whatever she accomplished or failed at was now his responsibility, and his alone. It was sobering, but at the same time, exhilarating. No, that wasn’t the word either. There actually wasn’t a word for how command felt. He coughed into a fist, the dust irritating his esophagus. “XO, I really should go back and see him off, but can you accompany Captain Racker aft, make sure he gets off okay? I want to get my bearings in CIC. While we have a breathing space.”
The Combat Information Center smelled like an ice cave in some far northern glacier during the season of darkness. He shivered; his khakis were still soaked with sweat from the helo ride. But the electronics liked it cold.
In the dim light four rows of consoles, about half of them manned at the moment, channeled data to the four full-color large-screen displays, LSDs, that glowed to port. Dan strolled to the padded leather reclining chair stenciled CO and nodded to the lieutenant and the chief at the command desk. They murmured “Captain” but didn’t rise. As was proper, since they were on watch.
His priorities were to operate, navigate, and communicate, in that order. He had to maintain both the ability and the situational awareness to fight and defend his ship at all times. If weapons, engines, or generators were degrading, he needed to regain those capabilities, to restore his warfighting capability.
He also couldn’t do that if he collided with one of the scores of other ships that transited this international waterway each day. Along with safe seakeeping, he had to reach his next objective in a timely fashion. Getting where he was supposed to be, when he was tasked to be there, dovetailed with “operate.” This was mainly a function of the engineering systems, though positionkeeping and bridge watchstanding also factored in.
Finally, he had to communicate. Keep the crew, ships in company, and his bosses informed as to his location, status, and intentions, while not screwing the pooch in one of the many ways ships’ captains had come up with in four thousand years of sailing the high seas, from being swallowed by Charybdis to inadvertently crossing some new UN redline.
He leaned against his chair, examining the screens as printer paper fluttered from the air vents. The subfreezing air always blew down the back of his neck, and after several hours in here, his headaches would be excruciating. The sailors had taped the paper to the vents to deflect the cold breeze away from their consoles.
The air display, with so many winking green lines pointing in every direction it looked like a surface of cracked ice, was superimposed on an outline map of the Red Sea. It was slaved to the satellite-downlinked Global Command and Control System. GCCS — usually pronounced “Geeks”—coordinated U.S. land, sea, and air forces, all the way from national command authority, to component commands, right down to every division, air wing, and ship. Updated and overlaid by data from Savo’s Aegis, the screen displayed air and surface activity from the south Med to the tip of the Horn of Africa. A second screen had the local surface picture up, fed from the radar and nav system. Readouts showed each contact’s course and speed, and predicted its closest point of approach to Savo. A glance reassured him they were clear. He checked the fathometer readout, and at last gave the helo “green deck”—the clearance to launch.
The 1MC crackled on, and four bells sounded. “Captain, United States Navy, departing.”
The third screen toggled to video, a camera pointing down from the 04 level at the helo deck, from which Red Hawk was lifting off. Racker was on his way. Above the displays, text readouts presented the status of the various combat systems, a weapons inventory, daily radio call signs, and computer status summaries. The older displays were flickering green on black or orange on black. The newer ones had larger screens, in full color.
Dan leaned on the back of the reclining chair that would be his during general quarters. The days of eyeballing the horizon for an enemy sail, of hours spent maneuvering for advantage before carronades or turreted guns roared, were long gone. Savo had a little armor — hardened steel, lined with a Kevlar layer against spalling — but antiship warheads would punch through it. If an enemy ever got within sight, Dan would most likely already be dead, his crew blasted apart, drowned, roasted alive, or sliced into bloody bulgogi by flying metal.