The South China Sea.
Boots braced against the heavy roll of a beam sea, he couldn’t help remembering other fleets that had deep-graven this same route toward the sunrise. Rozdhestvensky’s Baltic Sea fleet, the Russians doomed to annihilation at Tsushima. Prince of Wales and Repulse, pride of the Royal Navy, the great battleships foredoomed to destruction by Japanese naval air.
He shivered. Not reassuring. So many empires had set out to conquer, and fallen in the dust.
But his orders didn’t spell out things like that. They were markedly more laconic than in what he was already starting to think of, almost nostalgically, as peacetime. Only where to go, and how fast to get there.
Beyond that, he had no need to know.
In the night past, the group had threaded the Nine Degree Channel, the choke point near Cardamom Island, and bent their course south, to clear the subcontinent. Savo Island’s station was on the left flank, farther out than the usual antiair screening station. The high-side chats, even the battle group nets, had gone silent, and most of the screen had their radars off, leaving Savo and San Jacinto to maintain the air and surface pictures.
He wondered, too, why no one had yet called to ask “what the fuck?” about his shootdowns. He’d sent the reports, a formatted message for every round expended, to Navsea, AmmoLant, Jenn Roald, Strike Group One, Dahlgren, and practically everyone else with a routing indicator. But heard nothing back.
“Captain?”
He sucked a brine-laden lungful and returned the salute of Angel Quincoches, the chief in charge of the VLS. Back in the Med, the swarthy, bowlegged E-7 had charged in while a rocket engine was still burning, ignited in its cell for a hot run. Along with Tausengelt and Slaughenhaupt, Quincoches had pushed back against Amy Singhe’s “leveling management” initiative. Which had put Dan in the position of trying to balance his most innovative and aggressive junior officer against his Goat Locker. Not that they deserved equal consideration; when you came down to it, it was the senior enlisted who got the blueshirts working in the holes when you were prepping for an inspection — or a war, for that matter. Piss them off, and Savo would fall apart. But he also didn’t want to step on someone who was only trying to improve things, as she saw it.
Or was he paying her extra slack because of those dark eyes, those unexpected, yet so welcome, shoulder massages?
“They come out with a helluva big plume, the Block 4s,” Quincoches was saying.
Dan tuned back in. “Sorry?”
The chief pointed at the fresh paint. “Hell of a big plume. Scorch the hell out of the paint. Sometimes, detemper the lift springs in the hatch.”
“That’s the high-thrust booster. You checked ’em? We don’t want a hatch not to open.”
“No spares,” Quincoches said gloomily. “Deleted ’em from our onboard allowance. That’s the problem with this just-in-time shit. They keep cutting onboard repair parts, but out here, by the time it’s just in time, it’s way too late. We better hope one of the controllers doesn’t crap out.” He looked off to where Mitscher still accompanied them. They would pick up Tippecanoe again as they passed the Maldives, giving them both an oiler and an ammunition ship. “Shed any light on where we’re headed, Captain?”
“Don’t know a hell of a lot more than you do, Chief. Just that we’re steaming east with the strike group.”
The chief shaded his eyes and peered ostentatiously around the horizon. “Ain’t seen ’em. Who we got with us? Sir?”
Dan explained that the Carl Vinson battle group comprised Savo and San Jacinto, the two Tico-class cruisers, along with Mitscher, Oscar Austin, Donald Cook, Briscoe, Hawes, and Rentz. “And two subs, Pittsburgh and Montpelier. Loggies from Tippecanoe and Kanawha, and maybe pick up some more en route.”
“I heard Franklin Roosevelt sailed early. From the West Coast.”
“I’m not sure how you got that, but it’s possible. George Washington and Nimitz are already out here. In WestPac, I mean.”
“Who we gonna fight? Bets in the Chief’s Mess are on China.”
Dan forced a painful half smile. “I’m hoping it doesn’t go that way.”
“The Paks and Indians still going at it?”
“Far as I know, they’re still fighting.” In fact the Indian navy was at full wartime mobilization, with units deploying to cover the Wuhan task group, at the western end of the vast ocean, and others heading to the Malacca Strait.
In the same direction as the Vinson group, in other words. But the IO was vast; they’d most likely never come in sight of each other.
“What about the North Koreans? They’re making trouble again.”
Dan studied the chief’s face, realizing he wanted something solid to put out to his guys. To be able to say I talked to the CO, and here’s the straight skinny. “Chief, I’d just say that we’re heading east, and the situation’s confused. China’s acting nuts. India’s acting nuts. The exec and I are busting our asses trying to get some answers for all of us.
“But we know how to fight, and we’re ready. We proved that at Hormuz. So tell your troops, don’t sweat it. We won’t leave anyone holding the bag. Whatever comes over the horizon.” Dan slapped the man’s back. “Gotta get back to Combat. Keep at it.”
“You know we will, sir,” Quincoches said. “Us middle management.”
He reeled forward along the main deck, bent into the wind, putting out a hand from time to time to a bulkhead or a lifeline as Savo gyrated. The sea rushed past in a continuous roar, and now and again a spatter of spray trailed over the ship, glittering in the wind. He came out of the starboard break onto the forecastle, slogged up to the bullnose, and stood facing the empty sea ahead, the wind ruffling his hair and rippling his coveralls. Channeling Kate Winslet in Titanic. Then faced aft, and strolled down the port side. The break was empty. They’d offloaded the three Iranians to the carrier, a big relief. Dr. Schell was still aboard, to make sure the crud was vanquished, but the plan was to offload him in Singapore. He undogged the weather deck door aft of the port refueling station. Climbed a ladder, another, and let himself into CIC.
His seat fitted him like a major leaguer’s glove. The smells of warm leather and coffee and old sweat mingled with the glacier-breath of air-conditioning. He shrugged on the foul-weather jacket hung over the chair, and ran his gaze over the displays. Dave Branscombe was on, but on his far side, in the CIC officer’s chair, brooded the goddesslike profile of Amarpeet Singhe. Dan nodded to them both. “Dave. Amy. What’s current?”
“Trying to get Amy up to speed, be able to slot her in on TAO if we have to.”
“With your approval, of course, Captain,” Singhe added. “And we’d have to put in for a waiver to BUPERS.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I want the senior watch officer’s and the exec’s input on that. And you’d have to sit for a TAO board.” Dan wasn’t entirely comfortable putting her in the hot seat, but he couldn’t deny they needed depth on the bench. He had only three qualified TAOs, which meant he had no backup if one took sick, or couldn’t pull duty for some other reason.