Choosers of the Slain

by James H. Cobb

  The Plaza was the soul and the voice of the Argentine people. For a century, they had gathered here to cheer for their leaders or to scream for their downfall. The Plaza was empty now, streetlights illuminating it beneath the darkness of a fall night, the pavement shining blackly from a recent shower.

  Sparza slipped a cigarette between his lips and kindled it with a quick flare of his lighter. Ignoring the chill, he leaned against the balustrade and stared out across the Plaza. When next the people would gather, it would be to judge him. He would be here waiting for them.

  DRAKE PASSAGE

  0221 HOURS: MARCH 30, 2006

  "Comrades, I give you us. We have met the enemy and they are history." Christine Rendino gestured grandly as if she held a glass of champagne instead of a mug of six-hour-old, reheated coffee.

  "No shit? Hey, somebody call the President and tell him that we can all go home now. Rendino says so."

  Even McKelsie's sneering sounded mellow. As the tactical officers gathered around the CIC command chair, they were savoring a multitude of euphoric sensations. The residual adrenaline that was keeping exhaustion at bay, the feels-good-because-it-has-stopped sensation of released tension, the ancient warrior's joy of discovering that the battle was over and that they were still alive. They had passed through the fire and had proven themselves.

  "I speak the truth, Chaff Breath," the intel responded. "The key to this entire setup has been whether or not the Argys could get a supply convoy through to their Antarctic garrisons. After tonight, the operative word is 'not.'

  "Even if the Argentines had assembled another logistics block, which they haven't, and had another transport group and escort force ready to sortie, which they don't, our carriers and subs would be in position in time to cut them off. Like, rewind it and put it back in the box, guys, 'cause it's over. Am I right, Captain?"

  "I think that's a fair assessment." Amanda nodded thoughtfully. "In a strategic sense, anyhow. Tactically, we're still deep in enemy territory, and we've still got a lot of people out there who now have even more reason not to like us. The ship's company is tired. If we let ourselves get complacent as well, we could still get burned. This fight is still on. Now, Dix, what's the ordnance situation?"

  "Six Harpoons and two Standards expended along with all of the SCMs and torpedoes," he replied. "We've burned about forty percent of our available Oto Melara ammunition and about another four hundred rounds of twenty-five-millimeters for the Phalanx. We're fat on missiles, but the number-two Vertical Launch System is still off-line. We took some shell hits in the area and we had some water sloshing around up there. The boards read green, but I'd like to do an individual diagnostic and an eyeball inspection of each round and cell in the array before I bring it back up again."

  "Very well. Make it so, but make it fast. Mr. McKelsie, what do you have to say?"

  "The skin damage we took is going to increase our radar cross-section down the starboard side by at least twenty percent, maybe more. I'll need to make ranging tests with one of the helicopters to be certain just how bad it is. The big bitch is that we've expended all of our foxer decoys and we're down to one full magazine load left for the RBOCs."

  "Nothing to be done about that. As soon as we get a patch job done on the hull and a low sea state, we'll see about getting a coat of retinal schiff base paint on over the damaged areas. That'll help some.

  "Chief," she said, shifting her attention to her senior engineer, "thank you. The black gang came through magnificently. How are things going down there?"

  Thomson nodded in quiet acknowledgment. "The plant's okay. No problem during the speed run except for a couple of minor overheat warnings. Just the same, I figure to run a Charley-grade systems-maintenance package, just in case. The only thing is, ma'am, that we burned a whole lot of fuel these last few hours. We're down to twenty-seven percent of bunkerage."

  Amanda bit her lip. There was nothing to be done about that, either, except to try to tighten their maneuvering belts a little more.

  "Okay, Ken, damage-control report?"

  "Two seventy-six-millimeter hits forward. They were above the waterline, but, like Lieutenant Beltrain said, there was minor flooding from wave action. That's been taken care of and we should have patches in place within the hour. Four forty-millimeter hits aft, one of which penetrated the hangar bay. There was a minor fire, but that was successfully suppressed.

  "Some of the aviation service gear was damaged, as well as one of the helos. Retainer Zero Two is nonoperational and is probably going to be down for the rest of the cruise."

  Amanda took a mental deep breath. "Any crew loss?"

  "We took some fire casualties in the Air Division."

  Her guts cinched up tighter.

  "Nothing serious, though," Hiro continued. "Minor burns and smoke inhalation mostly. Lieutenant Arkady is down in sick bay now with his people. He'll probably be able to give a more detailed report when he gets up here."

  "Good enough. I guess we got through it, then." Amanda exhaled deeply and shot a quizzical look across at her exec. "Tell me, what was it like up on the bridge?"

  Hiro let his usual reserve slip a little and his smile was tugged offside by the bandaging on his face. "Well, I'll tell you this. It'd make an interesting ride at Disneyland."

  It felt good to be able to laugh. Amanda could feel herself coming back down off the edge. Along with the relaxation, however, there was a growing sense of unreality to her surroundings and an unsteadiness that had nothing to do with the sea motion of the deck. Her state of accumulated exhaustion couldn't be shrugged off for much longer. Regardless, there were still things that she had to see done.

  "Ken, as soon as we've hauled off a little more from the engagement area, I want to go off EMCON and see if we can contact the Polar Circle directly. Our top priority now is to set up that rendezvous again with all possible speed--"

  "Captain." They hadn't heard Arkady enter the compartment. He was standing back aft near the hatchway, his flight suit smoke- and water-stained. For the first time in the short span of days he had been aboard the Duke, he looked uncertain.

  "I've just come up from sick bay," he said quietly. "Erikson's dead. It was some kind of massive internal hemorrhage. Chief Robinson said it happened while we were going in on the strike. There wasn't anything she could do."

  The silence became an almost tangible thing with dimension and texture. Then, with great care, Amanda set her mug down on top of her console.

  "Mr. Hiro, keep the ship moving to the northeast and set fuel-conservation protocols. Hunt for a low sea state to expedite repairs, but keep us under weather cover. Break EMCON only to issue a sitrep and a casualty report to CINCLANT."

  She rose from the command chair and left the Combat Information Center, stepping past her officers without speaking. Arkady's whispered "I'm sorry" didn't register on her consciousness.

  Amanda went up one level to the thwartship passageway aft of the wardroom, the one with the weather-deck hatches to port and starboard. She chose the one to port, the side of the ship away from the damage-control parties. Struggling with the dogging latches, she forced the hatch back against the pressure of the wind. Stumbling across the ice-slicked tile of the deck, she clutched at the railing with numbing fingers.

  At her feet, the dim gray foam of the Cunningham's passage boiled along the destroyer's flank. Beyond that, Amanda could sense the black vastness of the world ocean. She let the sleety spray and the ice-borne wind scourge her through her clothing.

  After a moment or two, the first choking sobs came. Alone with the darkness and the sea, Amanda Lee Garrett cried as a mother might weep over her lost firstborn.

  DRAKE PASSAGE

  0531 HOURS: MARCH 30, 2006

  Vince Arkady had spent the last couple of hours back aft in the hangar bay, working with the Air Division on cleanup and repair and knocking off only when nothing more could be done in the short term.

  Somewhere out there it was dawn, although it c
ouldn't be proved by going up on the weather decks. The Duke lay hove to in a thick bank of sea smoke, her sluggishly turning propellers giving her barely enough steerageway to hold position. It was as if she were packed in black cotton wool, with visibility near zero and with all topside sound muffled out of existence.

  Things were eerily quiet belowdecks as well. The conventional plan of the day had gone by the board. All hands not actually on watch or involved in damage-control duty were racked out, recovering from the past night's action. Arkady fully intended to join them just as soon as he'd done something about a twelve-hours-empty stomach.

  Even the wardroom was dark and abandoned, lit only by the dim, blue night-illumination panel over the pantry door. Arkady glanced at the coffee urn and shuddered. One more swig of Navy-issue coal tar and he'd heave his guts out. Instead, he hunkered down in front of the small built-in refrigerator under the serving counter, rummaging around in it for something more palatable.

  His search produced a quart of milk. Kneeing the refrigerator door shut, Arkady popped open the foil-and-plastic cap of the carton and took a long pull. Ignoring the flat, faintly metallic taste of radiation-preserved sea stores, he poured the beverage down his throat, drinking for the bulk and the soothing coolness.

  He'd worked pretty well down the quart before he realized that he wasn't alone. Amanda Garrett was across the compartment, curled up in her favorite recliner. She had been so quiet that he hadn't noticed her in the shadows. For a moment he thought that she might be asleep, then he caught the glint of her eyes in the night light.

  "Hi, Skipper." He nodded to her. "How's it going?"

  "All right, I guess," she replied softly. "I've just been sitting here considering a few things that I've learned about myself recently."

  She wanted to talk with someone. Arkady could sense that. She desperately wanted to talk with someone. A problem with command was that although a captain could take reports, make inquiries, ask opinions, and confer with fellow officers, they tended to be short of people with whom they could simply talk, barring God. And God, as Arkady had learned, was frequently a sleep-on-it-and-work-things-out-for-yourself kind of guy.

  "Come up with anything interesting?" he inquired, crossing the compartment and dropping into a nearby chair.

  "Yes, I have. I've found that after a lifetime of preparing to be a professional military officer, I don't particularly enjoy having to kill people."

  "That's nice," he replied, slouching down on the base of his spine. "It's always a comfort to learn that your commanding officer isn't a certifiable psychopath."

  "I'm serious, Arkady."

  "So am I, Skipper. These last couple of days, I've seen what this Gray Lady of ours can do when she's running loose with her hair on fire. Frankly, the thought of some gung-ho, kill-'em-all-and-let-God-sort-'em-out type pushing her buttons would scare the hell out of me.

  "A very astute person once observed, 'As the lethality of the individual weapons system grows, so must the responsibility of the individual who controls that weapons system in a geometric proportion.'"

  She chuckled softly. "I wrote that."

  "Yep, good words. They make sense."

  "I didn't know what I was talking about."

  "Sure you did. You had the concepts down, you just lacked the direct hands-on experience. It's kind of like sex, I guess. Everybody has a general idea about how it's supposed to work, but until you actually get involved, you have no idea how complicated things can really get."

  "Are you trying to get me to laugh it off?"

  "Nope, just sort of trying to encourage your sense of perspective."

  Amanda sighed. "I had to do the same thing with one of our other people a while back. I pointed out to him that there were some things a combat simulator just couldn't simulate. At the time I think we were talking about fear. It didn't occur to me then that the same thing could be said about killing."

  She shifted around in the recliner to face the aviator. "Arkady, how many casualties do you think the Argentines took tonight?" she asked.

  "Hard to call. Damn near nobody got off that LST or the hydrofoil. Those four other ships were hit hard too. With the combination of the bad sea state, low temperatures, and rotten visibility, rescue operations are going to be a bitch. I'd say two to three hundred KIA, if they're lucky."

  "I concur. If your intent was to try and make me feel better, you're not doing a very good job of it."

  Arkady set the milk carton on the deck. "Look, I could sit here and play Little Mary Sunshine all night and it wouldn't signify. What seems like a long time ago, I said something about honest working best with a class act. I think that's still applicable here.

  "We've just come out of a classic knife fight in a phone booth with a bunch of guys who would have cheerfully blown us away if given one-eighth of an opportunity. Now, they weren't monsters and they didn't go around cutting babies up on their morning Cheerios, but they were professional warriors in the service of a nation that had broken international law. We were the cops on the beat who caught the call, and it turned out we had to use deadly force to stop the execution of the crime in progress. I can live with that."

  "Not all of us will, though. Erikson died and he didn't have to. I could have gotten him out, I just had to make the decision." Amanda's voice sank back toward a whisper. "I promised I'd take him home."

  "Begging the Captain's pardon, but that was a promise you damn well didn't have the right to make! This is a warship in the service of the United States of America. You do not have the right to promise any of us a round-trip ticket! What you do have the right to do is to expend our lives like rounds of ammunition, if necessary, to get the job done.

  "Erikson wasn't dumb. I went down there and talked to him myself a couple of times. He knew that you couldn't just abandon the mission, no matter how badly you wanted to get him out. You didn't let him down. If he could come back and tell you anything, it'd be that this was just the way it was."

  Amanda sat up angrily. "This wasn't 'just the way it was'! I have the command responsibility here! For Erikson and for every one of those Argentine boys who died out there last night! I will not try and rationalize things away like that!"

  "Okay, then," Arkady replied levelly, "you're responsible. But not just for Erikson's death. You're also responsible for the survival of this ship and for the successful execution of this mission in the face of what can honestly be called overwhelming odds. You are taking the bulk of your crew home alive, Captain, and that is an impressive performance."

  He settled back into his chair. "So that's both ends of the stick. Now, you decide what you're going to do about it. It's like me and my carrier qualification. You can either stand, or you can walk away. What's it going to be?"

  She didn't answer; rather, she sat for a time gazing off into the shadows and into her future. Arkady understood what that was about. On the night he'd abandoned his dream of becoming a fighter pilot, he'd done some staring into the dark himself. In the end, he'd walked.

  He didn't regret it. It was the right choice made for all of the right reasons. But still, deep down in his guts where he lived, he knew that he wasn't the same man afterward. He found himself praying that this lady wouldn't have to make the same kind of discovery.

  "I'll stand," she said finally.

  Amanda didn't notice the exultant thumbs-up Arkady gave the universe.

  "You're right," she continued. "This is what I am and, despite all of what's happened, this is still what I want to be. I won't give the Duke up, Arkady. It's just that for all of my adult life, I've studied and theorized about the abstracts of war. Now, probably like a hell of a lot of other people before me, I find that there are certain realities beyond all of that theorizing that I'm going to have to confront."

  She looked across at the shadowy outline of her father's painting on the bulkhead and murmured:

  "The strength of twice three thousand horse, That seeks the single goal; The line that holds the rending cou
rse, The hate that swings the whole...

  "I am the chooser of the slain, Arkady, and that's a rather heavy thing to learn to live with."

  "I won't give you an argument."

  Amanda curled up again on the recliner. "What do you think? Was this snowball fight really worth all of the fuss?"

  She'd made her decision and was already sounding a little more like herself again.

  "I'm not sure," Arkady replied. "I think we're all still too close to this thing to be able to call it."

  "What do you mean?"

  "We might need a little more time between it and us before all of the causes and effects shake down and we can see just exactly what we've accomplished."

  "The judgment of history?" she inquired drowsily.

  "Exactly. I think it's going to be something like the Vietnam War. We backed out of it in 1972 with our tails between our legs. It wasn't until about twenty years later, when we could put it in perspective with the rest of the Cold War, that we began to realize that we'd actually won the damn thing and just hadn't noticed. We might have to ask our grandchildren about this one."

  "Our grandchildren, Lieutenant?"

  "Speaking figuratively, Captain."

  Things went quiet after that. Arkady sat in the dark and listened as Amanda's breathing slowed and evened. He was almost sure that she was no longer awake when she spoke again.

  "Arkady, when we get clear of this, do you think we can find ourselves another beach somewhere?"

  "Why not?"

  And then she slept.

  Arkady resisted the temptation to reach out and touch her. There would be other, better, times and places. Instead, he edged his chair around a little so that he could look at her more easily, and then, content, he watched over the still form on the recliner until sleep claimed him as well.