by David Poyer
But he still wasn’t sure it was right.
He had to balance not just capability, but intentions. And beyond even that, anticipate the most distant ramifications of his decisions. He’d shot down a missile from one side. Didn’t he owe the same responsibility to the other?
“Matt, help me out,” he muttered. “Take it down? I’m wondering about the message we’re sending if we don’t.”
“We don’t have the aim point yet, sir. If it’s on a military target set, we should let it go.”
“You heard Dr. Noblos. By the time we know, it’ll be too late.”
“You’ve been reading the news from home, Lenson,” Noblos said, bending close, like a confiding sorn. “Every round’s going to be irreplaceable. Don’t waste them. Not on some kind of political statement.”
The Terror’s voice: “Commencing pitchover.” And on the screen, the brackets quivering, quivering, then starting to move.
Headed north. Dan glanced at Mills, but got only a dropped gaze.
It was up to him.
But why should that be a surprise?
He was the captain.
“Ah, fuck it,” he muttered. He snagged the clear plastic cover of the switch with a thumbnail. Flicked it up, and snapped the toggle to Fire.
* * *
ONCE again, that agonizingly stretched-out pause. The dampers whunking shut. The ventilation easing to a stop, leaving harsh, tormented-sounding breathing. His own.
A roar built forward. Singhe sang out, “Bird one away … standing by … bird two away.” The symbology winked into existence on the display. “Two birds, dual-thrust ignition, seekers activated, on their way.”
On the center screen, the Indian missile, Meteor Bravo, was into pitchover and starting to track north. No, northwest by north. Mills grimaced. “Headed away, Skipper. Target’s someplace up around Islamabad.”
“I told you the geometry would be disadvantageous,” Noblos pontificated. “Didn’t I?”
“Yeah, Doctor. You did.” Dan quelled the impulse to reach across, grab that stupid knitted vest, and punch the shit out of him. “What I’m wondering is, why everyone has an opinion on what I ought to do. Who exactly’s in charge here?”
The moment the words were out, he realized they were a mistake. The horrified glances from Mills, Wenck, and the CIC officer were testimony to that. “Sorry, didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” he amended, passing a shaky hand over his forehead. “Guess I’m burning a short fuze here.”
Noblos said loftily, “I’d like it recorded that I officially recommended against this launch.”
“You’re not in the chain of command, Doctor. But sure, we’ll document it.” Dan lifted his head. “Get that down in the CIC log.”
From the pure hatred in the scientist’s eyes, he’d mortally offended him. Well, too fucking bad. He had other fish to fry … and other birds to follow.
Like the ones on the screen. They’d dropped their boosters and were now propelled by the Block 4’s extended-range motor. Nearing four miles a second and still accelerating, they jumped forward across southern Pakistan with each ten-hertz rescan. The steering-control sections were still receiving midcourse guidance from ALIS, fed automatically unless overridden by Terranova. Once they were out of the atmosphere, the last finned stage would be jettisoned, and the warheads, guided now by their terminal homers, would fly on. Each warhead was propelled in the exoatmospheric phase by a small sustainer engine, then maneuvered to collision in the final milliseconds by infrared sensors coupled to gas generators and reaction nozzles spaced around the airframe.
“Stage-two burnout,” Wenck announced. “Commencing terminal homing.”
Onscreen the target was still boosting, perhaps by its own second stage, headed northwest. The blue semicircles of Savo’s missiles were closing from astern, but more and more slowly as their quarry accelerated. Dan coughed and coughed, trying to suck air past the obstruction in his throat. His inhaler … in his cabin. He clutched the desk, panting. “Do we have an IPP yet?” he grunted. “Get it up on the screen. Now!”
“ALIS is calculating,” Terranova said. “She seems a little slow … Coming up now.”
The area of uncertainty was a quivering blob far inland. Past where the last, frozen frame from GCCS had placed the northernmost Indian spearhead. Dan squinted. “Where … what’s the nearest city? Can you read that?”
“Peshawar.” Mills cleared his throat and repeated, a little louder, “Peshawar. Where the Pak air strike launched from.”
“That makes sense.” A scent of sandalwood, and Singhe’s soft tones, hardened now. “They took two separate nuclear attacks before deciding to hit back.”
It wasn’t quite that clear-cut, Dan thought, but didn’t say. “Lieutenant, I need you back on your console.”
“The strike team’s ready, Captain. If you have a package for us?”
“I’d just like you in your seat,” Dan told her, and got a smoldering scowl back. She turned on her heel and stalked away.
When he looked back, the three symbols were only a short distance apart on the display. They hung there, pulsating, red and blue. Speeding across the face of the earth, a hundred-plus miles up, at nearly orbital velocity. Across the broad fertile plain of the ancient Indus, where Darius and Alexander, Chandragupta Maurya and the British Raj, had marched and conquered. The earth seemed to turn perceptibly beneath them. Speeding stars, as fast as meteorites. Locked now onto their target, mere miles ahead.
Their lead Standard flickered.
It slowed. The callout beside it flickered and began to drop.
Terranova said quietly, “Terminal guidance burnout. Shall I send destruct order?”
“I told you so,” Noblos observed.
Dan took a slow, deep breath. “Maybe you were right, Doctor. Technically. But that’s not all I have to take into account. Terror, Donnie, if we hit the abort button on the first bird, will that decoy the second?”
“Number two’s starting to lose velocity too, Dan. I mean, Captain.”
When he lifted his gaze again, it was true; the callouts for the second bird were flickering downward as well. Both his missiles were falling back into the atmosphere. At the speed they were traveling, atmospheric friction would probably cook off their high-explosive warheads, but he couldn’t count on that. “All right. Send the destruct order.”
The lead symbol winked out first, followed within seconds by the other. By which time the red caret of Meteor Bravo was a hundred miles ahead of them, still on its way north. The area of uncertainty around its target had shrunk to seven miles across, centered west of Peshawar. Where, Dan assumed, the air base lay. He picked up the satcomm and just for form’s sake tried again to report in to CentCom. Again, he got the start of a sync, then a deafening squeal before the transmission cut off. “What in the hell is wrong with our fucking comms?” he muttered, half to himself, half to Mills.
Savo rolled so hard, binders and pencils began to slide, picking up speed to vault off desks and consoles. The air-conditioning came back on in a sighing rush. He plucked sweat-soaked coveralls away from his sweat-soaked skivvy shirt, extracted the Fire key from the lock, and looped the chain around his neck again.
A moment of blackness. He came to with his head on the command desk, a foul taste in his mouth, and someone shaking his shoulder. It was Dr. Schell. “Turn over your seat. Or I’ll inform my reporting senior, copy to yours, that in my judgment, the CO of USS Savo Island is unable to continue in command.”
Cheryl Staurulakis was staring at him over the doctor’s shoulder, her own face etched with fatigue and worry and something very like horror.
Weary.
So unutterably weary.
It was done. For better or worse.
The results remained to be seen.
* * *
HE lay in his at-sea cabin, alternately dozing and calling the exec, the bridge, and Radio for updates. Over the next hours, news trickled in. Not via the message traffic, and
not via GCCS, which had gone down again, but eavesdropped from news programs and shortwave BBC broadcasts.
The airfield and much of the city of Peshawar had been destroyed by a nuclear detonation.
Pakistan, its forces still reeling back despite the kiloton-range airbursts over the southern Indian spearhead, and now with a city burning behind them, blamed the United States for taking sides.
The Chinese ambassador to the UN had announced that units of the People’s Liberation Army were moving into Bhutan, on India’s northern border. India, in turn, had announced a blockade of all Chinese merchant traffic through the Indian Ocean.
The ship lurched and swayed, carrying him, high in the superstructure, in great swoops that pressed him against the bunkstraps. Gray light levered through the porthole. The second hand on the bulkhead-mounted captain’s chronometer jerked, paused, jerked ahead. He looked up from the clipboard, past the radioman, at the copy of Tuchman on his bookshelf. It sounded so familiar. The names had changed. That was all.
At last he couldn’t stand it any longer. He got up and pulled on the same smelly coveralls. Climbed to the pilothouse, clinging grimly to the handrail as the ship rolled around him like some funhouse ride. “Captain’s on the bridge,” the boatswain’s mate shouted.
“Belay your reports,” Dan said, cutting Mytsalo off. The ensign looked barely able to keep his feet. His face seemed longer, leaner, shadowed by stubble. He clung to the radar repeater as if without it he would fall to the deck. The quartermaster, the phone talkers, the helmsman, all looked haggard in the hoary light. And outside, the gray steep waves rolled past under a gray sky. Dan staggered to the captain’s chair, then lacked the force to haul himself up into it. He clung, blinking, brain empty yet still reverberating, like a too-often-rung bell. He coughed into a fist and sucked air.
The 21MC lit at his elbow. “Pilothouse, Radio: Cap’n up there?”
Mytsalo pressed the lever. “This is the OOD. He’s listening.”
“Captain? We got a jury-rigged hookup on satcomm. Not sure what’s wrong with the regular circuit, but we got the maintenance freq to sync. CentCom duty officer’s trying to call you.”
“Got it,” Dan told the ensign. He clicked the red phone on and waited for the beep. “Savo Island Actual. Over.”
“This is CentCom duty officer. Where are you right now, Captain?”
Dan enunciated clearly and slowly, so as not to have to repeat himself. “This is Savo Actual. I am on assigned station, Ballistic Missile OpArea Endive, off the Pak-Indian border. Over.”
“This is CentCom. What are you still doing there? GCCS has you en route to rejoin the task force.”
He blinked. Most commanders knew GCCS wasn’t exactly real world, but some—especially some with stars on their shoulders—seemed to think that if it showed up on the screen it was right there, right now. Even though with the recurrent glitches over the past twenty-four hours, they should trust it even less. But more worrisome than that was why they might think he was somewhere else. “Uh, this is Savo. No, we’re in our assigned oparea. Have you been getting our intel reports? We had to launch on two ballistic missiles. Intercepting strikes. Over.”
A squeal like grinding brakes with worn-out pads. Then “—getting them. But the intel function’s not worth the risk. Over.”
“This is Savo. You’re desyncing. Can you enlighten me as to commander’s intent? Over.”
“This is CentCom. You’re breaking up on this end, too. How copy? Over.”
“Savo, copy that, over.”
“This is CentCom. We’re backing away from the Indo-Pak confrontation. Letting it burn out. That’s a national-level decision. In light of developments elsewhere. How copy? Over.”
Dan grabbed for a handhold as Savo corkscrewed like an old, cunning bronc. Stared out at a massive sea as the bow lifted, then plowed deep, blasting loose a long veil of wavering spray that dimpled the rolling pools on the forecastle like a heavy downpour. Letting it “burn out”? With China invading Bhutan, an Indian ally? Or were those the “developments elsewhere”? “Uh … copy that. Backing away. Over.”
“You should be headed south to meet up with Strike One to fuel. Then you’ll be detached for further duty. At least, that’s the plan so far. Could change. You heard, about the Indian blockade announcement?”
“This is Savo. Affirmative.”
“The latest on that. Hasn’t hit the open media yet. But the Chinese announced they’re not recognizing it. Over.”
Dan hesitated, then clicked Transmit. “This is Savo. Not sure I got that right. Not ‘recognizing’ it? Over.”
“That a blockade is illegal under international law. So they’ll break it, quote, by any means necessary, unquote.” A pause, during which the sync hissed, then, “Zhang says he’s only supporting Pakistan, but … Any means necessary. So, you can understand—a lot of our plans are in flux right now.” A pause. “How copy? Over.”
He took a deep breath, fighting a sense of doom. Most of China’s energy, oil and liquefied natural gas, moved through the Indian Ocean. The Indians had threatened to sever that pipeline. And the Chinese had just announced they’d fight to defend it. “Savo. Copy all. Do you know where they intend to send us? Over.”
“This is CentCom. It is possible satcomm has been compromised. Minimize transmissions on this net. Over.”
Dan lowered the handset, shocked. If voice satellite communications were no longer secure, all fleet comms were endangered. He wanted to ask why they suspected compromise, but the other wouldn’t say, even if he knew. Not on a no-longer-trustworthy circuit. “This is Savo. Roger all, but we have no orders to leave oparea. Over.”
“This is CentCom. Check message traffic and comply ASAP. Minimize voice comms. We’re also seeing crashes on GCCS and the SIPRNET. Check your redundancy. Request confirmation via another channel if you receive orders that seem doubtful. Confirm. Over.”
Dan’s mouth was suddenly dry. The Navy ran on communications as much as on distillate fuel. If something, no, someone, was corrupting encrypted voice and GCCS, and even SIPRNET was no longer secure, the effect would be devastating. He muttered, “This is Savo Actual. I confirm. Over.”
“This is CentCom, roger, out.”
He reclipped the handset and met Mytsalo’s gaze. The ensign looked shaken. “Did you copy all that, Max?”
“I—I think so. That’s not good. Sir.”
“No, it isn’t.” Dan blinked past him, then remembered what he hadn’t seen when he’d looked out over the forecastle. “Where’s Mitscher?”
“Off the port quarter, sir. In a squall.”
Right, they were still in the monsoon season. Which explained the everlasting overcast, the eternal wind. And the never-ending seas, stiff and jagged, breaking and toppling as they cannonballed past.
“Captain?”
The radioman chief this time, instead of the messenger. But the same clipboard. Dan swallowed sudden nausea. Now what? He took it reluctantly. Ran his eye down it, disbelieving, then stared at the last line.
CO USS SAVO ISLAND REPORT NONRESPONSE TO ORDERS, REF A. INTERROGATIVE WHY SAVO TASK GROUP NOT EN ROUTE TASK FORCE POSIT. REPLY ASAP VIA MULTIPLE COMM PATHS.
He snapped, “What the hell’s this about? What’s Ref A?”
The radioman chief’s Adam’s apple pumped. “Captain, we have no record of that date time group.”
“I don’t understand. No record?”
“No sir. I mean, that’s right, sir. We never received a message with that date time group.”
This was baffling. Higher was referencing a message that, so far as Savo’s always-competent communicators were concerned, didn’t exist. “Did you check with Mitscher? Do they hold it?”
“Yessir, first thing. They don’t have it either. We requested a retransmit. Still waiting for that.”
Dan stood turning it over in a foggy, slow brain. A voice transmission that said, “Don’t trust voice messages.” That expected him to leave station, citing
a broadcast message that didn’t seem to exist, or that, at least, they’d never gotten. Then a message reproaching him for being on station, and referencing a previous message that he didn’t hold. He muttered doggedly, “There’s got to be a record. A way you can check what you have and haven’t received.”
The chief consulted his wrist, which Dan saw wore two watches. “That’s the daily date time group summary message, Captain. Comes in at midnight Zulu. We’re in Echo.”
“Okay, but we can request a retransmit, can’t we? Since we have the date time group of the missing message … the one they referenced. Have you done that?”
The chief looked ill at ease. “Soon as it came in, Captain. I, uh, I already told you we did that. Asked for a retransmit. Which we’re waiting for.”
“Okay, sorry. You did. But this isn’t reassuring, that messages seem to be slipping past us. I don’t want to get down in your pants, but could we be out of timing? Missing parts of the scrambled broadcast?”
The chief seemed to be starting to protest, then quelled himself. “That used to happen, yessir. With the old KW-37s. They got out of timing. But with the 46s, it’s pretty much impossible.”
“So what’s wrong?”
The ITman hesitated. “I’m just not sure, sir.”
“Well, get to the bottom of it! Our satellite voice comms are degrading, Chief. We have to be able to depend on broadcast.”
The chief said yes sir, waited a moment, then saluted and turned away. Leaving Dan leaning on his chair, still too weak to get up into it.
So he checked the nav console. Took a range and bearing to the nearest land. A queerly shaped, low-lying peninsula poked out toward them, shaped like a flaccid, drooping penis. It didn’t seem to have a name, at least that the software knew.
The own-ship symbol glowed at the inner edge of his oparea, which the console was displaying outlined in yellow. The area he should have already left behind. All right, if he was supposed to rejoin the task group … He recalled the last GCCS picture, estimated a course. “Officer of the deck.”
“Yessir, Captain.” Mytsalo straightened. “OOD, aye.”
“Come to one-nine-zero. Tell Main Control, secure low-fuel-consumption maneuvering regime. When they’re ready, increase to fifteen knots.” He slewed the cursor, guesstimated their time to rendezvous at the most economical speed. “And have Mr. Danenhower contact me.” He’d need to make sure he actually had enough fuel to get there, maneuver, wait in line, and get a drink off the tanker. A lot of our plans are in flux right now. “Pass that to TAO. Secure from condition three ABM. Set condition three self-defense. Have Sonar continue maintaining a sharp watch. And let Mitscher know, so she can follow us around. I’ll call their CO in a minute, bring him up to speed.”
