by Jeff Edwards
8. (UNCL) GOOD LUCK AND GOOD HUNTING! ADMIRAL ROGERS SENDS.
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USS TOWERS (DDG-103)
CENTRAL ARABIAN GULF
FRIDAY; 18 MAY
0911 hours (9:11 AM)
TIME ZONE +3 ‘CHARLIE’
There was a full-length mirror bolted to the bulkhead outside the wardroom. Across the top of the glass was a blue decal depicting the eagle-and anchor emblem of the U.S. Navy, followed by a short paragraph in white block lettering:
CHECK YOUR MILITARY APPEARANCE. ARE YOU SETTING A PROPER EXAMPLE FOR YOUR SUBORDINATE PERSONNEL? LOOK LIKE A LEADER. THINK LIKE A LEADER. BE A LEADER.
Sonar Technician Chief Theresa McPherson paused to examine her reflection in the mirror. She was a bantam hen of a woman: short, redheaded, and inclined toward plumpness. Thirty-five minutes a day on the treadmill kept her within Navy body-fat standards, but her round face and full cheeks made her seem chubby no matter how trim she kept her body.
She suppressed a sigh. Her face was a preview of the years ahead. The women of her family all put on weight in their late thirties, and some day—when she no longer had the energy to struggle against her genes and the general entropy of middle age—she would become just as round as the others. That day might not be too far in coming. She didn’t need the streaks of gray in her hair to know that her fortieth birthday was careening toward her like a juggernaut.
She turned her attention to her uniform. Her short-sleeved khakis were crisply starched, the creases sharp and precisely aligned. Despite her chipmunk cheeks, there were no bulges at the hips of her khaki trousers, and the buttons of her shirt lay flat against her belly. She was winning the battle, for now at least. And maybe that was all she could expect: to win one battle at a time. She straightened her belt buckle a fraction and stepped away from the mirror.
Two quick steps brought her to the wardroom. She rapped on the door-frame and then opened the door far enough to stick her head in.
Captain Bowie was sitting in his customary spot, the middle seat on the far side of the table that ran down the center of the room. He looked up and motioned to a chair. “Come on in, Chief. Grab yourself a cup of coffee and have a seat.”
Chief McPherson skipped the coffee and took a chair near the middle of the table.
The captain turned back to a stack of papers laid out on the table in front of him. “I hope you’ll excuse me,” he said with the ghost of a smile. “I want to make sure that my homework is finished before the thundering hoard arrives.”
The chief nodded automatically, despite the obvious fact that the captain wasn’t looking at her. “Of course, sir.” She checked her watch. “I’m early anyway.”
She resisted the temptation to give the room the once-over. She’d been to meetings here at least two dozen times, but the wardroom was so unlike the rest of the ship that just walking through the door was always a bit of a shock. Towers was a warship, and that meant she was built for utility rather than aesthetics. Outside of the wardroom, the bulkheads and overheads were crowded with pipes, valves, ventilation ducts, cable runs, electrical junction boxes, and damage control equipment—so much so that it would have been difficult to locate two square feet of exposed wall space. If such an empty spot had existed, some naval engineer would undoubtedly have found a way to shoehorn in a fiber optic relay terminal or a casualty power transformer.
Inside the door of the wardroom was a different matter. The walls were paneled in richly grained walnut. (Yes, wall was the right word; bulkhead was a shipboard term, and the dark wooden paneling bore no resemblance to the utilitarian white-painted steel bulkheads found elsewhere on the ship.) In place of the cable runs and pipes that lined the overheads on the rest of the ship, the wardroom boasted an acoustic tile ceiling that would have looked at home in a restaurant or business office.
Equal parts conference room, classroom, dining room, and social parlor, the wardroom on Towers (as on every warship) was the nexus of all officer activity. Here, the commissioned officers held training sessions, conducted high-level briefings, and entertained the occasional civilian dignitary or head of state.
A score of other details made the wardroom—and to a lesser degree the officers’ staterooms—markedly different from the rest of the ship. Up here, the officers dined on real china—inlaid with the ship’s crest. Down on the Mess Decks and in the Chief Petty Officer’s Mess, the enlisted crew members ate their meals off fiberglass trays. The officers’ eating utensils were of finely patterned silver—also engraved with the ship’s crest. The enlisted crew used unpatterned stainless steel flatware. The wardroom napkins were starched linen, in place of the paper napkins used by the rest of the crew.
Chief McPherson didn’t begrudge the officers the few perks they received, and she didn’t think that most of the crew did either. General consensus treated the wardroom as an upscale version of the Chief Petty Officer’s Mess, but Chief McPherson knew that it was more than that. It was, among other things, a symbol: a line drawn in the dirt that clearly delineated the distinction between the enlisted crew and the officers who commanded them.
In ages past, the line between commissioned officers and their enlisted subordinates had been so obvious that it had needed no elaboration. Officers had been the military’s version of the aristocracy: educated, frequently wealthy, and well mannered to the point of gentility. By contrast, enlisted men had often been illiterate, ill mannered, and so nearly destitute that the majority had lived from payday to meager payday.
Over the years, such distinctions had faded far enough to blur the line between officers and their subordinates. The typical twenty-first–century petty officer was college-educated, technically skilled, well mannered, and financially solvent. In point of fact, the wealthiest man currently stationed aboard Towers was a second class Electronics Warfare Technician with a bachelor’s degree in economics and an uncanny flair for predicting the ups and downs of the securities market.
The extravagant (by comparison) trappings of the wardroom served as a subtle reminder to the crew, and to the officers themselves, that the line between officer and enlisted was still in place—and that it was there for a reason.
* * *
Chief McPherson focused her attention on the trio of oil paintings that hung in a neat row on the wall behind the captain’s chair. The center, and largest of the three, was a portrait of the ship’s namesake, Vice Admiral John Henry Towers. Obviously based on a photograph taken early in the man’s career, the face staring out of the portrait had the sort of square-jawed, wavy-haired good looks that were more readily associated with motion picture heroes than with actual warriors. But the man had been an actual warrior; only the third airplane pilot in the history of the U.S. Navy, Towers had been designated Naval Aviator Number 3 in 1911. Present at the very birth of military aviation, he had guided the development and growth of the Navy’s fledgling air wing through two world wars.
To the left of the admiral’s portrait was a painting of the first ship to carry the name of Towers. Shown plowing through heavy seas under a storm-darkened sky, the old Adams Class guided missile destroyer looked resolute and powerful, and yet—at the same time—tiny and frail against the thrashing might of the waves. Fluttering from the old ship’s starboard yardarm were the signal flags November and Yankee: the tactical signal for “I Stand Relieved.”
On the opposite side of the admiral’s portrait hung a painting of the current USS Towers. Also shown slicing through a stormy sea, the new ship flew the signal flags Charlie and Lima from the short yardarm on the port side of her shark-fin mast, and the flags Bravo and Zulu from the starboard yardarm. The four flags formed two tactical signals: “I Assume the Watch,” and “Job Well Done!”—the new ship’s answer to the message sent by her older sister.
The low, angular profile of the stealth destroyer looked more like something out of a science fi
ction movie than the sister of the older ship. But, appearances aside, sisters they were. Despite the fifty-odd years of technological development that separated them, both ships shared the same DNA. As guided missile destroyers in the United States Navy, both ships had been designed with the tin can Sailor’s credo in mind: Go anywhere, do anything, battle any foe.
With thirty years of service spanning the Vietnam War and the Cold War, the old Adams Class DDG had more than met the challenge raised by those words. With fewer than eighteen months of duty under her belt, the new Towers had a long way to go before she could begin to live up to her name.
* * *
The wardroom door opened, and the executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Pete Tyler, filed in, followed in short order by the ship’s Operations Officer, Lieutenant Brian Nylander; the Combat Systems Officer, Lieutenant Terri Sikes; and the Navigator/Administrative Officer, Lieutenant (junior grade) Karen Augustine. Each of the officers greeted the captain and found a seat at the wardroom table.
The XO leaned over in Chief McPherson’s direction and whispered, “Where is your boss?”
The chief glanced at the door. “On the way, sir. He won’t be late. He never is.”
“He’d better not be,” the XO said out of the side of his mouth. “He’s your ensign; it’s your job to train him.”
There was a hint of amusement in the XO’s eyes, but Chief McPherson knew that the man was only half-joking. As the captain’s second-in-command, the XO was charged with making sure that the ship operated in accordance with the captain’s orders and policies. One of those policies involved ensuring that junior officers were never—never late for meetings. Especially not meetings that had been called by the captain.
Due to the oddities of the Navy command structure, that put Chief McPherson in a bit of a predicament. Her Division Officer, Mr. Cooper, was a brand-spanking-new ensign (as were most other Divo’s). He was a commissioned officer, albeit a very junior one, and that made him Chief McPherson’s boss. She was required to follow his orders, despite the fact that she had nearly twenty years of experience, and he had virtually zero. Ensign Cooper was a hard-charger and a quick learner, but he was also young and very wet behind the ears. By naval tradition, the chief was expected to train her own boss and mold him into a good officer, which made her responsible for his actions, even though she was his subordinate. A good chief petty officer, it was reasoned, could use knowledge and experience to guide a young officer into correct action—Which ultimately meant that the XO would kick Chief McPherson’s ass up around her shoulder blades if her boss didn’t show up for the captain’s meeting on time.
She stifled the urge to look at her watch or the door again. “My Fearless Leader will be here, sir. Count on it.”
The door opened again, but it wasn’t Ensign Cooper. Lieutenant Alan West, the Supply Officer, walked in and took the chair closest to the coffeepot.
Now Chief McPherson did look at her watch. Her boss had about three minutes. She was just about to get up and use the phone to try to track him down when the door opened and Ensign Cooper walked in.
As soon as the ensign found a chair and pulled it up to the table, the XO cleared his throat. “Ah, Captain. We’re ready to begin.”
Captain Bowie looked up from his paperwork and scanned the group of men and women seated around the table. “Where’s the Chief Engineer?”
“The CHENG is down in Main Engine Room number one,” the XO said. “The engineers are finishing up the installation on the new fuel oil purifier, and he’s overseeing the work. I told him he could take a pass on the meeting, and I’d catch him up later.”
The captain digested this bit of information for a few seconds. Then he shook his head. “Sorry to second-guess you, Pete, but I need him up here for this.”
The XO nodded. “Yes, sir.” He stood up and walked to the phone.
* * *
A couple of minutes later, the Chief Engineer showed up, his coveralls streaked with grease. He nodded toward the captain. “Sorry I’m late, sir. I thought I had a get-out-of-jail-free card, but I guess I misplaced it.”
The captain waved him to a chair. “I’ll let you slide this time, but next time you’ll have to bring a note from your mom.”
Everyone chuckled politely.
The captain held up a hand for silence. “How many of you have been staying on top of the secret message traffic?”
Every hand in the room went up.
“Good,” the captain said. “Then you all know what’s been going on with that wolfpack of German submarines.”
Everyone nodded, and there were gentle murmurs of assent.
“Excellent,” the captain said. He picked up a stack of papers and began passing copies around the table. “Because we’ve just received orders to form a Search Attack Unit with USS Benfold and USS Ingraham. We’ve been designated as commander for the SAU. You can read these at your leisure, but I’ll give you the short version for now. Our orders are to proceed south at all speed, intercept the German submarines, and destroy every one of them.”
The Supply Officer accepted his copy of the orders and stared blankly at it. “Sir? Are we at war with Germany?”
“Not yet, SUPPO,” the captain said. “And maybe not at all. This may be an isolated reprisal for the attack on the Kitty Hawk strike group.
“What I want right now is an up-to-the-minute status report. Are we ready for this? What equipment is broken? Which systems are degraded?” He turned to the Chief Engineer. “You first, CHENG. If we can’t drive, we can’t fight. What’s the latest on the engineering plant?”
“The engines are in top shape,” the CHENG said. “So are the generators. Prairie Masker is looking good. The installation on One Alpha Fuel Oil Purifier is about ninety percent complete. With a little luck we’ll have it back on line in a couple of hours.” His eyebrows narrowed slightly. “I’m not crazy about the compressor on air conditioning plant number three. I haven’t ordered a sound survey yet, but the A-Gang Chief says he thinks it’s running a little loud. I’ve listened to it, and I think he’s right. If we can’t get it back within specs, we may have to shut it down entirely before we can set Silent Ship.”
The captain scribbled a note. “Number three AC feeds enlisted berthing aft, doesn’t it?”
The Chief Engineer nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“The ambient air temperature is over a hundred degrees,” the captain said. “If we have to shut three AC down for long, aft enlisted berthing will become an oven. I don’t want the crew sleeping down there when it gets like that.”
“It will be uncomfortable, sir. But the crew can learn to live with it.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” the executive officer said. “But it’s hard to sleep when it gets that hot. And when the crew loses sleep, they make mistakes. We’re about to take on a pack of hostile submarines that have stomped the shit out of every surface ship that has crossed their path. Mistakes are something we cannot afford.”
“I agree,” the captain said. He looked at the Supply Officer. “SUPPO, make sure the engineers get whatever parts they need to fix that compressor. And if they need something we don’t carry on board, send out a logistics request, and we’ll have it sent out by helo. We just jumped to the top of the Navy’s logistics priority list.” He looked around the table. “All of you, get your wish lists to the SUPPO before evening chow. It just became Christmas on Happy Warship Towers, and the Navy supply system has been designated as your official Santa Claus.”
The captain looked at the XO. “Pete, assign one of our bright junior officers to come up with a plan for moving the enlisted personnel out of aft berthing, just in case we can’t get three AC to play right.”
The XO nodded. “Sounds like a good job for the Admin Officer.”
Lieutenant (jg) Augustine made a thumbs-up gesture. “Piece of cake, sir. We can spread the personnel out to other berthing spaces with empty racks. Move a few into officer and chief petty officer overflow berthing. If
worse comes to worst, we can drag mattresses and sheets down to some of the electronics spaces. Those spaces are nice and chilly.”
“Good,” the captain said. “Now, OPS, what have you got for me?”
The Operations Officer looked up from his copy of the new orders. “Operations department is clean and green, Captain. The biggest problem I have to report is a sticky cipher lock on the starboard door to CIC. Other than that, we’re just ducky.”
“Just ducky,” the Combat Systems Officer said under her breath in a mocking tone. “We’re just ducky here. Ducky, I tell you.”
“You’re next, CSO,” the captain said. “You’re the one with all the cool bullets and bombs. What’s broke and what ain’t?”
The Combat Systems Officer sighed and consulted her palm-top computer. “We’ve got that bad Tomahawk in VLS cell twenty-two. Should be zero tactical impact, at least while we’re hunting submarines. The Aegis backup computer has a bad high-volt power supply. Tactical impact is just loss of a redundant system. Supply department has a replacement on board, but we’ve been holding off, because we don’t have sixty thousand dollars left in this quarter’s repair budget. But if we really do have a blank check for parts, we can draw the new power supply from stores and have the backup computer on line in less than an hour.” She used a plastic stylus to scroll down the screen on the tiny computer. “As far as Undersea Warfare goes … all the sonars are up; we’ve got a full bag of sonobuoys; all the ASROCs and torpedoes look good. I’d say we’re ready to go hunt some submarines.”
Chief McPherson nodded imperceptibly. Her equipment was in good shape, and her people were trained.
“That’s just what I wanted to hear,” the captain said. “And now we can move on to our next order of business: tactical planning. How are we going to go about this business of hunting down these submarines? And, perhaps more importantly, what tactics are we going to use when we encounter them?”
