Armageddon Mode

CHAPTER 12

“Now hear this,” the 1-MC speaker on the bulkhead intoned. “Now hear this. Commence fuel transfer operations. The smoking lamp is out throughout the ship.”

Captain Fitzgerald scarcely heard the announcement. His attention was fixed on the activity to starboard. Jefferson rode the heavy seas at reduced speed, her massive bows rising and plunging with each wave.

Sliding along in her shadow one hundred feet to starboard, dwarfed by the supercarrier’s bulk, the U.S.S. Amarillo paced her larger consort, matching her plunge for plunge.

Jefferson’s three starboard flight deck elevators had been lowered to the hangar deck level, giving men of the deck division places to stand as fuel hoses from the AOE were snaked across along span wires stretched from Amarillo’s topping lifts to pelican hooks secured to Jefferson’s side. Red flags, warning of the fire hazard, snapped in the breeze on both ships as deckhands secured the hoses. Suspended from the span wires by sliding pulleys called trolleys, the hoses were draped in a series of deep loops between the vessels, allowing plenty of give and slack as the ships went their separate up-and-down ways.

The carrier’s two Westinghouse A4W nuclear reactors could keep Jefferson steaming for thirteen years without refueling, but she still carried over two million gallons of JP-5 in her aviation fuel compartments.

During typical peacetime operations, fifty or sixty planes were flown off a carrier twice daily, each mission consuming two to three thousand gallons of fuel, and at-sea replenishment was scheduled about every two weeks. During the Vietnam War when fuel expenditures were much higher, reprovisioning at sea had taken place as often as once every three or four days.

Jefferson’s last UNREP — Underway Replenishment — had been carried out ten days earlier, in the waters north of Diego Garcia. Captain Fitzgerald looked down on the Amarillo from his vantage point on the supercarrier’s bridge and wondered how soon he could expect the next resupply. UNREP ships were limited, and they had a long way to steam to reach CBG-14 in the isolated vastness of the Arabian Sea.

The Amarillo’s 194,000 barrels of fuel translated as over seven and a half million gallons, most of it JP-5 destined for Jefferson’s air wing.

Normally, that was enough for six weeks of air operations — ASW patrols and CAPS, as well as daily proficiency flights as the aviators logged in their hours aloft.

The AOR Peoria, a second UNREP vessel, carried petroleum for the rest of the battle group, 160,000 barrels of it, enough for over a month of cruising for the CBG’s non-nuclear vessels.

But if the tense political situation turned into outright war, fuel use would go up dramatically as the carrier’s aircraft tripled or quadrupled consumption, and the non-nuclear vessels were forced to travel farther and faster each day. A worst-case scenario could see the Peoria and the Amarillo both emptied by the battle group’s maneuvers within the next week.

And if either reprovisioning ship was sunk or badly damaged during that time, CBG-14 could be crippled within a matter of days.

He turned and walked the width of the bridge back to his leather swivel chair, stenciled “CO” and set near the port wing where it overlooked the flight deck. To the west, the sun was setting in a glorious burst of golds and reds that spilled across the horizon. Despite the still-heavy seas, the dirty weather appeared to be breaking up. The meteorologists down in the OA division had scrutinized their satellite photos and promised clear weather for the next forty-eight hours.

There’d been no further threats from the Indians since the previous evening’s attack. That didn’t mean the danger was over, but the immediacy of the crisis seemed to have eased somewhat. An hour earlier, CINCPAC had reported over Jefferson’s satellite com-link that the diplomatic exchanges were continuing in Washington. Perhaps they were going to find a negotiated way out of this confrontation.

In any case, it was out of his hands. He was on station and on full alert. There was nothing else to be done until someone else pushed the button.

To the west, Fitzgerald could make out the familiar, boxy mass of the Vicksburg’s superstructure. Somewhere beyond the Aegis cruiser, well over the horizon, the Commonwealth task force was steaming on a northerly course parallel with CBG-14. Fitzgerald still wasn’t certain what he thought of the orders to join the two squadrons into a single, international task force. Even if he trusted the Russians — which he did not, as yet — there would still have been an endless list of details to be worked out before the two forces could act together. And Kontr-Admiral Dmitriev, Vaughn’s opposite number aboard the Kreml, had so far shown little enthusiasm for integrating the two fleets. SOVINDRON was steaming north in a tight-packed bundle, seemingly oblivious to the American ships out around them across a hundred miles of ocean. Nor did the Russians seem willing to make the exchanges of codes, call signs, and radio frequencies necessary for allowing U.S. and Russian ships and planes to work together.

The IFF codes alone were already causing considerable confusion in the fleet. Each aircraft in Jefferson’s air wing possessed a transponder that transmitted a coded signal when it was touched by radar beams from an American ship or plane. The system, called IFF for “Identification Friend or Foe,” caused American radar displays to show the flight number of each U.S. plane in the air. The Russians had the same system, but with different codes responding to different radar wavelengths. So far, Russian planes flying above the Kreml were tagged as unknowns when they were painted by U.S. radar … just the same as the Indian aircraft during the attack the night before. If the joint squadron was attacked now, before IFF codes and protocol could be exchanged, the battle would very quickly become an unmanageable free-for-all.

What would Moscow think if some of their Naval Aviation Migs were downed by American Sea Sparrows? Fitzgerald didn’t even want to think about the consequences.

“Admiral on the bridge.”

Fitzgerald slid out of his seat and turned to face Vaughn. “Good evening, Admiral.”

“Captain.”

Vaughn looked terrible. There were circles under his eyes, and he looked pale. He was chewing on something — an antacid tablet, Fitzgerald decided — and his eyes were focused past the bridge windscreen on something in the distance. The Russians. Of course.

“Any problem with the replenishment, Captain?”

“Not a thing, Admiral. Everything’s going smoothly. First stage refueling should be complete before it’s fully dark.” Because of the late hour, it had been decided to transfer fuel in two batches, one this evening, the rest the next morning. The dry stores and refrigerated supplies ticketed for the Jefferson, less critical at the moment than the JP-5, would be swayed across with the second refueling.

The admiral grunted, still staring at the western horizon. “So. What about the Russkies?”

Fitzgerald shook his head. “They don’t seem to be in much of a hurry, do they, sir? Captain Krylenko sent me personal greetings a while ago.

And I gather we’re due for a joint conference tomorrow morning.”

“Yeah. More damned socializing and politicking. Useless crap. These vodka-swilling bozos aren’t going to be any help to us at all.”

Fitzgerald studied the admiral, controlling his own growing worry. There was something about Vaughn. He groped for the right word. Irrational?

No … that wasn’t right. There was nothing wrong with the man that Jefferson’s captain could put his finger on. But he did seem preoccupied, his attention unfocused, and his derisive and egotistical attitude during that morning’s briefing had not helped matters.

Perhaps it was just Vaughn’s fear. Fitzgerald could smell it, could see it in the nervous way his eyes flicked back and forth as he studied the horizon, could hear it in his terse words and harsh judgment of the Russians.

There was no irrationality in fear. All of them were afraid, every man in the squadron, and there was no shame in that, not when tomorrow could find them in a war unlike any that had been fought in history.

But Vaughn’s manner worried Fitzgerald. It was almost as though the man was trying to line up the excuses before his failure, find a way to divert the blame. “It wasn’t my fault because the Russians were no good.”

“It wasn’t my fault because I wasn’t given the intel I needed.”

Fitzgerald shook himself mentally and tore his gaze from Vaughn’s face.

He would get nowhere thinking thoughts like that.

He signaled to an enlisted watch-stander nearby. “Have some coffee, sir?”

“Eh? Oh, thanks. Thanks. Everything else quiet?”

“Absolutely.” He kept his tone light, confident, and unworried. “I’d say our Indian friends have decided to bug out. Maybe the skirmish yesterday made them think twice about all this. Or maybe it was the Russians joining us. Attacking us now would be sort of like taking on the whole world, wouldn’t it?”

“No, Captain. No, it’s not like that at all.” Vaughn spoke softly, his eyes still on the horizon as though he were trying to reach out and touch the mind of Admiral Dmitriev, out there on the bridge of the Kreml. He accepted a mug of coffee the sailor handed him without looking away. “Those bastards will be back, and from where we’re sitting, it’s going to look like World War III.”

“How do you know that, sir?”

“Logistics.” He blinked, then turned away from the window. He seemed to really see Fitzgerald for the first time. “The laws of logistics, Captain. The guy with the longest supply line has his head in a noose.”

“Oh, I think we’re set all right. Peoria and Amarillo are with us now.

They have enough bullets, beans, and black oil to keep us going for quite a while.” But he knew the admiral’s thoughts were traveling the same ruts his own mind had been circling a few minutes earlier. Lose the UNREP ships and the squadron was crippled, their mission … The realization hit Fitzgerald like a blow. It was the mission Vaughn was worried about … and his image back in Washington. That fit with the little he’d heard about the man prior to his assignment to CBG-14.

He was worried about what would happen to his career if the carrier group failed to carry out its mission.

“A drop in the bucket,” Vaughn said, responding to Fitzgerald’s comment about the UNREP ships’ provisions. He raised the mug and sipped noisily. “You know as well as I do how quickly we’ll run through that stuff once the shooting starts, hey? Hell, we’re twelve thousand miles from home. Twelve thousand miles! The Russians are five thousand from their nearest port, and they don’t have our experience in long-range blue-water ops. The Indians’ supply bases are right over the horizon.

We’re dangling on a limb out here, Fitzgerald. And the Indians are going to whack it off.”

“Hell, I thought that dangling was what we’re here for, Admiral.” He laughed, trying to make it sound like a joke. “We’re what the President calls for when he needs to reach out and touch someone.”

Vaughn’s mouth quirked in what might have been a smile. “Well, we’d better hope the President decides in favor of talking instead of touching. You know damn well we can’t match the Indians plane for plane.

Count their planes ashore and they outnumber us ten to one at least.”

“No,” Fitzgerald agreed, serious now. Vaughn’s mood was gnawing at him, and he didn’t know how to reply. “No, we can’t match their planes. But we can match their pilots. I’m willing to bet we could match them ten for one in that department any day!”

“Maybe.” Vaughn sighed. “But it’s not the men who count. Not anymore.”

The words chilled Fitzgerald. He glanced at the enlisted watch-stander who was still standing a few feet away, face expressionless and his eyes fixed on the horizon forward. “How can you say that, sir?”

“God. You heard how the fight went last night. Out of control … Most of that battle was fought by computers, Captain. Do you understand that?”

“I think so, sir. But men were directing the battle, controlling the computers.”

“No, Captain. Things happen too fast for humans to manage a modern battle. All humans can do is screw things up. Remember the Stark? And the Vincennes?”

“Of course.” Stark was the Perry-class frigate that had been hit by an Iraqi Exocet in ‘87 because her combat crew had failed to take certain defensive preparations at the time. Vincennes was the Aegis cruiser that had misidentified an Indian airliner and shot it down by mistake.

“But I think we learned some things from those episodes.”

“What’s to learn? That your ship can be under attack before you even realize it. That any human decisions are going to be made too late to help when you only have seconds to react. No, Captain. If we fight, we’re going to find that it’s our mistakes that shape the battle more than our decisions. And we … we’re at a disadvantage.”

“How is that, sir?”

“Because we have the more complicated electronics, the faster computers, the more sophisticated gadgetry. That’s more stuff to break down. And because we have to haul those … what’d you say? Beans, bullets, and black oil halfway around the world, while the Indians have everything they need right here.” He shook his head. “Damn it. Washington expects the impossible. The impossible …”

The sun slipped beneath the horizon at that moment, the fire fading from the sky. The admiral drained the coffee mug and set it on a console.

“Good night, Captain.”

Fitzgerald watched him go with black misgivings.

Seaman David Howard sat at the round table with three friends, accepting the face-down cards as RD/2 Benedict dealt them out. Once he glanced up at the paneled bulkheads and their neatly framed prints of various scenes out of the Navy’s history and repressed a slight shudder. He remembered sitting in this same lounge two months earlier, with three other friends who now were all dead.

“Whatsa matter, Tiger?” the second-class radarman asked. “Lose something’?”

“Nah.” Howard scooped up the cards and fanned them. “Just thinking.”

Tiger. He still wasn’t used to the handle they’d dropped on him. Short in stature, still three weeks shy of his nineteenth birthday, he didn’t look much like a hero. His part during the Bangkok affair had won him a Silver Star; he still couldn’t remember much of what had happened, still didn’t feel heroic.

In fact, he didn’t feel any different now than he had then. Perhaps the only real change beyond his raise in rank and pay was the new nickname.

He liked “Tiger” a lot better than “Howie.”

“Ah, leave the thinking to the fuckin’ brass,” Air Traffic Controlman Third Francis Gilkey said. “Gimme two.”

“Make it three,” YN/3 Reid said. “Thinking too much don’t pay. Not on this boat.” Unlike Howard, Benedict, and Gilkey, all of whom were assigned to Air Ops as part of Jefferson’s OC Division, Reid served on the CAG staff and, therefore, was technically part of CVW-20 rather than the ship’s crew. As such, the third-class yeoman referred to the carrier as “boat” rather than “ship,” to the good-natured derision of the others.

“That’s ‘ship,” airhead,” Benedict said. He chewed a moment on his cigar. “Whatcha want, Tiger?”

“One.” Howard glanced at Reid. “What about this ship?”

“I got a friend.”

“Yeah.” Gilkey chuckled. “It’s called your right hand.”

“Up yours. He’s a quartermaster third. Had the duty up on the bridge tonight.”

“Yeah? They let him drive? Shit. What a crappy hand. Gimme three.”

“Raise you ten.” Benedict studied his cards. “So what’s the gouge?”

“Gouge” was Navyese for straight information, shipboard scuttlebutt that carried the ring of authenticity.

“Ah, he was standin’ by when Admiral Gone let slip what he really thinks of us.”

Gilkey laughed. “Going, going, gone.” The rhyming play on Vaughn’s name was a popular one with the enlisted men aboard. “So? What’d he say?”

“Only that we don’t count for shit. Raise you a quarter.”

“See you and another two bits too. Shit. That’s officers for YOU.”

“In.”

“All officers aren’t bad,” Howard said. “See you and raise you four bits.”

“Hey, the hero’s gettin’ serious.”

“Heavy bettin’, yeah. Just remember, Tiger. Officers don’t care a rat’s ass about you or anybody else with thirteen buttons on their blues.”

“What about Commander Magruder?”

“Who?” Benedict squinted over his cigar. “Oh, the other hero. Our ace of aces. What about him?”

“He seems like a good guy.”

“Yeah, an’ you notice he got canned,” Reid said. “Scuttlebutt is he shot before he got permission. Bad move for the upwardly mobile career-minded, y’know?”

“The good ‘uns always get the short end.” Gilkey sighed. “Crap. What kind of fuckin’ cards you handin’ out over there, Ben?”

“My own special brand. So what do the airedales say, Reid? We gonna fight the Indians or not?”

“Shit, I’m not mad at anybody,” Gilkey said. “Aw, fuck. I’m out.

Anyhow, what the Indies ever do to me?”

“Shot at us, is what,” Reid replied. “Raise you a quarter, Ben. Word is, they’re gonna hit us again. Soon.”

“Ah, bull crap,” Howard said. He’d become more adept during the past months at separating fact from fancy during interminable enlisted discussions that ranged from sex to Navy life to liberty ports to sex again. “No one knows that. Not even the officers. Raise a quarter.”

“What I heard was the Russkies have it all planned.” Gilkey leaned forward, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “They’ve been working undercover-like, to get close to us. Then … bam!”

“Shit,” Benedict said. “What for?”

“I hear they’d like a close look at one of our Aegis ships,” Reid said.

“And there’s ol’ Vicksburg, just sittin’ over there.”

Howard shook his head. “You guys are full of shit. They might like a good look at how she works in action, sure, but it’s the Indies who are out to get us, not the Russkies!”

“Aw, just jerkin’ your chain, kid. Call it. What you got?”

“Two pair,” Benedict said. “A pair of queens … and another pair of queens.”

“Son of a bitch.” Reid dropped the cards. “Fuckin’ conspiracy, man.”

“Nah.” Benedict raked in the change. “Just teachin’ Tiger there how to make his way in the world. Watcha say. Again?”

“Do it.” Reid started shuffling. “My deal this time. Maybe it should be my cards.”

“All I can say is that this deployment is royally fucked,” Gilkey observed. “I don’t think one gold stripe on this ship knows what the hell he’s doing.”

“Too long at sea,” Benedict agreed. “You can feel it, man. Every guy aboard is stretched out like a piano wire.”

“Shit,” Howard said as Reid began thumbing cards off the deck. “So what do you care? We don’t count, remember?”

Gilkey’s observation about the ship’s officers, though, was unnerving.

Despite the company of the others, it left Howard feeling very much alone.