Choosers of the Slain

13

In the Second Fleet Operations Room, the huge primary monitor had been reconfigured. A tactical display of Drake Passage and its environs now took up half of the screen space, just as the situation in the South Atlantic was now taking up a growing slice of FLEETLANTCOM's time and

attention.

As was usual when something was on the burner, Admiral MacIntyre found himself spending more and more of his time down on the command balcony. He could have stayed on top of events just as easily via the repeaters in his office, but he didn't like the sense of detachment that went along with working that way. The Ops Center still wasn't the same as the flag plot of a cruiser, but it was something.

"Maggie, what the hell are the Brits playing at?" he demanded irritably. "I've got half a squadron of Orions sitting on the ground in Puerto Rico wasting their time and mine. When can we start deploying them south?"

MacIntyre had taken admiral's privileges, with the coat of his "Blue Baker" uniform draped over the back of his chair and his tie yanked down comfortably a couple of inches.

"It's going to be a while, sir," Captain Callendar replied. "I've been in communication with my opposite number in the British Admiralty on that. It seems we're bucking a monumental traffic-control problem."

"What do you mean?"

"None of the South American states are granting us basing or overflight rights. Everything staging south has to go through Wideawake Field on Ascension Island. The problem is that Wideawake is just a support facility for the Atlantic Missile Range. They've only got a single jet-capable airstrip and apron space for exactly twelve aircraft. The Brits have activated their Falklands defense plan and they're trying to move the Parachute Regiment, a couple of fighter squadrons, and Lord knows what amount of support and logistics through there. Wideawake is fully saturated."

"So we bypass," MacIntyre responded. "The P-3s have long legs. We send 'em directly into the Falklands using aerial refueling."

"I proposed that, sir. Things are almost as bad down at Mount Pleasant. In addition to the British military trying to bring their people in, Shell and BP are trying to get a couple of thousand of their gas-field workers and their dependents out by chartered airliner.

"On top of that, we're starting to get weather lockouts down there. The fall storm fronts seem to be breaking early in the South Atlantic. I gather that it's developing into one hellish mess. The Admiralty says that they won't be able to slot our aircraft in for at least another seventy-two to ninety-six hours minimum, and I'm calling that an optimistic estimate."

"Then will the Brits guarantee to provide air support for our people?"

"They promise to do what they can, but the Cunningham is moving out of their effective range. They aren't deploying any of their heavy stuff south until later, either. Defensive systems have the priority for the moment."

"God damn!" MacIntyre muttered. "We're sticking our people out on a limb."

The Admiral scowled out across the low-lit length of the operations room at the Alpha Screen. Maggie Callendar leaned back against the workstation desk, her arms crossed. She sensed that her commanding officer wasn't finished with her yet.

Finally he spoke again. "Maggie, what kind of information do we have available on the captain of the Cunningham?"

"The standard service records, sir. Is there anything specific you wanted to know?"

"Just who I have down there and what I can expect out of her. When I issued that kid her orders, she sounded almighty young."

His Chief of Staff lifted an eyebrow. "This wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that she's a woman, would it, Admiral?"

"Hell, Maggie, at the moment it's irrelevant if she's man, woman, or Martian. She's senior officer present at a major flashpoint. Furthermore, she's being sent into that hole without a solitary rag of cover or backup. I like to know a little bit about the owner of any neck I'm ordering stuck out that far. I owe her that much."

The corner of Callendar's mouth quirked up and she slipped a zip-disk case out of her pocket. "Here you are, sir. I was checking over her files myself earlier today and I pulled a copy on the chance you might be interested."

"Have you always had this capacity to go around predicting my future wants and desires, Captain?"

"Of course, sir," she deadpanned. "It's a prerequisite for the job, right along with ironclad infallibility."

MacIntyre accepted the case and turned in to face the desk's workstation. "What did you think?"

"Interesting. I think you'll be suitably impressed."

"We'll see," he replied, powering up the terminal. "In the interim, go shake the Bureau of Personnel's tree. See if they have the situation paper on our NCO shortfalls ready yet."

"Aye, aye."

As Callendar went about her task, MacIntyre fed the zip-disk into the workstation's scanner and leaned forward, studying the screen intently.

The Admiral found himself looking at a sober-featured young woman in navy uniform. He set aside his professionalism long enough to note that, despite the ID-grad photography, she was a compelling lady. A touch of Lauren Bacall, he decided, back from the glory days of "The Look." There was something vaguely familiar about her as well.

MacIntyre suddenly made the connection. "Well, Jesus to Jesus and nine hands "round," he muttered. "So you're Wils Garrett's kid."

He must have seen a younger variant of her picture an uncountable number of times back in the Persian Gulf, sitting on the desk of his old CruDesRon Commander.

"I hope there's something to this genetics business, honey, because your old man was one righteous destroyer driver."

A fellow ringknocker.

Obviously a fast-track kid. She was one of the new breed of gundeckers too, coming up the ladder from the ordnance divisions instead of from engineering, as the bulk of his generation had done.

"Whoa!" MacIntyre stopped scrolling and called up the particulars on the file.

MacIntyre again dialed up specifics.

MacIntyre nodded thoughtfully. Okay, the bloodline does breed true. You aren't just a test-bench sailor.

MacIntyre leaned back and stared into space thoughtfully. Eventually he became aware that his Chief of Staff had returned and was standing at his side.

"You're right," he said. "I am impressed… to a degree."

"I thought that might be the case. I definitely was when I had the chance to meet Commander Garrett at a Navy League symposium last year. She was speaking on naval power projection in the twenty-first century. She struck me as a woman who was going to make her mark on this man's Navy."

"Okay, I'll grant you that on paper this kid reads out like Arleigh Burke in a skirt. And I can see how they'd consider her qualified to take out the lead ship of the Cunningham-class. But she's short into her first major command and she doesn't have anything like line combat experience."

"That's endemic with a lot of our people, Admiral. It's been some time since the Navy has fought a real blue-water war."

"That may be about to change."

Captain Callendar frowned. "Has something new developed down south, sir?"

"No, not anything concrete. It's just that if I were one with you and Captain Garrett here, I'd say that my female intuition was kicking up."

MacIntyre let his chair swivel back around to face out across the worry hole to the network of lights on the Large Screen Display.

"I think that we're going to have that overdue blue-water war, Maggie, and I suspect that it is going to be a pisser."