Choosers of the Slain

7

The last transfer flight had been made, the last ton of stores had been secured, and Deck Division was rolling up and striking below the last of the heavy rubber matting used to protect the Plessey LA-1 RAM tiling that sheathed the destroyer's weather decks. Amanda glanced down at the luminescent hands of her old Pusser's Lady Admiral wristwatch and then up at her exec.

"Eighteen minutes to midnight, Ken. I said we'd take her out by twenty-four hundred hours. Think we can do it?"

"We can give it a good try."

"Then let's make it happen."

As she started topside from the quarterdeck, the word was relayed to all compartments.

"Station sea and anchor details! All hands, make all preparations for getting under way! The officer of the deck is shifting the watch to the bridge!"

"Captain on the bridge."

"Carry on," she said, brushing through the light curtain that covered the entryway.

As with everything else aboard, the big destroyer's bridge was cutting-edge technology, its centerpiece being the helm control station. Like something transplanted out of the cockpit of a state-of-the-art airliner, two comfortable-looking contoured chairs faced a bank of multimode telepanels, the lever-studded pedestal of the lee helm's propulsion controls set between them.

Instead of a set of aircraft joysticks, there was only the single dial of the main helm controller on the console's centerline. Here, too, was a little human sentimentality. The issue black plastic knob had been replaced by a stainless-steel miniature of a sailing ship's spoked wheel.

Forward, there were twin rows of monitor screens, one above the transparent curve of the bridge windscreen, one below. The upper row provided navigational data: low-light television images of the ship's surroundings, fore, aft, port, starboard; chart and positioning displays; tactical situation; depth soundings; meteorological information.

The lower tier covered ship's systems; engineering, sensors, damage control, communications, ordnance. Every fragment of data a watch officer might require to make a critical decision was there, instantly accessible, vastly reducing the number of seconds squandered in having to ask for information.

The officer of the deck and the duty bridge crew had already been on-stream for some time, running down their predeparture checklists. From below came the whispering wail of the big Rolls-Royce/Westinghouse turbogenerator sets load-testing up to full output.

Amanda lifted herself into the elevated captain's chair to the right of the helm station. Disconnecting her command headset from the little transceiver clipped to her belt, she jacked it directly into the interphone system, then activated the personal telepanel built into the chair arm, calling up her own procedures listing.

"Okay, Lieutenant," she said, "go get yourself a cup of coffee. I'll take her out."

"Aye, aye, ma'am." The OOD lifted his voice slightly. "The Captain has the con."

"All right, ladies and gentlemen. Ready for final departure checklist. Helmsman?"

"Helm control is on the bridge. Rudder has been tested on primary and secondary steering systems. Stabilizers are set to standard. Autopilot is off. Ready to maneuver."

"Lee helm?"

"Engine control is on the bridge. Power Rooms One and Three on-line. Power Room Two on cold-start standby. Primary throttles and propeller controls tested. Hydrojet propulsors to standby mode. Main engineering reports all boards green. Ready to answer bells."

"Interior integrity status?"

"Condition Zebra set in all spaces. All watertight doors and hatches are secure."

"Navigation?"

"SINS and GPU systems checked, cross-referenced, and tracking. Position locks verified. Fathometers tested and verified. Navigational radar on-line. Ship's siren tested…"

Overhead, the Cunningham's distinctive twin-tone air horns squalled, sending echoes rippling off of Rio's shore-side mountain peaks.

"… departure course plotted and on the boards."

Projected from the quartermaster's station at the right rear of the bridge, a computer-generated chart of Rio's outer harbor appeared on one of the brow monitors and on a telepanel in front of the helmsman, displaying water depth, shipping channels, and maritime traffic. A blue ship-position hack for the Cunningham appeared a moment later, along with a white course plot that would guide her out to the open sea.

Underlit by the glowing surface of the main chart table, the senior quartermaster of the watch looked up inquiringly.

"Begging your pardon, Captain, but what about the port pilot and sailing clearance from the harbor master?"

"Chief, after that incident with the refueling barge, anyone who thinks I'm letting any of the locals anywhere near the helm of this ship is sadly mistaken. We'll take her out ourselves.

"As for the harbor master, he can figure out we've gone when he looks out tomorrow morning and sees the hole in the water."

Amanda tapped a call number into the interphone and a filtered voice sounded in her headset. "Capstan room, aye?"

"This is the bridge. Ready to heave 'round?"

"Affirmative, bridge. Ready to weigh anchor at your order."

"You may proceed."

Three hundred feet forward, a boatswain's mate peered down the narrow shaft of the anchor well with the aid of a flashlight as the great, gleaming links of chain began to rise out of the churning water. Over the roar and clatter of the capstan, he chanted the traditional litany.

"Showing twenty fathoms at the waterline…. Chain is up and down…. Anchor is breaking ground…. Anchor's aweigh!"

Moments later, the massive, submarine-type mushroom anchor slammed into its recess in the keel.

"Anchor retracted and secured for sea."

"Very well. All engines ahead slow."

"All engines ahead slow." The lee helm echoed, rolling her throttles forward.

The Cunningham utilized an integrated electric drive as her primary propulsion system. Her main engines were carried outboard of the hull on the stern quarters in pylon-mounted "propulsor pods," not unlike those of a dirigible airship.

The massive, twin 45,000-horsepower electric motors drew their energy from the power room turbogenerators and spun contrarotating sets of propellers mounted tractor-style at the forward end of the pods. Now, smoothly, those great tribladed screws began to cut water.

"Engines answering ahead slow, ma'am."

"Helm, bring her around to marked departure headings."

"Steering to marked departure headings."

The helmsman delicately spun his controller. Beyond the windscreen, the lights of Rio de Janeiro began a slow drift to port.

"Ship is answering her helm, Captain. Coming about to marked departure headings."

"Very well. Navigation, shift from anchor to running lights."

Amanda looked across the width of the bridge to her exec lounging at his own station. "What time is it, mister?"

She caught the pale flash of Ken Hiro's grin in the screen-glow dimness. "I make it twenty-three, fifty-nine, and thirty-two seconds, ma'am."

"So do I. Close enough for government work."

She buzzed the communications room. "This is the Captain. Get the following off to CINCLANT, please: 'Departing Rio as per schedule. Proceeding as per orders.'"

"Aye, aye, ma'am. Be advised we have just received a blinker message from the Boone. Personal, Captain to Captain."

"Read it."

"Good luck and good hunting, you lucky little bitch."

Amanda chuckled. "Send the following to Captain Stevens, personal: 'I take strong exception to your last message. I do not consider five feet seven little.'"

"Will do, ma'am. We're getting a second blinker signal from the Brazilian shore station. They are requesting we respond."

"Ignore it. I've got nothing to say to those gentlemen."

Once clear of the port approaches, the Cunningham put on speed and ran to the southeast, opening the range from the coast. Soon, Rio de Janeiro was nothing but a fading sky glow astern. As she began to angle into the deep ocean swells of the South Atlantic, the big warship started a smooth, slow, pitch and roll, like a great hunting cat stretching out into an easy run.

There is a special intimacy about the bridge of a ship at night. Rank can't be made out in the darkness, and the watch seems to draw close within itself. There is a low murmur of conversation, talk about homes, families, and inconsequential things, interspersed with an occasional, quietly given order. Now and again, an outsider will come up from below, "to see how she is doing," and to look out at the star fire burning in a great arc over the bow.

Amanda liked the night watch, and she had remained bridgeside even after returning the con to the officer of the deck. She half-drowsed in the captain's chair, lulled by the feeling of the sea beneath her.

The bitch box broke that tranquillity. "Bridge, this is the CIC. Is the Captain still up there?"

She came erect and keyed in her headset. "Captain here. What's the problem?"

"Check your tactical display, ma'am. We have an airborne radar contact, a slow mover, just coming over our horizon at medium altitude. Range two hundred and ten miles, bearing one eight three degrees."

Amanda leaned back slightly in the chair and her eyes sought the appropriate monitor. "I see him."

"Target is apparently working north in a surface-search pattern. Elint indicates that the target's emission patterns match that of a Dessault-Breguet Atlantique ANG maritime patrol aircraft, the same-standard model used by the Argentine navy."

Amanda did a fast mental calculation. They had cleared Rio two hours ago. A phone call to the Argentine Embassy in Brasilia, another one from Brasilia south to Argentine Feet GHQ in Buenos Aires, a fast conference, and then an order issued to their base at Esporu to scramble a search plane. That would be just about right.

"Have they painted us?"

"Negative. Their ECM may be picking up our radar, but they don't have a skin track yet. Do you intend to go full stealth, Captain?"

Amanda allowed herself a long moment of contemplation before replying. "No. In fact, put a blip enhancer on-line. Standard image."

"Standard image it is, ma'am."

The blip enhancer was an electronic-warfare system that amplified the return "echo" of a radar wave, allowing a small target to masquerade as a much larger one. In this case, it would be used to mask the fact that the Duke, even passively, had a vastly reduced radar cross-section. The observers at the far end of the radar beam would see an appropriate return for a conventional warship of the Cunningham's size and tonnage. With equal ease she could have mimicked the return of anything from a cabin cruiser to an aircraft carrier.

Amanda settled deeper into her chair and gazed out into the darkness beyond the repeater screens. She would keep the Duke's bundle of secrets to herself just a little longer.