Island Warriors

FOURTEEN

Captain Chang gazed out over the relatively placid Yellow Sea. He knew this body of water like he knew his own house, its moods, the peculiarities of its sound velocity profile, and had developed an almost instinctive feel for how sonar propagation curves would look. He glanced up at the sky and took a careful look at the horizon. Everything he saw agreed with his gut feeling. There would be no storms today, none of the sudden squalls that could lash the sea into unbelievable chaos. And a good thing, too. While a storm might not bother the massive aircraft carrier off its port now, the crew of the small frigate would definitely feel the effects. Even worse, increased sea state would definitely degrade their USW capabilities.

But even a body of water he knew well could hold surprises. Somewhere over the horizon, the Chinese surface task force was supposedly conducting a training exercise. Their intentions worried Chang, but not as much now as they had earlier. Within a few hours, the aircraft carrier would be within range to deliver antisurface missiles, should the need arise, and Chang found the prospect of a snowstorm of Harpoon missiles immensely reassuring.

What bothered him more than the surface ships was what might be below the surface. The latest intelligence reports showed that one Chinese diesel submarine was missing from its berth in port. Yes, Chang had held them, tracked them, even simulated killing them. But who was to know just how much of that was realistic? It would not be beyond a Chinese to feign incompetence in order to induce a false sense of confidence in the Taiwanese.

Oh, he knew them too well. They had ancestors in common stretching back over time on a scale that these Americans could not even contemplate. These Americans — the new toys, their advanced electronics, the brash, abrasive way they had of dealing with each other. Such a young nation, with officers like children — it could be, at its very best, simply annoying. At worst, the differences in their culture led to serious misunderstandings that took much patience and tolerance to work through.

Chang walked back onto his bridge, noted that all was going well, and then proceeded aft to Combat. The quiet murmurs inside there fell silent as he walked in, a mark of respect. His watch officer, a young man from a good family, stood and bowed politely.

“All is well?” Chang asked.

“Yes, Captain. We maintain our station, and have been transmitting reports regularly on our contacts.” The lieutenant hesitated, as though deciding whether to speak further.

For just a moment, Chang felt nostalgic for the days when it had been just the Lake Champlain and the Marshall P’eng in this part of the world. The arrival of the aircraft carrier USS United States had complicated life by a factor of ten, not the least by the micromanagement of his own USW patrol area.

Oh, Chang understood the reason behind the sudden rudder orders and the polite requests that Marshall P’eng be somewhere other than where she was headed. The carrier usually pleaded pending flight operations or replenishment evolutions with the USS Jefferson. After all, it wasn’t like they could order him out of certain areas of his own sea, but he could tell that that was just what they’d like to do.

There was an American sub somewhere around, there had to be. There was a sub in his water, and no one wanted to tell him about it. Nor did they want him accidentally stumbling across their sub and prosecuting her.

Chang conducted a few careful maneuvering evolutions to determine exactly when and where the Americans got nervous. By careful observation, he had a pretty good idea what the boundaries of their sub’s operating area was, and he confirmed his suspicion by noting that no American ships ventured into that particular square of water.

But the American submarine was not his only problem. Even with the aircraft carrier’s escorts a few days out, the tension had already started to affect his crew in more subtle ways. No longer were they the premier warship in the water, a pretense they’d been able to maintain with only the Lake Champlain around. The massive bulk of the aircraft carrier, the sheer volume of radio traffic and aircraft and everything else that she threw into the air brought home to each Marshall P’eng sailor just how powerful the other ship was.

That was the down side, as the American’s said. The up side was that the Chinese task force seemed to have stopped dead in the water. They remained approximately two hundred miles off their own coast, ostensibly conducting training operations, perhaps to draw attention and resources toward the surface ships and mask covert maneuvers by their submarine. Chang felt a flash of pity for the ground troops sweltering in the close confines of the troop transport ships.

“And?” Chang prompted gently, waiting for the watch officer to continue.

“I am not sure they listen to our reports, sir. Oh, they are quite polite on the circuit — sometimes I must repeat numbers and names, but eventually they understand. But look at the display,” he turned to point at the newly installed tactical data system.

Unfortunately, it was a one-way system on their ship. They received an integrated tactical picture from the battle group, but could not manually input their own contacts. “Why have they a need of our reports when they have all this?” the watch officer asked.

Chang had wondered the same thing himself, but the decision had been made at higher levels. “It is to develop coordination,” he explained, hoping to sound like he meant it. “We will get used to working together, now, when there is time. There may not be time later.”

“Yes, Captain.” His watch officer said nothing further, but his eyes mirrored a shadow of doubt.

Lieutenant Commander “Bird Dog” Robinson clicked down on his mouse again, this time punching it harder. Nothing happened. His JTIDS, or joint tactical information display system screen remained infuriatingly locked on what the sailors called “the eagle prompt,” meaning that the giant American Eagle logo was displayed. A nice logo it was, indeed, with the eagle well drawn and suitably fierce, but no substitute for the array of tactical data that should have been there.

Bird Dog glanced over at the watch supervisor’s console, the small one mounted directly under the racks of computer gear. It showed a complete tactical data picture.

“Why the hell has he got it and I don’t?” Bird Dog demanded. He glanced over at the lieutenant sitting at his side, his watch officer. “It’s just not fair.”

“I don’t know, sir.” The watch officer paused for a moment, as though wondering whether to proceed. “Were you adjusting the background color displays again? Or the geographical features?”

“Maybe. What’s that got to do with it?”

“It’s just that if you overload the computer with high-density graphics, sometimes it drops offline.”

Behind Bird Dog, Taiwanese Major Ho Kung-Sun walked into the compartment silently, and stood at the back to study the screen. Even in his few days on board, he knew what the eagle prompt was.

That American officer, abusing his computer again. Ho Kung-Sun had listened to the technicians and other officers explain to him time and time again what would drop it offline, yet the lieutenant commander never seemed to understand. If he did, he certainly didn’t modify his behavior. Instead, he insisted on experimenting with different color mixes, changing the range displayed continuously, tracking contacts and putting up graphics, all of which quickly overloaded the system.

“Well, call the geeks and tell them to get up here,” he heard the brash lieutenant commander say.

Ho Kung-sun stiffened. That word — how dare he! Long exposure to American culture, as well as a careful reading of the documents provided to the American officers, had made it clear to him that the term “geek” was an old, offensive word, a racial slur applied to many Asian races. And to use it here, in front him — well, no matter how they protested about their desire to work together in harmony with the Taiwanese Navy, this made their feelings clear. Had there been any real desire to work together as equal partners, no American would have even thought — much less spoken out loud — the racial slur.

Ho Kung-Sun turned and stalked out of the room, infuriated beyond measure. This would be reported, it would indeed, and the American officer would rue the day he dared to use such language.

The watch officer turned as he heard heels staccato on tile, and caught a glimpse of Ho Kung-Sun leaving the room. Bird Dog swiveled around as well to follow the man’s gaze. “Wonder what he wanted?” the watch officer asked.

Bird Dog shrugged. “Who knows? He seems like a nice enough guy and pretty sharp. That little boy of theirs, he’s a hell of a good station keeper, isn’t he?” He concluded in an admiring way. “They’ve got that Helen Keller sonar on board, but once they’ve got something, it’s not getting away. And aggressive?” He pointed at the watch officer’s log. “They’ve called in more detailed contact information in the last hour than our lookouts report in two weeks.”

“Yes, I know what you mean. It’s a shame that there’s a language barrier — I bet he’s a hell of a nice guy when you can get him to loosen up.”

“Oh, his English is pretty good. He just has problems with a couple of the vowels, that’s all.”

The watch officer turned to stare at the door, an odd thought crossing his mind. No, it couldn’t be — of course not. He dismissed the thought. And it wasn’t until much later, when the situation had deteriorated considerably, that the watch officer first voiced his hesitant thought. “He has a problem with vowels.”

The senior submarine officer on board copied down the coordinates then plotted them quickly against his detailed area chart. Certain areas of the ocean were exclusively for the submarine’s use, at given depths and at given times. The United States would not launch sonobuoys or deploy other assets against the submarine operating in its own area.

The submarine officer laid down his two-point dividers and said, “Admiral, the Marshall P’eng is on the very edge of the sub’s keep-out zone. And he hasn’t said anything, but I think that frigate captain knows what’s going on. He’s no dummy, sir.” He shook his head, a frown deepening on his face. “I don’t like it a bit, sir. No telling what can go wrong. You know it’s an absolute, that we never share water space with anyone else.”

Coyote sighed. Yet another problem, another one arising out of incomplete information exchange between the two forces. It was bad enough that the LINK was not a full duplex operation, although it certainly made safeguarding classified information easier. But in times such as this, when Captain Chang inadvertently stumbled into areas of waters they didn’t want him in, it could be hard to explain. Nevertheless, the Marshall P’eng was under Coyote’s operational command, and he’d already seen that the Taiwanese frigate was eager to be a part of his battle force.

Coyote turned to his TAO. “We can’t tell Captain Chang why, but he’ll figure it out. He’s a smart man — the second we start moving him out of some operating areas, he’s going to get suspicious — and, based on what he’s already seen, if there’s a problem with our submarine, he’ll know it. So tell him I’m setting a restrictive EMCON condition and he is to use only passive sensors. That’s at least got some basis in reality, and I won’t have to change his station to keep him out of the way. Plus, his chances of detecting our submarine by passive means alone are pretty darn low.” He glanced over at the submarine officer. “Aren’t they?”

The submariner nodded vigorously. “Absolutely. If he’s on passive only, he won’t see us at all. But active—” he shook his head, “even with the special coating on our hull, he’s going to get a return. And as sharp as those guys are, there’s no way we’re going to convince him it’s a whale.”

“So it might work,” Coyote said.

“Might. But it’s absolutely a violation of standard operating procedures. Admiral, with all due respect, there’s not supposed to be any friendlies in that sub’s area. None at all. Even if they don’t find our boat, the possibilities for confusion and disaster are endless.”

“I’ll deal with briefing the sub CO,” Coyote said. “All I want to know is that you’re certain that the Marshall P’eng can’t detect that boat on passive only.”

“I’m certain.”

“That’s what I thought. So,” he continued to the TAO, “Tell him now — passive only until I say otherwise. On second thought, get Major Ho in here. I don’t want any misunderstanding about this, so have him make the call in their language. That way, there’s no confusion.”

Major Ho walked into TFCC, saluted immediately, and asked, “How can I assist the admiral?”

Coyote regarded him for a minute, still not certain what to make of this young man. “I want you to tell Captain Chang I’m setting a restrictive emissions condition, an EMCON. Passive sensors only subsurface. Do you understand? I don’t mean the radars, of course. Keep those online. And he can stream his tail whenever he wants to. Just no active sonar transmissions. We have some people conducting special operations in the area,” he embroidered on sudden inspiration, “and if active sonar blasted the wrong area it would kill them.”

Major Ho bowed slightly. “Of course. I understand, and will convey that to Captain Chang.” He glanced up at the display and the area marked off. “But I understand that Captain Chang is attempting to gain contact on the Chinese submarine at this moment. It would be natural for him to go active in order to maintain a perfect firing solution, should he gain contact.”

Coyote glanced at the submarine officer, a movement that Ho did not miss. “Yes, it would. But so far, they have committed no hostile act. Let’s keep tracking them passively and not give them any reason for assuming we’re preparing to attack.” He clapped Major Ho on the shoulder, as he would have one of his own officers. “Don’t worry, Major. When there’s a submarine to kill, your guys have first shot. I promise you.”

Major Ho bowed again, then reached for the microphone connecting him to tactical. He made the call up, in English, then switched to Mandarin. “The American admiral, he asks me about your tracking solution,” Major Ho said carefully. “He wonders whether you intend to use active sonar at this point?”

Captain Chang’s answer came back, also in Mandarin. “I can if he wishes, but I had thought I would not spook the submarine if he is in the area. If I go active, he will know that he has been detected.”

“The admiral thought that might be your decision,” Ho said, choosing his words so as to convey the slightest disapproval. It was a subtle move, one that he was certain only Chang would understand.

“Of course, I can go active, if that is what the admiral desires,” Chang responded immediately. “Here — I will demonstrate now.”

The single, sharp sonar pulse blasted through the hull of the American submarine, and every man onboard flinched. Normally, this would be the precursor to a torpedo in the water, a final ranging ping to establish a precise firing solution before releasing weapons.

“What the bloody hell?” Captain Tran said, his voice soft with the slightest trace of a British accent in it. He turned to his XO. “Didn’t that message get out changing our operating area?”

The XO nodded. “We got acknowledgement from the satellite that they picked it up, too. There’s no question that they got our message.”

“Then how come I’m getting blasted by some idiot?” the captain demanded. He reined in his legendary temper, and focused on the solution. “We’re going to have to clear the area. How far how can I move off and still maintain some form of contact on the Chinese boat?”

“Maybe fifteen thousand yards, if we’re lucky,” the chief sonarman spoke up. “Captain, I can find him again for you, but I’d rather not.”

The captain thought for a moment. The damage had already been done by the active ping. Their cover was blown. Furthermore, the Chinese sub would have heard it as well, and would be doing its best to clear the area.

At this point, he needed to destroy any firing solution that the pinging platform might have. “Who was it?” he asked the sonar chief.

“Had to be the Taiwanese,” the chief answered. “We’re not carrying that kind of sonar on our ships anymore.”

“Then how come — never mind, doesn’t matter.” He’d address the coordination issues in a P4 to the admiral. What they had to do now was get the hell out of Dodge, try to maintain contact on a Chinese diesel doing the same thing, and then reacquire the contact if they lost him. A pain in the ass, but that’s the way the game was played.

“Captain!” The sonarman’s voice was slightly quieter than normal. “Captain, I have two subsurface contacts—two!” The sonarman looked up at him, confused. “But there is only one Chinese submarine in the area, Captain. I’m certain of it.”

Chang thought for a moment, then his face cleared. Perhaps this was the admiral’s way of expressing confidence in Marshall P’eng, of revealing to him secrets that he was not otherwise allowed to. The captain smiled slightly in pride. He had not thought the American admiral so subtle.

And if this was a test, then what was he expected to do now? As he paused, Major Ho’s voice came over tactical again. “The admiral asks if you would be so kind as to secure your active sonar now. He is setting an emissions condition, in which only passive tracking is allowed.”

That confirmed Captain Chang’s suspicion. It had been a test, and one that they had passed satisfactorily. The admiral had intended them to know that there were two submarine contacts in the area, so that later, should attack be necessary, Chang would know why certain precautions were taken.

But now what was he expected to do? To report both submarine contacts, or just one?

Just one, Chang decided. The admiral would not want a U.S. submarine location transmitted over the circuit, for the same reasons that he had not been permitted to tell Captain Chang directly that the submarine was in the area. And based on what he’d seen of the battle group’s orders, Chang had a pretty good idea which one was the American and which one was the elusive Chinese diesel.

“Report the presence of only the one you believe to be the Chinese submarine,” he said, still quietly warmed by the admiral’s confidence. “But go back over the last hours of data. See if now you see any acoustic evidence of an American submarine in the area. For that is what the second contact is — of that I’m certain.”

“What the bloody hell!” Coyote roared, as the graphics depicting an active sonar ping flashed on to the screen. “What is he doing?!” Immediately, reports began pouring in over the tactical circuit from the other surface ships. The admiral sighed, then turned to Ho. “Okay, I guess there are going to be some screw-ups. But you know what I mean now — no active sonar, right?”

Ho bowed slightly. “Yes, Admiral. I made that very clear to Captain Chang Tso-Lin.”

“Okay, then. What’s done is done — no sense whining about it.” Coyote paused as though he wanted to ask something else, then turned away. Just then, Captain Chang’s watch officer’s voice came over the circuit, giving the bearing and range to the Chinese submarine. Everyone in TFCC breathed a sigh of relief.

Coyote relaxed. However things had gotten screwed up, evidently the location of the American submarine had not been compromised. The Marshall P’eng had detected only the one she was supposed to, the Chinese one.

Good news in the short term, but perhaps not so good in the long run. He was hoping that Marshall P’eng could contribute to the ASW effort. However, given the ranges that were involved, she should have detected the American submarine as well. And if so, why had she not reported it? Perhaps Chang had realized something had gone wrong, and had decided not to report it. Or perhaps he hadn’t detected the U.S. submarine. To ask about a second contact now would simply make a bigger deal out of it, and that was the one thing Coyote fervently didn’t want to do.

So ignore it for now. Figure it was a screw-up, and go on. He knew what the submarine was doing — clearing the area, then returning along a different bearing to resume stalking her prey. If he could keep the Taiwanese frigate on passive now, she should be able to do that without interference, and without running the risk of being detected herself.

Suddenly, the Taiwanese frigate symbol on display changed course. It was moving away from the U.S. submarine, and toward the Chinese one. Captain Chang was moving his ship to the very edge of his operating box almost as though… almost as though… “Damn,” Coyote said softly. “He’s telling me something, isn’t he?” He glanced over at the major, and saw no indication of understanding on his face. Then he looked back to tactical display. Either things were really screwed up, or he and Captain Chang understood each other better than he thought they did.

It had been a long time since Lab Rat had popped tall for anyone, and he was really not enjoying it. Yet all it had taken was one glare from Captain Ganner to send him back into the braced salute of his midshipman days. He caught himself as he braced, and forced himself to relax.

“You have a problem, Commander?” Ganner demanded. “Because if you do, Mister, I want to hear about it.”

“No, COS, I don’t have a problem. Other than the one I’ve already pointed out to you.”

“You’re still on about the berthing assignments?” Ganner said, his face clouding over even darker. “I suppose your people are too good to live with the engineers?”

“Not at all, and you know it,” Lab Rat said, his anger boiling over. “But my people are berthed all over the place. Come on, sir, you’ve been on a carrier before — you know how it is. It’s just like on the…” He caught himself before he said “small boy,” knowing the term wasn’t a favorite among surface sailors, and continued with “a cruiser. You put part of your engineers together, another part somewhere else, so that if the missile hits, they won’t all be destroyed at the same time, right? Then you spread them out so you have senior people in each compartment to take charge. It builds team unity, just like it does on a cruiser.”

Ganner leaned back in his chair and tossed his pencil on the desk and glowered. “Well, I got the distinct impression your boys and girls already had this marvelous team unity — that’s why the admiral brought you on board, isn’t it? Because they were already a team? And now you’re telling me that’s not true?”

Lab Rat slammed his fist down on the chief of staff’s desk. He was aware that he probably looked silly — a short, blond, intell commander, barely weighing in at a hundred thirty pounds soaking wet, confronting a prototypical cruiser CO, tall, dark and strong. But he didn’t care — this went beyond some stupid power-play. It was affecting his people, and he was going to put a stop to it.

“Sir, I don’t know how and why you got so pissed off about all this,” Lab Rat said. “And frankly, I don’t really care. But the ship was built with berthing specifically designated for my department, and I want my people in it. It’s closer to CVIC in case of general quarters. Now, if you want us to swap quarters with the engineers, we’ll do that, too. That’s if you think we’re getting a special deal here. We’ll swap completely, so I’ll have two groups of men and a group of women berthed apart from each other. No more of this scattering us about at random between compartments. But if you tell us to do that, I imagine the engineer will have something to say about that, too. Because then his people will be just as far from their duty stations as mine are.”

Ganner studied him warily. “And I suppose if I don’t go along with it, you go to the admiral. And you aviators will stick together and you’ll get what you want anyway, is that it?”

“Permission to speak frankly, sir?” Lab Rat asked.

“You haven’t been?” Ganner sneered.

Lab Rat shook his head. “No, I haven’t. But now I will. And I’ll tell you what will happen if I go to the admiral. He’ll agree with me. It won’t take him any time at all to decide that I’m completely in the right and that you’re jerking my chain for some reason. And then you know what he’ll do? Hell tell me to get out of his office and deal with you. And he’ll back you to the hilt, whatever you decide. Because that’s the kind of man he is. You’re next line in as his chief of staff, the man who will step in for him if something happened to him, and he’s not going to undercut your authority. Oh, he won’t agree — make no mistake about that. But he’ll also back you up, right or wrong, unless you’re actively putting people in danger.”

The chief of staff’s face took on a slightly surprised look, as though a mouse has really turned out to be a tiger.

Lab Rat continued. “And you know something else? Even knowing that in advance, even knowing I’m going to lose — I’ll go anyway. Just like you would if our positions were reversed. Because that’s the kind of man I am. You got some reason for doing what you’re doing, but it doesn’t have anything to do with me or my people. We just happen to be here.”

There was a long moment of silence in the compartment. Lab Rat saw a range of emotions fly across the chief of staff’s face. He wondered how long it had been since anyone had spoken that frankly to the man. And he wondered whether he’d just shot himself in the foot for the entire cruise.

Finally, Ganner burst out laughing. He pointed a finger at Lab Rat. “The admiral told me you were a pistol,” he said, shaking his head. “I didn’t believe him.” He leaned forward and put his elbows on his desk and clasped his hands in front of him. “Okay. Sit down, Commander. Let’s hash this out.”

On impulse, Lab Rats stuck his hand out. After a moment, the chief of staff shook it. “We start over, sir? I’d like to introduce myself — I’m Commander Busby. But my friends call me Lab Rat.”

Ganner nodded. “Okay, Lab Rat. Sit down and let’s see what we can do to make this dog hunt.”