Island Warriors

SIX

Within twenty-four hours of starting sea trials, every man and woman onboard the ship was convinced in their heart of hearts that there would never, ever be a problem with this ship. They were invincible, invulnerable — the ship met and exceeded every performance characteristic tested. Her acceleration was significantly above what was predicted, her emergency crash backs virtually bone-jolting in their ability to reverse propellers and generate full reverse power. Her turning radius was tighter, her electronics more reliable — hell, even the radars look like they worked better. There was something special about being on a brand-new ship, one that had never known combat.

Each plank owner had been through numerous schools and rigorous training during the pre-commissioning days. Now, when they were finally allowed to strut their stuff on their new ship, they shone.

This morning would be the first test of the flight deck systems. For the first few days, the ship had tested engineering and damage control without the burden of having the air wing onboard. No aircraft would come onboard until Coyote and the carrier’s skipper were convinced that they could effectively fight a flight deck fire and provide power to the ship under casualty conditions.

Most of the aircraft technicians had walked on from pier side, but the actual aircraft and flight crews themselves were waiting patiently onshore.

Coyote left the flag bridge and headed for Vulture’s Row, three decks above, to watch the first trap. While everything might look great on paper, and even in trials, there was no real test of flight deck operations other than actually doing it.

CAG had elected to be the first one to land onboard the pristine flight deck. He was flying a Tomcat, his weapon of choice, with a tail number of zero zero, otherwise known as the double nuts bird. Coyote wondered briefly who the backseater was, then dismissed the thought. It didn’t matter — this was completely a pilot’s show.

In addition to the dangers of there being an undetected mechanical problem, taking the lead for the first landing brought with it other worries. Everything had gone so well so far — indeed, had gone perfectly. If the first landing was screwed up in some way, even in a minor one, that might shake the confidence of the crew. A wave off, or God forbid, a bolter, would be a bad omen.

No, to do it right, CAG had to make it onboard on his first pass, and had to catch the three wire.

Coyote listened in to the approach chatter on a headset. CAG had to know how critical this first landing was, but he could detect no hint of nervousness in the man’s voice as he made his final approach on the ship. The landing signals officer, or LSO, sounded just as casual — slightly bored, professional, with no trace of nervousness.

He could see the Tomcat in the distance now, sunlight glinting off her wings.

“Tomcat double nuts, say needles,” the LSO said.

“Needles show on course, at altitude,” the CAG said.

“Roger, concur with needles. Fly needles. Tomcat double nickels, call the ball,” the LSO concluded, indicating that the CAG should let him know when he had the Fresnel lens clearly in view.

“Roger, fly needles.” There was a short pause, then the CAG said, “Roger, ball.”

The litany continued, the careful phrases and measured interaction that characterized most routine landings. “Looking good, sir, looking good, watch your attitude, attitude,” the LSO said quietly, coaching the senior officer onto the deck.

Final was only two miles long, and the Tomcat was looming over the flight deck almost immediately. The deck was rock steady, the weather perfect, clear visibility unlimited.

CAG executed a perfect carrier deck landing, catching the three wire neatly. The noise on the flight deck immediately increased as he shoved the throttles forward to full military power. That was standard operating procedure, in case the cable snapped or the tailhook somehow skipped out of it, the latter being known as a kiddy trap. Full military power ensured that the pilot could get the aircraft off the deck again and airborne in order to come around and make another pass.

After a few moments, a loud cheer broke out across the deck, audible even to Coyote high up the superstructure. He joined in. The sheer excitement and relief was almost overwhelming.

Finally a yellow shirt flight deck technician stepped out front of CAG’s aircraft and gave the hand signals to decrease power to the engines. The reasoning for standing in front of the aircraft was that the enlisted people were too smart to step in front of an aircraft if they weren’t absolutely convinced that the aircraft was securely trapped on deck. The yellow shirt was putting his life on the line if something went wrong as was the pilot who was cutting power.

The CAG let the Tomcat roll back slightly, neatly retracted the tailhook, and increased power slightly to taxi forward and follow the directions of the yellow shirt to a spot near the island. All around the perimeter of the marked off landing strip, technicians were clustered, cheering, shouting out greetings and congratulations. The CAG returned the waves as he taxied, and he pulled off his oxygen mask so that they could all see the broad grin on his face.

The Tomcat reached its appointed spot. Even before the CAG could pull back the canopy to egress, the aircraft was surrounded by hordes of cheering sailors wearing every possible color of jersey. No matter that there were other aircraft stacked up in a holding pattern, waiting their looks at the deck. For just this moment, the only thing that mattered was that they’d made it through the first trap, and an excellent trap it had been indeed.

Coyote had been leaning over the railing, his elbows resting on it, and now he straightened up to turn to his chief of staff. “One less thing to worry about.”

Ganner nodded. “For all our modern technology, sailors are still a damned suspicious bunch — superstitious, even.”

Just then, the young enlisted radioman walked out onto Vulture’s Row. He held a clipboard in his hand. “Good morning, Admiral. P4 message for you.”

The “personal for”, or P4, was a designator for communications between the Navy’s highest ranking officers. The messages required special handling, on the theory that that that would prevent the contents from being broadcast over the ship. It was not necessarily that the message itself contained classified material — it was just that the information was often sensitive, and best not shared with the entire fleet.

“Must be congratulations on our first trap,” Coyote remarked, as he took the clipboard. “But how did they get off so fast? AIRPAC must have had the message all written and waiting in the queue so—” He stopped abruptly as he began scanning the message.

It was short and to the point. The United States was directed to break off sea trials and immediately make best speed to Taiwan. She would be resupplied enroute, and the remainder of her air wing, qualified or not, was ordered to immediately embark.

Coyote passed the message to Ganner. “We ready for this?”

His chief of staff nodded. “Yes, Admiral. Not as ready as I’d like to be, but I moved up some of the provisioning schedules, and we should be able to make it.”

“We can do carrier quals on the way over there,” Coyote said.

Of course they could. It was done all the time. And there was no real reason not to sign off on this warship right now. No, they hadn’t completed every test. And in actual fact, it would take months before they really knew how she would hold up. It was one thing for everything to be working when they went to sea. It was another entirely to stand up to the endless day in and day out use that went with a deployment. Still, if he had to bet, Coyote would come down on the side of the United States.

“Get everybody in the conference room,” Coyote said. “Maybe we’re worried about Taiwan for no reason. There might be another explanation for this, a good one.”

“Maybe.” The chief of staff’s voice was doubtful.

As his chief of staff left, Coyote turned back to the flight deck. Pristine, unscarred — well, that would change. And sooner rather than later, it looked like.

“Admiral! Someone here to see you.” Ganner stepped aside to reveal Lab Rat standing at the hatch to Vulture’s Row.

“Hey! What the hell you doing out here? You’re supposed to be in Norfolk. You didn’t…?” Coyote glanced down at the Tomcat now being positioned just forward of the island.

“Yes, sir, I did indeed.” Lab Rat’s voice was calm. “I called in a few favors — nobody ever cares who’s in the back seat, do they?”

“I wouldn’t put it that way, buddy.” Coyote slung a companionable arm over Lab Rat’s shoulder. “But there’s times when it’s the most important thing in the world, and there’s times when it’s not.”

“This was a not, then,” Lab Rat said.

“So to what do we owe the honor?”

“I’ll get right to the point, Admiral. Right about now, you should be getting a—”

“A P4?” Coyote interrupted. “Yeah — just saw it. That your doing?”

“Some of it,” Lab Rat admitted. “But the thing is, you’re not completely manned up yet. And I’ve got my entire CVIC sitting ashore twiddling their thumbs. I was wondering—”

“Why, hell yes!” Coyote said. Lab Rat had forgotten that it was sometimes difficult to finish a sentence around the exuberant Texan. “You want to bring that whole little pack of yours on out here, you go right ahead. Save me having to break in a bunch of newcomers, right? And give your people something to do.”

A frown crossed the chief of staff’s face. “Admiral, with all due respect — Commander Busby’s people just came off cruise. I suspect they may need some down time, a chance to recharge. Isn’t that so, Commander?” He turned to the intelligence officer.

“I asked if they wanted to go — every single one of them volunteered, sir,” Lab Rat said. He appreciated Ganner’s concern, although he was slightly miffed at the implication that he himself hadn’t thought of that. “They want to be plankowners, sir. It’s not something they’ll get the chance too often to do in their careers.”

“Well, pack ’em up and bring ’em on out,” Coyote said. “COS here will take care of the details. Right, COS?” There was a slight challenge in Coyote’s eyes, and Lab Rat had his first hint that there might be some issues to work out between the new battle group commander and his chief of staff. “I mean, we got this sweetheart through precomm and sea trials, we ought to be able to handle wrangling Lab Rat’s boys and girls on out here, right?”

“Of course, Admiral,” the COS said smoothly. “I’ll make that happen.” He nodded to Lab Rat and then said, “With your permission, Admiral, I’ll get right on it.”

“Carry on, carry on,” the admiral said, waving him off. He watched the man go back into the interior of the ship before turning to Lab Rat. “Surface guy,” he said, his voice confiding. “You know them.” In Coyote’s view that said it all. The man was not an aviator — therefore, by definition, he sweated the small stuff, didn’t know the sheer joy of flying, and would tend to get his panties in a wad over things that might make a tremendous amount of difference to some paper pusher in DC but that Coyote didn’t give a rat’s ass about.

“Seems like a good fellow, though,” Lab Rat added tactfully. He could see the problem looming, and he had no intention of being part of a tiff between Admiral Grant and his chief of staff. “Got a sterling reputation.”

“Sure. You can’t believe everything you hear, though,” Coyote said, and for a moment his eyes looked bleak.

And just what is that all about? Lab Rat wondered. Ganner was a cruiser man who’d commanded an Aegis cruise and then a deep draft follow on command. Those two command tours had pegged him as a man to be watched, one who was being put through the crucible in order to evaluate him for later selection to flag rank. That he’d been assigned as Coyote’s chief of staff was not a step up — it was a sideways move, indicating that there was some doubt that he was still on the fast track to promotion to admiral.

If it bothered Ganner, you couldn’t tell it by looking at him. He was a darkly tanned man, one with brown sun-streaked hair swept back from his face, short but not Marine short, dark brown, almost black eyes and a powerful physique. He had the look of an admiral, the sense of presence and command, and from what Lab Rat had heard, he had the brain power to back it up.

So what had happened? What had knocked him off his preordained track to higher rank? Lab Rat considered asking Coyote, but decided against it. While Lab Rat himself was considered part of the aviation community, he was not per se an aviator. Therefore, Coyote might have been reluctant to confide in him the way he would in another pilot. Besides, it was always better to know things that no one else knew you knew. Sooner or later — and Lab Rat was betting on sooner — he’d know exactly what had happened in Ganner’s career and be able to evaluate how it affected his position on the ship. Maybe Ganner was resentful over whatever had happened and envied Coyote. A bitter or disillusioned COS could make life difficult for one of the admiral’s perceived favorites, and joining the battle group like this could make Lab Rat and his people look like just that. There were a thousand ways a COS could sabotage a more junior officer.

In the meantime, it was important to avoid getting caught between Coyote and his COS. Stay on the good side of both, keep your head down, and do your job. Because clearly the COS hadn’t pissed Coyote off enough to get his butt relieved, so Coyote would be reluctant to completely torpedo the man’s career. But the situation would bear watching.

“So git,” Coyote said. “You got a ton of stuff to do, starting with finding a ride home, right? You need to get your people packed up and orders cut and berthing arranged and all that paperwork shit, I bet.”

“Sir, they’re packing out right now.” Lab Rat could not repress a slight smirk. “I got reservations on comm air for all of them and a couple of COD’s standing by at North Island to get them out here.”

Coyote gave him a long, level look. “Pretty confident, aren’t you?”

“Not in me, sir.” Lab Rat grinned openly now. “In you.”