Silver Tower

CHAPTER 10

"Dammit, Cogley," Captain Matthew Page said, "I don't want copies of Nimitz's transcript of the satellite messages. Takes an extra half-hour for them to relay the messages to you and for Comm to type them out nice and pretty. Half of Asia could get blown up in a half-hour. We've got our own FLEETSAT terminal; I want copies of the transmissions from that." Cogley nodded and turned but Page grabbed his arm. "Cogley, give me those messages you have. It's better than nothing. Tell Comm I want updates every half-hour."

Cogley scurried away and returned a few moments later to fill Page's coffee cup. "Thanks. Now tell Comm to start earning their salaries or I'll keel-haul them." Cogley disappeared.

Page took a sip of coffee, looked skyward. "See that, Ann?" he said, half-aloud. "I call him other things besides 'Dammit Cogley'."

It was the first time he had thought of his daughter since leaving Oakland, and the realization hurt him. My daughter, the astronaut. She had been on the evening news half a dozen times and in the newspapers constantly. A laser expert. Smarter, more famous, better paid and certainly better looking than her old man.

He felt a lurch from an errant wave and his eyes quickly scanned the digital inertial sea-motion gauges and the computerized compensating equipment on the master bridge-console. All functioning normally. The Arabian Sea could be a wild place sometimes — even without the interference of other people's navies.

At least Ann didn't have to deal with twelve-foot waves, he thought. They didn't have waves in space. He remembered reading about a "solar wind" powerful enough to move huge space stations, and micrometeorites that could slice through steel. It sounded much more dangerous than the sea.

He had always wanted to ask his daughter about things like the solar wind and micrometeorites but just never did. Funny — whenever he saw his daughter, he never thought of asking her about lasers, or space, or physics. She was a world-class scientist, one of the nation's best. She could probably write a book about the solar wind. But whenever he saw her, she was his daughter-nothing more, nothing less, nothing else.

You're an old idiot, Page told himself. You've never let her know how proud you are of her, how happy you are about her success. You see her maybe twice a year and then it's always "get me a beer" or "help your mother" or "when are you going to come down to earth — joke — and crank out some grandkids?"

He went out onto the catwalk and took in the clean, crisp salt breeze and the sounds of waves crashing against the bow of his eleven-thousand-ton guided-missile cruiser. Off in the distance he could just make out the massive outline of the Nimitz as it launched another pair of F/A-18D fighters on a night patrol. The California was positioned as the "goalkeeper," the largest and most powerful ship cruising except for the main carrier in the battle group. The California's eight antiaircraft guided-missile launchers, two 127-millimeter guns, eight Harpoon antiship missile launchers, four 324-millimeter nuclear torpedo tubes and eight ASROC antisubmarine missile launchers were the last layer of protection for the ninety-one-thousand-ton carrier and her thirty-six-hundred crewmembers.

Dammit, he thought, why feel guilty about speaking your mind? Deep down he couldn't help feeling that Ann had no business being on a space station or flying in a contraption like the Space Shuttle. Both were dangerous enough without the Russians screaming about them being a threat, And what was wrong with asking for a few grandchildren? Ann was an only child.

It would be nice to have a few rug rats around after the navy dry-docked him in a few years.

Chief Petty Officer Cogley ran up to him now and held out a computer printout. "Message traffic from the Persian Gulf, sir."

"I'm not asking too much, right, Cogley? But no. She's gotta go off and play spaceman. Big deal."

"Your daughter, sir?"

"What? What about my daughter?" Page snapped himself back to the deck of the California and Cogley wisely decided not to pursue whatever the captain had been muttering about.

"Three point ships from the Brezhnev battle group heading south for the Strait of Hormuz," Cogley read. "Space Command thinks they're exiting the Gulf for an early force rotation. The carrier Brezhnev herself is hanging back for now. We'll be able to wave bye-bye to them as they exit the Gulf of Oman."

For a brief instant Captain Page's mind registered the words "Space Command," but he didn't make the connection and assumed Cogley was referring to the air force. They're all the same, aren't they? he liked to say. "Thanks, Cogley. Keep the reports coming,"

Dark clouds raced across the skies, but Captain Page looked up and stared at the sky as if his daughter Ann could look back down at him. "Well, daughter, for once I'm damn glad you're tucked away up there…"