The Art of War

TEN

It wasn’t until after they were airborne that Rat seriously contemplated whether or not the best course of action would be to shoot Fastball in the back of the head and then punch out. While they were waiting their turn for launch, Fastball started his bitching. He complained about everything from the condition of the cockpit — grease on the instrument panel from a technician’s work — to the slowness of the other pilots in getting on the catapult, to the tight fit of his flight suit, and progressed down the list to a series of comments on the inedibility of lunch served that day. At first, Rat had tried to answer him, but then realized that he was bitching just for the sake of bitching.

Things hadn’t improved any since the launch. According to Fastball, there was no one else in the Navy who knew how to maintain proper station as a wingman except him. Sure, she had to admit he was good — they’d been welded onto Bird Dog’s wing ever since they gained altitude after launch. But it wasn’t like the rest of the squadron pilots were slouches, either.

Finally, she realized what his problem was. After they’d landed and refueled, their Tomcat had been loaded with a ground attack payload instead of antiair weapons. And, from Fastball’s perspective, that signified a lack of confidence on the part of CAG, especially since they’d just proved their worth in ACM. The real fighters were just that — fighters. With fighter weapons. Sidewinders, AMRAAM, and Phoenix and Sparrows. Not bombs, laser guided or otherwise. Additionally, he complained that the weight and shape of the bomb payload made a marked difference in the Tomcat’s aerodynamic handling. Although Rat couldn’t see much of the difference, she wasn’t a pilot.

Did Gator have to put up with this from Bird Dog? The exploits of the two during their earlier days were legendary, and she often heard Gator moaning about his life as Bird Dog’s backseater. And while Fastball was no Bird Dog — not yet, anyway — he sounded an awful lot like the stories Gator told.

Finally, when she could take it no more, she said, “What’s the matter, can’t you fly this thing without moving your lips?”

“And I suppose you’re happy about this,” Fastball retorted. “Yes, that’s it probably there’s a whole lot less chance of the seeing action with this load-out, isn’t there? You chicken, Rat? Is that it?”

For moment, Rat was too purely stunned to speak. Then the anger started, curling around her gut, building up through her chest until she could feel the veins in her forehead popping out. She clamped her hands down on the side of her seat, willing herself not to unbuckle her ejection harness and crawl through the space between the front seat and the canopy to choke the living shit out of him.

“I have my hand on the ejection handle,” she announced, aware that her voice sounded cold even with all the rage boiling inside of her. “You have five seconds to take that remark back. After that, you can practice your speech to CAG explaining why you returned to the carrier without your backseater. Because I’ll be damned if I’ll fly with a pilot who thinks I’m a coward.”

Fastball started to speak, but she interrupted him. “And as for you, you little shithead, if you can’t suck it up and understand that the mission is more important than your testosterone-loaded dreams about aerial combat, then I’m requesting a new pilot as soon as we get back onboard. I don’t fly with people who aren’t team players, asshole. And if it ever there was someone who didn’t understand what the hell he’s doing, it’s you.”

She waited a moment, and said, “Four… Three… Two…”

“Okay, okay,” Fastball said, evidently realizing she was deadly serious. “I’m sorry. You happy now?”

“You’re sorry for what?”

“You’re not a coward, okay? I didn’t mean it like that.”

Suddenly, the radio interrupted their spat. “Tomcats flight, Bird Dog — execute ground attack mission alpha against the following coordinates.” The operations specialist read off a latitude and longitude, concluding with, “Chain-link fences, three small buildings. That’s where the attack came from. The admiral wants — hold on, I’ll quote him exactly — a sheet of fused glass. Any questions?”

“Jefferson, Tomcat flight, no questions. Tell the admiral he’s going to be able to shave in the sand after we get done with the place,” Bird Dog answered crisply. “Okay, Tomcat flight, get hot. There’s no time for a dry run, no time for a practice shot. We’re operating on very little intelligence on short notice. Just follow my lead, we’ll go in at two thousand yard intervals, with each RIO calculating each individual release point. Accuracy counts, ladies and gents — let’s give the admiral what he wants.”

“Hammer flight, this is the admiral,” Batman broke in. “Bird Dog, I’m counting on you.”

“Roger, sir. You want fused glass, you got fused glass. Although I can’t promise that there won’t be a couple of gaping holes in the middle of it.”

“All right,” Fastball said. “Now this is more like it. Just watch this, Rat. Now you’re going to see a real expert at work.”

Rat had her head buried inside her radar screen mass, working on the exact ingress course, release point, and rollout parameters. The RIOs in the four aircraft traded information, then settled on a plan of action. The pilots might like to believe that they were the important part of this, but each RIO knew that putting metal on target was entirely their problem. As long as the pilots did what they were told, there was a pretty good chance of success — Rat herself was the second runner-up in the squadron bombing accuracy contest.

“Ten minutes,” she said. “Here’s the profile.” She snapped her data picture over to his HUD.

“No problem,” Fastball said. “No problem at all.”

“Ten minutes,” the TAO announced. “Bird Dog says he’ll roll out to the south, and he’ll need a tanker when he’s done. He’s also asking for the latest update on any SAM sites.”

“What does Lab Rat say?”

“Lab Rat says,” a voice said behind him, and Batman turned to see his intelligence officer standing there, “that there’s a good chance they’ve fielded some portable units in the immediate vicinity. A high probability, at least.” Lab Rat shoved some satellite surveillance photos at Batman. “This is how they did it, sir. And I’m betting there’re some SAM sites that are concealed the same way.”

Batman studied the sequence of photos, showing the remarkably clear figures of men frantically scraping and shoveling an otherwise unremarkable stretch of sand. The next photo caught the glint of sun on metal, as the steel missile door was partial exposed. The final shot showed the cover fully retracted, and a blur of motion as the first missile launched. “Damn them,” Batman said softly. “You’re right — how the hell did they set this up without our knowing about it?”

“We did know about it, sir.” Lab Rat saw the look on Batman’s face, and added, “We, as in the Navy, sir. Not me personally. Evidently the powers that be decided that the information was too sensitive to release to the fleet. It’s only after the fact that they’re passing it on.”

Batman swore quietly. That’s the problem they always had with intelligence. The really good stuff was so sensitive that you didn’t get it when you needed it. He could understand reasoning — it was the same problem that the British faced with Coventry. Do you evacuate the city, and tip your hand to the Germans that you’ve broken the Enigma code, or do you sit by and watch your own people killed in order to protect the greater secret? It was a decision that Batman had never had to make — and he wasn’t so sure how he would’ve reacted if he had been in charge of deciding Coventry’s fate.

“So if they’ve got this concealed underground, they’ve probably got others as well.” Lab Rat shuffled the photos back together, and handed them off to an assistant. “I’m pinging on them as hard as I can to make them release the information, sir. But nobody is saying for certain — or maybe they just don’t know. At any rate, my best guess would be that if they can do this with one facility, they can do it with others.”

Batman turned to the TAO. “How many of those Tomcats are carrying HARMs?”

“Only one, sir.”

Batman nodded. “That will have to be enough.”

The HARM missile, an antiradiation homer, was designed to execute a kill against enemy radar facilities. The later versions of the missile locked on to the emissions and even if the enemy shut down the facility, it would remember the location and take it out anyway. It was a fire and forget weapon, and a high priority weapon for the battle group.

“Tell Bird Dog he may have a problem getting it,” Batman said. He listened to the TAO relay the details to the Tomcat flight.

Then another circuit snarled to life. “Jefferson this is Seawolf,” a voice said, thin and tinny. “We’ve got a problem.”

The Seawolf. What’s she doing on the roof?

“I’ve got a few problems of my own right now, Seawolf,” Batman said. The worry on his face was immediately evident. But what was the submarine doing breaking her cloak of visibility, exposing herself to detection and prosecution? Especially under the circumstances.

But Seawolf couldn’t have known that when she came to communications depth. It was only now, as the high-speed link brought her database up to speed, that she would see that she’d surface in the middle of a complete clusterfuck. Not that she was completely surfaced — only a small satellite antenna would be above the surface of the water, but that was enough of the visual to give away her location if anyone happen to be looking there.

“I can see that now, sir. Bad timing, is it?”

“Understatement. Seawolf, can it wait? Because things are about to get pretty nasty here. I want you safely submerged. Get down, and make best speed to clear the area just in case someone saw your antenna. Get to a safe location, then come back up. But for now, I’m just a little busy.”

“Roger that, sir. Seawolf out.”

“Wonder what she wanted?” Lab Rat asked, a worried expression on his face. “I didn’t like the sounds of that at all.”

Batman turned back to the tactical screen. “Whatever it was, it will have to wait.”

Bellisanus replaced the microphone in its holder and turned to his XO. “Get us out of here. You see what’s going on.”

And indeed, the XO did. The details that were unfolding on their now updated tactical screen were truly horrifying. The missile attack on the cruiser, the air thick with fighters — no wonder the admiral hadn’t wanted to talk to the submarine, absent a report that they were sinking.

“Right full rudder, flank speed,” the XO said to the officer of the deck. The order was repeated to the conning officer, and then again to the helmsman, who echoed the orders and reported his compliance with them. The submarine started to pick up speed.

“Conn, Sonar. We’re making a lot of noise, sir.” The concern in Jacobs’s voice was evident. “If there’s a sub in the area, there’s no way she won’t hear us. We’re generating flow tones over the damaged sonar dome like crazy.”

The XO swore quietly. The hull might be intact, but the damaged sonar dome resonated to the flow of water over it. As the water passed over the jagged edges, it generated sounds a bit like blowing on a Coke bottle. No competent antisubmarine warfare person could possibly mistake the sound for anything else.

“Sonar, Conn, aye. There’s nothing we can do about it right now, Jacobs. We’re noisy as hell, but be grateful we’re not sinking. Just keep your eyes peeled for any unfriendlies in the area.

“Will do, sir, but we’re putting so much noise in the water that it’s hard to see much of anything. We’re not only noisy, but our own detection capabilities are degraded.”

“Roger. I want to do a high-speed sprint and then we’ll slow down. You let us know when we quit generating the flow tones, okay?” the captain said. He then turned to the XO. “Five miles, that ought to give us a head start. I’m open to suggestions.”

He was open to suggestions. After the one time he left the control room and the XO had run the sub into a pipeline. A feeling of unworthiness swept over the XO. If he could just come up with the right answer now, just find some way to… wait. That was it.

He thought it through a second time, then turned back to the captain. “Sir, I recommend we return to the area where we struck the pipeline. If they’re not paying attention, they may mistake our flow tones for current rushing over the broken pipe. Additionally, it’s going to take a while to shut down the oil flow. I bet it’s still pumping. That will foul up the water enough that there won’t be any chance of a visual, and will also reduce the acoustic propagation characteristics of the area. It’s the best place to hide right now.”

The captain’s face was unreadable. “Downside?”

“Fresh water,” the XO said. “There’s a real danger it will foul our sea chest, and that could mean serious trouble. But not as bad as being detected right now, I suspect. We can deal with the fresh water problem later.”

The captain’s face relaxed slightly. “I agree completely. Make it so. And pass the word to the crew — we’re on strict water hours until I say otherwise. No showers, no flushing. I know, I know, it’s going to get pretty foul. We can’t waste a drop until we’re certain we can clear the area safely.”

The XO nodded, gratified that the captain had approved his suggestion. “Come right, steady on course zero three zero.”

Bellisanus watched his orders translated into action. Yes, they’d clear the area all right — of that he was confident. But at what price? How long could Seaman Harding hold on without advanced medical facilities? He felt the pain deep in his gut as he forced himself to acknowledge what he was doing. Yes, Harding desperately needed to be medically evacuated to the carrier, and if he’d asked anyone in Harding’s family — or most civilians, for that matter — he suspected the reaction would be the same. Surface, insist that the carrier send a helo immediately for the young man.

Yet this was why the burden of command was such a grueling, demanding pressure. You spent years honing the judgement and skill of your officers, inculcating in them the ability to make decisions such as this. You hoped and prayed that when the time came, they’d make the right ones, but you knew that it would twist them into knots just like it did him. Because as much as he wanted to get Harding off the ship, take care of him the way a captain is entrusted to care for his or her sailors, he couldn’t. His priority had to be the safety of the ship, the mission, and other hard priorities that were so distant from the concerns of one family over one sailor.

And you hated doing it, but you did it anyway. And the day that it quit hurting, that you stopped caring about your sailors and still forced yourself to make these decision, why, that was the day that you ought to retire.

He’d visit Harding later today, after things settled down. He’d tell the lad that they’d get him off as soon as they could, urge him to hold on. And the real bitch of it was, the thing that would keep him awake at night would be the look of understanding in Harding’s eyes, the forgiveness he’d see there.