Choosers of the Slain

by James H. Cobb

  "Oh, I don't know about that, Doctor," the Secretary of State replied, returning his attention to the folder. "We shall see, as the blind man said."

  RIO DE JANEIRO

  1800 HOURS: MARCH 20, 2006

  As with all of the world's warships, the Cunningham's wardroom served her officers as a combined dining area, lounge, and auxiliary work space. It was home, all that they had while they were at sea. Accordingly, they had contributed generously to their mess fund to ensure that home was a comfortable place.

  The traditional gray linoleum decking had been covered with navy blue carpeting, and the single, long wardroom table had been supplemented by several comfortable-looking pieces of Danish modern furniture in russet leather. One bulkhead mounted an entertainment center, complete with stereo and video system and ranked CD and LD cabinets, while the others were sheathed in "redwood" paneling, handsome despite being a safety-cleared fireproof synthetic.

  The bulkheads also displayed a growing collection of memorabilia. Launching and commissioning photographs, a nearly empty deployment plaque, and a meter-wide enlargement of the Cunningham's official ship's patch: a circular sigil divided across, with light blue sky above and dark blue sea below and with a phantom outline of the Duke's silhouette sailing on the horizon. Her name and Fleet Identification Number arced across the top of the patch in gold, while her motto, "Strike in Stealth," curved along the bottom in silver.

  Flanking the hatchway leading aft were two special items. To port was a small glass case containing a worn pair of naval aviator's wings. They had been a commissioning gift, bestowed by the man whose name the ship now carried: Rear Admiral Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the Navy's legendary first ace of the Vietnam era.

  Mounted on the bulkhead to starboard was another commissioning gift: a painting, done by a seafarer for seafarers, in blues, grays, and misty silvers.

  It was a presentation of a rather unusual destroyer squadron, running in echelon formation across a foam-streaked sea. In the foreground was the Cunningham herself, leading the line. Holding position on the Duke was a big, slab-sided Spruance-class DD. Beyond her was a rakish Charles F. Adams from the 1960s, and beyond that, the five-turreted silhouette of a World War II-vintage Fletcher. In turn, almost lost in the horizon haze, were the pole mast and slender funnels of a First World War four-piper.

  At the bottom of the white oak frame was a small bronze plate bearing the last verse of Rudyard Kipling's poem "The Destroyers":

  The strength of twice three thousand horse

  That serve the one command;

  The hand that heaves the headlong force,

  The hate that backs the hand:

  The doom-bolt in the darkness freed,

  The mine that splits the main;

  The white-hot wake, the 'wildering speed--

  The Choosers of the Slain!

  Among its other uses, the wardroom was the usual setting for the ship's O groups.

  The operations-group command style had been a concept developed by the armed forces of Great Britain and brought to its fullest fruition by that nation's Special Air Service during the 1970s. Consisting of the commanding and executive officers and the senior division heads, the O group was convened to confer and brainstorm over mission planning and operational and tactical developments.

  Many officers of the old school disapproved of the O group. They claimed it eroded the captain's authority and pushed perilously close to command by committee. Amanda Garrett, however, preferred it, never having been the kind of officer who believed a captaincy automatically conferred omnipotence.

  As she glanced around at the little cluster of men and women gathered at the wardroom table, she realized again that she had been blessed with a good team. Certain of them, like Ken Hiro and Christine Rendino, she had served with before and had been able to select. With the others, she had just been damn lucky. One would have to be a fool not to take advantage of their input, and Amanda wasn't a fool.

  "...In short, that's the situation. Once we complete preparations for deployment, we are to proceed immediately to Drake Passage and establish a patrol station. Once there, we await reinforcements or new orders, whichever come first. Any comments?"

  She watched intently as each division head digested the orders and considered how they would affect his or her particular area of responsibility.

  Hiro was the first to speak. "Without tender support, I don't see what kind of deployment preparations we can make. We have to go with what we've got, unless the Brazilians are willing to loan us some compatible gear and stores. Either that or wait for the stuff to be airlifted in."

  "There's another option, Ken. We've got the Boone sitting right next door. We can interface with their stores list and requisition anything they have that we can use. Then we sling the stuff over using the helos."

  "Commander Stevens isn't going to like having his paperwork messed up like that, Skipper."

  "I can't help that, Ken. I'm going to the South Pole. He's limping home with a busted prop. If he throws too much of a snit, remind him that I have four months in grade on him. If that doesn't work, refer him directly to me. CINCLANT will back us on this."

  "Does that include fuel, Captain?" Chief Engineering Officer Carl Thomson inquired.

  Lieutenant Commander Thomson was a big, quiet, shambling man who had likely grown a little tired over the years of being compared in appearance to John Wayne. In his early forties, he was the oldest of the Cunningham's officers, overage in grade because he had always displayed more interest in ship's systems than he had in career planning.

  "How do we stand on bunkerage, Chief?" Amanda inquired.

  "Sixty-seven per."

  "I don't think we want to fuss around with a ship-to-ship transfer. See if the Brazilians can provide us with a fueling barge on short notice. If not, we'll pay a call on the Brits and top off down at Port Stanley. How's the plant otherwise?"

  "She's holding together."

  Amanda smiled a little. Translated from Thomson-ese, that meant that the drives were in as close to perfect a condition as human dedication and ingenuity could bring them.

  Her attention moved on to her tactical action officer.

  "Okay, Dix, can Weapons Division report the same?"

  First Lieutenant Dixon Lovejoy Beltrain did not at all fit the popular image of a computer geek. In fact, the sandy-haired TACCO looked far more like the first-string quarterback he had been at the University of Alabama.

  Nevertheless, he was one of that first generation to be raised interacting with computers from kindergarten on up. He plugged in to the guided-missile destroyer's fire-control matrix as effortlessly as one of his own black boxes and played the master missileer's console as if it were a cheap video game.

  "The Aegis Two system and all secondary surface and air sensors are four-oh, ma'am. Same with the ASW suite. All fire-control and weapons systems are up and on line."

  "Ordnance loads?"

  "Full warloads in all torpedo tubes. Phalanx magazines are also full. From ordnance testing, we're down about forty rounds of seventy-six-millimeter, fore and aft, for the Oto Melaras, but I guess we can top up from the Boone on that. As for the Vertical Launch Systems ..."

  He consulted his computer pad, calling up a weapons payload listing. "All cells loaded and operational. Current loading, surface-to-surface: thirty-six Harpoon Twos, twelve Standard HARMs, twelve Sea SLAMs, and twelve SCMs. ASW: thirty-six Vertical Launch ASROCs and four Aquahawks. Surface-to-air includes forty-eight LORAINs and twenty-eight ESSM quad packs. Special-mission loads include four BRAVE drones and a Zenith round."

  Beltrain looked up. "We also have the standard block of alternate warheads and guidance packages in the magazines. The only glitch we have is a check yellow warning on one of the 'Poons last testing cycle. Might need some work."

  "Don't fool with it, just pull it and send it home with the Boone. While you're about it, pull the Aquahawks too."

  "There's nothing wrong with the 'hawk
s, ma'am," Beltrain replied contritely.

  "Nothing except that they still don't work half of the time, even when they do check out green. Look, Dix, I know that you and General Dynamics think those contraptions are the antisubmarine wonder of the age, and I'd like to indulge you. However, this is a potential combat deployment, and I'm simply not going to waste cell space on iffy ordnance. Swap them with the Boone for whatever you think we can use, just so long as it works."

  Beltrain admitted defeat. "Aye, aye, ma'am." He grinned back with an acknowledging nod.

  Amanda moved on around the table from offensive to defensive systems.

  "How about your people, Mr. McKelsie?"

  "We're up, Captain."

  "How about the Black Hole Systems?"

  "Like I said, we're up."

  Lieutenant Frank McKelsie was the ECM and stealth systems officer, holding sway over the Cunningham's arsenal of active and passive electronic defenses. He was an abrupt, gingery man, nervously slender with thinning red hair. He had an abrasive, bullying command style that Amanda didn't particularly like. She also suspected that he was something of a closet chauvinist as well.

  On the other hand, he knew his job and got performance out of his systems and personnel. That counted for a great deal, given his area of responsibility. Besides, he had never directly challenged her authority ... yet.

  "Ensign, how about Air Division?"

  Through no fault of her own, Ensign Nancy Delany was the O group's current weak link, her primary problem being an almost painful lack of experience. Fresh out of flight school, this had been her first blue-water deployment. As the sole helicopter pilot currently attached to the Duke, she was also the sole officer in charge of the ship's tiny air group. She had been struggling throughout the cruise to bring herself and her unit up to speed.

  "We're operational, Captain," she replied softly. "I'm sure we can use some extra spares, but I'd have to check with my crew chief to get an exact list on that."

  "Don't worry about it. We're going to pull the whole aviation section right off the Boone--helo, personnel, parts bin and all--and take it aboard. Ken, is that going to present any problem?"

  "Not really, Captain, we're set up for two-helo operations. The only thing is, we've been using the spare berthing spaces and gear lockers for general storage."

  "Well, get 'em unstored and ready for habitation."

  "Aye, aye."

  She returned her attention to the younger woman. "There is one thing, Ensign. The Boone's helo detachment is from your squadron and the pilot is probably going to have rank on you. I'm sorry, but it looks like you're going to get bumped off this august council."

  "That's okay, ma'am. I'll survive." If anything, the rather harried-looking little brunette appeared relieved.

  "Chris, how about your people?"

  "We're good, Skipper," the intelligence officer replied from the end of the table. "I've got the word on the current mission database."

  "Go with it."

  "Okay, gang, here it is. We're putting the standard mission database together down in Raven's Roost. DIA is giving us the usual download of the usual stuff: climatics, geo-and oceanography, military TOE of the involved powers, plus all the latest chart and sat photo files.

  "State is providing a political situation report on the theater of operations and a current crisis update. Oh, and one other thing. I've contacted both Antarctic Support Command and the Coast Guard to provide us with files on the South Polar operational environment and how to stay alive in same. We should have the full menu up and running in another couple of hours with standard access available through all ship's terminals."

  Amanda nodded her approval. "Very good, especially those polar data files. We're going to need them. Now, can you give us a brief op-force rundown?"

  "Sure thing." The intel nodded. Of all the group seated around the table, she was the only one without an active computer pad in front of her. Christine was that one-in-a-thousand individual who had been born with an eidetic memory. She hardly ever resorted to the artificial props of notes or reference material and her shipmates rarely ever doubted her declarations. They'd seen her win too much money in too many Officers' Clubs by wagering that she could quote extemporaneously and verbatim any national entry out of the latest Jane's All The World's Warships.

  "Okay, people," Christine began, "our potential black hats here are the Argentines. These guys are a definite power to be reckoned with down in this part of the world. It will behoove us to act accordingly."

  "I thought the Brits kicked their butts back in '82," Beltrain commented.

  "They did, but their unit performance during the Falklands War varied between the pathetic to pretty darned good, depending upon the unit involved and the situation. Junior officers then--company commanders, deck officers, and flight leaders--are now senior command cadre. We have got to presume that these guys may have learned a few things.

  "The four strike arms we have to be concerned about are their air force, their naval surface and submarine forces, and their naval air wing.

  "The Fuerza Aérea Argentina is good. In fact, they are probably the best, most professional air force in South America. These guys made the British sweat blood. They sank five ships and shot up ten others during the course of the campaign. Current operational strength is around three hundred and fifty aircraft, about one hundred and fifty of which are combat capable. The majority of these planes are the domestically produced Pampas attack aircraft, a very typical, third world jet trainer-turned-light strike fighter. Limited range, limited air-to-air, very limited night and all-weather capability. You're not likely to see these aircraft out of sight of land.

  "On the other end of the spectrum, they have about forty Dessault Rafale E's, the top-of-the-line export variant of the standard French tactical fighter. This is a very bad-ass aircraft indeed, boys and girls. Good range, good sensors, good ECM, day and night, all-weather capable, and it can deliver large amounts of all kinds of very nasty ordnance with unnerving accuracy."

  "Vive la France," somebody down the table muttered.

  "Moving right along to force multipliers, the Argys have no dedicated Wild Weasel or Raven aircraft, but those lovely Rafales can carry HARMs and jamming pods. Tanker assets consist of a single flight of Lockheed Hercules modified for air-to-air refueling. Airborne Early Warning assets are built around a couple of converted Boeing 737-400 airliners tricked out with Israeli Elta Phalcon phased-array radar."

  "Are any of their squadrons mission-dedicated to anti-shipping?" Amanda inquired.

  Christine shook her head. "Nope, that's left to the Aeronaval Argentina. Fortunately for us, that World War Two-vintage British flattop the Argys had finally fell apart on them a few years ago. To date, they haven't been able to afford a replacement. Instead, they've opted to develop a land-based maritime strike capacity. They picked up a squadron of ex-Kriegsmarine IDS-model Tornadoes and had them rebuilt by Fiat of Italy. The airframes have been zero-timed, uprated engines installed, and all internal systems updated to current spec. These are your premier ship killers, the weapon of choice being the AM-44 advanced-mark Exocet missile."

  Amanda lifted an eyebrow. "Any other good news for us?"

  "Oh, lots and lots. One of the Aeronaval's weaknesses during the Falklands War was its lack of long-range search aircraft. They corrected that little problem by picking up a half-squadron of Dessault Atlantique ANG patrol planes. They routinely work up with the Tornadoes, and both aircraft types have full date cross-link and targeting capacity. It's a neat setup."

  "It sounds like the Argentine armed forces have been undertaking a major modernization program," Ken Hiro commented.

  "They have. Argentina has been riding high on the South American economic recovery and their current administration has been supporting increased military appropriations. It's starting to show in all of their services."

  "Does that include the submarine and surface forces?"

  The Intel nodded an af
firmation to her captain. "It does. Sub-wise, they're converting from German designs to the new Swedish export boats: the Kockums 471-B. They've got two in commission along with three of the old Thyssen 1700s. The Thyssens are reaching the end of their hull lives, though, and are probably not really fit for serious combat deployment."

  Amanda frowned a little as she recalled what she knew about the Kockums. Anechoic antisonar hull sheathing, diesel electric propulsion with fuel-cell auxiliary, six twenty-one-inch torpedo tubes with launch capacity for surface-to-surface missiles.

  "I reckon it could be worse," Dix Beltrain said, reading her mind. "A diesel boat will have problems in the kind of crappy weather we can expect in Drake Passage."

  "Um-hmm. And the more sea room we have, the less effective they'll be. Let's make a note to try and lay as well off the coastline as is feasible. Carry on, Chris."

  "The core of the Argentine surface force is also German built. This consists of four Meko 360-class destroyers and half a dozen 140-class frigates. These are twenty-year-old hulls, but they have recently undergone a full service-life extension and systems modernization.

  "There's some new stuff as well. Three Italian-built Animoso-class destroyers. Two of them are antiair-oriented DDGs with the Aerospatiale/Thomson-CSF Aster area defense missile system. The third is a modified helicopter carrier with flag capacity and an enlarged hangar, capable of handling either two EH-101 Merlin or four Lynx Mark V helos. These units generally operate together as a single squadron and are considered the local first string."