The Command

by David Poyer

  The Remote Launch Enable Panel was a holdover from the nuclear-capable days. Two keys had to be inserted to launch. Dan held his out. McCall took it, almost reverently, and matched it with her own. Her Waspish fine-boned face was flushed, hands trembling. She weighed them for a moment, then handed them to the chief.

  “Load complete.”

  McCall blinked, cocked her head, coming out of whatever momentary state she’d experienced, and moved to stand behind the console operator.

  “Start missile alignment.”

  “Watch the INS switchover. WSN-5 in manual switchover mode.”

  “Final review Plan One. Do not change course more than five degrees.”

  McCall repeated that to the others, then pressed the lever to inform the pilothouse. The bridge said they were about three minutes from the launch point at his current speed.

  “Okay, when we’re five hundred yards out, slow to just above steer-ageway.”

  Bridge rogered that, and McCall said, “Final review complete. Time until first launch—eight minutes.”

  “Now set material condition Zebra throughout the ship. I say again, set material condition Zebra throughout the ship. All personnel topside, lay within the skin of the ship. First launch, seven minutes.”

  The commodore said, “I understood you had to report in before launch—”

  “Doing that now, sir.” Dan had the red handset poised. “Terminator, Lone Gunman, this is Blade Runner. First launch seven mike. Over.”

  “Blade Runner, Terminator. Copy. Out.”

  “Lone Gunman, copy, out.”

  Terminator was the strike coordinator at COMFIFTHFLT headquarters in Bahrain. Lone Gunman was the Joint Task Force, Southwest Asia, in Riyadh. Any cancellation/hold fire message would come from them.

  “Five mike.”

  “Roger.”

  The 21MC said, “Combat, bridge: booster drop zone clear to starboard.”

  The 1MC said, “First launch, five minutes.”

  But then it all went to shit. The launch controller cried, “Nav alignment failure. Mode regression plan two, missile F51.”

  “Backup plan,” Dan said anxiously.

  “There’s no backup for that, sir.”

  McCall said, louder than he’d expect a woman who looked like her would, “Shit! Is that an overridable fault?”

  “No, ma’am!”

  “Captain, we have a problem. Plan two has a nav alignment failure and—”

  Dan cut her off. He knew what was going on.

  Somewhere in the missile nestled in cell F51 a relay had gotten hot, or a board had shorted. Its little brain wasn’t agreeing with the location data the ship’s computers were feeding it.

  For the bird to get where it was going, it needed to know where it was starting from. And since Tomahawk had originally been designed as a nuclear-capable weapon, it had been written with a very restrictive code. If it wasn’t sure it could navigate, it wouldn’t launch. Once one missile in a salvo went, if another had a glitch, the computers would skip over it and fire the third. But as a double safety measure, if the first round in a salvo hung up, none of them would fire.

  But at the same time something was tickling his thoughts. Something about nav alignments. What was it? “Okay, let’s calm down and think this through. Lieutenant McCall. Which plan shoots first? How long to first launch, how far are we from the launch point?”

  “Plan two shoots first. Four and a half minutes to launch, and about five hundred yards away.”

  His mind was racing. What was it, damn it, what was he trying to remember? Something about a serpentine maneuver… an S turn… How long did it take to go from steerageway to flank for a Spruance?

  He reached over Strong and tabbed the 21MC. “Central, Captain. How many mains on line?”

  Chief Bendt said they had all four engines on line. Dan told him to stand by for max turns, flank three, and told Camill rapidly, “Pass that over the sound-powered circuit to confirm. Tell them to disregard acceleration limitations and use the torque sensor cutout. I’m going to the bridge.”

  There might be one chance to make this happen. He wasn’t sure it would work. He’d have to do it exactly right, the first time.

  “Captain’s on the bridge!”

  He blinked in sudden rusty light. “I have the deck and the conn. Belay your reports. Nav, what’s least water depth within five nautical miles from right here, right now?”

  “No less than eight fathoms, Captain.”

  “All ahead flank three. Make turns for thirty-one knots. Right thirty degrees rudder.”

  The throttleman grinned and slammed the throttles all the way forward. “All ahead flank three, aye! Make turns for thirty-one knots, aye!”

  “My rudder is thirty degrees right, no new course given.”

  Dan slapped the bitch box. “Combat, CO, mark our posit. Treat this like a man overboard. Keep passing bearing and range to the position I just had you mark.”

  Like a suddenly whipped stallion, Horn trembled and leapt forward. As the screw wash hit her hard-over rudders she heeled left as she skidded hard to starboard. A rumble began deep in her guts. On the bridge, pencils and binoculars slid and fell. The bridge team grabbed for handholds.

  “Combat, CO … how long to launch?”

  “Three minutes to launch.” Camill’s voice, breathless. No hesitation now, Dan noted.

  The rumble grew louder. Horn leaned hard off her turn. Dan stood bracing himself against a repeater, staring at the sea but not seeing it.

  “Bridge, Combat. Point X-ray bears two-zero-zero, range five hundred yards.”

  “Very well.”

  “Passing zero-four-five,” the helmsman called.

  The ship was plowing a furrow into the sea, skating hard around in the shuddering whining whoosh of eighty thousand all-out horsepower locked against the groaning protest of seven thousand tons of metal violently changing its inertia. Dan was balancing the bearing ring on the gyrocompass between the tips of his fingers and doing trigonometry in his head.

  “Passing one-two-zero. No course given.”

  By now the missile’s gyros should be steadying up. The oscillations that had been giving unstable alignment readings should dampen out. If he was right, it might be possible to make the missile’s computer agree with the ship’s again. How? By taking them back through the exact geographic point where the missile’s guidance had first lost its grip on the situation.

  “Point X-ray bears two-five-zero, range one thousand yards.”

  “Passing one-eight-zero.”

  When their bearing to the start point was 270 he snapped, “Rudder amidships. Ahead one-third. Make turns for five knots.”

  Horn reeled back upright. He staggered forward and cracked his head on the window as she decelerated, dropping from the whining full-ahead charge as she came back to her original course. Shading his eyes, he saw they were coming up on the green frothing water, the rocking foam of their own screw wash. Ahead lay the same spot on the planet’s surface where he’d ordered the speed change two minutes before.

  “One minute to launch,” McCall shouted as he slid down the ladder back into Combat. “Captain, navigation aligned on F51! Request batteries released all plans.”

  He grabbed the red handset; caught his breath, pressed the transmit button. “Terminator, Blade Runner. Sixty seconds to launch.”

  “Terminator, roger, out.”

  “Confirm whip and fan antennas silent.”

  “Confirm blast exhaust doors open.”

  “Alignment complete.”

  “Time to launch: thirty seconds.”

  Strong watched without comment or guidance.

  “Time to launch, ten seconds.”

  The chief plugged the keys in. Gave each a half turn, and the screen flickered.

  “Skipper,” he said softly.

  Dan hesitated, thinking back in that second of responsibility over all the deaths he’d seen and been involved in. The men and women who looked
back at him now didn’t know what it meant. No reason they should. Maybe you had to look into a man’s eyes as you killed him. Knowing, too, there was a chance innocents would die. But satisfied, this time, every alternative had been exhausted.

  Was he sure of that? No. You could never be totally sure. But neither could you let yourself become nothing more than a tool, a conducting wire, an unthinking component of the machine. When you did, you opened the door wide for evil.

  Sometimes he didn’t think he was the right man for this job.

  He hoped that doubt meant he really was.

  Voice flat, he said, “Batteries released, all primary plans.”

  “Shoot,” McCall said.

  “Salvo firing commence,” said the chief. The launch controller mashed the button.

  A double slam, then a roar bellowed through Horn’s superstructure as the cell and uptake hatches whacked open and the booster ignited. Dan visioned what was happening forward. The missile bouncing up from its cell, then seeming to slow; teetering tail-down, balancing gooney-awkward on a cone of orange-white fire and bleached-out smoke. As it passed three hundred feet, the engine inlet popping open. Fuselage wing plug covers ejecting. Steering and stabilization fins switchblading out, followed by the wings. Then booster burnout, and the nose dropping. A heart-stopping moment as you waited, then the black smoke of engine start.

  “Lookout reports, missile transitioned to cruise.”

  “Very well,” Dan said softly. Holding the handset, listening to the roar of the second round going out. Of weapons on their way, hurled stone, loosed arrow, ball, bullet, and shell… the god of war bellowing, loosed again to insatiate frenzy.

  WHEN he heard it, Marty didn’t recognize what it was. Then he did, and twisted. But he couldn’t see.

  A rusty haze stung his skin. It draped low over the waves, as if sanding their tops off. He shaded his eyes, looking for the birds. But couldn’t see them. One after the other the distant thunder began, and peaked, and then moved off. Toward the east.

  Then something plunged out of the murk, and he whipped back to where he was: alone on a hostile, booby-trapped deck, with an armed man coming at him.

  He’d glimpsed the guy sneaking back toward the bow. Slipping between the piles of tires. Only now did he make out the rifle. The unmistakable long curved mag, like the lower jaw of a cartoon miser. Marchetti froze, another shadow in the sand-fog. The burnoosed figure ran past, disappeared. Just as he did, Marchetti caught two more AKs slung over his back.

  The sound intensified, like an airfield with jetliners going out one after the other. Using the aural cover, as soon as the other was past he tucked the .45 and unslung the Mossberg. Jacked a round of buck into the chamber. Think fast, Machete. The boys were aft, out of touch. He grabbed Cassidy and breathed, “Tell them on the ship, Red Ball, armed

  resistance. We damn near got lit up by some kind of booby trap, a claymore or something like it.”

  “Armed?”

  “I counted three AKs headed forward. If he comes back and I get a clear shot, I’ll take him. But the ship better start hauling ass back here.”

  Booger whispered something about not shooting first. Marchetti told him to shut the fuck up and get ready to fight for his life. He looked startled, then fumbled at his holster. Marty faced front again, hoping he didn’t get shot in the back.

  The deck felt funny. The shadows, too … what the fuck was going on? Son of a bitch, she was moving. No. For a second he felt like on the Tilt-a-Whirl. Like the ship was sliding away under him. He blinked and shook his head.

  Chattering raghead voices came from the fog. The after roar of the missiles going out was fading. So he could hear them now, clear, all talking at once. Coming aft. Armed, and the rest of the team didn’t know it.

  The lead one came out of the fog, Kalashnikov held down across his belly, and Marty put the bead on his chest and pulled the trigger. The gun bucked and the raghead went down, screaming, and he pumped and swung, searching for the other rifles. The guys behind him were scattering, but somebody cracked off a shot. The officers had their pistols out and were pointing them wildly around. As Berger’s lined on his head Marchetti ducked away, then shouldered him back against the tire pile. “Get back to the boat, Booger.”

  “You shouldn’t have shot him.”

  “Mister Cassidy? Take him back, sir. Now. I’ll retrograde the team.”

  The ensign was nodding when the boom of running feet came from the starboard side and a burst hit around them, bullets whanging off the deck. They were sprinting, a stampede, a dozen going by while flame spat here and there from among them. Nobody seemed to be aiming, just spraying and praying. Marchetti got another round off into them but didn’t think he hit anyone. The recoil thumped his shoulder, and he worked the slide, stuffed more shells in.

  Cassidy was talking rapidly on the radio, vectoring the RHIB back in. Marty told him to belay that. As long as these guys were on the loose with AKs, they could lean over the side and hose out the boat. “We got to deal with these pricks first. Tell the ship we’re taking fire. We need the helo, need help, we need some fucking backup here.”

  The boarding officer nodded. Marty poked the muzzle of the twelve-gauge around the tire pile. The deck was empty between him and the deckhouse. Just littered rotting flesh, the eddying fly-cloud, the stench, the sand. But something was different. It was like he was looking downhill. What the fuck?

  All at once he realized what was going on. She was going down. The fucking crew had tried to scare them off, then tried to kill them. Neither had worked, and that was why they were stampeding aft. That was where the lifeboats were.

  He jerked his head and yelled, “Follow me.”

  WHEN he got the word about the Red Ball from the boarding team Dan was still in Combat, explaining to the strike team what he’d just done, how if everything went right and you got lucky, you could shock a recalcitrant bird into realigning itself. He stopped in midsentence and snapped the channel selector on his Saber to the boat frequency. He got Cassidy in midtransmission, saying they were in the lee of the bridge and Marchetti had gone below to get the sweep teams out on deck. “Do you copy that?”

  “Runner Gold, copy that.”

  “Blade Runner, do you copy?”

  “Gold, I copy, d’you copy my copy?”

  Dan cut in. “Skipper here, Sean. What’s the situation?”

  “Sir, we took fire. This feels like a setup. They were ready for us. My feel is they’ve scuttled. This thing’s starting to go. We need help here.”

  “We’ll be right with you.” Dan said to Camill, “Herb, get us back to Gold Team’s position ASAP. Flank three. Secure from strike stations. Set surface action stations. Blue and Green boarding teams muster on the fantail.”

  Strong interrupted, wanting to know what was going on. Dan explained rapidly. He asked him to get whichever task group unit was nearest their position to start on its way, they might need help finding men in the water. For once the commodore didn’t have questions, just wheeled away, shouting for his watch officer.

  On the bridge the windows were scrubbed with dim ochre, a howling hiss filled his ears. The officer of the deck had pulled the lookouts and gunners inside the skin of the ship. Looking down, Dan couldn’t see the bow. Just brown water scummy with floating sand. The missile hatches were still open. Drill was to leave them cracked for thirty minutes after launch, let the corrosive fumes of the boosters disperse. But sand would be even worse. He snapped at someone to close them, then went to the Furuno.

  Sand return made a fuzzy blob at the center of the sweep. The intercepted vessel was ten miles off. The helmsman had the rudder over and the turbines were whining up. He leaned to the windows and saw sandblast already frosting the thick shatterproof glass. It was like peering into boiling tomato soup. He did sums in his head and came up with twenty minutes to intercept. He made sure Faith would be ready to go in the water and the boarders were ready. Unfortunately, he couldn’t launch Blade Sl
inger in a sandstorm. The danger of pilot disorientation and engine damage was too great.

  His mind went to the missiles, probably making landfall by now. They’d wing their way for an hour across the empty northwestern quarter of Saudi Arabia. Then dipping, seeking the shelter of dry wadis to cross the Iraqi border near a place he knew well. A place he’d once taken off from on his own penetration of the dark republic where, like some unkillable mustached specter dogging them through the end of the twentieth century, the tyrant still reigned. From there they’d execute evasive doglegs, till their lethal cargos reconverged again to vanish in balls of explosive gas. If, that is, there were no more of these killer sandstorms along their flight path. Their simple electronic minds took no account of billions of shards of silicon slicing the desert air. They’d drill on till their turbines froze. Till some wandering Bedouin, huddled while the storm raged overhead, heard the deep rock shiver to the boom of half a ton of wayward explosive.

  If a Tomahawk exploded and no one heard it, had its message been delivered?

  At his waist his radio crackled. He lifted it and listened to gunfire, miles away.

  MARTY stood in a deserted passageway, pointing the riot gun down it. Someone was coming up the ladder at the far end. In a moment his head would show. He put the bead on the hatchway and took the slack out of the trigger.

  Crack Man stuck his face up. Marchetti jerked down the barrel and stage-whispered, “Get the fuck up here, dipshit. Where’s the rest of the team? What the fuck’s going on down there?”

  “These scummers cracked the sea intakes. These fuckers must all be Omanis, there’s so much fucking kif weed down there. She’s going down, man, she’s going down so fucking fast.” He looked past him at the open hatch with the expression of a man inside a sinking ship looking toward an open hatch. “Jesus. Is the boat coming?”

  “You see any life preservers down there?” Marty asked him. “You see Turd Chaser? How about Amarillo?”