The Passage

by David Poyer

  Last, a faraway twinkle like a low star: Voge, a more modern frigate, armed with Sea Sparrow missiles, five-inch gun, and a good antisubmarine suite. Leighty had placed her to the northeast, behind the carrier and the oiler, to guard against end runs.

  Standing there, looking at the force spread around him, he could see in advance exactly how it all would go. Or at least how it was supposed to go, according to the best estimates the U.S. Navy had been able to muster over the past forty years.

  For hastily assembled though it was, Task Force 142 was a textbook example of the Navy’s fighting doctrine as it had remained with startlingly little change since the end of World War II.

  In the “air age,” the Navy’s leaders had concluded that power resided not in a single massive vessel, nor in a phalanx of identical units, but in a mix of specialized ships deployed in a mutually supporting formation. Destroyers, cruisers, and frigates were its shield. Its sword was the aircraft on the flattops’ decks. The old capital weapon, the battleship gun, had limited range and tactical flexibility. But attack aircraft could strike hundreds of nautical miles and target not only enemy ships but land-based installations, airfields, communications.

  Ever since, moving endlessly across the face of the waters, these powerful yet mobile concentrations of self-contained force had gradually made obsolete the old necessities for bases and garrisons. Where U.S. interests were threatened, there the carriers could go, and the far-flung twinkling of lights he contemplated now was a microcosm of the great battle groups deployed now across the globe. That had kept, in large measure, what modicum of peace the world had enjoyed since 1945.

  It still seemed a reasonable disposition for offensive operations. He had every confidence in the aviators. He’d seen them train; he knew their courage and skill would put ordnance on target. But given TF 142’s limited defensive assets, he didn’t feel terribly confident facing a brand-new nuclear battle cruiser and her escorts. For if the U.S. Navy had a standard formation, they were the ships designed to defeat it—Kirov and her associated screen units, now only a few steaming hours distant.

  What if it really came to fighting? Harper scoffed, but did that mean it couldn’t happen? Men at Pearl Harbor and Jutland and Trafalgar, too, had probably laughed at the thought there could be battle, that they could be dead and their ships wrecked.

  For just a moment, looking out, he had a moment of self-doubt sharp as terror. If it came to war, how would he react? But then, the next moment, he shook his head slowly. He already knew the answer. It had scarred his body, tried his soul. But that much, the doomed Ryan had given him. He might—he would—be afraid. But he knew he’d stand his ground. He’d do his duty, even in the face of death.

  He thought with a sort of suspicious wonder, Could that be how life worked? That whenever it took something, it gave you back—

  “Mr. Lenson, you out here? Captain asked if you were still on the bridge.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said, back inside. He could make out Leighty now, a small silhouette against the window.

  “Dan, how’s our NTDS, sick or well?”

  “We seem to be well; we’ve never had any problem with the Link Eleven module.”

  “And the Link Fourteen?”

  “Bronstein reports glitches, dropped data. I recommended they tune their equipment, maybe try the secondary frequency.”

  “I want you to keep close tabs on your systems. Inform me immediately if there’s any degradation, or any significant improvement.”

  “Aye aye, sir. Um … what do you think’s going to happen? Are they going to try to come through us?”

  “Don’t know. If they do, I’m not sure we can stop them. It’s as if they waited till all our first-line carriers were deployed, so we’d have nothing left to fill a hole down here.” Leighty didn’t speak for a few minutes. Then he said, as if musing to himself, “It’s not good to be weak.”

  Dan couldn’t think of anything to say to that. He was turning away when the captain added, “Could you get me some coffee, please?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  When he came back with it, Leighty said, “Thanks. So you think we’re about as set as we can be.”

  “I’d say so, sir.”

  “I meant that, about getting some sleep. I was talking to some Royal Navy officers once. They told me, if they ever had to fight us, they’d hang back for a week before they attacked. We’d be so spun up by that time, we’d be asleep on the consoles.”

  “Probably true, sir. That’s how we operate all right.”

  “Not aboard Barrett. Anyway … what are your plans after this tour, Dan?”

  “Plans, sir?” He blinked dully at the figure above him.

  “You have plans, don’t you? I thought you were Academy-issue, career track.”

  “I guess so, sir.”

  “You don’t sound very positive.”

  “Well, I haven’t been thinking about it lately, sir. Been kind of down in the weeds with the combat system, and … and personal stuff, too.”

  A speaker over their head crackled, “All units Alfa X-ray, this is Whiskey Foxtrot. Radio check. Over.”

  “Do you have that, Jay?”

  “Yes, sir, I got it. This is Delta Tango, roger, out.”

  “You mean your divorce?”

  “I wasn’t thinking of that, but that, too, yes, sir.”

  “Well, you need to start thinking about your career. Combat systems on a Kidd-class … that’s good to have in your jacket. Leave here as a senior lieutenant, do a shore tour, staff duty somewhere, postgraduate work, you’ll be right in line for XO.”

  “Maybe, sir. If I get picked up for lieutenant commander.” He had a momentary impulse to lay it on the line, tell the man above him he doubted he’d stay in that much longer. Then his lips closed again in the humming dark. He didn’t like this man; he didn’t trust him. He no longer wished even to talk with him.

  “If you want to discuss it sometime, let me know. Maybe I can help.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Dan said, thinking, And what price would I have to pay?

  “Get that sleep now.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  TWO decks below, the Teletype tapped out a single zero and fell silent. The figures on the screen froze, then disappeared.

  Hank Shrobo looked up slowly from the empty screen. He blinked, detaching his glasses from one ear, then the other. He carefully rubbed what felt like grit out of his eyes. He sighed, shoved the stool back, and felt for his shoes with his toes. He picked up his mug and was startled to find it half full of icy black liquid. Sharp cracks came from his spine as he straightened.

  “Matt,” he croaked. “Matt?” There was no answer, and after a moment, he looked around.

  Chief Dawson was standing in front of the mainframes, arms folded, watching the play of lights as the programming ran. “Hi, Doc. Coming up for air?”

  “Finished, that’s what. Where’s Matt?”

  “Think he just went to the—no, here he is.” The compartment door thumped open, then the dogs grated as it closed again.

  Williams came into the light. He was in uniform now, but his face was ruined, slack and sleepless. His gaze met Shrobo’s, then moved to the screen and then the printer. His head snapped up. Without a word, he jumped to it, tore off the two-foot length of paper, and smoothed it out on the test bench. Together they stared down as if at the Dead Sea Scrolls.

  “There it is.”

  “Just like we figured—eighty lines.”

  They gazed at the rows and columns of ones and zeros for a few seconds. Then Williams cocked his black ballpoint. He etched slashes between the four-digit groups of the first line. Then, gnawing his lip, he began writing the hex equivalent below each group. Shrobo went back to the monitor for the plastic-laminated “Repertoire of Instructions” card.

  “Got it? Okay, first group.” Williams read it off.

  “That’s ‘initiate input/output chain from one forty.’”

  “Okay. Next
instruction …”

  “‘Decrement BCW for XJ instruction.’ Are you writing this down, or am I?”

  The door thumped open again, but they didn’t look up.

  DAN could tell just by looking at them that something had happened. He hoped it was good. “What’s going on?” he asked. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “This is it. Here it is!” The black petty officer flourished two pages of green-and-white fanfold. “We’re starting to decompose it to CMS-2.”

  “Great,” he said, but when he looked around the space, he saw only two computers running and three dark, shut down. “What do you have on number one?” he asked the chief.

  “That’s sonar processing, sir. The isolated NTDS and Link Eleven modules are running on three.”

  “What about the op program? The weapons module?”

  “Still down, sir.”

  Dan was suddenly so angry, he could not speak for a moment. Finally, he managed, “Who ordered the weapons-control module taken down?”

  “Dr. DOS thinks it’s not a good idea to run it now.”

  “Is that right. How long has it been off?”

  “Two, three hours, sir.”

  Dan wanted to lash out, but he controlled himself. Missed communications somewhere, that was all. He cleared his throat, took a deep breath. “Great, you’ve cracked it. So all you have to do now—correct me if I’m wrong—is to write a program that goes: ‘Look for this first string here’—B-four-F-E, that it?—then, ‘Look for this last string’ and, ‘Delete all between them.’ That’ll search out and delete everywhere the virus is hidden. Bingo, you patch any missing lines and it’s good to go. Then you scrub down the drum memories, the data tapes, everything runs smoothly, and we’re back to C-One readiness. That right?” He fixed his gaze on Shrobo. This time, he was going to get an answer.

  “It’s not exactly that simple—”

  “But you can write a string search, right? Isn’t that what you were going to do? We need it, Doc. Yesterday.”

  Shrobo blinked. Lenson was disturbed, he could see that. But he was getting annoyed, too. How did anything ever get done aboard this ship? Everything was hurried, superficial, cosmetic, with no regard for underlying principles. He said rather coldly, “I don’t think you understand what Mr. Williams and I have just accomplished here, Lieutenant.”

  “I understand you’ve decoded the virus. But it’s still in there, right?” He pointed to the gray cabinets. “If it reactivates, our weapons systems are useless, right?”

  “I believe it’s more important to understand exactly how it does what it does—whatever that is.”

  Dan felt his temper slipping. “Okay, I’m sure you’re right theoretically. But do you understand where we are and what we’re doing out here?” Or had Shrobo been down here so long that he was really clueless as to what was going on topside, at Cay Sal, and a few hundred miles to the south? Shit, maybe he didn’t know.

  “Look. Maybe nobody’s explained this to you. We’re off the Cuban coast, looking down the throats of a Soviet battle group. They’ve got missiles with double our range and three times the warhead weight. We need the operating system, the whole system, operating at peak performance.” He swung from the civilian’s rather hostile gaze to the DS2’s. “Petty Officer Williams, do you understand that?”

  “Yes, sir, I grok that. But what Doc here is saying—”

  “I hear what he’s saying. I’m not deaf! I’m thrilled you got it solved, okay? But we don’t have the time right now for theoretical investigation. Write the fucking routine! Get Elmo running in mode three. Then you can take all the time you want to figure out the fine details.”

  “Sir, I think Hank—Dr. Shrobo is right. What he’s saying, we don’t know yet what the thing is actually doing in there.”

  Dan lost it then. “That’s enough! I want a search routine and I want it now. Chief, explain it to them. The Soviets are three hundred miles south of us. They’re trying to decide whether to come through our line or not. We’re the only ship here with a credible missile-guard capability. We’ve got to have it running before the showdown or the Kirov is going to mow us down. And we’ll be on the bottom, along with these computers and your theories, too.”

  There, Dawson got it at least. The chief straightened. “Will do, sir. I’ll get everyone down here, get them on it.”

  “Keep me informed. I’ll either be in CIC or in my stateroom.”

  “Gotcha, sir.”

  “And get that goddamned weapons-control module loaded. Right now.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  He turned from their hostile eyes, satisfied now they’d obey. It shouldn’t take that long to write the routine. With ACDADS running, they could face a wave of missiles with some hope of surviving, protecting the carrier, then striking back.

  Then the 1MC speaker on the bulkhead hissed and popped, snapping their heads around. Only emergency word was passed after taps, and it was almost midnight. For a second, they heard nothing but frenzied cries. Then the clang of the alarm, followed by BM1 Casworth’s voice, strangely high-pitched, as Dan had never heard it before.

  “Now general quarters, general quarters. All hands, man your battle stations. This is not a drill.”

  43

  AS he reached Combat, he expected the sound level to be high. And true, every radio circuit was crackling, every Teletype clattering. But it wasn’t noise. Data was coming in, being processed, going out. There was a continual rapid murmur from the console operators, the tapping of keys, but no shouting, no running, no confusion. Thanks, Gitmo, Dan thought. Whatever was happening, they were ready.

  He reached Shuffert at the same moment Vysotsky did. “What’s happening?” the XO snapped.

  “Trying to find out, sir, but I think Dahlgren’s been hit.”

  “Hit!” Dan instinctively marked the time: 2343.

  “That’s a guess, sir. I’m trying to confirm.” Shuffert reached for the 21MC. “Bridge, Combat: Anything from Dahlgren yet?”

  “No answer on the tactical net. Ditto fleet common.”

  “Have the signal bridge try them flashing light.”

  “We’re supposed to be running dimmed, Shoe.”

  “Use the infrared filter. And keep the lookouts alert; we could be next duck up at the shooting range.”

  “Bridge aye.” The intercom clicked off.

  “Who sounded GQ? Why?” Vysotsky demanded.

  Shuffert blinked rapidly. “I did, sir. We were night steaming, everything same as when you were here, Dan. Then suddenly we got a voice report. Canisteo saw a streak of fire go past them. Off to the north at first, then it moved south, across the formation, they said. Then our lookout reported a flash from the direction of Dahlgren.”

  “Combat, Bridge: No answer from Dahlgren to flashing-light query. Also, we can’t pick up running lights on them anymore.”

  Dan hit the key twice, acknowledging, as the tactical circuit speaker said in a deliberate bass, “Foxtrot Uniform, this is Whiskey Foxtrot. Over.”

  Clicking his eyes to the call-sign board, Dan confirmed that “Whiskey Foxtrot” was CTF 142, the task force commander, and that he was calling Dahlgren. Could even be Admiral Larson on the circuit. But whoever it was, the other destroyer didn’t answer.

  “NTDS?” Vysotsky grated.

  “Sir, Dahlgren’s dropped out. She’s not responding to the network query.”

  “Do we still have radar video?”

  “Yes, sir, she’s still there, but she’s not transmitting.”

  Dan swung on Hiltz. “EW, what you got?”

  “No threat signatures, no seekers, sir. I’ve been going up and down the spectrum.”

  Leighty came in as the 21MC said, “Combat, Bridge: All stations report manned and ready.” He snapped, “Hiltz! Any rackets?”

  “None, sir. Mr. Lenson just asked me that.”

  “Anything on the long-range plot?”

  “Air plot, negative contacts, sir.”

>   “And no one’s reported any submarine contacts.”

  “No, sir,” said Dan. Just then, the tactical circuit intoned, “All stations Alfa X-ray, this is Whiskey Foxtrot. Message follows; execute to follow.”

  “Copy it; copy it,” Leighty said.

  “Echo November One tack two. Foxtrot corpen nuco juliet alfa, juliet sierra, bravo victor. Tack. Zulu X-ray two tack three. Over.”

  Lauderdale, from the darkness: “Captain, I break that: Prepare for enemy attack. Coming to flight course one-three-zero. Formation course one-three-zero, speed twenty-seven. Preparing to launch aircraft.”

  “She’s getting her strike off.”

  “Roger it, somebody.”

  Dan grabbed the handset, but just then Van Cleef’s voice said from the bridge, “This is Delta Tango; roger, out.”

  The deliberate voice came over the air again, repeated the message, then said, “Standby, execute.”

  Dan touched Shuffert’s arm. “Okay, I’ve got it. Go take the AAWC.” The black officer nodded, tapped Chief Alaska’s back, slid into his seat in front of the antiair-weapons-coordinator console. Dan swung himself into the TAO chair as Leighty hit the 21MC. “Bridge, this is the captain. Get moving; get around to the new course. Keep a sharp eye on the carrier. Use left rudder to come around—that is, left rudder.”

  “Bridge aye, sir. Left rudder, coming to one-three-zero.”

  Leighty, standing in the middle of the compartment, was speaking rapidly in a low voice, almost as if to himself. “All right. First things first. Dan, get on the HF command net—”

  The HICOM was a high-frequency channel that went direct to the fleet commander. But even as Leighty spoke, it crackled into life. “Flash, flash, flash,” said the same deliberate voice that had just put out the message on the tactical circuit. “All stations this net, this is Alfa X-ray, Station Papa in the Gulf of Mexico. Radiant. I say again, Radiant; time twenty-three fifty-one Romeo.” It repeated the message and authenticated it. Two stations confirmed receipt, the single-sideband transmissions making them sound as if they were talking through a flute.