Tipping Point

by David Poyer

  “Very well.” Dan turned the seat and sank into it, riveted to the screen. They wouldn’t get an intercept angle until they had a firm impact prediction. But he was constrained, not just by geometry, but by range. If the target was north of Jodhpur, or the Indian air force base at Phalodi, no chance of an intercept. If it was south of there, he just might have a good enough probability of kill to take a shot.

  If he decided to. But the decision wasn’t just technical. After all, the U.S. hadn’t taken sides. But he had no more than six or, at the outside, eight minutes to decide.

  He glanced at the red Launch Enable switch near his right hand. Not really a “fire” switch, in the classic gunnery sense. The magazines were authorized and enabled via the command console. The Fire Inhibit/Enable key just allowed the command to go to the magazine. The Canister Safe Enable switch, on the bottom of the canisters, was another safety interlock. The gunner’s mates held those keys, so no rogue CO or TAO could launch on his own.

  But once all the keys were turned by human beings, ALIS herself ran through a built-in system test, calculated the chances of a successful intercept, matched parameters, and sent the fire signal.

  He had to keep his inventory in mind too. Better than the last time Savo had engaged, but still limited. Twelve Standard Block 4A theater missile defense missiles. Once those cells were empty, Savo was no longer a national-level asset.

  And they’d had only a 50 percent kill record last time.

  The display jerked, then jumped forward, as if the camera was falling straight down from space. It was nauseating, and he blinked, keeping his fingers clear of the switch.

  A white dot welled up, like a whale rising from deep beneath the sea. It pulsed on the center screen. The “gate,” the vibrating bright green hook of the radar’s acquisition function, zoomed in, corrected, and centered.

  “ALIS locked on,” Terranova announced. “This is a big mother.”

  “Very well. Manually engage when track is established.”

  The bracket convulsed, as if blown by a stiff gust, and strayed off the dot. The petty officer cursed. Caught it, guided it back. It circled, then locked on. The white dot grew rapidly. Not a visual picture, though it resembled one, but the digital representation of the radar data the SPY-1 was feeding back ten times a second.

  Beside him Mills had begun the prefiring litany. Alerting VLS, the bridge, Mitscher, and Higher to what was happening. “Bring up GCCS on the other screen,” Dan murmured.

  But the screen was blank. Someone behind them said, “GCCS, no data.”

  “What?… Try again. There’s got to be data.” The center screen was still raw video from ALIS. But the left showed only a blinking caret. “Where’s the goddamned big picture?” he muttered.

  The voice called, “Geeks is down. No response to repeated queries.”

  “Oh, this isn’t good,” Mills murmured. Dan blew out. Without the Global Command and Control System, he was limited to what Savo’s and Mitscher’s organic sensors—Aegis, EW, sonar—could see, and, of course, what he could eavesdrop on in high-side chat and Indian television.

  Tunnel vision. The classic danger for every commander in combat.

  “Meteor Alfa, gathering horizontal velocity,” Donnie Wenck called, and Noblos’s voice added, “Pitchover.”

  Dan flinched, winching himself back to the large-screen displays. “Okay, get that info out. Now! Flash voice, ComFifthFleet and CentCom.” Alfa’s elevation callout, in angels, passed six hundred and was still climbing. But the white dot, gripped by the brackets, which up to now had been stationary relative to the geo plot, began to drift. Eastward, toward India. Burnout and pitchover, into the long ballistic trajectory that would end at its target.

  At some point he’d missed, Wenck or Terranova had put the predicted point of impact up on the rightmost screen. The area of uncertainty overlay shrank, expanded, elongated, and shrank again, shivering like Jell-O as ALIS continually recalculated. But in general, it was a vaguely oval-shaped darkness in western India, hundreds of miles inland from where Savo steamed.

  He leaned forward in his seat, squinting. Fifty miles in length, forty in width, it seemed to be centered west of one of the Indian airfields the air strikes had risen from … supporting the ground attack that was crashing through the shattered Pakistani defenses. “How confident are we on that IPP, Terror?”

  “Sir, hard to say. Should be narrowing down pretty quick, though, once it’s free of the atmosphere. Like I said, a humongous big return. Solid track.”

  Dan sat back, casting his consciousness outside the box ALIS kept trying to cram it into. Should he have Red Hawk aloft? A glance at the gyro told him they were still headed for the coast. No, Mitscher’s bird would provide a sensor package between them and the coast. Both the Pakistani and Indian naval air forces would be on strip alert, if not already aloft in the land strike role. Diverting to hit Savo and Mitscher would offer their opponent an opening. He couldn’t let his guard down to seaward. A sub coming in from patrol, and finding a U.S. task group between it and a widening war, might not even need specific orders to attack. He clicked the IC selector to ASW and monitored. Should he prod them? He decided not to.

  He looked back up at the center screen, and straightened in his chair.

  The AOU was still vibrating, still shrinking with each succeeding recomputation. But with each quiver, the impact point crept west, leaving the airfield behind. “What the hell are they aiming at?” he murmured.

  Mills cleared his throat. “Right now, looks like … Jodhpur.”

  “The city? The population center?”

  “I’m showing the city center west of the strip.”

  Dan smoothed back his hair, glancing at the clock. His scalp was wet, which wasn’t surprising. Two minutes since detection. They were locked on, but it was still too soon to fire. Standards had limited range. With a crossing engagement, far inland, their window would be very narrow. If he fired too soon, the Block 4 would run out of kinetic and maneuvering energy, fall back into the atmosphere, and self-destruct. But if he fired too late, the incoming warhead would reach its target ahead of its pursuer.

  If he couldn’t be sure of an interception, it was probably better not to fire at all.

  But the moment he thought this, a countervailing doubt spoke up. If the Pakistanis had actually aimed the opening salvo of a nuclear war at a population center, wouldn’t it be better to attempt an intercept, even if it would most likely fail?

  The Lenson Doctrine, they’d called it in Washington: If the U.S. possessed the capability to prevent a nuclear strike, it was morally bound to do so.

  But if it failed, who would be blamed? If he intervened, it had to be successful. Attempting an intercept, and failing, would degrade the credibility of the system as a deterrent.

  And was it countervalue? Or were they aiming at the airfield … a valid military target, after all, even if it was only a couple of miles from a heavily populated urban center?

  He wandered in a different labyrinth now. Not of dark sunken passageways, seething with the dust of ages, but of branching decision trails obscured in risk and uncertainty. He squinted at the screen. The impact prediction had halted, midway between airfield and city. It vibrated, but didn’t move either way.

  “TAO, what’s your take?”

  “If we’re gonna shoot, sir, I recommend a two-round salvo.”

  “Concur with that. Tactically.”

  “Then we have weapons release?”

  “I didn’t say that.” He half turned and caught Wenck’s gaze over the Aegis console. “Donnie? No sign of another launch?”

  “No alerts, no detections.”

  He covered his face with his hands and scrubbed. What was the Pakistani intent? One single missile, targeted on either an airfield or a city. Was it nuclear-tipped? They’d threatened just that. Was this the follow-through? Some sort of warning? Or merely display?

  Mills said tentatively, “The question is, should we get invol
ved at all.”

  Dan thought of calling Stonecipher. Then, Jenn Roald. But there wasn’t time. And this wasn’t their responsibility, but his. “That’s the question, all right. But we’re here. Why? Just to stand by and watch? We have to assume worst-case. That this is a nuclear weapon.”

  On the screen, the altitude callout pulsed nearly unchanged from second to second. The projectile was midphase, at the peak of its great parabolic arc. Weightless. Cold; despite its terrific speed, there was no atmosphere up there to heat it through friction. But ALIS seemed to have an iron grip on the heightened radar return from its beam-on aspect.

  In another minute, that would change, as the warhead headed back down. Its speed would increase even more, accelerated by remorseless gravity. Temperature would climb. It would radiate in the infrared. Then, as its ablative sheathing charred away, the warhead would grow an electrically charged ionization trail, much bigger than the weapon at its heart. The challenge then would be to pick it out from debris, detached stages, or decoys, accompanying it along the downward path through reentry.

  He had to decide by then.

  “Captain … hadn’t we better let somebody know about this?”

  Dan blew out. In blackshoe-speak, it was always a bad idea to be the senior guy with a secret. He unsocketed the red phone and selected satellite high comm, the voice circuit that would connect Savo to the highest levels of command. Took a deep breath, and keyed.

  “Sit Room, CentCom, Fifth Fleet. This is Savo Island Actual. Flash, flash, flash. Savo has received launch cuing from Rainbow. Aegis holds Pakistani missile launch. Missile profile, consistent with Ghauri-type. Current IPP is very close to the city of Jodhpur. Savo has warhead track and engagement computed. Can engage, but only within a short window. Estimate time to engage is two minutes. Over.”

  The circuit indicator light went red, and a squealing screech was followed by a garble. Someone was trying to answer, but the scrambler circuits weren’t synchronizing. He keyed again “Sit Room, CentCom, Fifth Fleet: Dropped sync. Did you copy my last? Over.”

  The circuit dropped sync again. “Fuck,” he muttered. Waited two seconds, then hit the button again. “Any station this net, Savo Island, over … Screw it, we’re not getting any joy here.” He turned to yell past Mills, “CIC Officer: get on Fifth Fleet Secure. Start calling them and the battle group. Try until you get a response. Then put me on.”

  Terranova broke in, loudly but without any stress evident in her South Jersey accent, “Meteor Alfa at apogee. Terminal phase commence. Lock-on remains solid.”

  Mills cleared his throat. “Captain. Request permission to engage.”

  Dan didn’t answer. He was still staring at the area of uncertainty. A pretty accurate description of where his own mind was parked right now. In neutral. Idling.

  The return blurred and began to stretch out. The ionization trail. It looked like a comet, hearted with a harder dot that must still be the warhead itself.

  Behind him Wenck said, “Skipper?”

  Dan stared at the geo display. Had the quivering oval started to move? Yes. It had.

  Only about ten miles across now, it was slowly, slowly tracking northwest.

  Directly over the city.

  Mills touched his arm. “Permission to engage? Roll FIS to green?”

  The Firing Integrity Switch. Essentially, the safety catch on the ship’s main battery. Dan muttered, “Not yet … not yet. CICO, joy on the Sit Room? CentCom?”

  “No joy, sir. Circuit keeps dropping sync.”

  Dan said, “Stand by on permission to engage. Set Zebra.”

  Mills said into his mike, “Bridge, TAO. Pass Material Condition Zebra throughout the ship. Launch-warning bell forward and aft.”

  “IPP’s moving again,” Terranova noted.

  “I hold it,” Dan said. “Moving away from the airfield, toward a population center.”

  “Concur,” Mills said instantly.

  Dan opened the order of battle and hastily searched it as the 1MC announced hollowly, “Now set Circle William throughout the ship. Secure all outside accesses.” The A/C sighed to a stop. Doors thudded closed. The air base. An army base, too, though no specific location. Within the city limits? The database held little on Jodhpur itself. Population, nearly a million. A tourist destination. An old fort.

  When he looked back up, the IPP was at the western edge of the city, on the far side from the airfield, and the AOU was five or six miles. If they were aiming at anything, it wasn’t the strip, unless the missile was off course. He didn’t have hard numbers on the Ghauri, but the circular error, probable for most second-generation liquid-fueled theater-range weapons, the Al-Huseyns and the Scud derivatives, was around two miles. But even given that generous estimate of its probable accuracy, this thing wasn’t aimed at the airfield. “It’s definitely meant for the city,” he muttered. “Or if it originally wasn’t, it’s now off course and headed for it.”

  “Concur,” Mills said again. “The IPP is clearly west of the city, but close enough for major damage.”

  Dan glanced at the CIC officer, who was still clutching the handset. He shook his head slightly, looking scared.

  “Okay, FIS to green,” Dan said.

  Mills touched his mike. “Launchers into ‘operate’ mode. Set up to take Meteor Alfa, two-round salvo. Deselect all safeties and interlocks. Stand by to fire. On CO’s command.”

  Dan clicked up the red cover over the switch. ALIS was computing trajectory, intercept point, probability of kill. Mills was tapping away at his terminal, entering a backup order in case Dan’s glitched.

  He took a deep, slow breath, watching the ionization plume waver and grow. Taking his time. Thinking it through. But knowing, too, he’d never be sure. And over time, interpretations and stories and maybe even legends would grow around this moment. Like Sarajevo. But all that was out of his hands.

  He reached out and unsocketed the red handset of the uncovered high-frequency command net. Bowed his head, then pressed the button. “Flash, flash, flash. This is Savo Island. I pass in the blind: Pakistani missile targeted on Jodhpur. Have consistent drop sync with all commands, this and other nets. I assess that the missile must be engaged to prevent massive loss of life. Engaging at this time. Out.”

  He socketed the handset without waiting for a response. Took one more deep breath, then said, in as confident a tone as he could manage, “You have permission to engage.”

  17

  The Devil and the Sea

  A HEART-STOPPING pause, during which the toxic-gas-vent dampers whunked shut. Dan tensed, hunched, finger still on the switch. Wait … had he inserted the Fire Auth key? Yes, he had. The steel chain lay close to his hand. But was ALIS going to initiate? Or were they already too late?

  The endless moment stretched.

  Then a roar vibrated through the hull. “Bird one away,” Mills intoned. A pause, then a second roar. “… Bird two away. Firing complete.”

  On the LSD two small bright symbols detached from the circle-and-cross of Savo Island’s own-ship. Morphing into blue semicircles, they headed rapidly inshore, leaping ahead with incredible speed from sweep to sweep of the Aegis spokes. They were already at full speed, almost four kilometers a second, as the dual-thrust motors of the first stage boosted them into exoatmospheric flight.

  Dan blew out, with a strange sense of déjà vu. He’d dreamed this, years before, though he couldn’t recall exactly where. Which meant something, he wasn’t sure what. Maybe that time didn’t exist, or that it all existed at once …

  He scrubbed his face, trying to deny fatigue. “Matt, get a message out. Short and sweet, but make it clear we stood by until we were certain the TPI was over a population center. Ten Block 4s remaining. Continuing on station, but fuel state critical.”

  “Coffee? Just made a fresh pot.” Chief Zotcher set a mug by his elbow. The heavy Victory style, with the ship’s crest on one side and a sonar system logo on the other.

  “Uh … thanks. But, C
hief, I’d rather have you nailed to that screen. That emitter’s still out there. And there’s gotta be a sub attached to it.”

  “We got our best young eyes on it, Captain.”

  Dan forced himself to his feet and carried the mug over to the EW stack. He inspected the screen over the operator’s shoulder. “That Snoop Tray, day before yesterday … no, day before that. Nothing since?”

  “Nothing radiating out there, Captain.”

  “How about from shore?”

  The EW petty officer said there was intense air activity over the Pakistani naval air base nearest them. “A major attack. Heavy jamming, AA radars, and the cryppies are reporting a lot of air-to-air chatter.”

  Dan regarded it for a few seconds, then was drawn irresistibly back to the large-screen displays. He’d been away less than a minute, but the blue semicircles of Savo’s outgoing rounds were already closing in on the red caret-symbol of the target. He gripped the back of his chair, hardly daring to breathe. “Stand by for intercept,” said Wenck, words eerily uttered at the very same moment by Terranova, baritone and soprano, an ominous duet. “Stand by…”

  The symbols met. Aegis’s lock-on brackets jerked, apparently snagging its own terminal vehicle momentarily instead of the target, then recentered. Dan leaned forward.

  The radar return blurred, widening, elongating. A second later it began to pulse, then all at once glowed much more brightly.

  “Intercept,” Wenck called from the Aegis console. “That winking is rotating debris. The debris is spreading … spreading out … ionization trail growing … it’s burning up.”

  The radar return showed what Dan assumed was the smaller debris field left from the explosion of the Block 4’s warhead. Not a gigantic payload, but anything hitting at fifteen thousand miles an hour carried a punch. The Ghauri was single-stage. Its payload remained integral with the airframe, like the old V-2. Once it was destabilized, they could depend on the atmosphere and its own speed to tear it apart. As he watched, the speeding dart of their second round hit as well. The radar return expanded suddenly to five times its previous size, like a bursting firework. Then, slowly, faded.