Tipping Point

by David Poyer

  The customary litany of warning bells, dampers being shut, main decks being sealed, streamed past but barely registered. He leaned on one elbow, wondering if he should fire three missiles or four. Four would cut his inventory in half. But PaCom had made it clear this thing had to come down. Finally he told Mills to make it a three-round salvo. “I know it’s not doctrine, but let’s just shoot, shoot, shoot. Then look, and maybe shoot again. Maybe.”

  “The numbers aren’t there, Captain,” Noblos put in. “You could go with two. Or even one, and save the taxpayers from throwing away more money. I don’t believe you have decent P-sub-K on any of them.”

  Dan waved Longley and a sandwich off, then relented. He picked at chips and a pickle in between scrolling down intel updates. Japan had just announced mobilization, and the Diet had approved conscription, for the first time since World War II. The Republic of Korea was already mobilized, and Seoul, only a few miles from the DMZ, was being evacuated.

  He shivered, recalling the eerie wail of the sirens there during the weekly drills. Both halves of that divided country had been on a near-war footing since the armistice. Now they were preparing for a rematch.

  He’d read through OPLAN 5081. He had to keep reminding himself that GCCS wasn’t always accurate. But it looked like the first stage, positioning forces behind Taiwan and in blocking positions in the passages out of the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea, was almost complete.

  Once Strike One joined up with its Australian contingent, it would neutralize and bypass the Spratly Islands, off the Vietnamese coast. The Vietnam People’s Navy would occupy and hold behind them. They’d claimed the Spratlys for centuries, and only lost them to the Chinese in 1988; he suspected their repossession would be Hanoi’s reward for joining the allies. Strike One could then continue north to seize or at least neutralize the Paracels.

  At that point, an iron ring of sensors and weapons would encircle the Middle Kingdom. The allied advance would stop there, hold whatever counteroffensive the Chinese could mount, and contemplate the next step. If one would be necessary; the administration seemed to assume the blockade would force war termination, in and of itself.

  Just as the British had thought, in 1914, that their naval blockade would force Germany to the peace table. He shook his head, comparing the GCCS display to the deployment chart in the op order. Everything seemed to be moving into place, except for the hole south of Kyushu where the Washington battle group should’ve been. Losing the carrier’s airborne sensors and ASW aircraft left a huge gap in the defenses.

  “SAR complete.”

  “Stand by for sunup … counting down … five … four … three … two … one.”

  “Satellite Alfa above the horizon. Still in atmospheric distortion … Target acquired.” Terranova’s soft, determined voice. “Stand by … lock-on, Satellite Alfa.”

  Dan got up and stalked through CIC, back to the electronic warfare stacks. Put his hands on the operator’s shoulders from behind, and studied the green flicker of the SLQ-32. “What have we got?”

  “I’m not picking up anything, Captain.” The tech explained that if it was an ocean recon bird, it would be putting out power in the X band, giving its radar a resolution of about a meter. “That’d be adequate to pick up aircraft. Even something the size of a tank. If it’s a comm relay, we’d copy that, too. But—”

  “But what?” Dan glanced back to the command desk.

  “We’re not picking up shit, sir. Maybe a very faint, intermittent transponder emission. That’s all.”

  “Captain,” Mills called. Dan wheeled and jogged back.

  They had track again. The same tiny contact as before, creeping above the artificially generated black cutout of the radar horizon. Cupped by the vibrating brackets of the Aegis lock-on. “Permission to engage?” Mills murmured.

  Dan nodded. It didn’t matter what it was. Their orders were clear. “Released.” He flicked up the red cover and hit the Fire Auth switch.

  Next to him, Mills murmured, “Confirm, batteries released for three-round engagement. Shifting to auto mode.”

  Out of the corner of his eye Dan noted Mills lifting his hands from the keyboard, like a pianist finishing a demanding piece. Wenck and Noblos had set the no-fire threshold to .1, one-tenth. If ALIS calculated a lesser probability of kill, she wouldn’t fire. A hush the space of a drawn breath stilled the compartment. His gaze darted to the ordnance status board, to the surface radar picture, to the GCCS; then flicked back to the Aegis display.

  The bellow of the rocket motor sounded muffled, more distant this time than usual. For a second he wondered if it was some sort of misfire or abort. Then Mills reached for the joystick, and pivoted the camera on the aft missile deck.

  The picture came up center screen. A solid white wall whirled, thinned, illuminated from above; then blew off, gradually revealing a calm green sea. Then it was blotted out by a harsh illumination so brilliant the camera blanked, before opening its eye again to more smoke. “Bird one away,” Terranova announced. “Bird two away … bird three away. Rounds complete from after magazine.”

  Mills joysticked the camera to follow pinpoints of flame until they winked out of sight. “Stand by for refire. Select and authorize missiles eleven and twelve in forward magazine.”

  They’d agreed on a shoot-shoot-shoot sequence, with three in the first salvo, then a look, with two missiles prepared for a refire. Dan doubted they’d have time for a second salvo, fast as this thing was traveling, but if PaCom needed it shot down, Savo wouldn’t fail for lack of trying. As to what would happen after that … he put that aside. The fog of war was shrouding the whole Pacific.

  “Twenty seconds to intercept,” Noblos announced.

  On the right-hand screen, the white dot crept steadily higher. The horizon was out of sight now, below the beam. The brackets pulsed, not so much vibrating as swelling and then shrinking. Probably a reaction to the varying reflectivity they’d noted on the first orbit. Terranova had posited it might be rotating, presenting different faces of an irregular body. But why would a recon satellite rotate? There had to be some other explanation.

  Unless this wasn’t a recon satellite …

  “Stand by for intercept … now.”

  The white dot suddenly novaed. It wobbled, pulsating much more wildly, brightening and dimming. The brackets slewed back, slipped off, steered back on. But their grip seemed less certain. Off-center. “What’s that mean?” Dan called. “Donnie? Bill?”

  “Not sure.”

  “Could we have a hit?”

  “More likely a near miss,” Noblos called back. He didn’t sound excited, or even involved. Once more Dan wondered why the guy seemed so pessimistic about the system he himself had helped engineer. He really ought to have inquired more closely into the relationships among the Missile Defense Agency, the Navy Advanced Projects Office, the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, the Commander, Operational Test and Evaluation Force, and Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon. All had taken part in the design of the Block 4 and the thrust-vector-control booster. He’d met some of the monsters that lurked in the Navy’s development labyrinth, back when he’d worked with Tomahawk. Not everyone wanted a new program to succeed. But he couldn’t believe Noblos actually wanted them to fail. More likely negativity was just part of his personality.

  “Second round intercepts … now.”

  The radar return pulsed, but didn’t strobe this time. Actually, Dan couldn’t see any effect. “Are we calling that a miss?”

  The EW operator called, “Transponder ceased emitting.”

  The CIC officer walked back, and returned. “The signal was intermittent, but he was hearing it. Then it stopped.”

  “Stand by for impact, shot three … now.”

  The blip smeared across the screen, so sudden and bright the watchers flinched. When the trace dimmed, it left only the by-now-familiar returns of spinning debris. The shrapnel from their TBM shootdowns had been incandescent hot. This chaotic,
random flicker expanded across the screen like galaxies in a cooling, aging universe. “Direct hit,” Wenck said.

  “Concur,” muttered Mills laconically.

  “Good job, everyone. I really wasn’t sure we were going to make that basket. Report it on covered voice.” Dan leaned back, cradling aching kidneys with both hands.

  Mills resocketed the red phone. “Strike One says Bravo Zulu on the shootdown. Savo Island, return to formation. Launch helo and sanitize Sector Hotel before the strike group passes through it.”

  “Anything from PaCom?”

  “They acknowledged.” Mills hesitated.

  “What else?”

  “Nothing, sir. They acknowledged the report. Asked how many rounds were expended. I told them, three.”

  “Very well. Make it so,” Dan said. “Bravo Zulu” meant “well done.” But the lack of any comment from PaCom was less reassuring. Oh, well. They probably had more on their minds than patting Savo’s back. Though it would’ve been nice to have something to pass on to the team, over and above his own congratulations.

  The ear-piercing shreik of the boatswain’s pipe made him plug his ears. “Now secure from condition three TBMD. Set condition three wartime steaming. Now flight quarters, flight quarters. All hands man your flight quarters stations for launch of Red Hawk 202. Stand clear topside aft of frame 315. Smoking lamp is out throughout the ship. Now flight quarters.”

  * * *

  STRIKE One scrubbed that evening’s exercises, and set EMCONs, emission controls, which restricted both radars and communications. Savo ran silent, except for her sonars. They were headed north as quietly as possible, then. He guessed taking down Object 20404 had been intended to help cover their advance. The Chinese had to know they were out here, but without a more exact localization, the battle group would be impossible to target. Red Hawk was out again after refueling and crew rest, taking turns with Hawes’s helo “sanitizing” the intended track for submarine threats.

  He was sitting at the coffee table in the wardroom that night, holding a copy of Undersea Technology but not looking at it, just sitting blankly staring at the big Tom Freeman painting of the Battle of Savo Island, when Staurulakis plumped down next to him. “Hate to interrupt, Captain.”

  He sighed. “What is it, XO?” Then, seeing “Sheriff” Toan behind her, he put the magazine aside.

  Leaning in, the exec told him one of the female petty officers had reported she’d been raped. “She was on the way to her berthing area when the overhead lights in the passageway went off. Someone grabbed her from behind, pressed a pointed object to her neck, and steered her into an equipment room.” Staurulakis paused, then added, “He made her undress, and raped her. He’s gone all the way now.”

  “Oh, no,” Dan said. “So, it wasn’t Shah, or the other Iranians. Is she okay? I mean, not is she okay, but he didn’t wound her, did he? This knife—”

  “Superficial cuts. But she’s in shock. Grissett and Dr. Schell are treating her. Hermelinda’s there too.” Staurulakis looked at the magazine, and turned it facedown on the table. Added, softly, “It was the Terror.”

  For a second he didn’t understand. Then, to his horror, did. “You mean, Beth … Petty Officer Terranova?” She nodded. “My God, I…” He abandoned the sentence. There was nothing adequate to say. “I’ll come right down.”

  “If you don’t mind, Captain, better to give her some privacy. It might just be the shock speaking. But let’s let the medical people handle this for now. Get her calmed down, gather the evidence—”

  The wardroom door banged open. Amy Singhe, cheeks livid. She stalked toward them between the tables, fists clenched. “I told you this would happen, Commander!” she shouted at Staurulakis. “I told you we weren’t safe aboard this fucking ship.”

  Staurulakis bolted to her feet. She was smaller-boned than Singhe, but not much shorter. “Not here, Lieutenant. And watch your language.”

  Singhe looked past her at Dan. “You’re telling him? Nothing changes. The chiefs still treat the women like peons. They still get groped, down in the working spaces. They come to me, not the command. Because the command does nothing. This has been on the way for a long time. And now it’s here.”

  Another slammed-open door; Chief Tausengelt’s leathery visage was stormy. He rolled in fast, only to be whirled on by a furious Lieutenant Singhe. “Here he is. Tell the captain what you said, Master Chief.”

  “All I said was—”

  Singhe curled her lip. “All he said was, ‘She shouldn’t have been alone.” That ‘they all deserve it.’ Tell him!” She was almost screaming, jabbing a finger in the old chief’s face.

  “You heard me wrong, sir. I mean, ma’am. That’s not exactly what I—”

  “Amy,” the XO said warningly. “Better cool it. Lieutenant.”

  Dan was on his feet. “We are not doing this here! My cabin, now!” This was getting out of hand. “We don’t have time to split the crew up over this. We’re headed for a hostile coast, coming in range of enemy air. We could be in action at any time.”

  “You think the crew’s not already split, sir? That the chiefs can do no wrong? As if they don’t know who’s doing this. And maybe, even, shielding him?”

  Dan kept from shouting, but not by much. “You’re really disappointing me, Lieutenant. Are you alleging some kind of conspiracy? That some people know who the fondler, I mean, the rapist, is, and aren’t sharing that with the command?”

  Singhe just shook her head and looked away, folding her arms. “I’ll save it for the NCIS. That’s our only chance to get the maggots out in the sunlight.” She glanced at him, dark eyes both angry and, somehow, pitying. “It was part of the command climate, before you arrived. But now it’s taking place on your ship. Sorry if the fallout hurts you. I tried to tell you. But you wouldn’t listen. So now it’s all going to hit the fan.”

  She wheeled and stalked out. Tausengelt grabbed Dan’s elbow. “That bitch … I mean, the lieutenant … she’s gone over the edge, Captain. I swear to you, if any of the chiefs knew anything about this, we’d have the guy in irons. We know this shit is tearing the ship apart. Taking it to the NCIS isn’t going to help.”

  Another woman had come in: Petty Officer Redmond, hair up in braids; one of Terranova’s friends, Dan recalled. Deathly pale, she met no one’s eyes. “Sir? Ma’am? I heard, I heard that Terror—”

  “Just a moment, Redmond. Only one thing will help,” Cheryl Staurulakis said. “Finding out who did it. Until then, everybody’s a suspect. And we don’t have any choice about calling in the NCIS. They’d have been here already if we hadn’t been in wartime steaming, with ship-to-ship transfers limited to operational necessity.”

  Dan barely restrained himself from covering his face with his hands. “Shut up, all of you!” he shouted. They went quiet instantly, turning shocked faces to him. “Now listen up. I’m going down to see Terranova. Exec, draft a message to the carrier, requesting they send their agent at the first possible opportunity.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Master Chief, we’re locking down. Everyone who doesn’t need a knife in the performance of his work, turn it in to the chief master-at-arms. I don’t care what the regs say, I want all knives turned in, all lockers searched for compromising materials. All unmanned spaces will be locked when not in use. Passageways outside berthing spaces will be random-patrolled by the master-at-arms force.”

  “Got it, Captain.”

  “Have Dr. Schell see me as soon as he’s done treating his patient. Any other measures to prevent this happening again that you can think of, bring them to me, and I’ll approve them.” He stared at the stony faces, their sidelong glares, and despaired. How could he fight his ship, when the lead Aegis petty officer had just been raped? Take Savo into battle, with the chiefs and the female officers at loggerheads? While some faceless evil slithered among them, anonymous, unknown, corrupting morale and trust?

  For a moment, he contemplated just giving up. But that wa
s futile. No one else could fill his shoes. Perhaps Singhe was right. Maybe he hadn’t listened closely enough. Been proactive enough. Whatever had happened, he was to blame.

  He was the captain.

  He looked at their faces again, at Staurulakis’s rapidly blinking eyes, the old chief’s leathery careful nonexpression, the female petty officer’s trembling outrage, the master-at-arms’ dropped gaze. Cleared his throat. “Now go. And let’s try hard not to make this even worse than it is.”

  20

  Off the China Coast

  GCCS crashed again at 0130 the next morning. Dan learned about it when the TAO called an hour later. “We thought it’d come back up again. But so far it hasn’t. And, to be honest, we figured you needed the shut-eye, Skipper.”

  Dan cupped the handset against his pillow, in that singular half-awake state where his brain could give rational answers while the rest of his body stayed asleep. “Uh, that’s fine, Dave. But … it never came back up, I take it.”

  “Not yet, sir. And now our last satcomm path’s intermittent. Unless it gets well, that takes down VTC, SHF, EHF, UHF. That’s POTS, e-mail, chat, video, browsing. Essentially, everything.”

  He sat up in the bunk, grinding sleep off his eyeballs. Remembering, with a sinking heart, last night’s conversation with Petty Officer Terranova, in sick bay. She’d avoided his eyes. Saying, in flat sentences, that she didn’t know if she’d be able to go back on duty. He hadn’t tried to persuade her. Just told her to take what time she needed. For now, Donnie and the assistant radar system controller, Eastwood, would have to share the watch, with Noblos backing them up. Though not being military, the physicist couldn’t do military things.