The Art of War c-17

by Keith Douglass

  Still, he had to give the TAO credit for having the balls to speak up. Not every junior officer would have done that, and there might be a time someday when just such a question would keep him from making a serious mistake.

  He walked over to the TAO and put one hand on the man’s shoulder. “It was a good question, Tom. Don’t you ever stop thinking, okay? Someday, when you got the stars on your collar, and you’re sitting in the same position I am, you remember this, okay? Remember it, and know that even admirals lose their temper sometimes.” He turn back to the screen, ignoring the startled expression on a TAO’s face that slowly transformed itself into a grim smile.

  USS Seawolf

  0317 local (GMT +3)

  It was Sonarman Renny Jacobs who had the first warning that all was not well. The submarine was running in quiet ship, all of her active sensors secured. Input from the passive sonar array was their only means of examining the water around them.

  At first, it was nothing that Jacobs could put his finger on. The background noise changed slightly, shifting upward in frequency, slightly quieter on certain bearings. The change was so faint as to be almost undetectable, and it took him a few seconds for his tired ears to process exactly what was happening. It wasn’t something that you ran across every day.

  In the first microsecond, all he knew was something had changed, and change was dangerous in the world of undersea operations. He turned to the chief, intending to ask him, then cold, clear certainty washed over him. His hand darted out to toggle the switch to the bitch box. “Conn, Sonar! Obstacle in the water, slightly off our starboard now!”

  “What sort of—?” the conning officer started to ask, then the XO cut in.

  “Hard left rudder!”

  The submarine immediately began to turn, but it was difficult to change the direction of that much sheer mass and inertia moving through the water. Renny felt the deck shift slightly, and held his breath, hoping that he had been fast enough. He damned himself for the seconds of delay, even as he knew it would not have made a difference.

  At first, it was a humming metallic sort of sound, as though a tuning fork had been struck. It quickly crescendoed into an all-encompassing squeal, a hideous howl of metal against metal. The ship jolted violently to the left, the deck slamming up at a ten-degree angle and throwing every piece of loose gear across the compartment. Strapped into his seat, Renny felt the harness cut into his abdomen.

  Seconds later, screams were added to the cacophony as the ship’s motion caught the rest of the sailors off guard — the dull sound of bodies hitting steel bulkheads, the clatter of pots and pans and plates in the galley crashing to the deck.

  Within seconds of the initial impact, the captain was by the XO’s side. As far as the XO could tell, he had not even shut his eyes, yet the clock indicated that he left the control room over an hour ago. It was not possible that he could’ve remained awake the entire time.

  It seemed to go on for hours, each second louder and more horrifying than the previous one. Finally, the sound tapered off, and except for the moans of the wounded, there was silence on the submarine.

  “All stations report!” The XO’s voice snapped.

  In control room, the XO was not aware of any panic. Fear, yes, coupled with anger that this had happened to the ship. But the need for immediate action to prevent flooding and further damage to the submarine took priority over all their human emotions.

  He knew within the first seconds what had happened. This entire body of water was a maze of uncharted pipelines and obstructions. Wrecks from the Gulf War still littered the ocean floor, although most of those were charted. No, it was the truly incomprehensible predilection for these nations to build undersea pipelines and conduits without bothering to inform any international charting agency of their existence. That was undoubtedly what had happened to Seawolf—she had rammed a pipeline.

  As the report began coming in, the XO was relieved to hear that they had apparently suffered a glancing blow to the pipeline. The sonar dome had taken the hardest hit, along with part of the conformal array that ran the length of the hall. But structural integrity had not been breached, and the only real problems were a few broken pipes.

  Indeed, the crew suffered more than the submarine. Their bodies were not built to withstand the pressures and impacts that the ship was.

  The final casualty count was four seriously injured, and ten minor injuries. Of the serious injuries, the worst was a sailor who had been next to a steam line that had snapped. Fortunately, it was an auxiliary steam line, not the main steam line, although even the lower temperature steam had inflicted third-degree burns over twenty percent of his body. Two broken legs, and a burn from the galley rounded out the collection of serious injuries. The rest were walking wounded — bruises, one greenstick fracture to an arm, and other assorted injuries that could be dealt with onboard.

  But the burn patient, Fireman David Harding, was the most critical. According to the doctor, he needed to be in intensive care, in a specialized burn unit. But there was no way to evacuate him short of surfacing and attempting a risky helo transport from the submarine to the carrier outside the Gulf.

  The XO glanced over the captain, who was evaluating a damage control report. Had the captain been awake? And if so, did that mean he did not trust his XO? That he left the control room merely to placate the XO, but had remained wide awake and worried in his cabin.

  Under the circumstances, it appeared that his concern was justified.

  In that moment, the XO was very, very glad he was not in command of the Seawolf. The captain would have to decide whether to give up the submarine’s cloak of invisibility, her primary defense, and expose the warship to the enemy — or to make the even more agonizing choice of staying hidden and hoping that Harding would pull through.

  TEN

  Tomcat 103

  Wednesday, May 5

  0320 local (GMT+3)

  It wasn’t until after they were airborne that Rat seriously contemplated whether or not the best course of action would be to shoot Fastball in the back of the head and then punch out. While they were waiting their turn for launch, Fastball started his bitching. He complained about everything from the condition of the cockpit — grease on the instrument panel from a technician’s work — to the slowness of the other pilots in getting on the catapult, to the tight fit of his flight suit, and progressed down the list to a series of comments on the inedibility of lunch served that day. At first, Rat had tried to answer him, but then realized that he was bitching just for the sake of bitching.

  Things hadn’t improved any since the launch. According to Fastball, there was no one else in the Navy who knew how to maintain proper station as a wingman except him. Sure, she had to admit he was good — they’d been welded onto Bird Dog’s wing ever since they gained altitude after launch. But it wasn’t like the rest of the squadron pilots were slouches, either.

  Finally, she realized what his problem was. After they’d landed and refueled, their Tomcat had been loaded with a ground attack payload instead of antiair weapons. And, from Fastball’s perspective, that signified a lack of confidence on the part of CAG, especially since they’d just proved their worth in ACM. The real fighters were just that — fighters. With fighter weapons. Sidewinders, AMRAAM, and Phoenix and Sparrows. Not bombs, laser guided or otherwise. Additionally, he complained that the weight and shape of the bomb payload made a marked difference in the Tomcat’s aerodynamic handling. Although Rat couldn’t see much of the difference, she wasn’t a pilot.

  Did Gator have to put up with this from Bird Dog? The exploits of the two during their earlier days were legendary, and she often heard Gator moaning about his life as Bird Dog’s backseater. And while Fastball was no Bird Dog — not yet, anyway — he sounded an awful lot like the stories Gator told.

  Finally, when she could take it no more, she said, “What’s the matter, can’t you fly this thing without moving your lips?”

  “And I suppose you�
�re happy about this,” Fastball retorted. “Yes, that’s it probably there’s a whole lot less chance of the seeing action with this load-out, isn’t there? You chicken, Rat? Is that it?”

  For moment, Rat was too purely stunned to speak. Then the anger started, curling around her gut, building up through her chest until she could feel the veins in her forehead popping out. She clamped her hands down on the side of her seat, willing herself not to unbuckle her ejection harness and crawl through the space between the front seat and the canopy to choke the living shit out of him.

  “I have my hand on the ejection handle,” she announced, aware that her voice sounded cold even with all the rage boiling inside of her. “You have five seconds to take that remark back. After that, you can practice your speech to CAG explaining why you returned to the carrier without your backseater. Because I’ll be damned if I’ll fly with a pilot who thinks I’m a coward.”

  Fastball started to speak, but she interrupted him. “And as for you, you little shithead, if you can’t suck it up and understand that the mission is more important than your testosterone-loaded dreams about aerial combat, then I’m requesting a new pilot as soon as we get back onboard. I don’t fly with people who aren’t team players, asshole. And if it ever there was someone who didn’t understand what the hell he’s doing, it’s you.”

  She waited a moment, and said, “Four… Three… Two…”

  “Okay, okay,” Fastball said, evidently realizing she was deadly serious. “I’m sorry. You happy now?”

  “You’re sorry for what?”

  “You’re not a coward, okay? I didn’t mean it like that.”

  Suddenly, the radio interrupted their spat. “Tomcats flight, Bird Dog — execute ground attack mission alpha against the following coordinates.” The operations specialist read off a latitude and longitude, concluding with, “Chain-link fences, three small buildings. That’s where the attack came from. The admiral wants — hold on, I’ll quote him exactly — a sheet of fused glass. Any questions?”

  “Jefferson, Tomcat flight, no questions. Tell the admiral he’s going to be able to shave in the sand after we get done with the place,” Bird Dog answered crisply. “Okay, Tomcat flight, get hot. There’s no time for a dry run, no time for a practice shot. We’re operating on very little intelligence on short notice. Just follow my lead, we’ll go in at two thousand yard intervals, with each RIO calculating each individual release point. Accuracy counts, ladies and gents — let’s give the admiral what he wants.”

  “Hammer flight, this is the admiral,” Batman broke in. “Bird Dog, I’m counting on you.”

  “Roger, sir. You want fused glass, you got fused glass. Although I can’t promise that there won’t be a couple of gaping holes in the middle of it.”

  “All right,” Fastball said. “Now this is more like it. Just watch this, Rat. Now you’re going to see a real expert at work.”

  Rat had her head buried inside her radar screen mass, working on the exact ingress course, release point, and rollout parameters. The RIOs in the four aircraft traded information, then settled on a plan of action. The pilots might like to believe that they were the important part of this, but each RIO knew that putting metal on target was entirely their problem. As long as the pilots did what they were told, there was a pretty good chance of success — Rat herself was the second runner-up in the squadron bombing accuracy contest.

  “Ten minutes,” she said. “Here’s the profile.” She snapped her data picture over to his HUD.

  “No problem,” Fastball said. “No problem at all.”

  USS Jefferson

  TFCC

  0322 local (GMT +3)

  “Ten minutes,” the TAO announced. “Bird Dog says he’ll roll out to the south, and he’ll need a tanker when he’s done. He’s also asking for the latest update on any SAM sites.”

  “What does Lab Rat say?”

  “Lab Rat says,” a voice said behind him, and Batman turned to see his intelligence officer standing there, “that there’s a good chance they’ve fielded some portable units in the immediate vicinity. A high probability, at least.” Lab Rat shoved some satellite surveillance photos at Batman. “This is how they did it, sir. And I’m betting there’re some SAM sites that are concealed the same way.”

  Batman studied the sequence of photos, showing the remarkably clear figures of men frantically scraping and shoveling an otherwise unremarkable stretch of sand. The next photo caught the glint of sun on metal, as the steel missile door was partial exposed. The final shot showed the cover fully retracted, and a blur of motion as the first missile launched. “Damn them,” Batman said softly. “You’re right — how the hell did they set this up without our knowing about it?”

  “We did know about it, sir.” Lab Rat saw the look on Batman’s face, and added, “We, as in the Navy, sir. Not me personally. Evidently the powers that be decided that the information was too sensitive to release to the fleet. It’s only after the fact that they’re passing it on.”

  Batman swore quietly. That’s the problem they always had with intelligence. The really good stuff was so sensitive that you didn’t get it when you needed it. He could understand reasoning — it was the same problem that the British faced with Coventry. Do you evacuate the city, and tip your hand to the Germans that you’ve broken the Enigma code, or do you sit by and watch your own people killed in order to protect the greater secret? It was a decision that Batman had never had to make — and he wasn’t so sure how he would’ve reacted if he had been in charge of deciding Coventry’s fate.

  “So if they’ve got this concealed underground, they’ve probably got others as well.” Lab Rat shuffled the photos back together, and handed them off to an assistant. “I’m pinging on them as hard as I can to make them release the information, sir. But nobody is saying for certain — or maybe they just don’t know. At any rate, my best guess would be that if they can do this with one facility, they can do it with others.”

  Batman turned to the TAO. “How many of those Tomcats are carrying HARMs?”

  “Only one, sir.”

  Batman nodded. “That will have to be enough.”

  The HARM missile, an antiradiation homer, was designed to execute a kill against enemy radar facilities. The later versions of the missile locked on to the emissions and even if the enemy shut down the facility, it would remember the location and take it out anyway. It was a fire and forget weapon, and a high priority weapon for the battle group.

  “Tell Bird Dog he may have a problem getting it,” Batman said. He listened to the TAO relay the details to the Tomcat flight.

  Then another circuit snarled to life. “Jefferson this is Seawolf,” a voice said, thin and tinny. “We’ve got a problem.”

  The Seawolf. What’s she doing on the roof?

  “I’ve got a few problems of my own right now, Seawolf,” Batman said. The worry on his face was immediately evident. But what was the submarine doing breaking her cloak of visibility, exposing herself to detection and prosecution? Especially under the circumstances.

  But Seawolf couldn’t have known that when she came to communications depth. It was only now, as the high-speed link brought her database up to speed, that she would see that she’d surface in the middle of a complete clusterfuck. Not that she was completely surfaced — only a small satellite antenna would be above the surface of the water, but that was enough of the visual to give away her location if anyone happen to be looking there.

  “I can see that now, sir. Bad timing, is it?”

  “Understatement. Seawolf, can it wait? Because things are about to get pretty nasty here. I want you safely submerged. Get down, and make best speed to clear the area just in case someone saw your antenna. Get to a safe location, then come back up. But for now, I’m just a little busy.”

  “Roger that, sir. Seawolf out.”

  “Wonder what she wanted?” Lab Rat asked, a worried expression on his face. “I didn’t like the sounds of that at all.”

  Ba
tman turned back to the tactical screen. “Whatever it was, it will have to wait.”

  USS Seawolf

  0340 local (GMT +3)

  Bellisanus replaced the microphone in its holder and turned to his XO. “Get us out of here. You see what’s going on.”

  And indeed, the XO did. The details that were unfolding on their now updated tactical screen were truly horrifying. The missile attack on the cruiser, the air thick with fighters — no wonder the admiral hadn’t wanted to talk to the submarine, absent a report that they were sinking.

  “Right full rudder, flank speed,” the XO said to the officer of the deck. The order was repeated to the conning officer, and then again to the helmsman, who echoed the orders and reported his compliance with them. The submarine started to pick up speed.

  “Conn, Sonar. We’re making a lot of noise, sir.” The concern in Jacobs’s voice was evident. “If there’s a sub in the area, there’s no way she won’t hear us. We’re generating flow tones over the damaged sonar dome like crazy.”

  The XO swore quietly. The hull might be intact, but the damaged sonar dome resonated to the flow of water over it. As the water passed over the jagged edges, it generated sounds a bit like blowing on a Coke bottle. No competent antisubmarine warfare person could possibly mistake the sound for anything else.

  “Sonar, Conn, aye. There’s nothing we can do about it right now, Jacobs. We’re noisy as hell, but be grateful we’re not sinking. Just keep your eyes peeled for any unfriendlies in the area.

  “Will do, sir, but we’re putting so much noise in the water that it’s hard to see much of anything. We’re not only noisy, but our own detection capabilities are degraded.”