Carrier - Joint Operation Book 16

by Keith Douglass

her face.

  "You getting the picture now?" he continued. Over Lobo's shoulder, he could see Hot Rock taxiing into his spot. Hot Rock was dividing his attention between the plane captain directing him and Lobo popped tall in front of her admiral. "You and that little shithead wingman of yours are in deep shit. Disobey ing a direct order, endangering civilian lives unnecessarily, and I can think of about four other articles under the Uniform Code of Military Justice to charge you with, but that's just for starters. A court-martial, at the very least a FNAEB-that's what you're looking at."

  Hot Rock was walking over toward them now, worry on his face. Batman pointed a finger at him and shouted, "Stay right there, asshole, until I've dealt with your lead." Turning back to Lobo, Batman said, "You want to ruin your career, go ahead. But what you did also put his on the line. You think about that, if that's the kind of officer you want to be. Now get out of here before I have your ass tossed into the brig to think this over."

  Batman waited for her to turn and leave, but to his

  surprise, Lobo stood rock steady in front of him. "Permission to speak, sir?"

  "Hell, no. You heard me."

  Lobo ignored him. "If I let that MiG live, my career would have been over anyway, sir. I couldn't walk away from it. You wouldn't either, if you'd been the lead." Lobo's voice was calm but unrepentant. "If you ground me for that, I can live with it." But not easily, the look of anguish on her face told him. "It's the MiG that screwed up, sir. I saw people falling through the air- and parts of people. Some of them were on fire. I though-I thought I saw one of them screaming. I couldn't walk away from that, Admiral. No fighter pilot worth his salt could."

  Hot Rock was out of earshot, braced at attention, the concern deepening on his face. Lobo was also standing stiffly at attention, her eyes focused on something no one else could see. Batman started to wonder what she saw, then forced himself back on track.

  "Suppose you were right this time," he said, his voice colder than an arctic sea. "Suppose you were. What about next time? You get away with this, you'll think you've got a double-oh-seven license to kill in the sky. Wars aren't fought like that, lady. And the sooner you figure that out, the sooner I'll reconsider letting you fly off my carrier."

  "Sir-" Lobo began. Batman cut her off.

  "You and Hot Rock are grounded. Your RIOs too, for not having the good sense to talk you out of this. When you find a way to convince me to trust you again, I'll reconsider."

  "But-"

  "Get the hell out of my sight, Commander. Now." There was no mistaking the menace in Batman's voice. "Do you have any idea how serious a situation we're

  facing? Any idea of what happens outside your own little cockpits? Do you know what this all means for the United States? You couldn't possibly, otherwise I would not be having to take time to deal with your disobedience of a direct order. That's the kind of conduct that gets people killed. Now, if we're clear on what I mean, I need to get back to the war."

  The full force of her predicament sunk in with Lobo. The color drained out of her face. "Aye-aye, sir," she said quietly, and then executed a perfect about-face. She walked over to Hot Rock, spoke a few words, and then the two of them walked to the island and inside the skin of the ship.

  Batman watched them go. How'd I do, old friend? I had to take them off the sked for a few days. Now the ball's in their court to figure out how to convince me to let them fly again. Shouldn't be that tough for a couple of pilots who can trick a MiG into flying out over the water, can it? Sound fair to you?

  Coast Guard Station Hawaii 0930 local (GMT-IO)

  Petty Officer Tanner walked forward until he found Captain Henry, who was deep in discussion with the two flag officers. He waited a polite distance away until the Coast Guard officer acknowledged him.

  "Yes, Petty Officer Tanner?"

  "The engines, sir-they've been rode hard and put away wet. I need about three days to get them in proper shape, sir. Been run low on oil for way too long and they're a filthy mess."

  Captain Henry nodded, waiting. Tanner knew the score just as well as he did.

  "But I can keep 'em running for a while longer, sir. Ninety percent sure of that-they'll get us out to the carrier, probably," Tanner continued.

  'That'll do, then," Henry said. "It'll have to do."

  "Yes, sir. When would you be wanting to get under way?"

  "As soon as we can."

  "Fifteen minutes, then, sir. Long enough to warm 'em up and make sure we're not going to bust apart as soon as we clear the harbor."

  "Very well." Henry turned his attention back to the flag officers. "Fifteen minutes, General, Admiral."

  General Haynes's eyes were still fixed on Tanner's back as the man walked back aft. "Good man, that."

  Henry nodded. "That's the thing about the Coast Guard. They get responsibility early. Tanner, there-he's already been in command of one of our smaller rescue ships. He can anticipate what's on my mind because he's been there himself. By the time he makes chief and senior chief, he'll be looking at command of a larger vessel or of a shore station."

  General Haynes merely nodded, but he was clearly impressed. "Fifteen minutes, he said?"

  Henry chuckled. "I'm willing to bet it's closer to ten. Tanner always builds in some slack time."

  The throaty roar of the diesel engines thrumming under their feet increased in both volume and pitch. There was a slight unevenness to the rhythm, a protesting, grinding noise that worried Henry. He could see that both General Haynes and Admiral Magruder heard it as well.

  "Things break when they sit," Tombstone noted.

  "If Tanner says he can get us there, he means it," Henry noted.

  Just then, Tanner's head popped up from a hatch located on the forward deck. He shouted to be heard over the noise pouring out of the compartment behind him. "You hear it, right, sir? May settle down some as we run, may not. It's not good, though. A cracked head and bad seals."

  "You still think we can get there?" Henry asked.

  "Eighty percent now, sir."

  Henry nodded. "Good enough," he said, his voice grim and decisive. "Under the circumstances, it's a lot better odds than those ships still at the pier had."

  With the assistance of a small Coast Guard contingent, the lines holding the vessel to the pier were quickly sin-

  gled up, then cast off. Henry himself took the conn, and quickly demonstrated his ship-handling skills were superb. Using a combination of rudder orders and engine orders, he twisted the stern of the ship out from the pier smoothly, then eased her into an ahead knot as soon as they were clear.

  Two petty officers took bearings and plotted their position on a chart both visually and from picking off landmarks from the Furuno radar screen. A third manned the fish-finder now doubling as a sonar suite. They sang out routine reports, position recommendations and contact intercepts as though they'd played this particular pickup game every day. Lieutenant Command Hannah Green slipped behind the plot table and quietly took over navigator duties without being asked. Tombstone and the other nonsurface types did their best to stay out of the way.

  "Be nice if we had a position on Jefferson" Henry said. "But I can't imagine she'll be too tough to find."

  "Watch for any American aircraft-follow their direction back out to sea," Tombstone said. "I don't think she's far off shore-no more than thirty miles, if that. I'd want to be just far enough off land to be safe."

  Tombstone had spent so much of his life inside the skin of Jefferson that he thought he could almost feel her out there, just out of sight, prowling the horizon like the deadly ship she was. He kept his eyes focused on one bit of the horizon, feeling an overwhelming pull, as though Jefferson were trying to reach him.

  "Contact, possible U.S. aircraft carrier," a lookout sang out. "Bearing one seven niner, range twenty thousand yards."

  Yes, she's right where I thought. Hold on, Jeff-I'm on my way. "At last," Tombstone said, as he studied the smudge

  on the horizon. Jefferso
n was far enough off shore that only a portion of her island was visible above the horizon. "That's her."

  After a brief discussion with Petty Officer Tanner, Henry eased the throttles to just below full open and made a slight course correction to put the bow of the vessel dead on to the aircraft carrier.

  "Let me see if I can raise them," Tombstone said, He picked up the microphone attached to the ship-to-shore radio set and turned up the volume.

  A babble of noise, squelches, and at least five different languages filled the bridge. Tombstone depressed the transmit key and said, "USS Jefferson, USS Jefferson, this is-" He paused for a moment, trying to decide how to identify himself. This was not a secure channel, and the location and intentions of the senior naval officer in the area were most definitely classified information. Finally, he said, 'This is Tomboy's husband. Do you copy, over?" As soon as he released the transmit key, the noise flooded the small bridge again. He tried several times but if there was a response, it was indistinguishable in the

  babble.

  Finally, he gave up. "Be nice to let them know we're coming," he said. "Jefferson's not likely to appreciate being approached by a small, unidentified boat right

  now."

  Henry considered the matter for a moment, then said, "You remember flashing light or semaphore?" "Not hardly. I haven't used it since the Academy." "Me neither. Let me check with the crew." Hannah Green spoke then. "It's not even taught in school anymore. But I can handle it."

  "That photographic memory you mentioned?" Tombstone asked.

  She nodded. "I won't be fast, but I'll be very accurate." "Fine." Tombstone thought for a moment, then scribbled out a message on a piece of paper. "Send this."

  PASS TO ADMIRAL WAYNE PER CNO, REQUEST PERMISSION TO APPROACH AND DEBARK PASSENGERS. TEN SOULS ON BOARD. STONY SENDS.

  "Nothing fancy, but he'll know who it is," Tombstone said.

  "This isn't exactly set up for speed," Green murmured as she examined the spotlight mounted on the side of the ship. "Just an on-off switch, no shutter rig. But probably fast enough for me."

  T ombstone watched her set up to send flashing light and listened to her talk herself through it. She mouthed the letters of the alphabet first, her fingers twitching on the light as she mimed the movements required to transmit each letter. Tombstone had the impression that this was how she recalled information, translating it from data into usable information by pairing it with a physical movement. Her eyes were slightly unfocused. He felt as though he were eavesdropping on some private conversation between Green and her innermost self.

  Amazing, the amount of information that must be stowed beneath that pretty face. Anything she'd ever seen, anything she'd ever heard, it was still lodged in there somewhere, just waiting for her to call it up. For a moment he wondered whether it would be overwhelming.

  "Here goes nothing," she said finally. Her fingers curled around the shutter mechanism, rock steady on the handle. She started blinking the light off and on.

  USS Jefferson

  Bridge

  0945 local (GMT-IO)

  At first, the lookout thought it was just the tropical sun glinting off the ocean. The pattern was irregular, but there was definitely a pattern to the short flashes that caught his eyes as he scanned his sector of the ocean. Then he noticed that the flashing seemed to shift in a linear pattern, proceeding in a straight line directly for Jefferson.

  The submarine? Sun on the periscope and maybe I get lucky? Without taking his eyes off the contact, he reached down and pressed the button on his sound-powered phone.

  "Combat, starboard lookout. I'm holding a contact,"

  and he reeled off a relative bearing and range, and then

  added, "Can't see anything yet except the sun reflecting

  off anything."

  "Roger, starboard lookout, wait one." Silence on the line for a moment, then, "We hold a small contact doing 22 knots along that bearing. It looks to be headed directly for us."

  The lookout felt a small shiver of disappointment. Not a submarine-but the next words perked up his spirits again.

  "She's BCRD-bearing constant, range decreasing. Keep a close eye on her. Could be a terrorist attack of some sort."

  "Yeah, that's what I'm seeing. It's not changing bearing much but it's getting stronger," the lookout said, now excited again. Then he heard "Conn, Combat. Recommend you deploy the surface gunners. Small boat, potentially hostile, inbound BCRD."

  "Roger," the officer of the deck acknowledged. Seconds later, the lookout heard the IMC spring into life.

  "Secure from flight quarters. Red deck, I say again, red deck. Now man all fifty-caliber gunnery stations for surface action on the starboard bow."

  "Combat, I'm coming left slightly to open up gunnery stations," the lookout heard the OOD say. "Keep me advised."

  For a brief moment, the lookout wished that he'd taken his recruiter's advice and gone into a weapons specialty instead of a deck rating. If he had, he could be one of the people racing through the passageways right now to get to the fifty-caliber gun stations.

  Not that being a deck rating was that bad. With some time and study, he'd probably become a quartermaster or a signalman. Hell, he was already making good progress on learning-

  "Combat, starboard lookout!" he shouted, forgetting to push the button down. When no one answered, he repeated the call up, this time activating the button. "This flashing-I don't know for sure, but it looks like it could be flashing light."

  Silence for a moment, then, "Lookout, Combat. Hold on, we're getting the signalmen on it."

  "You can't shoot at him until you know," the lookout blurted out. Sure, he was just a junior seaman, but this was his contact. He'd found it, he'd noticed the lights, and he'd been the one to figure out it might be important. Even the officers on the bridge hadn't noticed that.

  "Stand fast, lookout," a new voice said over the circuit, slightly amused yet chiding. "You did a good job. Now let us do ours. TAO out."

  The tactical action officer. A shiver of pride ran up the lookout's spine. Usually he only talked to the petty officer running the surface plot, maybe occasionally the chief if he screwed up. But an officer!

  Heaven Can Wait 0946 local (GMT-IO)

  "You getting anything, honey?" he asked.

  "Nope. The radio's clobbered," she answered. "Everybody with a radio's screaming for information. Even if the carrier's listening, she's not going to be able to pick us up out of the noise."

  He swore silently. Maybe they should just head back into port. But no, he couldn't see that as an option, not until they knew what was going on. They had food, water, enough fuel to survive out here for a week if they had to. He'd head for another island before he'd put in to home port.

  "I see the carrier," he said out loud. "She's headed toward us. And something else-there's a small craft headed directly toward her. And what the hell-is that flashing light I see?"

  "Does the carrier see it?"

  "She has to by now. They've got a lot more lookouts that we do."

  "You complaining about my performance, Skipper," she asked with a slight smile.

  "Of course not. It's just that-"

  "I know. You want to do something and you can't."

  "Yeah. Listen, let's make another circuit a little closer in to land. Try to gather some intelligence. With a little luck, a lot of these weekend boaters will start heading in and clear the frequency," he said.

  A weekend boater, he thought. A foolhardy one, if they're headed toward the carrier at a time like this. Those gunner's mates have got to have itchy fingers right now. I wouldn't want to be the poor SOB that makes them the slightest bit nervous.

  USS Centurion 0948 local (GMT-IO)

  It had only taken a quick look at the entrance to the harbor to dissuade Captain Tran from even considering entering it. If the long-range view of smoking ships half-sunken in the water and otherwise empty piers had not convinced him, the message traffic that they downloaded from the
satellite would have. One message sent over the battle group's dedicated circuit was of particular interest-and oddly enough, rather than go through the communications facility on the island, it came over the LINK.

  Centurion was directed to break off training and independent operations and support the battle group in ASW. Admiral Wayne had assigned her a wide swath of water between the carrier and the shore, postulating that any diesel submarine in the area would most likely be lurking around the entrance to the harbor, acting as a gate guard or early alert platform.

  None of the higher-level planning made much difference to Otter and Renny. Searching one piece of ocean was pretty much like searching any other spot, except for a few local differences. For the most part, it was as exciting as watching grass grow.

  After another hour on the sonar stack, Jacobs finally heard a sound that brought him bolting upright in his chair. He shut his eyes and concentrated for a moment. "Bilge pump," Jacobs announced confidently. "No doubt in my military mind."

  "Let me double-check with engineering," the chief said, nodding his agreement. "Make sure they haven't got something lit off we don't know about."

  "I think I'd know if it were ours Chief," the sonarman said, his voice slightly offended. "I mean, after all."

  "I know, I know. But it never hurts to double-check." The chief turned away and spoke quietly into the sound-powered phone. A moment later, he left the sonar shack for a few moments, then returned with a satisfied look on his face. "General Quarters and quiet ship," he said. "Skipper wants to track this baby down and get her moving. If it's a nuke, it'll make enough noise for us to get a good classification on her. And if it's a diesel, we'll force her to suck down some battery power. Sooner or later, she'll have to snorkel and light off her engines to recharge the batteries. Then we'll have her."

  There was nothing noisier beneath the water than a diesel submarine recharging batteries.

  "She's coming left," the sonarman said. "Down Dopp-ler." The chief relayed the information to the OOD. "Losing contact-damn! I think she's cross layer now."

  "Let's follow her," the chief said, still holding the sound-powered phone up to his lips. A moment later, the deck tilted down at the bow slightly. "Sing out when you regain contact."