by Jeff Edwards
She didn’t look up from Bowie’s chest wound, trying to help him slow the bleeding.
She shouted again, and her voice was startlingly loud. “The captain is down! Somebody get a corpsman over here, right fucking NOW!”
She began glancing around, trying to spot something she could use as an emergency dressing. Anything to staunch the wound until real medical help arrived.
Something touched her shoulder. She looked down in time to see Bowie’s right hand slide off her arm and fall to the deck. His lips were moving.
Silva gave him what she hoped was a reassuring look. “Don’t talk now, Jim. Just rest a minute. The corpsman will be here any second.”
Bowie grunted, and a rivulet of blood ran from the corner of his mouth. His voice was barely above a whisper. “Closer…”
Silva leaned in until her face was just a few inches from his.
Bowies eyelids slid shut. When they reopened, they moved slowly, as though even the act of opening his eyes took a supreme effort of will.
“She’s yours now…” he said. “She’s…”
Then someone was kneeling on Bowie’s other side. Fast, competent hands searching the captain’s body for other injuries.
“Keep the pressure on, ma’am,” a voice said. “I’ll have a dressing ready in a second.”
Silva kept her eyes on Bowie’s, so she didn’t see the face of the corpsman.
The man yelled, “I need a litter over here, and two bearers! Stat!”
His hands were rummaging through a green canvas zipper bag, fishing out packets of bandages, wrapped in brown sterile paper pouches. “Almost ready,” he said. “Just another couple of seconds.”
Bowie groaned and then blinked slowly. “She’s yours, Kat,” he whispered. “You’re…”
He coughed wetly, and took a painful breath. “You’re the captain, now…”
Silva shook her head. “No, Jim. You’re going to be fine. “You’re going to…”
“No!” Bowie snapped. His voice was something between a moan and a growl. His eyes blazed with a ferocity that Silva had never seen in him.
The corpsman’s fingers were pulling Silva’s hand away, working quickly to slide a thick stack of gauze onto the wet hole in the captain’s chest.
“This is… my… last… order…” Bowie rasped. “Take command! Take…”
His words trailed off into silence, and he let out a long slow breath. He didn’t draw another one.
The corpsman shouted, “Litter bearer! Over here! I need some help!”
And then someone else was kneeling, squeezing in next to Silva on the blood-slick deck.
The corpsman made eye contact with Silva. “Captain? We need a little room here, okay, ma’am?”
Silva nodded, and backed away, shuffling on her knees until she had enough clear deck space to stumble to her feet.
Her head throbbed with the too-rapid motion, and she staggered for a second or two before she found her footing. Her vision was blurry, partly from the rush of pain, and partly from the tears that were suddenly running down her cheeks.
She blinked them away, and took a half dozen unsteady steps to the TAO’s station. “Are your comms working?”
The TAO nodded dumbly.
Silva reached for his headset. “Patch me into the 1-MC.”
The Tactical Action Officer looked at her, glanced down at the spot where the corpsmen were working feverishly over their downed captain. Then, he looked back to Silva. He punched three keys in succession, and handed over the comm set.
Silva didn’t bother with the ear pieces. She raised the microphone to her mouth, and keyed the circuit. When she spoke, her voice came from public address speakers all over the ship.
“All hands, this is Commander Katherine Elizabeth Silva. It is my sad duty to inform you that Captain Bowie is down. He…” She stopped for a second, trying to figure out how to phrase her next words.
She keyed the mike again. “In accordance with my formal written orders from Commander Chief of Naval Personnel, and in accordance with my verbal orders from Captain Bowie, I have now assumed command of this vessel.”
She took a breath and continued. “This battle is not over yet, and we are not out of the action. I have every confidence in this ship, and in every man and woman of her crew. Now… Let’s get back on our feet and get back into the fight!”
She released the mike button, and scanned the compartment. Every face in CIC was turned in her direction.
She spotted the face she was looking for, and nodded in OS2 Kenfield’s direction. “Hey, Big Country… Give us a song.”
The big Sailor’s face was bruised and bloodied, but his lips parted slowly, in a hesitant grin. “Is that an order, ma’am?”
“You bet your ass it is,” Silva said.
The Sailor stood up straighter, and squared his shoulders. “Aye-aye, Captain!” He cleared his throat, sucked a deep lungful of air, and cut loose with his customary rebel yell.
The ship was wounded. Many of the people in CIC were dead or injured. Small sporadic fires were burning in various places around the compartment, and the beloved and heroic Captain Bowie was being carried out the door on a stretcher. But every able person within earshot joined in Big Country’s song. The rebel yell seemed to shake the very air, becoming the vocal personification of determination, courage, and defiance.
It was unprofessional. It was silly. It was magnificent.
Captain Silva wiped the last of the tears from her eyes with her uninjured right hand. “Alright people,” she said. “Let’s go kick some ass!”
CHAPTER 53
USS CALIFORNIA (SSN-781)
BAY OF BENGAL
WEDNESDAY; 03 DECEMBER
0048 hours (12:48 AM)
TIME ZONE +6 ‘FOXTROT’
The Sonar Supervisor’s voice came over the net, “Conn—Sonar. Sierra One Seven is flooding his tubes! Looks like he’s going in for the kill, sir!”
Captain Patke scanned the unfolding geometry on the tactical display screen. Contact Sierra One Seven, the Shang, was setting up for a torpedo attack against one of the American warships. If the surface plot was accurate, the target would be the destroyer, USS Towers. But it didn’t really matter which of the ships had fallen into the crosshairs of the Shang. What mattered was that a Chinese nuclear attack submarine was about to sink a U.S. Navy vessel. That—in spite of Patke’s personal opinions about the shortcomings of the skimmer navy—was not a satisfactory arrangement.
He keyed his headset. “Conn, aye. Any sign that Sierra One Seven is alerted to our presence?”
“Conn—Sonar. Negative, sir. Sierra One Seven has shown no reaction to us at all.”
Patke checked the bearing to the Chinese submarine, and thought about coming a few degrees to port, to improve his firing angle on the enemy boat. He decided against the maneuver. No sense in polishing the cannonball.
He glanced over toward the combat control module. “Weapons Control, how’s your plot?”
The Fire Control Technician of the Watch looked over his shoulder and gave a thumbs-up gesture. “In the groove, Captain. I have a firm firing solution on contact Sierra One Seven.”
Patke nodded. “Very well. Flood tubes one and three. Assign presets, and spin up the weapons.”
The Fire Control Tech turned back to his console and began punching soft-keys. “Aye-aye, sir. Flooding tubes one and three. Prepping both weapons for launch.”
Patke pulled off his wire rimmed spectacles and polished them with a fold of his dark blue coveralls. His outward demeanor was calm and his voice was even, but he could feel the adrenaline burning at the back of his throat.
This was not a drill. In a few seconds, he was going to give an order that would kill other human beings. Not empty target ships. Not blips on a screen. Not computer simulations. Real living, breathing people, who would neither be living nor breathing after his order had been carried out.
With his eyeglasses off, Patke’s vision beyond arm’s
-length was a blur of indistinct shapes. But he didn’t need his eyes to know what was going on. The men and women of his control room crew were moving quickly and proficiently, performing their assigned duties with quiet competence.
They were trained. They were skilled. They were ready. Or, as ready as anyone could ever be for this sort of thing.
He gave the lenses of his glasses a final polish, and returned them to their customary spot on the bridge of his nose. “Open outer doors on tubes one and three. Firing point procedures.”
As the orders were being acknowledged and carried out, someone to his left muttered something nearly inaudible.
Patke turned to see the Officer of the Deck. “Say again. I didn’t catch that.”
The OOD looked surprised. “Oh. Sorry, Captain. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”
Patke raised an eyebrow. “If you’ve got something to say, son… Now is the time.”
The OOD gave him an expression that was half-grimace, and half-embarrassed grin. “I was just saying ‘snickerdoodles,’ sir.”
Patke frowned. “Snickerdoodles?”
“Yes, sir,” the OOD said. “Like we were talking about last time. Almost getting an ass-whuppin’ when somebody else stole the cookies. But we’re stealing the cookies this time, aren’t we, sir?”
“You’re right about that,” Patke said softly. “We are definitely going to steal the cookies this time.”
The Sonar Supervisor’s voice came over the net again. “Conn—Sonar. Torpedo in the water! Sierra One Seven has a weapon in the water! He’s going after the destroyer, sir!”
Patke raised his voice. “Weapons Control, this is the Captain. Match generated bearings, and shoot!”
USS Towers:
The giant display screens flashed, strobed with random bars of color for several seconds, and then snapped suddenly into focus.
The Tactical Action Officer turned toward Silva. “Aegis is back on line, Captain.”
The screens began populating with symbols. First, the Towers and the Gerrard appeared, followed quickly by the two remaining hostile surface ships: the carrier and one of the Chinese destroyers. Then, the hostile aircraft symbols began appearing, and—for a few seconds—Silva wondered if the Aegis computers were malfunctioning. As new enemy air symbols continued to pop up on the screen, she began to hope that it was a malfunction.
She whistled softly through her teeth. “Jesus… How many planes are those guys going to launch?”
The TAO gave her a half-hearted smile. “Looks like all of them, ma’am.”
The sheer absurdity of the situation hit her then. She had been in command for all of ten minutes. Half of her CIC consoles were out of action. She had no idea how many of her crewmembers were dead or dying. There was a hole in the side of her ship big enough to drive a minivan through. And China’s shiny new aircraft carrier was about to shove its entire air wing down her throat.
It was like being twelve years old again. Standing on the uneven planks of her homemade raft, being swept down the river by forces beyond her control. Powerless to fight the current. Her plastic milk jugs and inner tubes bobbing helplessly on the waves.
She felt her jaws tighten. The river had been stronger than she was. Her raft, the Spray, had been tiny and frail. But she had gotten her homemade vessel back to shore. She had brought her ship safely home. And she was damned well going to do it again.
She made eye contact with the TAO. “We need to go after that destroyer.”
“The gun is still off line, ma’am,” the Tactical Action Officer said. “And we’re all out of Harpoons.”
‘Understood,” Silva said. “Is VLS back on line?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Then hit that contact with SM-3s.”
The TAO opened his mouth to speak.
Silva gestured him into silence. “I already know the next half dozen things you’re going to say, so you can save your breath. I know that the SM-3 missile is not an anti-ship weapon, and I know that any effect it has will be marginal, at best. I also know that our orders are to kill that ship. Unless you’ve got a better plan, we’re going to hit that destroyer with the only weapons we have left. Do I make myself clear, Lieutenant?”
The TAO nodded. “Yes, Captain.”
He swallowed, and keyed the net. “Weapons Control—TAO. Kill Surface Contact Zero One with SM-3 missiles.”
There was a pause before the reply came. “TAO—Weapons Control. Say again, sir?”
The TAO keyed the net again. ‘Weapons Control—TAO. You have your orders. Kill Surface Contact Zero One with SM-3 missiles. Now!”
“Ah… Weapons Control, aye.”
The deck rattled with the growl of anti-air missiles, tearing into the sky on a mission they had never been designed for. The tumult of the launches was much louder than usual, the sound reverberating freely through the open wound in the side of the ship.
“TAO—Weapons Control. Six birds away, no apparent casualties. Targeted on Surface Contact Zero One.”
“TAO, aye. Keep hitting that surface track. Don’t let up until there’s nothing left but a hole in the water.”
Silva nodded her approval. She was about to issue amplifying instructions when the Sonar Supervisor’s voice blared from the 29-MC speakers.
“All Stations—Sonar has hydrophone effects off the port quarter! Bearing zero-niner-eight. Initial classification: incoming torpedo!”
Silva’s eyes darted to the tactical display screen, where a blinking torpedo symbol had appeared. “Come on,” she said. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
She looked around sharply. The Undersea Warfare Evaluator had surrendered his console to a radar operator, and the Computerized Dead-Reckoning Tracer hadn’t been restored after the missile hit.
In the heat of an air and surface fight, anti-submarine warfare assets had been pushed to the bottom of the priority list. Some of the sonar systems were apparently on line, and the sonar team was obviously still doing its job, but CIC was completely unprepared to handle a submarine threat right now.
Where the hell had the sub come from, anyway? There was no time to think about that.
Silva saw the Undersea Warfare Evaluator snatch a comm-set from a dead console, and jack the connector into an overhead panel.
He keyed his mike. “Crack the whip! Bridge—USWE. We have an in-bound torpedo. I say again—crack the whip!”
The reply was instant. “Crack the whip! Bridge, aye!”
The Officer of the Deck’s voice came over the 1-MC. “All hands stand by for heavy rolls while performing high-speed evasive maneuvers.”
In the background came the rising wail of the gas turbine engines as they spun up to maximum rpm. The ship would need flank speed to carry out the crack-the-whip anti-torpedo maneuver.
The deck heeled sharply to port as the Towers began the first in a series of high-speed hairpin turns. If executed properly, the maneuver would create numerous propeller wakes at narrow intervals. The incoming torpedo would have to sort through a convolution of crisscrossing wakes, as well as a chaotic zone of acoustic interference caused by uncontrolled cavitation from the ship’s screws.
According to the tactical manuals, the crack-the-whip maneuver was nearly seventy percent effective, providing it was used in conjunction with the towed acoustic decoy system called Nixie. Unfortunately, neither of the ship’s two Nixie units were deployed, and there wasn’t time to get one of them in the water.
The cant of the deck grew steeper as the ship accelerated into the turn. Silva grabbed the back of the TAO’s chair to steady herself against inertia, and the increasing incline of the deck.
She couldn’t remember how effective the maneuver was supposed to be without the Nixie decoys, but it was less than seventy percent. A lot less.
But this was not the time to get tunnel-vision about problems beyond her control. Given the current situation, the USWE had employed the only available defense against the torpedo. It would either wo
rk, or it wouldn’t. There was nothing else she could do to cope with the submarine threat, so it was time to focus on issues that she could control.
She shifted her attention to the missile symbols tracking toward the remaining Chinese destroyer. The six blue missile icons were packed so tightly together that they overlapped each other on the screen.
The SM-3 missiles were intended for use against other missiles, aircraft, and—occasionally—satellites. Their warheads were not designed to attack hardened warship targets, but they were fast. Their top speed was more than ten times as fast as the Harpoon anti-ship cruise missiles they were now pinch-hitting for.
Moving at nearly 5,200 knots, they covered the distance to the target in under half a minute. The six missile symbols converged on the symbol for the Chinese destroyer, and then disappeared. The icon for Surface Contact Zero One remained on the screen.
There was no way to evaluate how badly the enemy ship had been damaged by the multiple missile strikes. The Aegis computer system could not apply advanced reasoning, so it substituted simple binary logic. The target was still visible on radar, therefore the target still existed, ergo—it was time to hit the target again.
Another grumbling reverberation went through the ship, followed by an announcement over the tactical net. “TAO—Weapons Control. Six more birds away, no apparent casualties. Targeted on Surface Contact Zero One.”
The Tactical Action Officer was reaching to key his mike when the next report came in.
“TAO—Air. Four Bogies inbound. Two flights of two.”
The next wave of the air assault had begun.
The deck righted itself and then began tilting in the other direction as the ship went hard-to-starboard in its next evasion turn.
Silva spotted the four hostile aircraft closing on the tactical display. And she felt herself start to grin.
This was it. This was her Kobayashi Maru. This was her unwinnable scenario. A torpedo in the water, too many hostile aircraft to count, an unfinished shootout with a Chinese destroyer, and an enemy submarine. All happening at once.