Sea, there was absolutely no excuse for the admiral in command of an entire
battle group to be airborne. The risk was simply unacceptable.
Back when he’d been a young hotshot pilot, he’d pulled countless hours of
alert five duty, sitting in his Tomcat in every kind of weather, waiting for
the word to launch that rarely came. Then, it’d seemed the worst sort of
tantalizing tedium–deck-bound in an aircraft preflighted, armed, and fueled
for flight. If someone had told him that he’d look back on alert five
longingly, he would have thought they were insane.
“Nothing easy, but nothing urgent, Admiral,” the Chief of Staff said
easily. “Of course, safety is always our top concern on Jefferson. Wouldn’t
hurt to have another set of eyes take a look at those tie-down chains, I
imagine. Set a good example for the flight deck crew, too, seeing how their
admiral had his priorities in order.”
Tombstone looked sharply at the man, but could detect no trace of humor.
It was true, of course, that working on the flight deck was the most dangerous
and physically demanding job on the carrier. The young men and women who
spent most of their waking hours waltzing between vast, sucking jet engines,
whirling helicopter blades, and dangerous propellers became almost oblivious
to the constant danger. It never hurt to remind them that their admiral knew
what they were up against.
“Is the admiral in?” Tombstone heard someone say out of sight behind the
Chief of Staff. Tombstone recognized the voice and groaned. The
Communications Officer. He silently pointed at the opposite door, the one
that opened out onto the flag mess, and quietly slid out from behind his desk
and headed for it. With any luck, the Chief of Staff could handle whatever it
was that the communications officer wanted while Tombstone snuck out the back
door.
As he put his hand on the doorknob, he glanced back and saw the Chief of
Staff reading a message. The expression on COS’s face made him pause.
“I’ll see he gets this immediately,” COS said, and shut the TFCC door in
the COMMO’s face.
Is there any chance I’ll get to see sunlight in the near-future?
Sometimes I think that the Communications Officer has my quarters bugged.
Tombstone sighed and walked back across the room.
“I can handle this, but you need to know what it is.” His Chief of Staff
handed him the message. The paper was still warm from the copy machine in
Comms.
FROM: COMSEVENTHFLT
TO: CARGRU14
SUBJ: FREEDOM OF NAVIGATION OPERATIONS
1. CHINA RECENTLY INCREASING TENOR OF CLAIMS THAT SOUTH CHINA SEA VICINITY
SPRATLY ISLANDS SUBJECT TO TERRITORIAL CLAIMS. IN LIGHT OF RECENT EVENTS,
ESSENTIAL THAT THE UNITED STATES ESTABLISH CLEAR EVIDENCE OF INTENTIONS.
2. CARGRU14 WILL COMMENCE FREEDOM OF NAVIGATION (FON) OPERATIONS VIC SOUTH
CHINA SEA IMMEDIATELY UPON RECEIPT. FORWARD OPERATIONAL INTENTIONS TO ORIG
WITHIN EIGHT HOURS.
FON ops were intended to establish the right of any nation to travel in
and operate on, under, and above international waters. The rest of the
message laid out the general geographic area Jefferson was to patrol and
ordered CVBG 14 to forward his intentions to Seventh Fleet immediately.
Tombstone scrawled his initials on the message to indicate that he’d read it.
“I’ll have our response planned and the message drafted for your
signature when you return,” the Chief of Staff said, and opened the door for
Tombstone to leave. Gratefully, the Commander of CARGRU 14 escaped toward the
flight deck. The Chief of Staff watched him go, amused. A surface warfare
officer himself, he understood but never completely sympathized with the
longing aviator admirals always felt for their aircraft. Every one that he’d
ever worked with eventually seemed to wilt when kept below decks and away from
the cockpit for too long. Part of the COS’s job was to keep the Admiral
functioning at peak performance. If that included making sure he got to play
hooky from his desk once in a while, then it was up to the Chief of Staff to
make sure the Admiral got an occasional flight deck fix.
However, the CARGRU operations officer, also a pilot, was several years
junior to COS. Humming quietly to himself, COS walked across the passageway