Each of the escorting ships had a helicopter. These coordinated with the crack ASW team on O Bannon, namesake of the Navy’s golden ship of World War II, a Fletcher-class destroyer which had fought in every major Pacific engagement without a casualty or a scratch; the new one had a gold A on her superstructure, the mark of a submarine-killer of note–at least in simulation. KidcTs heritage was less lucky. Named for Admiral Isaac Kidd, who had died aboard USS Arizona on the morning of December 7, 1941, she was a member of the “dead-admiral
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class” of four missile destroyers originally built for the Iranian navy under the Shah, forced on a reluctant President Carter, and then perversely all named for admirals who’d died in losing battles. Anzio, in one of the Navy’s stranger traditions, was named for a land battle, part of the Italian campaign in 1943, in which a daring invasion had developed into a desperate struggle. Ships of war were actually made for that sort of business, but it was the business of their commanders to see that the desperate part applied to the other guy.
In a real war, that would have been easy. Anzio had fifteen Tomahawk missiles aboard, each with a thousand-pound warhead, and nearly in range of the Indian battle group. In an ideal world he’d loose them at just over two hundred miles, based on targeting information from the Orions–his helicopters could do that, too, but the P-3Cs were far more survivable.
“Captain!” It was a petty officer on the ESM board. “We’re getting airborne radars. The Orion has some company approaching, looks like two Harriers, distance unknown, constant bearing, signal strength increasing.”
“Thank you. It’s a free sky until somebody says different,” Kemper reminded everybody.
Maybe it was an exercise, but the Indian battle group hadn’t moved forty miles in the past day, instead traveling back and forth, east and west, crossing and recrossing its own course track. Exercises were supposed to be more free-form than that. What the situation told the captain of USS Anzio was that they’d staked out this piece of ocean as their own. And the Indians just happened to be between where COMEDY was and where it wanted to be.
Nothing was very secret about it, either. Everyone pretended that normal peacetime conditions were in effect. Anzio had her SPY-1 radar operating, pumping out millions of watts. The Indians were using theirs as well. It was almost like a game of chicken.
“Captain, we have bogies, we have unknown multiple air contacts bearing zero-seven-zero, range two-one-five miles. No squawk ident, they are not commercial. Designate Raid-One.” The symbols came up on the center screen.
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“No emitters on that bearing,” ESM reported.
“Very well.” The captain crossed his legs in his command chair. In the movies this was where Gary Cooper lit up a smoke.
“Raid-One appears to be four aircraft in formation, speed four-five-zero knots, course two-four-five.” Which made them inbounds, though not quite directly at COMEDY.
“Projected CPA?” the captain asked.
“They will pass within twenty miles on their current course, sir,” a sailor responded crisply.
“Very well. Okay, people, listen up. I want this place cool and businesslike. You all know thejob. When there’s reason to be excited, I will be the one to tell you,” he told the CIC crew. “Weapons tight.” Meaning that peacetime rules still applied, and nothing was actually ready to fire– a situation that could be remedied by turning a few keys.
“Anzio, this is Gonzo-Four, over,” a voice called on the air-to-surface radio.
“Gonzo-Four, Anzio, over.”
“Anzio,” the aviator reported, “we got two Harriers playing tag with us. One just zipped by at about fifty yards. He’s got white ones on the rails.” Real missiles hanging under the wings, not pretend ones.
“Doing anything?” the air-control officer asked.
“Negative, just like he’s playing a little.”
“Tell him to continue the mission,” the captain said. “And pretend he doesn’t care.”
“Aye, sir.” The message was relayed.
This sort of thing wasn’t all that unusual. Fighter pilots were fighter pilots, the captain knew. They never grew up past the stage of buzzing by girls on their bikes. He directed his attention to Raid-One. Course and speed were unchanged. This wasn’t a hostile act. The Indians were letting him know that they knew who was in their neighborhood. That was evident from the appearance of fighters in two places at the same time. It was definitely a game of chicken now.
What to do now? he wondered. Play tough? Play dumb? Play apathetic? People so often overlooked the psychological aspect of military operations. Raid-One was now
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150 miles out, rapidly approaching the range of his SM-2 MR SAMs.
“What d’ya think, Weps?” he asked his weapons officer.
“I think they’re just trying to piss us off.”
“Agreed.” The captain flipped a mental coin. “Well, they’re harassing the Orion. Let ’em know we see ’em,” he ordered.
Two seconds later, the SPY search radar jacked up its power to four million watts, sent all of it down one degree of bearing at the inbound fighters, and increased the “dwell” on the targets, which meant they were being hit almost continuously. It was enough to peg the threat-detection gear they had to have aboard. Inside of twenty miles, it could even start damaging such equipment, depending on how delicate it was. That was called a “zorch,” and the captain still had another two million watts of power up his sleeve. The joke was that if you really pissed off an Aegis, you might start producing two-headed kids.
“Kiddjust went to battle stations, sir,” the officer of the deck reported.
“Good training time, isn’t it?” Range to Raid-One was just over one hundred miles now. “Weps, light ’em up.”
With that command, the ship’s four SPG-51 target-illumination radars turned, sending pencil beams of X-band energy at the inbound fighters. These radars told the missiles how to find their targets. The Indian threat gear would pick that up, too. The fighters didn’t change course or speed.
“Okay, that means we’re not playing rough today. If they were of a mind to do something, they’d be maneuvering now,” the captain told his crew. “You know, like turning the corner when you see a cop.” Or they had ice water in their veins, which didn’t seem likely.
“Going to eyeball the formation?” Weps asked.
“That’s what I’d do. Take some pictures, see what’s here,” Kemper thought.
“A lot of things happening at once, sir.”
“Yep,” the captain agreed, watching the display. He lifted the growler phone.
“Bridge,” the OOD answered.
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“Tell your lookouts I want to know what they are. Photos, if possible. How’s visibility topside?”
“Surface haze, not bad aloft, sir. I’ve got men on the Big Eyes now.”
“Very well.”
“They’ll go past us to the north, turn left, and come down our port side,” the captain predicted.
“Sir, Gonzo-Four reports a very close pass a few seconds ago,” air control said.
“Tell him to stay cool.”
“Aye, Cap’n.” The situation developed quickly after that. The fighters circled COMEDY twice, never closer than five nautical miles. The Indian Harriers spent another fifteen minutes around the patrolling Orion, then had to return back to their carrier to refuel, and another day at sea continued with no shots fired and no overtly hostile acts, unless you counted the fighter play, and that was pretty routine. When all was settled down, the captain of USS Anzio turned to his communications officer.
“I need to talk to CmCLANT. Oh, Weps?” Kemper added.
“Yes, sir?”
“I want every combat system on this ship fully checked
out.’
“Sir, we just ran a full check twelve hours–” “Right now, Weps,” he emphasized quietly.
“AND THAT’S GOOD news?” Cathy asked.
“Doctor, that’s real simple,” Alexandre said in reply. “You watched some people die this morning. You will watch more die tomorrow, and that stinks. But thousands is better than millions, isn’t it? I think this epidemic is going to burn out.” He didn’t add that it was somewhat easier for him. Cathy was an eye cutter. She wasn’t used to dealing with death. He was infectious diseases, and he was used to it. Easier? Was that the word? “We’ll know in a couple of days from statistical analysis of the cases.”
The President nodded silently. Van Damm spoke for him: “What’s the count going to be?”
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“Less than ten thousand, according to the computer models at Reed and Detrick. Sir, I am not being cavalier about this. I’m saying that ten thousand is better than ten million.”
“One death is a tragedy, and a million is a statistic,” Ryan said finally.
“Yes, sir. I know that one.” The good news didn’t make Alexandre all that happy. But how else to tell people that a disaster was better than a catastrophe?
“losef Vissarionovich Stalin,” SWORDSMAN told them. “He did have a way with words.”
“You know who did it,” Alex observed.