“Right, right,” Ashley Bruno responded. Bruno, a former Navy engineer from the China Lake Naval Weapons Center, touched the threat display and keyed the computer voice interface button with her left foot and said, “Computer, identify.”
SIERRA-BAND BEAN STICKS EARLY-WARNING RADAR, the computer responded.
“It’s not necessary to preface your commands with ‘computer’ or anything else,” Atkins said.
“I know,” Bruno said, wearing a playful grin. “But I guess I’m still a Trekkie at heart. Mr. Spock always started a voice command with ‘computer.’ ” She keyed the voice command switch again: “Computer, are we in detection range of the Bean Sticks radar? ”
NEGATIVE.
“Computer, what is the estimated detection range of the Bean Stick radar?”
ESTIMATED EFFECTIVE DETECTION RANGE IN CURRENT CONFIGURATION, FIFTEEN MILES, the computer responded, effective detection RANGE WITH BAY DOORS OPEN, TWENTY-SEVEN MILES. EFFECTIVE DETECTION RANGE IN CLEAN CONFIGURATION…
Bruno keyed the voice command button twice to cancel the report. “Thank you, computer,” she said.
“I think, I hope, what Atkins is saying, Lieutenant Bruno,” Brad Elliott cut in on interphone, “was that it would be faster and more efficient in a combat situation to just say what you want and can the fucking bullshit!” He spat the last four words like heavy-caliber gunshots. “This is not a starship Enterprise reunion, and it’s not a computer game. Now, do it right or I’ll beam your Trekkie ass into the goddamn ocean — with my boot, not a transporter.”
“Yes, sir,” Bruno responded contritely.
McLanahan said to Denton, “Read up on the emergency electrical attack procedures for a few. ” While the student OSO called up the hypertext tech order flight manual on the supercockpit display and began reading, McLanahan leaned back in his jump seat and clicked the interphone button twice. He and Elliott had used that command many times in their ten-year relationship to signal one another to “go private” on the interphone panel, which would allow the two to talk to each other without the rest of the crew listening in.
Sure enough, Elliott was on private to meet him. “What?”
“Ease up a bit, Brad,” McLanahan said.
“The newbies need to keep their minds on the job and stop fucking around.”
“Bruno’s doing okay,” McLanahan said. “So is Denton. We can all use a little comic relief. ”
“If Bruno does her Star Trek routine in training, she’ll do it in combat,” Elliott said. “You know it, I know it.”
“Okay, Brad, okay,” McLanahan said. “Yes, you’re right, we’re supposed to be training like we’re going to fight. But you’re being a little hard on Bruno. Wouldn’t be because she’s sitting in Vikram’s seat, is it?”
“Screw you and your amateur psychoanalysis, Muck,” Elliott snapped. “I know how to train newbies.” McLanahan heard the click that meant Elliott had switched back to normal interphone.
McLanahan fell silent as he followed Elliott back to normal interphone. In the past two weeks since the skirmish near Quemoy Island, Brad Elliott had been quiet, moody almost to the point of irritation, and demanding of everyone with whom he came into contact. He flew the EB-52 with practiced, methodical precision, strictly by the book — which he should know, because he had personally written most of it and reviewed all of it for many years — but he did it more with dogged impatience, without his usual sense of happiness and purpose.
Well, there was certainly nothing going on to get too excited about right now. The worldwide hue and cry over the nuclear detonations near mainland China had quieted all participants down considerably. Only about a third of the world media believed the People’s Republic of China’s Liberation Army was responsible for the dreaded nuclear explosions; the rest of the blame was equally divided between the United States and Taiwan. This was considered a major propaganda victory for China and a complete propaganda disaster for Taiwan and the United States.
As a result of the heavy media and governmental scrutiny, however, the Formosa Strait was relatively free from heavy military presence — a fact that McLanahan was able to verify by looking at the EB-52 Megafortress’s God’s-eye display on the supercockpit monitor, which was now being operated by Captain Denton. The fifty-plus-vessel People’s Liberation Army Navy carrier battle group was gone, dispersed to various bases or sent south toward Hong Kong to participate in Reunification Day festivities. As far as McLanahan could tell, the PLAN had only one ship of any size in the region; it had just appeared on the latest NIRTSat inverse synthetic aperture radar sweep.
“Okay, did you get IDs on the ships closest to the frigates?” McLanahan asked.
“Yep,” Denton responded. “Coastal trawlers and fishing vessels, both less than fifty tons. Neither moving faster than nine knots.”
“Good,” McLanahan said. “Remember, the system can squelch out small vessels like that if necessary, based on size or speed, but it’s always best to check out everything. Also remember that the ISAR system isn’t infallible, so even if those ships show as not hostile, even if you recheck six times, don’t ignore them. But right now they’re far enough away from the frigates to be safe, so you can mark those ships as noncombatants.”
That action turned out to be a mistake, because precisely at that time, crew members aboard the two Chinese “noncombatants” were dropping the last of a dozen large SS-N-16 missile canisters overboard. The SS-N-16, code-named “Stallion,” was an air- or submarine-launched rocket-powered torpedo, except these weren’t going flying before releasing their deadly cargoes. Once sailing clear of all torpedoes, they were activated by radio command. Simultaneously, the canisters activated their sensors, detected the distinctive high-speed, high-powered screws of the U.S. Navy warships, and turned toward them. Once perfectly aligned with their targets, they powered up their payloads — each canister carried a E45-75A torpedo with a 200-pound penetrating-blast high-explosive warhead, sitting atop a solid-fueled rocket booster — and the countdown commenced…
New NIRTSat satellite radar data was being downloaded every eight minutes; in less than a minute, the supercockpit God’s-eye view was automatically updated, and the map of the surveillance area had to be reexamined as if for the first time. “Okay, we see the ‘noncombatants’ are still poking along — in fact, it looks like they’re heading away from the frigates, cruising at ten knots,” McLanahan said to Denton. “What else you got?” When Oakley didn’t answer in a few moments, McLanahan pointed to the screen. “Looks like we got a newcomer, probably pulled out of Xiamen a couple sweeps ago. Remember, the NIRTSat data isn’t really God’s-eye — it’s better than turning on a radar and letting the bad guys know we’re up here, but it’s not perfect… yet. Let’s get an ID on that ship there, Jeff.”
“Rog,” Denton responded, expertly rolling the trackball cursor over the stored NIRTSat radar image. Jeff Denton, a former F-16 Fighting Falcon pilot, Gulf War vet, and F-15E Strike Eagle backseater, had had the bad luck of joining HAWC just weeks before it closed last year. Unable to get another fighter-bomber assignment anywhere, he had been forced to accept an early-out bonus and found himself unemployed right near the holiday season of 1996. Fortunately, just as the bonus money had started running low, he’d gotten the call from General Samson to do some flying for a private defense firm he had never heard of, Sky Masters, Inc., in Blytheville, Arkansas, which was working on some former HAWC projects.