“They say Texas declared its independence an hour ago.”
The captain rubbed his head. Jesus Christ, he thought. Of all the time for a port visit! He glanced back at the tug. Well, he couldn’t back out of here, even if he got all the lines off the boat.
He looked to his starboard side. If he could swing the stern, perhaps he could back and forth using the rudder until he could go behind the tug, like a car getting out of a parallel parking place. He used the binoculars in the half-light and saw the line running off the stern of Mabel Hardaway at an angle, out into the open area he would have to use. He knew he was looking at a chain with an anchor on the end. Backing the naked screws of his boat into the chain would disable Texas.
“Here comes another tug, sir,” the OOD said, and pointed.
Sure enough, there it was, maybe a mile away down the harbor, coming slowly. It would certainly be here before he could get Texas free of the pier and maneuver her out of this slip. And even if he did get Texas out of the slip, the tugs could ram her and make sure she didn’t get out of the harbor.
Damn!
“Go below,” Rodriquez told the OOD, “and get off a flash message to SUBLANT. Tell them we are blocked in by tugboats, with armed civilians on the pier. Go.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
Gulls wheeled above him as he stood alone weighing his options. Half his crew was on liberty in Galveston. While he could operate the boat with the duty section, he had nowhere to go with tugs in the way. His sentries could keep the civilians off the pier, for a while, anyway, unless they started shooting.
He could scuttle the boat, sink her here in this slip. But the navy brass would have his balls if he did that and the independence news was some kind of misinformation or a political ploy to embarrass the Soetoro administration, something that could be cleared up or would go away in a few hours or days. He certainly didn’t know. All he knew was what the sentry had told him. If he scuttled Texas, she could be raised of course, and eventually returned to seaworthy condition, after she had spent a year or so in the Electric Boat shipyard in Connecticut where she was built.
He decided to wait and see what SUBLANT said to do. He wanted someone in a much higher pay grade to point to if recriminations started. Let the admiral earn his pay, he thought as he watched the other tug ease into the slip and tie up starboard side to the pier abeam Texas. Now he was blocked in.
When the OOD came back up the ladder he said, “Message sent, Captain.”
The skipper pointed at the tug on the starboard side. “Go send another one. Tell them we are corked good.”
The OOD took a quick look and disappeared back down the ladder.
The skipper looked at the people milling on the pier. At least thirty of them, only a couple of sailors in uniform, and a police car. Maybe he should go up there and talk to the cop.
When the OOD came back, the captain gave his instructions, went below for his ball cap, then went to the forward torpedo room and climbed the ladder through the open hatch to the main deck. He paused on the gangway and saluted the flag flying on its portable flagpole on the stern, then went ashore.
After Colonel Curt Wriston, commander of the Texas National Guard in Abilene, saw the declaration read on TV, he tried to call his headquarters in Austin, with no success. The telephone didn’t even ring.
Wriston dressed, skipped his morning coffee, and got into his car. He picked up his deputy commander. They discussed the situation and were in agreement: the Soetoro administration would use force against Texas, just as quickly as they could.
Wriston drove the county roads to a spot near the perimeter fence of Dyess Air Force Base. From there, they could see the two runways: the main runway, 13,500 feet long, and a short parallel runway, 3,500 feet long. Also visible in this flat country in the clear air of early dawn were the big hangars and flight line between the two runways. Wriston looked around. Not a cloud in the sky.
No doubt the commander of the base, Brigadier General l’Angistino, was on the wires right now with bomber headquarters in Nebraska and the air force brass in Washington, asking for instructions. Everyone in the chain of command would bump the decisions up the ladder, Wriston thought. He knew how the military bureaucracy worked these days. Initiative had been ruthlessly and remorselessly squeezed out of the system. Obey orders was the mantra, and, whatever you do, don’t make your bosses look bad. General l’Angistino was a good man, but he would undoubtedly have to wait awhile for orders, which would have to come from the very top, perhaps even the White House, which would have a ton of other red-hot problems to deal with today.
The deputy commander said it first. “We need to block those runways, make sure the air force doesn’t fly those bombers and Hercules transports out of there. Texas will need them.”
“They’ll probably sabotage them,” Wriston said thoughtfully, “if they can’t fly them out.”
“Either way, they can’t use them to transport troops or bomb us.”
“We could use tanks, just go through the fence,” Wriston mused.
“We only have four tanks, and one of them has the fire control system disassembled for upgrade.”
“It’ll move.”
The deputy said, “That big runway is about three hundred feet wide, as I recall. Take a serious amount of iron to block it. And the Hercs can use the short runway.”
“We can get some construction equipment, road graders, and bulldozers,” Wriston suggested. “They can follow the tanks. We’ll block the long runway, and if we have any equipment left, leave it on the small one. We’ll have to block the long one in at least two places. Three would be better.” He used a small set of binoculars he kept in the car for looking at birds to examine the distant buildings, which looked like toy blocks sitting out there on the horizon.
Wriston added, “They’ve got cranes and such to handle crashed airplanes. If they can’t start the engines and drive our stuff off, they’ll drag it off.”
“We can disable everything.”
“Only delay them for a day, maybe two.”
“That might be enough. Let’s do it.”
Wriston started his car and they drove away planning where to get the yellow equipment, people to drive it, and how to summon their tankers.
At the head of the pier in Galveston where Texas was moored, Commander Mike Rodriquez found out that the Declaration of Independence news the sentry had given him was as real as a heart attack. Thirty or so civilians carrying rifles, some of them civilian versions of the M16, were standing there watching him. The sheriff had him sit in the right seat of his patrol car, which had its front windows down, then got behind the wheel. When he was comfortably settled, he gave the naval officer the news about the declaration.
“Texas is now a free republic,” the sheriff said in summary. The captain scrutinized the lawman’s face to see if he was kidding. He didn’t appear to be. The fucking idiot! Secession in this day and age!
One of the civilians came over and leaned on the car to hear what was being said inside. The sheriff ran him off.
“Now, Captain, this is the way I see it,” the sheriff continued. He had a serious pot gut that lapped over the buckle of his gun belt. His shirt needed pressing and he needed a shave. “I haven’t talked to anybody in Austin ’cause the phones are out and, anyway, they’re probably drunk and asleep, which I ought to be. When they wake up they’re gonna be mighty busy. In any event this declaration thing sorta upset the applecart. Did you watch it on TV a while ago?”
No.
“County commissioners are asleep too, and even when they get up this morning, they’re goin’ to tell me what they always say, which is use my own judgment. That way if people start squallin’ I have to take the heat and not them. Being an elected official and all, I suppose it comes with the territory. But you probably ain’t interested in my problems, since you got a big one your own self.”