“Yeah, we got to talk about that. Drills going okay?”
“DCA’s running them. Concentrating on fire and flooding.”
“We still seeing water in the CRP system?”
“No more than usual.”
“Engine control consoles? Any more groundings?”
“Not so far.” The CHENG laid out xeroxes of their fuel-consumption curves and positioned a calculator. “We refueled to 100 percent two days ago. Fast transit to patrol area, so we’re down to 95 as of today. Our bottom’s clean so I’m going to use the class manual for consumption curves. Here’s our options. Our quietest patrol speed is thirteen knots.”
Dan lifted his eyebrows. “That high?”
“Yeah, not what you’d expect, but we’re actually quietest with both shafts powered and both props at 100 percent pitch. Got to realign the masking system, but that’s the way we put the least noise in the water. See, below 100 percent, your props cavitate. Slowest we can go at full pitch on both shafts is about 12.8 knots.”
“That’s going to cut way down on our on-station time.”
“I get six days to 50 percent. Factoring in electrical load, with the radar going full power.”
“Damn it, Bart. I just don’t know if they’ll be willing to break me out a tanker six or seven days from now. Anything could be happening by then.” At 50 percent fuel he had to holler for help. At 30 he had to leave station, unless ordered to remain. He grimaced, remembering the weather report; heavier seas would increase fuel consumption too. Jamming him tighter and tighter into a very narrow corner. He sighed. “You said there’s another option?”
“Kind of out there, but I can shift to a one-shaft, nonstandard-configuration low-speed mode. That gets me down to six knots. Not as quiet, but close.”
“How many days does that buy us?”
“Eight days to 50 percent, ten days to 30.”
“Not great, but better. What’s the downside? Of this nonstandard configuration?”
“Got to run everything from Main Control. Not the bridge. So if you suddenly need to crank on the knots, it’ll take longer.”
“How much longer?”
“Depends on how much faster you want to go, but it won’t be that long. Maybe five, ten minutes.”
Dan blew out and scratched his head. “I don’t like it. But I guess we have to. At least until we get some clue how long we’ll be out here. — Cheryl, d’you hear that? We’re going down to six knots, but—”
“I have it, sir.” Staurulakis rattled her keyboard.
Danenhower didn’t linger once a discussion wasb over; he nodded and left, taking the calculator and graphs but leaving a one-page summary. Dan folded it into a pocket. “Shit,” he muttered. Then went back to the message he was writing. He read the last paragraphs on the screen once more.
4. (S) IN VIEW OF THE FOLLOWING:
A) INADEQUATE TBMD LOADOUT (ONLY 4 SM-2 BLOCK 4A WEAPONS)
B) MARGINAL CREW TRAINING AS EVALUATED BY BOTH JOHNS HOPKINS CONTRACTOR RIDER AND OWN SHIP TEAM
C) AEGIS REDUCED REDUNDANCY FROM SPY-1 DRIVER-PREDRIVER FIRE (CASREP REF C)
D) POSSIBLE MUTUAL INTERFERENCE WITH ISRAELI PATRIOT AND ARROW
E) SEVERELY LIMITED SELF-DEFENSE CAPABILITY IN ABM MODE
CO CONCLUDES SAVO ISLAND’S MISSION CAPABILITY FALLS BELOW ACCEPTABLE READINESS.
5. (S) IN VIEW OF POSSIBLE GEOPOLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF A FAILED INTERCEPT ATTEMPT, IT MAY BE PREFERABLE TO RETRACT WHATEVER COMMITMENTS HAVE BEEN MADE, AND RETURN SAVO ISLAND TO TASK GROUP DEFENSE OR TOMAHAWK STRIKE ROLE RATHER THAN CONTINUE AS INDEPENDENT TBMD GUARD.
6. (S) IF MISSION JUDGED POLITICALLY NECESSARY, REQUEST ADDITIONAL SURFACE ESCORT FOR ASCM OWN SHIP DEFENSE.
BT
He stopped typing, hunched over the screen. As if, he realized, trying to shield what he was writing from everyone around him. Up on the readouts, the ship’s speed was already dropping.
He wasn’t just saying I don’t think we can do the mission, but also Should we even have been committed? If he’d sent it the day he took command, it would’ve looked bad enough. To send it now, when he was actually on station, would make him look … negative. Even craven.
No, they probably wouldn’t think that. Not with his record.
And it was the truth. If anything, he was overestimating their capabilities.
But it wasn’t the kind of message any commanding officer wanted his name on. His cursor hovered over the Send button. Then dropped to Save As and filed it as a draft once again.
Beside him Cheryl murmured, “Sir, sending the revisions to the steaming orders you asked for. Incorporating the lowered patrol speed discussed with the chief engineer. Warning and exclusion zone. No approach within two miles. Random course changes at least every twelve minutes. Doubled lookouts, with focus on threat bearings to landward. Anything more?”
“Sounds good.” It was sobering that their first warning of a sea-skimming cruise missile might be a distant glint between the waves, observed by a sharp-eyed seaman with binoculars. But antiship missiles were designed for minuscule radar signatures. The types they were facing out here — the C-802s, the Bastions and Onyxes the Russians had supplied their Syrian client state, the sea-launched Styxes Syrian Komar boats carried — could target them from over the horizon, if their quarry had its radars on.
Which Savo definitely did. Electronically, they were standing out like a lighthouse, with the huge pulses of power they were putting out. And now, of course, they’d be poking along, with five to ten minutes’ lag before they could come back up to full speed. “Which reminds me. Phalanx is in automatic?”
“Sea Whiz has been in auto mode since we arrived on station, Captain. I briefed you that yesterday. Like our chaff system and the rubber duckies. I’d like to do a program reload soon, though. We’re overdue on that.”
“Yeah, yeah, I remember now. Not just yet. Unless you think there’s some kind of software corruption going on … No, wait a minute … it might be better to do it now rather than later. Yeah.” He was starting to babble. Was she looking at him differently than usual? Was that a suspicious squint? He should just buckle the fuck down, and stop obsessing. Okay, slow deep breath. Another. On the display the spokes glittered. Faces hovered green-lit above screens.
Waiting.
Which was all he, too, could do now.
At a little after 0900 Sonar came up on the 21MC. It was Rit Carpenter. “Hey, Dan, you there?” Staurulakis frowned. Dan had to remind himself the old submariner was a civilian now. He thumbed the worn Transmit lever. “Here, Rit. Whatcha got?”
“Voice call from Pittsburgh. Reporting in. She holds us one-zero-zero at about six thousand yards. Want me to answer up?”
“Got her on sonar?”
“Yeah, now. But we didn’t, coming in. Our fucking tail is on the rag down here, and we’re getting more self-noise since we slowed down.”
Not good, that a nuke boat could get that close without being detected. But maybe it also meant its submariners were sharp enough to protect Savo from any undersea enemy. At the moment, though, he was more worried about air and missile attack. Which even the most modern sub was impotent against, save for its own invulnerability beneath the waves. “Yeah, Rit, roger her back. Ask if there’s a chance the CO can crossdeck for a gam.”
Carpenter clicked off. Staurulakis murmured, “You want him to come aboard? Is that really necessary?”
“Sometimes it’s good to make personal contact.”
“There’s always a risk involved in boat ops. Especially in winter.”
Dan regarded her. Quiet, short blond hair, always kempt, always competent. Her great-great-grandfather had served aboard a monitor during the Civil War. He’d never asked a question she hadn’t had the answer to, usually to a depth well beyond what she needed to know as a department head. “Cheryl, I imagine you’ll be a CO someday. So you have to learn you can’t run a ship by this ‘accept no unnecessary risk’ doctrine. That mind-set comes out of DoD. Mainly, I guess, to cover their ass in case we screw up. I agree with part of it — think ahead, assess the hazards, plan to meet them, commit the resources, communicate. No-brainers, every good skipper does that. But just going to sea puts us at risk, and we’re out here to fight. You can’t be guided by fear.”