Executive Intent

“Your men have their SOPs when they’re out there in harm’s way, Admiral-it’s for you and the national command authority to decide what they are and if they’re being properly performed, not me,” Barbeau said. “I know your men don’t have the luxury of sitting in a nice comfy chair and calmly debating things when they’re looking down the barrel of a gun thousands of miles from home, when the only dry landing strip and hot meal is a four-acre hunk of floating steel that might end up at the bottom of the South China Sea at any moment.

“But now we’re in my battlefield, Admiral, not yours. If we’re all agreed this was a tragic accident and not deliberate”-Barbeau paused, then pointed at each window in her videoconference monitor, querying each participant-“and we are all still agreed, are we not…?”-she waited a few breaths: still more silence-“that it was an accident, then we investigate fully to prevent such accidents from happening again; we issue the sincerest of apologies; and we move on. You start asking for reparations, or justice, or payback, and it tells me you don’t really believe it was an accident. If that’s the case, Admiral Cowan, you’d better tell me right now.”

The chief of naval operations looked as if he was going to continue the argument; then, like a balloon slowly losing air, his shoulders slumped, he folded his hands, and made an almost imperceptible shake of his head.

“Thank you, Admiral,” Barbeau said. “Now I have something to work with. One more question: Where did that Chinese fighter come from? Was it on a patrol mission, some kind of test, or is there any possibility that it could have been launched on a strike mission?”

“I can give you the answer to that, Madam Secretary,” Kai Raydon said.

“Who is this?”

“General Kai Raydon, commander of Armstrong Space Station, Air Force Space Defense Command,” Kai responded. He typed in commands on his console’s keyboard, and the image on a new videoconference monitor changed to another trio of naval vessels. “You’re looking at live pictures of the People’s Liberation Army Navy Project 190 aircraft carrier, named the Zhenyuan, accompanied by two underway replenishment vessels on either side of the carrier. We’ve been monitoring the Chinese carrier since it sailed within five hundred miles of the Bush and observed the fighter launch.”

“Who are you again, General?” Barbeau asked. “Where are you?” She turned to Secretary of Defense Turner. “Is he one of yours, Miller?”

“General Raydon commands Armstrong Space Station, the Air Force’s orbiting space reconnaissance and communications platform,” Turner replied. “Where are you exactly right now, General?”

“Two hundred and twelve miles over Argentina, sir, falling eastward at seventeen thousand six hundred miles per hour.”

“‘Falling’? You’re falling?” Barbeau exclaimed.

“Spacecraft in Earth orbit aren’t floating, Madam Secretary, and they aren’t being propelled-they are pulled to Earth by gravity like any other object,” Kai explained. “At our altitude and speed, however, we never hit the Earth as we fall because we speed past Earth as we continue to fall toward it.”

“I’m sure I don’t understand any of that, General Raydon,” Barbeau said, “so I’ll defer to your expertise. You saw the fighters launch from that carrier?”

“Armstrong is the hub of an extensive network of communications-and-surveillance satellites that cover the entire planet twenty-four/seven. If any American military unit goes into possible danger, the Air Force watches it from space. We’ve monitored the Chinese carrier almost continuously in real time since it left port.”

Barbeau nodded. “It sounds impressive,” she said. “Any unit, anytime, anywhere?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Raydon responded. “If we don’t have a satellite constellation ready to observe, we can set one up PDQ. If a satellite breaks, we can fix it. We can tie into a network of satellites and unmanned surveillance aircraft that fills in a pretty complete picture of every carrier battle group, surface-action group, and Marine Expeditionary Force deployed around the world, plus major exercises and other deployments. And if something needs blowing up, we’re developing the capability of blowing it up from here faster than you can imagine.”

“Naval support is a top priority for the Air Force these days, isn’t it?” Barbeau remarked with a slight smile. She knew that the increased emphasis on naval operations, especially carriers and multipurpose submarines, was a sore point with many services, especially the Air Force, whose budget was the hardest hit.

“Yes, ma’am, it is,” Raydon said. “They badly need the help, after all, and we’re happy to assist.”

“Go on without the editorial comments, General,” Turner said.

“Yes, sir,” Raydon said, suppressing a smile.