Executive Intent

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance-it is the illusion of knowledge.

– DANIEL J. BOORSTIN

IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA, 500 MILES SOUTH OF HONG KONG

WINTER 2010

“Who the hell is this again?” the lead pilot of the formation of U.S. Navy F/A-18E Super Hornets radioed.

“Hydra flight, I say again, this is Armstrong,” the unknown female controller repeated. “We have a visual on your single-ship bogey. How do you copy?”

“Stand by, Armstrong.” The pilot switched over to his interplane frequency. “Lego, you have any idea who this skirt is?”

“Sure, Timber,” the pilot of the second Hornet in the formation replied. “They told us they’d be on tactical freq but they didn’t say they’d be talking to us. You must’ve been late to the briefing.”

“Well, who is she?”

“It’s the space station,” the wingman replied. “Armstrong Space Station. Remember? The big-ass UFO-‘Unwanted Floating Object.’”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, the damned Air Force,” the lead pilot complained. He remembered the briefing now: The Air Force’s military space station, Armstrong-what the Air Force was calling the headquarters of the U.S. Space Defense Force, although there was as yet no such thing-was conducting a test to see if its network of satellites could provide long-range surveillance data to tactical forces around the world. Instead of spying on big targets like enemy military bases, the Air Force wanted to see if they had enough capability to watch over and even direct forces right down to individual aircraft, ships, and squads. “Hey, Hydra One, is this for real?”

“Timber, this is an operational test,” the CAG, or Carrier Air Group commander, radioed from the USS George H. W. Bush, steaming about four hundred miles away. His radio messages were being relayed via an E-2C Hawkeye radar plane orbiting nearby. “If they can’t keep up, we’ll terminate. Otherwise, play along.”

“Rog,” the leader responded resignedly. Back on the tactical frequency: “Armstrong, Hydra flight, what do you got?”

In response, the F/A-18’s MFD, or Multi-Function Display, changed to show the Hornets and the single unidentified aircraft they were pursuing. The Hornet’s radar was in standby, but the display looked as if the radar was transmitting and locked on. The fire control computer was using the information from the space station to compute intercepts, weapon parameters, and was even reporting ready to steer radar-guided missiles-all as if the Hornet’s own radar was providing the information!

“You getting this, Timber?” the wingman radioed. “Pretty fucking cool.”

“We get the same dope from the Hawkeye.”

“Negatory. Select F11.”

The leader noticed the flashing soft key on the edge of his MFD and pressed it-and to his amazement saw a video image of a large fighter aircraft with two immense weapons or tanks under its wings. It wasn’t a still image either-they could actually see the crewmembers through the canopy glass moving about and the ocean racing underneath. “Is that the bogey?” he asked incredulously. He keyed the button for the tactical frequency. “Armstrong, is that our bogey?”

“Affirmative,” the controller aboard the space station replied, the satisfaction in her voice evident. She seemed a lot older than most of the female Navy controllers he was accustomed to working with. “Coming at you at the speed of live. I make it as a Sukhoi-34 Fullback. I can’t verify any markings, and we can’t positively identify what it’s carrying, but they look like antiship missiles.”

Well, the leader thought, that was pretty cool. But it didn’t replace Mark One eyeballs. “I’m impressed, Armstrong,” he said, “but we still gotta go in and do a visual.”

“Roger,” the Armstrong controller said. “I can’t give you bull’ seye vectors, but I can give you BRA picture calls.”

The Air Force gadgets were cool, for sure, and the leader was even impressed that the lady Air Force controller knew the difference between “bull’s-eye” vectors-bearings relative to a prebriefed reference point used instead of the fighter’s own location so an enemy that might pick up their broadcast couldn’t use the information to pinpoint the fighter itself-and less secure BRA calls, or bearing-range-altitude from the fighter’s nose. But this was a real mission, not playtime-it was time to go to work. “Negative, Armstrong, we’ll be talking to our own controller for the intercept. Break. Spinner Three, Hydra One-Two-One flight, bogeydope.”

“Roger, Hydra flight, ‘Wicker’ Two-Zero-Zero at niner-five, medium, single ship,” the weapons director aboard the E-2C Hawkeye airborne radar controller responded. The “bogeydope” call meant that the Hornet pilot was not using his radar but was relying on the Hawkeye’s radar information for the position of the unidentified aircraft he had been sent to pursue. “Wicker” was the designation of the “bull’s-eye” they’d use for the intercept.