The Command

conversations on the bridge had gone silent. So had Lambert, so Dan went over to the nav table. The quartermaster had laid out their track. They’d reach their assigned operating area around 0300 the next day.

“Captain.” It was Lin Porter. “Contact bearing zero-three-zero, fifteen thousand seven hundred yards, course zero-four-zero, speed fifteen. Seems to be outside the traffic separation scheme.”

Dan went over to the Furuno. He liked the little radar in close quarters, because it showed course and speed arrows for each contact, which made it easier to prioritize when you had ten or fifteen on the screen. This blip jumped out at him. A big return, its course arrow aimed right down their throats. Still, it was a good distance away, and there’d be time to maneuver. The catch was, they were the stand-on vessel, bound not to change course or speed, but to wait for the other to change his. In fact, from what he recalled of the International Maritime Organization rules from the Sailing Directions, vessels outside the channels were doubly burdened.

“Get him on Channel Sixteen,” Dan told her. “Ask his intentions.”

Combat passed the word up that the contact they were calling Bravo Delta had a closest point of approach of less than a thousand yards in twelve minutes, and recommended coming right to course 000 to open. Dan went to get his glasses, found Strong using them. He borrowed the quartermaster’s and tried to get them focused. At last he had it, a speck, but high enough to tell him what it was. An empty tanker out of Italy or France or Spain, bound south for another holdful of crude. Out of position for some reason. Still, it should be easy enough to sort matters out.

“No answer on Sixteen. Bravo Delta bears zero-three-zero, nine thousand yards and closing. Combat recommends coming right to zero-one-zero at this time.”

Now the broad bow was clearly visible, and the bulge of green sea over a submerged stem-bulb before it broke in a churn of white.

“Captain? Come right.”

He lifted his head, startled. Strong was still examining his traffic. Had he spoken? As he hesitated the commodore added, annoyed, “Did you hear me? I said, come right.”

“We’re the stand-on vessel, sir.”

“I don’t give a bloody damn who’s got the right of way, get out of his path.”

Dan snapped an order, then turned away, seething at being overruled so casually in front of his crew. He stood on the starboard wing with hands jammed into his pockets, trying to reason with himself.

There were always frictions between the ship and the flag. Especially when the ship wasn’t flag configured, which meant the staff didn’t have separate spaces and comm facilities, usually even a separate bridge of their own.

Or … was it possible Niles was right, and Dan Lenson was projecting his ingrained distrust of authority? He remembered how unhappy he’d been, being a staff puke for Isaac Sundstrom. Yes, Sundstrom … Krazy Ike … so far, compared to that incompetent and self-centered clown, Strong rated up there with Nimitz or Spruance.

* * *

Over the next several days traffic was heavy. Both the Blue and Gold teams were called away several times a day. Laboon reported commerce as dense proceeding northbound.

Meanwhile the tasking message for the strike came through. Looking over the launch sequence plan when Kim McCall brought up Horn’s answering status report — line A, line B, reporting that the missions were executable — Dan saw the package included strikes from both the Red Sea, Laboon and Horn, and from the east, from the Gulf. When he plotted their targets, he got remote-looking locations in western Iraq.

The day after that, the mission data update and associated command information came down, revised missile flight data from Norfolk via a 9600-baud, secure, download-only satellite link. This updated the missions they’d brought with them on tape.

He had confidence in his team, but went down anyway and watched as they rehearsed, from simulated engagement order to system warm-up, load, entry of ship position, launch direction, and prelandfall way-points. A Red Sea launch would be tricky. They’d have to stay in a tightly circumscribed area to fire all the missions. He joined McCall and the first-class fire controlman at the chart table. “Strike, looks like the launch baskets can all be hit from … let me see … about here?”

The first class looked at him. “You done this before, sir.”

Dan had to grin. The first class said it like an accusation, as if having a skipper who actually knew what he was doing wasn’t playing fair. “You get a feel for where you ought to be. Kim, we need to make sure VLS is ready. Who’s got the key?”

“Mr. Camill has one, sir. But if you want to be able to launch, he should have both Remote Launch Enable keys.”

“We don’t have an Indigo message yet.” Of course, they couldn’t launch without both fire-enable keys. Dan kept his locked in his safe … in his in-port cabin. He made a mental note to get it out, since that was Strong’s space now.