The Command

Chief Bendt said they had all four engines on line. Dan told him to stand by for max turns, flank three, and told Camill rapidly, “Pass that over the sound-powered circuit to confirm. Tell them to disregard acceleration limitations and use the torque sensor cutout. I’m going to the bridge.”

There might be one chance to make this happen. He wasn’t sure it would work. He’d have to do it exactly right, the first time.

“Captain’s on the bridge!”

He blinked in sudden rusty light. “I have the deck and the conn. Belay your reports. Nav, what’s least water depth within five nautical miles from right here, right now?”

“No less than eight fathoms, Captain.”

“All ahead flank three. Make turns for thirty-one knots. Right thirty degrees rudder.”

The throttleman grinned and slammed the throttles all the way forward. “All ahead flank three, aye! Make turns for thirty-one knots, aye!”

“My rudder is thirty degrees right, no new course given.”

Dan slapped the bitch box. “Combat, CO, mark our posit. Treat this like a man overboard. Keep passing bearing and range to the position I just had you mark.”

Like a suddenly whipped stallion, Horn trembled and leapt forward. As the screw wash hit her hard-over rudders she heeled left as she skidded hard to starboard. A rumble began deep in her guts. On the bridge, pencils and binoculars slid and fell. The bridge team grabbed for handholds.

“Combat, CO … how long to launch?”

“Three minutes to launch.” Camill’s voice, breathless. No hesitation now, Dan noted.

The rumble grew louder. Horn leaned hard off her turn. Dan stood bracing himself against a repeater, staring at the sea but not seeing it.

“Bridge, Combat. Point X-ray bears two-zero-zero, range five hundred yards.”

“Very well.”

“Passing zero-four-five,” the helmsman called.

The ship was plowing a furrow into the sea, skating hard around in the shuddering whining whoosh of eighty thousand all-out horsepower locked against the groaning protest of seven thousand tons of metal violently changing its inertia. Dan was balancing the bearing ring on the gyrocompass between the tips of his fingers and doing trigonometry in his head.

“Passing one-two-zero. No course given.”

By now the missile’s gyros should be steadying up. The oscillations that had been giving unstable alignment readings should dampen out. If he was right, it might be possible to make the missile’s computer agree with the ship’s again. How? By taking them back through the exact geographic point where the missile’s guidance had first lost its grip on the situation.

“Point X-ray bears two-five-zero, range one thousand yards.”

“Passing one-eight-zero.”

When their bearing to the start point was 270 he snapped, “Rudder amidships. Ahead one-third. Make turns for five knots.”

Horn reeled back upright. He staggered forward and cracked his head on the window as she decelerated, dropping from the whining full-ahead charge as she came back to her original course. Shading his eyes, he saw they were coming up on the green frothing water, the rocking foam of their own screw wash. Ahead lay the same spot on the planet’s surface where he’d ordered the speed change two minutes before.

“One minute to launch,” McCall shouted as he slid down the ladder back into Combat. “Captain, navigation aligned on F51! Request batteries released all plans.”

He grabbed the red handset; caught his breath, pressed the transmit button. “Terminator, Blade Runner. Sixty seconds to launch.”

“Terminator, roger, out.”

“Confirm whip and fan antennas silent.”

“Confirm blast exhaust doors open.”

“Alignment complete.”

“Time to launch: thirty seconds.”

Strong watched without comment or guidance.

“Time to launch, ten seconds.”

The chief plugged the keys in. Gave each a half turn, and the screen flickered.

“Skipper,” he said softly.

Dan hesitated, thinking back in that second of responsibility over all the deaths he’d seen and been involved in. The men and women who looked back at him now didn’t know what it meant. No reason they should. Maybe you had to look into a man’s eyes as you killed him. Knowing, too, there was a chance innocents would die. But satisfied, this time, every alternative had been exhausted.

Was he sure of that? No. You could never be totally sure. But neither could you let yourself become nothing more than a tool, a conducting wire, an unthinking component of the machine. When you did, you opened the door wide for evil.

Sometimes he didn’t think he was the right man for this job.

He hoped that doubt meant he really was.

Voice flat, he said, “Batteries released, all primary plans.”

“Shoot,” McCall said.

“Salvo firing commence,” said the chief. The launch controller mashed the button.