Debt of Honor

and the noise was well off the scale. 'Should turn away any second now…'

The Captain just stood there, looking around. Was he crazy? Was he the only one who thought-

At the last second, Sonarman 1/c Laval looked aft to his commanding officer. 'Sir, it didn't turn!'

21—Navy Blue

Air Force One lifted off a few minutes sooner than expected, speeded on her way by the early hour. Reporters were already up and moving before the VC-25B reached her cruising altitude, coming forward to ask the President for a statement explaining the premature departure. Cutting short a state trip was something of a panic reaction, wasn't it? Tish Brown handled the journalists, explaining that the unfortunate developments on Wall Street commanded a quick return so that the President could reassure the American people…and so forth. For the moment, she went on, it might be a good idea for everyone to catch up on sleep. It was, after all, a fourteen-hour flight back to Washington, with the headwinds that blew across the Atlantic at this time of year, and Roger Durling needed his sleep, too. The ploy worked for several reasons, not the least of which was that the reporters were suffering from too much alcohol and not enough sleep, like everyone else aboard—except the flight crew, all hoped. Besides, there were Secret Service agents and armed Air Force personnel between them and the President's accommodations. Common sense broke out, and everyone returned back to the seating area. Soon things were quieted down, and nearly every passenger aboard was either asleep or feigning it. Those who weren't asleep wished they were.

Johnnie Reb's commanding officer was, by federal law, an aviator. The statute went back to the 19308, and had been drafted to prevent battleship sailors from taking over the new and bumptious branch of the Old Navy. As such, he had more experience flying airplanes than in driving ships, and since he'd never had a command afloat, his knowledge of shipboard systems consisted mainly of things he'd picked up along the way rather than from a mutter of systematic study and experience. Fortunately, his chief engineer was a black-shoe destroyer sailor with a command under his bell. The skipper did know, however, that water was supposed to be outside the hull, not inside.

'How bad, ChEng?'

'Bad, sir.' The Commander gestured to the deck plates, still covered with an inch of water that the pumps was gradually sending over the side. At least the holes were sealed now. That had taken three hours. 'Shafts two and three are well and truly trashed. Bearings shot, tail shafts twisted and split, reduction gears ground up to junk—no way anybody can fix them. The turbines are okay. The reduction gears took all the shock. Number One shaft's okay. Some shock damage to the aft bearings. That I can fix myself. Number four screw is damaged, not sure how bad, but we can't turn it without risking the shaft bearings. Starboard rudder is jammed over, but I can deal with that, another hour, maybe, and it'll be 'midships. May have to replace it, depending on how bad it looks. We're down to one shaft. We can make ten, eleven knots, and we can steer, badly.'

'Time to fix?'

'Months—four or five is my best guess right now, sir.' All of which, the Commander knew, would require him to be here, overseeing the yard crews, essentially rebuilding half the ship's power plant-maybe three quarters. He hadn't fully evaluated the damage to Number Four yet. That was when the Captain really lost his temper. It was about time, the ChEng thought.

'If I could launch an air strike, I'd sink those sunzabitches!' But launching anything on the speed generated by a single shaft was an iffy proposition. Besides, it had been an accident, and the skipper really didn't mean it.

'You have my vote on that one, sir,' ChEng assured him, not really meaning it either, because he added: 'Maybe they'll be nice enough to pay for the repairs.' His reward was a nod.

'We can start moving again?'

'Number One shaft is a little out from shock damage, but I can live with it, yes, sir.'

'Okay, get ready to answer bells. I'm taking this overpriced barge back to Pearl.'

'Aye aye, sir.'

Admiral Mancuso was back in his office, reviewing preliminary data on the exercise when his yeoman came in with a signal sheet.

'Sir, looks like two carriers are in trouble.'

'What did they do, collide?' Jones asked, sitting in the corner and reviewing other data.

'Worse,' the yeoman told the civilian.

ComSubPac read the dispatch. 'Oh, that's just great.' Then his phone rang; it was the secure line that came directly from PacFltOps. 'This is Admiral Mancuso.'

'Sir, this is Lieutenant Copps at Fleet Communications. I have a submarine emergency beacon, located approximately 31-North, 175-East. We're refining that position now. Code number is for Asheville, sir. There is no voice transmission, just the beacon. I am initiating a SuBMiss/SusSuNK. The nearest naval aircraft are on the two carriers—'

'Dear God.' Not since Scorpion had the U.S. Navy lost a sub, and he'd been in high school then. Mancuso shook his head clear. There was work to be done. 'Those two carriers are probably out of business, mister.'

'Oh?' Oddly enough, Lieutenant Copps hadn't heard that yet.

'Call the P-3s. I have work to do.'

'Aye aye, sir.'

Mancuso didn't have to look at anything. The water in that part of the Pacific Ocean was three miles deep, and no fleet submarine ever made could survive at a third of that depth. If there were an emergency, and if there were any survivors, any rescue would have to happen within hours, else the cold surface water would kill them.

'Ron, we just got a signal. Asheville might be down.'

'Down?' That word was not one any submariner wanted to hear, even if it was a gentler expression than sunk. 'Frenchy's kid…'

'And a hundred twenty others.'

'What can I do, Skipper?'

'Head over to SOSUS and look at the data.'

'Aye aye, sir.' Jones hustled out the door while SubPac lifted his phone and started punching buttons. He already knew that it was an exercise in futility. All PacFlt submarines now carried the AN/BST-3 emergency transmitters aboard, set to detach from their ships if they passed through crush depth or if the quartermaster of the watch neglected to wind the unit's clockwork mechanism. The latter possibility, however, was unlikely. Before the explosive bolts went, the BST made the most godawful noise to chide the neglectful enlisted man… Asheville was almost certainly dead, and yet he had to follow through in the hope of a miracle. Maybe a few crewmen had gotten off.

Despite Mancuso's advice, the carrier group did get the call. A frigate, USS Gary, went at once to maximum sustainable speed and sprinted north toward the area of the beacon, responding as required by the laws of man and the sea. In ninety minutes she'd be able to launch her own helicopter for a surface search and further serve as a base for other helos to continue the rescue operation if necessary. John Stennis turned slowly into the wind and managed to launch a single S-3 Viking ASW aircraft, whose onboard instruments were likely to be useful for a surface search. The Viking was overhead in less than an hour. There was nothing to be seen on radar except for a Japanese coast-guard cutter, heading in for the beacon, ahout ten miles out. Contact was established, and the white cutter verified its notice on the emergency radio and intentions to search for survivors. The Viking circled the transmitter. There was a slick of diesel oil to mark the ship's grave, and a few bits of floating debris, but repeated low passes and four sets of eyes failed to spot anything to be rescued.

The 'Navy Blue' prefix on a signal denoted information that would be of interest to the entire fleet, perhaps sensitive in nature, less often highly classified; in this case it was something too big to be kept a secret. Two of Pacific Fleet's four aircraft carriers were out of business for a long time. The other two, Eisenhower and Lincoln, were in the IO, and were likely to remain there. Ships know few secrets, and even before Admiral Dubro got his copy of the dispatch, word was already filtering through his flagship. No chief swore more vilely than the battle- force commander, who already had enough to worry about. The same response greeted the signals personnel who