“Sure don’t like being out here by our lonesome,” Fingers grumbled. The E-2C RIO tweaked and peaked her radar display for a few moments.
“Help is only a squawk away,” her pilot said.
“It’d be better if it were only a TER away.”
“Oh, right. Like there’s any place on this antiquated airframe to hang a triple ejection rack. You’ve got jet envy, Fingers. Worse than penis envy, I hear.”
“Funny, I’d heard the same thing about you,” she said.
“Oh, good one. Fingers, you realize if they ever catch us talking like this on the boat we’re both going to get court martialed?”
“Yeah. But that’s on the boat. As long as we’re up here, different rules apply.”
“Roger, copy,” her pilot said. “You know, I was worried about having to fly with you — thought I’d have to be watching my language and learnin’ how to be politically correct. But, hell, Fingers — you’re worse than I am!”
She sighed and leaned back against the hard cushion. She rubbed the small of her back with both hands. Flying sideways had definite disadvantages to it.
“Listen, Rabbit, you think I would want to spend eight hours a day with people who were always watching their damned language? Flying with somebody paranoid? Hell, we can’t be a crew like that! You have to be able to talk to me. I have to know that you’re going to listen to me when I tell you to get the hell out of Dodge, and you have to be able to talk to me to stay away. It’s not like you’ve got anything else to do up there.”
“Aw, fuck you, Fingers. If you’d had the eyesight, you’d have been a pilot, too!”
You’ve made that offer before, Rabbit. Someday I’m going to take you up on it.”
He heard the enlisted technician snicker. “She’ll call your bluff someday, Rabbit,” he said. “Or maybe not — maybe she’s heard how you got that call sign!”
“Hey, you too? What the hell happened to male bonding?” the pilot whined.
“Replaced by RIO bonding,” he said. “I’ll take smart-wearing-glasses over stupid-with-good-eyesight any day!”
“How about taking new contacts over blank screens instead?” Fingers said, suddenly all business. “In your sector, Jamie.”
“Got him,” the technician replied. “Classify it as a Flanker, based on the radar and speed. Loitering in area, it appears. He’s doing the same thing we’re doing, hanging around watching.”
“So we watch him while he watches us,” she said softly. “And we wait to see who blinks first. I’d sure as hell feel a lot better with a TER right now.”
“We don’t need no stinking weapons,” the pilot grumbled. “At least that’s what they told us in the brief. We’ve got the Aegis to protect us, right?”
“YeA, the Aegis and a satellite. I’m feeling real secure,” Jamie said.
“You and me both, brother,” Fingers said softly. “You and me both.”
“Keep a close eye on that Flanker,” the captain ordered. “If the balloon goes up, I want to be ready.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” the TAO said. A week ago, he might have been tempted to dismiss the captain’s order as more of the reflexive paranoia he’d come to associate with the man. Now, since the missile shot last week, the CO’s premonitions didn’t seem nearly as unreasonable. Sure, the Chinese were claiming they’d been provoked into firing after the Aegis had locked up their MiG. But with the new cool-down policy, that E-2 had to be feeling awful lonely up there without CAP. No matter that the Admiral thought it’d ease the tensions in the area to stand down the number of flights. He wasn’t the one on the front line.
The TAO was. And he didn’t like the feeling one little bit.
“We’ll be ready, Captain,” he said, keying the Combat circuit as he spoke. A series of clicks cluttered the circuit for a moment, acknowledgment from the other operators. “We are ready,” he amended.
“Phase One,” Tombstone said to Ops. “They know we’re there.”
“Now let’s get them thinking the way we want them to,” he said, glancing at CAG.
“Already scheduled. They’re going to see the Hawkeye relieved every six hours. No tanking, no CAP, just the little ol’ Hawkeye up there all by himself.”
“You’ve got the alert package ready to go?” Ops asked.
“Starting next cycle. We’re skipping this one, giving them some time to look us over and get lulled into the rhythm of it. Get the crews some rest, too. It’s going to be a while before they get that, once we start the next phase.”
“This afternoon,” Tombstone said suddenly. “They’re not going to do anything right now — they’ll have to talk to their staff, try to figure out how to use our operations plan to their own advantage. It’s going to take them a while — I doubt anything is prepositioned on that miserable piece of rock down there. It’s not even above water most of the time, so the self-destruct scenario isn’t going to play.”
“But you think there’ll be another incident,” CAG said. “Something directed at the rock, not at the Hawkeye?”
“I’m betting on it,” Tombstone replied. “Intell agrees with me on this one. China’s not likely to attack us directly, not without some excuse for provocation. As long as Aegis stays under control, and nobody screws up, we won’t give them that excuse. No, they don’t want to attack us — it’s a losing proposition, this far from their shores, with their lousy air refueling skills. Unless they get Vietnam to allow them land-launching permission, China’s aircraft don’t have the legs to reach out and touch us hard.”
“Now if they’d bought that aircraft carrier from Ukraine like they were planning last year, it’d be a different story,” Ops mused. “The Soviet Union was just starting to get the hang of carrier aviation when it collapsed. Those Flankers — I read that they were getting halfway decent at getting on board the Admiral Kutnezsov.”
“It might be, although I’m not convinced they’d be able to operate effectively with it that quickly. Certainly not run flight ops the way we do, not without a sizable contingent of Russian crew members. And somehow I just don’t see Russia getting in the middle of this, not with all the problems they’ve got at home,” Tombstone replied.
“Still don’t like sending the Hawkeye out like that,” CAG said somberly.
Tombstone glanced at him. In a few years, CAG might have the opportunity to find out for himself how it felt to have to order a Hawkeye out alone. Until then, he wouldn’t know if he could do it, wouldn’t understand the true burden of command.
Tombstone knew he hadn’t.
CHAPTER 18
The battle group settled into standard cyclic operations quickly.
Spratly Island surveillance missions by the Hawkeyes were launched every five hours, each flight following exactly the same patrol pattern. Every eight hours, one lone fighter left the deck, occasionally accompanied by a tanker. The Hawkeyes went north, the fighters south, and neither intruded on the other’s operating area. Alert birds crowded the deck, crews in cockpits and maintenance technicians doing busywork around them, waiting.
Further north, the Aegis prowled, silently watching the unarmed E-2C’s. Flankers cut lazy circles in the airspace between the Aegis and the carrier, watching the E-2C that watched them.
To the east, Chinese fighters slipped down the coast from the mainland into Vietnam, occasionally cutting
