member of the bridge crew could hear. “We’re saving lives. No aircrews shot down, no SAR missions, just ordnance on target.” He took another sip of coffee, silently assessing the impact of his words. “We don’t want to do too well, though.
The aviators will be after our commands.”
The small joke, which referred to the requirement under law that an aviator be in command of an aircraft carrier, provoked a flurry of nervous chuckles from the crew. None of them would have put it past the naval aviators. Not at all.
The OOD cleared his throat. “Captain, they’re asking for you in Combat. If it’s convenient.”
Captain Heather sighed. He drained the last of his coffee, climbed carefully down from his chair, and handed the empty ceramic mug to the quartermaster on watch. “Stick this in a drawer for me, will you?
I’ll be back up for a refill after we shoot.”
The quartermaster nodded and wedged the cup between two volumes of Button’s Navigation in the bookshelf behind him. “It will be right here where you can get to it, Captain.”
It was odd, he thought as he strode back to Combat, how small things seemed to reassure the crew. The fact that he would soon be back on the bridge, having a refill on his cup of coffee, steadied them.
He wished it could do the same for him.
The ancient Foxtrot diesel submarine moored to the pier was rust-streaked and battered. It had been five years since she’d last done anything more than turn over her engines on routine maintenance, longer than that since her last operational mission. A long-ago gift from the Soviet Union, she served mainly as a source of electrical power for other ships tied up at the pier, a naval war vessel in name only.
From the conning tower, a thick steel pipe rose ten feet in the air.
In contrast to the rest of the submarine, it looked smooth and well maintained. Not unusual, given the fact that the rusted and corroded snorkel mast had been replaced the day before. As first one and then another of the Kolumna diesel engines kicked over, black smoke belched out of the mast, fouling the air around the submarine and settling in a fetid pool on top of the water. The line handlers standing along the pier choked and tried to cover their noses with wet cloths.
As the engineers warmed up the engines and adjusted the fuel mix feeding into them the exhaust gradually cleared.
The gentle breeze wafted away most of the fumes, and the sailors soon grew accustomed to the smell of half-burnt diesel fuel.
Finally, three hours after she’d lit her first engine, with her batteries fully charged, the Foxtrot was ready. The sailors first singled up the lines, leaving only one set of Manila lines holding the Foxtrot to the pier. Then, following the orders of the officer in the conning tower, they cast off the remaining lines one by one. The roar of the diesel engines increased, vibrating through the steel mounts that bolted them to the decks, through the hull and the water around it.
Despite the noise, the fumes, and the somewhat unbelievable possibility that the Foxtrot would actually get under way and conduct a mission, each sailor watching her felt a stirring of national pride. No, it wasn’t a Los Angeles attack class, not even a Soviet Union Victor SSN, but it was a submarine. And it was theirs. It didn’t take a nuclear submarine to execute this most simple and ancient of naval missions minelaying.
“The missile sites, obviously,” the Army said decisively.
“After all, that’s what this entire conflict is about.”
“Are you mad?” the Air Force argued. “Without proper satellite coverage, those civilian reporters could be right at ground zero. We’d never know it.”
“We’ve been through this,” the chairman snapped. “There are only two possible targets the missile sites or the base itself.”
“The missile sites,” the CNO said. He pointed to the tactical display in front of them. The Arsenal ship, marked with its distinctive symbol, as well as the possible target sites were all cleanly laid out with distance vectors and estimated areas of damage shown. “It’s a conventional weapon, not a nuke. With plenty of need for accuracy.”
“The President wants to avoid killing our own people,” the chairman said finally. “The only way we can be sure of that is to hit the ships and the pier. There’s no indication that they’re holding them there.”
“They could be anywhere,” the Air Force railed. “Our satellite ” “It’s the missile sites, of course,” the Navy said wearily.
He reached out one stubby finger and touched the red firing button.
“And we’ll do it from here.”
The room was decidedly frostier than it had been the previous week. Ambassador Wexler glanced around at the faces at the table, sighed, and tapped the note cards containing the gist of her speech on the podium in front of her. No, this wasn’t going to be an easy sell. The broadcast from ACN had done its damage.
Every nation there, even the ones that counted themselves as the United States’ historical friends, was ready to believe the worst of the giant democracy to their north.
“I know you’ve all seen the broadcasts. What ACN has done is misinterpret the entire operation. What you saw was merely a reconnaissance mission, not the preliminary to a_” “An invasion,” the Cuban ambassador thundered. He shot to his feet as though rocket-propelled. He pointed a finger at her, righteous indignation blazing in his face. “You have wanted to for centuries, admit it.
America covets Cuban soil. Well, you won’t get it not now, not then, not ever!
You push us too far, Madame Ambassador, thinking we have no means to respond to your aggression. Well, the United States is not the only powerful country in the world. There are others who support our right to self- determination, our independence. Push us again” “Oh, stop this nonsense,” she snapped, unable to contain herself any longer. “We know who your playmates are now.
And if you think you’ll find your new Libyan masters any easier to manipulate than your Soviet ones, you should reconsider carefully.”
“Playmates! How dare you characterize an international diplomatic relationship such as ours as that of mere ‘playmates’?”
The representatives of the other tiny nations glanced uneasily at one another. There was too much truth to what both sides were saying.
None of them would have welcomed an armed, covert intrusion onto their own soil, and each could understand Cuba’s outrage. Still, the presence of Libyan forces so near to their own soil had prompted more than one ambassador to call his or her sovereign. It was, at best, an uneasy waiting game at worst, a powder keg rolling toward an open flame.
“You have longrange missiles in Cuba aimed at the United States,” Wexler continued. “Don’t think we’ll tolerate this.”
“If your missile strikes are as accurate and powerful as you believe, then there are no more missiles in Cuba,” the Cuban ambassador shot back bitterly. “But I think such is not the case. Here,” he continued, passing out enlarged photographs to the rest of the representatives, “this is what you hit. Armed men in painted faces coming ashore your country at night. Is that what we want from the United States?”
“And this is the reason!” Ambassador Wexler began passing around photos other own. They lacked the dramatic intensity of the Cuban’s, but they made a point. Even the representatives from the less sophisticated countries knew enough to identify the boxy structures captured in the satellite photo. “How many of you feel safe with these on Cuban soil?”
The meeting degenerated into charge and countercharge, with both sides claiming victory at the end of the argument.
Really, it had been less a diplomatic effort than a barroom brawl.
