Skeeter’s hand shot out and he nailed the yellow-shirt on the left side of the man’s face. The blow drove him back and left him sprawled against the metal steps he had just descended. The three other yellow-shirts immediately jumped him and drove him down to the deck, reinstalling the armlock as a permanent part of his anatomy. He might have been a hell of a wrestler, but it was a one-on-one sport?no way he could take all three of them, not unless he could get free.
With his face pinned down to the metal grating, Skeeter saw a pair of brown shoes appear in front of his face. A swath of khaki cloth followed as an officer knelt next to him.
“Before I have them throw you overboard, you might want to consider listening to me for a minute,” a voice said dangerously. “My money is on making you fish food right now, but the chief here thinks there might have been a misunderstanding.”
Skeeter saw an arm gesture over in the direction of one of the yellow-shirts.
“Do you have any idea of what’s going on?”
A slow, cold dread started to seep into Skeeter’s gut. Within ten minutes of embarking on his first real aircraft carrier, he’d managed to get rousted just as though he were still back on the streets of Knoxville, Tennessee. This was the Navy, he reminded himself. It wasn’t a white town that thought that all black boys were up to something they shouldn’t have been, probably a couple of felonies.
Skeeter tried to shake his head, found his cranial still pinned to the deck. “No, sir.” It seemed the only possible answer.
“There’s a Hornet inbound that’s declared an in-flight emergency,” the voice continued coldly. “If you’d been paying attention, you would have seen the yellow-shirts motioning at you to clear the flight line in the fastest manner possible. They were pointing out this ladder to you, my friend. That Hornet’s only two miles out, and if you’d kept going the way you were walking, you’d end up in the engine. And,” the officer added almost as an afterthought, “you’d be dead. Real dead.”
The screaming shriek of a Hornet built to almost unendurable volume, and the entire ship rang as though it had just run ashore. The catwalk beneath Skeeter vibrated, and for one panicky moment he thought it might toss him off and over the side. He heard the Hornet’s roar crescendo, and knew that the pilot was slamming the throttles forward to full military power in case of a bolter. The sound went on and on?for hours, it seemed?and then finally began spooling down. A harsh klaxon sounded.
“Let him up,” the officer said. “Good trap, even if it was the four wire.”
There was one sharp, upward jerk on Skeeter’s trapped arm; then the pressure eased off slowly. A hand stayed on his forearm as though to maintain control in case he continued to act like an idiot.
Skeeter stood slowly and tried to regain some measure of dignity. The four yellow-shirts and one officer were staring at him with grim condemnation. “I didn’t know.” Skeeter tried to make the words sound believable.
The lieutenant nodded. “That was obvious. In the future, keep your head out of your ass.”
The officer turned to the yellow-shirt chief petty officer and said, “Find out where the hell this nugget is supposed to be, and take him there.”
He turned back to Skeeter. “And as soon as you check in, you go directly to your Executive Officer and explain to him or her exactly what just happened out here. If they’ve got any questions, they can call me.”
“Yes, sir.”
Skeeter drew in a deep, shaky breath. God, but he’d screwed the pooch on this one. “And who shall I tell the XO to contact, sir?”
He raised his chin and stared directly into the other officer’s eyes, meeting their glare.
“Lieutenant Commander Bird Dog Robinson,” the other officer said shortly. “I’ll be assigned to the admiral’s staff.”
“Yes, sir.”
Skeeter turned as the chief tugged on his flight suit.
Two other yellow-shirts fell in on either side of him and behind him.
“Aren’t you forgetting something, sir?” the chief asked. He pointed back at the senior officer. “It’s traditional on this ship?when somebody saves your life, a thank-you is in order.”
Skeeter turned back to the other officer. “Thank you, sir.”
The other officer shook his head. “Just stay the fuck out of my way, asshole. I’m not getting killed by some nugget while I’m technically still on shore duty at the War College.”
“How bad is it, Stoney?”
Batman’s face was almost as grave as that of his old lead. “Can she make it to Gaeta?”
Tombstone nodded. “She’s got power and she’s making way. She’s got a couple of tugs alongside as well. If the weather will hold up, I don’t see any problems. The electronics are the main problem, although the EMP damaged some of her engineering-control surfaces as well. Captain Jouett’s worried about the shaft too?says he’s got a bad shaft bearing he thinks may go out soon. Latterly wouldn’t let him keep the ship in port long enough to get it looked at.”
He let loose a deep, gut-wrenching sigh.
“But shipmate, the problems are worse than that.”
Batman looked bitter. “Tell me about it?I’ve been living with that asshole for months now.”
Darkness crossed Tombstone’s face. “Why didn’t you say something?”
Batman snorted. “Would you have, in my shoes? Whine to your old lead about having an asshole for a boss? I don’t think so, Stoney. We didn’t grow up that way.”
“But that ship?Jesus, Batman, you should see it.”
“Captain Jouett is a good man,” Batman answered. “You give him a chance, he’ll give you a ship that can fight.”
“It’s not going to be up to him. Don’t you see, there’s too much damage to her. She hasn’t got a single combat system left intact. The only reason she has any radar at all is they had a spare Furuno stashed below the waterline. Her communications, her data link, her self-defense measures?everything gone.”
Tombstone’s voice was bitter. “Why didn’t we expect this, Batman? We’ve known for years how much damage an EMP blast can do?why weren’t we prepared?”
“Well, the newer ships are, of course. All the Aegis platforms incorporate heavy EMP shielding.”
“That’s not good enough!”
Batman fell silent in the face of his old lead’s rage. It was clear that the specter of the shattered, silent ship had cut deeply into Stoney, and nothing Batman could say or do would change that. As he always had, Stoney would have to puzzle things out for himself. He would, eventually.
But in the meantime, he was sure as hell going to be hard to live with.
“Why don’t we take a look at the things we can do something about?” Batman said to break the uneasy strain in the room. “You’ve brought your staff?I’ve got my people finding them spaces right now.”
Tombstone shook his head slowly. “You’re right, old friend.”
He gestured toward TFCC. “Want to give me a rundown?”
“Now that you mention it.” An odd smile quirked Batman’s face. “I just happen to have a situational brief ready to go.”
“Give it to me in a nutshell?how bad is it?”
Batman drew out a laser pointer and used it to highlight specific contacts on the large-screen display. “Air traffic has resumed between Turkey and Ukraine, though thus far it’s all been inbound from Ukraine to Turkey. The flight plans filed indicate they’re inbound to provide relief?given their expertise after Chernobyl, that makes sense to me.”
“What about that Falcon our Tomcats took a shot at? Is Turkey ready to resume regular freedom-of- navigation operations?”
Batman shook his head. “Lab Rat’s not entirely certain. He’s got some indications that they’re moving to a higher state of readiness?one that we would have expected to see before the shot, not after. But there’s nothing definitive. You know how intel is?if it’s good gouge, it’s too sensitive to tell us.”
“Are Ukrainian flights talking to us? Anything suspicious about their transits?”
