He knew within the first seconds what had happened. This entire body of water was a maze of uncharted pipelines and obstructions. Wrecks from the Gulf War still littered the ocean floor, although most of those were charted. No, it was the truly incomprehensible predilection for these nations to build undersea pipelines and conduits without bothering to inform any international charting agency of their existence. That was undoubtedly what had happened to
As the report began coming in, the XO was relieved to hear that they had apparently suffered a glancing blow to the pipeline. The sonar dome had taken the hardest hit, along with part of the conformal array that ran the length of the hall. But structural integrity had not been breached, and the only real problems were a few broken pipes.
Indeed, the crew suffered more than the submarine. Their bodies were not built to withstand the pressures and impacts that the ship was.
The final casualty count was four seriously injured, and ten minor injuries. Of the serious injuries, the worst was a sailor who had been next to a steam line that had snapped. Fortunately, it was an auxiliary steam line, not the main steam line, although even the lower temperature steam had inflicted third-degree burns over twenty percent of his body. Two broken legs, and a burn from the galley rounded out the collection of serious injuries. The rest were walking wounded — bruises, one greenstick fracture to an arm, and other assorted injuries that could be dealt with onboard.
But the burn patient, Fireman David Harding, was the most critical. According to the doctor, he needed to be in intensive care, in a specialized burn unit. But there was no way to evacuate him short of surfacing and attempting a risky helo transport from the submarine to the carrier outside the Gulf.
The XO glanced over the captain, who was evaluating a damage control report. Had the captain been awake? And if so, did that mean he did not trust his XO? That he left the control room merely to placate the XO, but had remained wide awake and worried in his cabin.
Under the circumstances, it appeared that his concern was justified.
In that moment, the XO was very, very glad he was not in command of the
TEN
It wasn’t until after they were airborne that Rat seriously contemplated whether or not the best course of action would be to shoot Fastball in the back of the head and then punch out. While they were waiting their turn for launch, Fastball started his bitching. He complained about everything from the condition of the cockpit — grease on the instrument panel from a technician’s work — to the slowness of the other pilots in getting on the catapult, to the tight fit of his flight suit, and progressed down the list to a series of comments on the inedibility of lunch served that day. At first, Rat had tried to answer him, but then realized that he was bitching just for the sake of bitching.
Things hadn’t improved any since the launch. According to Fastball, there was no one else in the Navy who knew how to maintain proper station as a wingman except him. Sure, she had to admit he was good — they’d been welded onto Bird Dog’s wing ever since they gained altitude after launch. But it wasn’t like the rest of the squadron pilots were slouches, either.
Finally, she realized what his problem was. After they’d landed and refueled, their Tomcat had been loaded with a ground attack payload instead of antiair weapons. And, from Fastball’s perspective, that signified a lack of confidence on the part of CAG, especially since they’d just proved their worth in ACM. The real fighters were just that — fighters. With fighter weapons. Sidewinders, AMRAAM, and Phoenix and Sparrows. Not bombs, laser guided or otherwise. Additionally, he complained that the weight and shape of the bomb payload made a marked difference in the Tomcat’s aerodynamic handling. Although Rat couldn’t see much of the difference, she wasn’t a pilot.
Did Gator have to put up with this from Bird Dog? The exploits of the two during their earlier days were legendary, and she often heard Gator moaning about his life as Bird Dog’s backseater. And while Fastball was no Bird Dog — not yet, anyway — he sounded an awful lot like the stories Gator told.
Finally, when she could take it no more, she said, “What’s the matter, can’t you fly this thing without moving your lips?”
“And I suppose you’re happy about this,” Fastball retorted. “Yes, that’s it probably there’s a whole lot less chance of the seeing action with this load-out, isn’t there? You chicken, Rat? Is that it?”
For moment, Rat was too purely stunned to speak. Then the anger started, curling around her gut, building up through her chest until she could feel the veins in her forehead popping out. She clamped her hands down on the side of her seat, willing herself not to unbuckle her ejection harness and crawl through the space between the front seat and the canopy to choke the living shit out of him.
“I have my hand on the ejection handle,” she announced, aware that her voice sounded cold even with all the rage boiling inside of her. “You have five seconds to take that remark back. After that, you can practice your speech to CAG explaining why you returned to the carrier without your backseater. Because I’ll be damned if I’ll fly with a pilot who thinks I’m a coward.”
Fastball started to speak, but she interrupted him. “And as for you, you little shithead, if you can’t suck it up and understand that the mission is more important than your testosterone-loaded dreams about aerial combat, then I’m requesting a new pilot as soon as we get back onboard. I don’t fly with people who aren’t team players, asshole. And if it ever there was someone who didn’t understand what the hell he’s doing, it’s you.”
She waited a moment, and said, “Four… Three… Two…”
“Okay, okay,” Fastball said, evidently realizing she was deadly serious. “I’m sorry. You happy now?”
“You’re sorry for what?”
“You’re not a coward, okay? I didn’t mean it like that.”
Suddenly, the radio interrupted their spat. “Tomcats flight, Bird Dog — execute ground attack mission alpha against the following coordinates.” The operations specialist read off a latitude and longitude, concluding with, “Chain-link fences, three small buildings. That’s where the attack came from. The admiral wants — hold on, I’ll quote him exactly — a sheet of fused glass. Any questions?”
“
“Hammer flight, this is the admiral,” Batman broke in. “Bird Dog, I’m counting on you.”
“Roger, sir. You want fused glass, you got fused glass. Although I can’t promise that there won’t be a couple of gaping holes in the middle of it.”
“All right,” Fastball said. “Now this is more like it. Just watch this, Rat. Now you’re going to see a real expert at work.”
Rat had her head buried inside her radar screen mass, working on the exact ingress course, release point, and rollout parameters. The RIOs in the four aircraft traded information, then settled on a plan of action. The pilots might like to believe that they were the important part of this, but each RIO knew that putting metal on target was entirely their problem. As long as the pilots did what they were told, there was a pretty good chance of success — Rat herself was the second runner-up in the squadron bombing accuracy contest.
“Ten minutes,” she said. “Here’s the profile.” She snapped her data picture over to his HUD.
“No problem,” Fastball said. “No problem at all.”
