Island Warriors

individually crafted cradles, the water drained out of the dock so her entire hull was exposed. In dry dock, the carrier looked more like an office building than ever before. She was massive, overshadowing every other structure around, an imposing figure. It seemed impossible that she was upright, supported only by the cradles, ripped from the sea to stand naked and exposed to the world.

“The old girl has seen better days,” Tombstone said quietly.

“Yes. But it’s not as bad as it looks, they say. Another week, and she’ll be back together.”

To an aviator, an aircraft carrier was a shape-shifting creature of magic. At night, to an approaching pilot hoping desperately for the first glimpse of her lights through foul weather, Jefferson seemed impossibly small, a mere postage stamp in a vast ocean. In every approach Tombstone had ever made, there had been one fragile moment when it seemed inconceivable that the massive aircraft strapped on his ass could somehow land on that deck that looked so short.

But that moment passed in an instant, and within seconds, Jefferson looked like a granite cliff, massive and inhospitable. Her stern would rise up from the ocean almost one hundred feet, depending on how the waves caught her and how heavily laden she was. She stretched several football fields in length. Below the water line, there were another eight decks, in addition to the twelve above the water line, and that wasn’t even taking into account the height of her antennas and radar masts. Her deck was massive, stretching out for miles and miles, and finding the elusive three-wire seemed the proverbial needle in a haystack.

Once you were onboard again, Jefferson shrank by a factor of ten. Aircraft from eight squadrons crowded her deck and hangar space, and with thousands of sailors and officers running over her exposed surface, repairing, preparing for launch flight, and directing the aircraft around on the hot nonskid of her flight deck it seemed impossible to taxi to your appointed spot without sucking at least a dozen of them down your jet intakes.

And it didn’t end there. Even when you weren’t flying, Jefferson seemed impossibly larger on the inside than on the outside. Few people on the ship had been to every compartment — in fact, most sailors had never even visited each of her decks. The decks below the waterline that held her machinery, nuclear reactor, and everything that kept her steaming through the ocean in excess of thirty-five knots, was well out of the way for most except engineers. Above that, the decks were crowded with enlisted berthing and the enlisted dining facility, as well as some officers’ quarters. Then the 03 level, the one immediately below the flight deck. That housed the guts of the combat capabilities. Forward, the ship’s combat direction center, staffed by ship’s personnel, coordinated the actions of the battle group. Six decks above, the ASW commander, or Des Ron, took control of the undersea warfare battle, coordinating flights of S-3B and other antisubmarine warfare aircraft and assets, including helos and surface-ship towed arrays and sonars.

Back on the 03 level, aft of the ship’s CDC, were the flag spaces. They were curtained off from the rest of the passageway by blue plastic curtains pulled back to each side. They were sometimes tied back to provide passageway, but other times met in the middle. The tile on the deck there, too, was blue. Blue meant flag spaces — ship’s personnel were to steer clear and use the long passageway on the other side of the ship rather than trespass on that ground.

The blue tile area was short compared to the rest of ship, housing all the administrative and combat functions of the admiral’s staff. Both Tombstone and Batman had filled that billet, Tombstone first being pressed suddenly into power from his billet at CAG. Batman had just spent two years as the admiral in command of the battle group, and was still technically embarked on the battered ship.

The blue tile passageway was where elephants danced, and the rest of the ship ventured in there at their own peril. The short stretch of office space housed not only the admiral, but the Carrier Air Wing Commander as well. Technically, his billet should have been abbreviated as CAW, but the historic acronym for the earlier title of Carrier Air Group commander stuck even after changes in command structure rendered it obsolete. The senior, post-command Navy captains that filled the new billet were convinced to a man that CAW sounded exceptionally — well — stupid, although they’d generally phrased that thought in more traditionally colorful language.

The CAG owned all the aircraft onboard the carrier, and he was the immediate superior of each one of the individual squadron commanding officers. He, in turn, reported to the admiral onboard, the Carrier Battle Group Commander, and it was CAG’s responsibility to task missions and sorties to support the CVBG’s plans.

The final elephant dancing onboard the carrier was the carrier’s commanding officer, also a senior, post- command aviator captain as fully qualified as the CAG to run flight operations. In contrast to the CAG, the carrier CO owned the airfield just overhead the flag spaces as well as all the non-squadron maintenance facilities onboard. The ship’s CO also provided the infrastructure for the squadrons and the battle group staff in the form of messing and berthing for all the officers and sailors, medical, dental and religious staffs, communications and the carrier intelligence center, or CVIC. Both the CAG and the ship’s CO were normally rising stars, ones that could reasonably expect to rise to admiral rank and someday own the coveted blue tile passageway themselves.

But Jefferson’s last deployment might have permanently benched the CAG and ship’s CO. Batman had been in command as Battle Group Commander when Jefferson had taken the fatal shot, trapped in the Gulf during what looked to be a final flare-up in the Middle East. As Jefferson escaped the confined waters, she had hit a mine that the mine sweeper had missed. The resulting damage put her out of action, and brought her back here to the shipyards and had probably put a fatal black mark on the CAG and CO’s records.

“The keel is okay, it’s mostly the steel plates. Some damage to one shaft.” Batman’s voice was soft. “I hate to turn her over to anyone else in that shape, Stony.”

“Where do you go from here?” Tombstone asked.

Batman shook his head. “No word yet. The more senior you get, the harder it is to figure out the billets. And getting Jefferson all banged up while I was in command doesn’t help any.”

“You thought about retiring?” Tombstone asked.

“Yeah. I know I’ll have to some time — hey, if you can do it, I can too.” Batman tried on a smile that didn’t fit too well. “Nothing’s decided yet… for now, I’m overseeing her repairs, awaiting further assignment.”

They were silent for a moment, surveying the damage. Technicians scurried around her massive flanks like ants, clinging to scaffolding and ladders. The last of several massive steel plates was being lifted into place, where it would be riveted and welded to complete the repairs. Further down the pier, the damaged plates were piled up like giant potato chips, impossibly warped, burnt and twisted.

“Good thing the United States is ahead of schedule,” Tombstone said. “She can fill the gap, at least for a while. Until Jefferson is repaired.”

The newest addition to America’s nuclear ship arsenal was moored four piers away, and she was a stark contrast to the battered Jefferson. The USS United States had yet to see action, and her hull showed it. She was pristine, gleaming in the spring morning, still waiting for a final coat of haze gray paint that would help her blend into the horizon. Her radar antennas were glistening black, her pennants and fittings impossibly clean.

It wasn’t that Jefferson had been a dirty ship — far from it. But after a decade of being on the front lines of every conflict in the world, her age was starting to show. She had seen more action than any aircraft carrier since the world wars, and although she had held up well, there was no magical potion to restore the fresh gleam of youth to her cheeks. The new steel plates stood out smooth and unblemished like scars against the rest of her worn, oxidized hull.

“United States starts her sea trials today,” Batman said reflectively, turning the conversation away from himself. There was too much uncertainty in the future — he didn’t want to be reminded of it. “Remember those days?”

Tombstone groaned. “Do I ever. Long days, longer nights — God save me from ever having to do sea trials again.”

“I don’t think we’re in much danger of having to.” Batman’s voice was grave. He turned to his old lead and said, “So when are you going to tell me something about this?”

Tombstone shook his head. “When I can, I will.”

As Tombstone made his way home, his mind was racing over the possibilities. For the last two weeks, his uncle and he had been going over every conceivable scenario that might require the services of a covert air group. Between the two of them, they figured they covered most of the bases. Now they were in the final stages of contacting candidates for staff positions and asking them if they were interested in something very, very secret and