The Edge of Honor (32 page)

“Remotely possible, yes, sir. But if the target was evading, the Terrier had almost no kinetic energy left to chase him.”

“Shit, I’ll take a possible; sounds a hell of a lot better than a miss, right, XO? Count, tell Alfa Whiskey we have a possible kill.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” He turned to Garuda. “SWIC record the latitude/longitude of the computed intercept point.

Maybe we can get a recce run in that area, see if there’s a downed aircraft on the outskirts of that airfield.”

“Unload the launcher, Chief,” Brian ordered.

“Unloading the launcher.”

The following morning after breakfast, Brian was talking to his departmental officers at morning quarters when the exec walked over.

“Need to talk at you soon as you’re finished here,” he said.

“I think we’re done, XO. Jack, get the fo’c’sle cleaned up today; we need to get that booster burn mark off the paint.”

The officers dispersed to their divisions and Brian joined the exec on one side of the midships area. There was enough of a sea breeze to require a hand hold on their ball caps. The exec handed Brian a one page-message.

“This just came in.”

Brian scanned it and whistled. “Personal For from CTF Seventy-seven; looks like the admiral is not happy with us.”

“That’s putting it mildly. Captain needs you to draft a technical defense of our missile firing last night. He’ll put the right political twist on it, but he wants the technical stuff from you.”

Brian reread the message. The admiral was taking issue with the use of Terrier missiles at what appeared to be an excessive range and inconsistent tactical geometry. He was also unhappy with the idea of shooting at Migs that were not doing anything overtly hostile.

“Tough to defend, XO. The missile systems are programmed to ignore crossing targets—by definition, if he’s flying by, he’s not a threat.

This guy was barely brushing up against the envelope. Basically, it was a wasted shot.”

“Wrong answer, bucko. See, there’s a political dimension to this. These aviator admirals want Mig kills to be the exclusive province of carrier aviation. Nobody gets to be an ace when a surface ship bags a Mig. As you can see there, he thinks we should have tanked the BARCAP to minimum package, brought ‘em back, and gone after the Migs with CAP.”

Brian nodded. He had heard senior officers talking about the tension between the surface Navy and the aviator Navy. The carrier admirals took pains to point out at every opportunity that the surface ships assigned to the Gulf were subordinate to the mission of the carriers, an assertion that had the merit of being true. Despite the harrumphing and ahems of the surface Navy, the basic role of the PIRAZ ship was to protect the carriers.

“Yes, sir, I’ll try to think of something. Although if there’s anyone down there on the staff who’s been to missile school or had G-ship experience, it won’t wash.”

“We’ll worry about that problem when and if it arises.

Draft a reply; bring it to me. I’ll take it up the line. And we need it this morning. I know you’re beat from the midwatch—give it thirty minutes and bring it to me. Then you can hit your tree.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Brian went down to the wardroom for coffee. He usually drank no coffee at breakfast so that he could sleep. His eyes were burning from having been up since 2315 the previous night. He knew that his brain was not at its highest level of acuity, which made the problem of responding to the message doubly hard. He reread the Personal For as he waited for the steward to bring out some fresh coffee. Garuda Barry was sitting over in one corner, reading his own stack of message traffic. He looked up inquisitively at Brian.

“Get a Dear John?”

Brian laughed even as a corner of his mind tilted at the thought. “No, this is a Personal For from CTF Seventy-seven.”

“Oh, hate mail.” Garuda went back to his message stack, silently acknowledging that his right to pry ended at Personal For messages.

Brian got a cup of coffee and walked over to Garuda’s corner of the wardroom. He could not technically let Garuda see the message, but he did want advice. He sat down on the couch opposite Garuda and waited for a few seconds until Garuda looked back up at him.

“Garuda, I’ve been given this, uh, task to do. XO wants me to draft a reply to this Personal For.”

“Yes, sir?”

“And, my problem is that basically, CTF Seventy seven says we shouldn’t have fired that missile last night.

The XO says he wants me to write a ‘technical defense’ of what we did.

Now, you’re pretty checked out on the whole NTDS system, including the weapons side, right?”

Garuda nodded, sat back, and fished for a cigarette.

He took a little longer than usual, as if mustering his thoughts. He lighted up, producing a cloud of blue smoke that he had to wave away from his face. He squinted through the smoke but said nothing, inviting Brian to continue.

“Well, my problem is that, technically, the shot we took last night is indefensible. The target was never really in the envelope because it was either crossing oroutbound during the entire engagement. And now I’m not sure what the hell to say.”

“You keep on with that, Mr. Holcomb, that’ll be two wrong answers.”

“Two?”

“Yes, sir. Like last night, when you said it was a no go, that was the first wrong answer. Old Man didn’t want to hear that.”

“So I gathered; everybody looked at me like I’d farted in church.”

Garuda grinned, then got serious. “The way out is the fact that, technically, he went from unknown to hostile.

t When he made that turn to the east and pointed his nose m at us, I redesignated him hostile, remember? Second, he came feet-wet in the process of that turn. You know and I know he was probably just turning around to go back to his base at Vinh, but, technically, when he pointed at us and came feet-wet, he was our meat. So we can claim rules of engagement as the reason why we fired, and because he was probably a Mig of some kind, based on his loiter speed, we had every right to engage earlier rather than later.”

“Yeah, but that makes it sound like he steadied up and headed in at us.

We both know that the speed-leader arrow on the scope never stopped turning.”

(“Yeah, but Alfa Whiskey probably does not know that, and can’t know it unless he asks for reconstruction or an NTDS data extract on that time period. That would take weeks.” Brian sighed in exasperation. “I see what you’re saying.

But, god damn it, it’s not true. That Mig never did present a threat.

And, if I understand it, the Migs have never presented a threat to the ships out here—they’ve defended their airspace against our attacks, but only when our planes come in over the beach at them.”

Garuda raised his eyebrows. “With all due respect, Mr. Holcomb, I thought what you wanted was the right answer, something to put in your message.”

Brian studied the carpet. He knew that Garuda was absolutely right. What was needed here was a right answer. He was dead tired and tried unsuccessfully to suppress a yawn.

“Mr. Holcomb, can I give you some advice? I’m just a warrant officer, and you’re a department head, but I got about ten years of PACFLEET time on you. Way I see it, you shouldn’t be wastin’ a whole lot of time on this. Lay it put like I just told you, add some stuff about the target being engageable based on the geometry at the time of the decision to shoot, and that only after we had birds away did the geometry change, probably when the Mig’s ESM systems detected the illuminator beam.

That’s it.

No more, no less. Then let the XO and the captain wordsmith it and put some political paint on it.”

“Even if I don’t believe it?”

Garuda paused to take a final huge drag on his cigarette and stub it out in the ashtray. He rubbed his chin as he thought about his answer.

“Lemme put it this way: The Hood ain’t like a destroyer.

Most ships aren’t in the big game that we’re in.

It’s a big show, see, this whole Red Crown deal, Attack Carrier Task Force Seventy-seven, the Gulf. It’s the biggest show in the Navy, and lotsa people’re lookin’ for time on the stage, okay? What you’ve got there is part of the old aviator-surface guy contest, the brown shoes versus the black shoes. We black shoes don’t want to ever let the aviators catch us fuckin’ up, because that gives ‘em points to say that they always gotta be in charge, ‘cause they got the biggest ship out there, the carrier, see? You gonna be an evaluator on the Red Crown station, you gotta be conscious of that contest, all the fuckin’ time, ‘cause that staff down there is always gonna be second-guessin’ everything we do up here, just like CINCPAC, back in Pearl there, is second-guessin’ everything that carrier admiral does, and Tricky Dicky and the Joint Chiefs are second-guessin’ old CINCPAC.”

“You make it sound like this is all just one big game.”

“Well, it ain’t a game when we do strike following or when we delouse a gaggle of F-Fours on their way back to the bird farm, or when some guy jumps out of a jet at thirty thousand feet ‘cause it happens to be blowing up. But the politics, that’s always there, sitting in the background of everything we do out here. You just gotta keep this question in mind: Is what I’m about to do or say gonna make us look bad?

If you think it might, you ask the captain if we oughta do it. And if we do fuck up, you look for a way to make it look like less of a fuckup, or maybe even no fuckup at all, ‘cause those staff guys are always lookin’.

Like that captain who flew up here, unannounced, you remember, to snoop around about the Sea Dragon deal.”

Brian looked at him for a moment. He had enough time in the Navy to know that all of this was not really news.

The ship is your family. You look after your family.

“Okay, I hear that. And I don’t argue it except for one thing: If we continually cover our mistakes, we’ll start to believe our own bullshit.

When real trouble comes, we’re gonna hurt somebody.”

Garuda shrugged. “Yeah, well, we do the best we can, Mr. Holcomb. That’s all I can tell you. We do the best we can with what we have. I’ve been on here for going on two years, and that’s the right answer.”

Brian nodded. “Okay, you’re right. And thanks, Garuda.

I appreciate the input—and the help.”

Brian went topside to his stateroom and drafted the reply to the message, printing it out on a yellow legal pad, using the arguments put forward by Garuda. Then he headed out to find the exec. One of the radarmen said that the XO was in Combat, so Brian climbed up one more level. The exec was not in Combat, as it turned out, but Brian had an inspiration; he asked Austin to read the Personal For and then his draft reply.

“I’ve seen the Personal For,” muttered Austin. “The RMC makes sure I see everything going through Radio unless the CO or the XO specifically says no. Now, let’s see what you’ve got here.”

He scanned Brian’s draft reply, nodding slowly as he read through it.

Brian stifled another yawn. He was rapidly losing his morning sleep window. He would either have to get some more coffee or climb into his tree pretty quick.

“Not bad, not bad,” Austin said. “Change this word to urgency; otherwise, I think you’ve got it right. I’ll even chop it.” He initialed the draft and, lowering his voice, said, “I think maybe you’re starting to get the picture here.”

“Well, this isn’t especially true, but it sounds plausible.”

“Precisely.” Austin eyed Brian for a moment over the message draft. “You resent having to do this, don’t you?”

“In a way. That shot was a waste.”

Austin handed him back the message draft. “Mechanically, you may be correct. But consider this: What the captain did last night was, at one level of abstraction, an exercise in independent command authority. In his best command judgment, which he and he alone is paid to exercise in this ship, it was necessary to fire a missile at an enemy aircraft. He didn’t call down to CTF Seventy seven and ask permission; he just did it. That Personal For is the admiral’s way of expressing his resentment of the captain’s exercise of independent command authority.

You do acknowledge the captain’s authority?”

“Of course. But—”

“Let me finish. Part of what he was doing—because I admit he wanted to bag a Mig; we all do—but part of what he was doing was to assert his authority to make a decision to fire a missile. That staff down there on the carrier wants us to ask permission before we do anything. We ever get into a real mess up here, we won’t have time to go ask Mommy if we can go potty. We’ll just do it and hope to hell all that expensive gear of yours and mine works and that nobody’s smoking dope in the missile magazine. You may disapprove on technical grounds, but the captain’s assertion of independent tactical authority from time to time might be vital to our survival up here someday, especially if it’s you in the hot seat when it goes down. That help your attitude about writing this message?”

Brian considered Austin’s argument, which certainly sounded better than Garuda’s. He suddenly felt very much more like a lieutenant talking to a lieutenant commander than one department head to another. He felt a wave of dismay at how much he had to learn.

“I guess it does,” he answered. He exhaled. “This WESTPAC Navy is very different from what I’m used to.”

“I’ll tell you a little secret, Mr. Holcomb. Consider it a freebie: Politically, there’s no difference whatsoever.

You’re just having to face up to it for the first time, because you’re now an evaluator and a department head in a PIRAZ ship. Now you better find the exec.”

Brian used the ship’s phone to dial the exec’s stateroom number and found him in. He went down and aft to I get to the exec’s stateroom and handed in the message draft. The exec asked him to sit down while he read it.

He nodded when he was finished.

“Good. That should do it. And I see you got the Count’s chop. That was smart. Anytime you get a sensitive or important message to do, you run it by Ops. He knows the ins and outs of WESTPAC politics cold.”

“Yes, sir. We talked. I was kind of surprised at the political dimension of all this. I guess I’m still feeling my way around. In Decatur, any message I wrote as Weps was just a message.”