- ...the Air
Control Officer cocks his head quizzically as a bit of banana-shaped radar video
appears off to the east, over the Zagros. It is in a place where air targets
would not be customarily found. He re-checks his air route overlay on the radar
as the antenna sweeps around again, leaving behind its ghostly trace. No, no air
routes over there. He waits again for the antenna to come around - nothing: The
target has faded. The ACO purses his lips, adjusts his radar gains, and waits
another sweep - nothing, again. A false contact perhaps. But... there it is
again. And again. He rolls his cursors over the display, using his trackball on
the console and tags the target video, eyes narrowing. One more sweep and he'll
have target velocity. His eyes widen in surprise as the computer grinds to its
conclusion. He reaches his hand up to place the boom mic closer to his lips, and
sends his right foot stabbing towards the transmit pedal of his UHF
radio...
0905
-
"Alpha Whiskey, this is Tango.
Designate track number 2536 at Baltimore 125, 30, estimate low, track west.
Speed 500 knots, negative IFF. Probable Iranian TACAIR, point of origin unknown,
suspect Shiraz."
This bit of radio
traffic, and the data link symbology which accompanies it, hits the sea below
like a lightning bolt, and spreads like an electric web around the strike
group:
> In CDC, the third class
operations specialist grunts in surprise, energized suddenly from the
steady-state flat-line of a do-nothing watch to an almost instantaneous state of
poised readiness. He validates the data link symbol injected by the E-2,
forwarding it to the tactical displays in front of the ship's Tactical Action
Officer. To emphasize his point, he talks tersely to the TAO on internal comms.
The TAO quickly assimilates the picture, queries the watch standers over in the
Electronic Warfare module and reaches for a
phone...
> On each ship capable of
air defense, the cruiser and the
Arleigh
Burke-class DDGs, watchful eyes flicker to a
point in space 30 nautical miles southeast of Bushehr (code named "Baltimore,"
on this day). Because of the radar shadowing, only the E-2 has actual radar
awareness of the threat - everyone else depends upon his data linked
track.
> Aboard the
Ticonderoga-class
cruiser, the CO is summoned to Combat Information Center - CIC - and in terse
words from the Force Tactical Action Officer, apprised of the situation. The
cruiser CO is "Whiskey," the strike group's designated air defense commander. He
looks at the linked target, measures the distance from its location to the
carrier, the high value unit, centerpiece of the force and his only reason for
existence. He does some quick mental time/distance math, how quickly a threat
might be in weapons release range and examines his options: At this hour of the
day, he has no airborne fighter assets. His only resources are strapped on the
carrier's deck, 5 miles to his southwest. He is aware that the carrier is in the
midst of an at sea refueling. He knows that calling for the alert to launch will
raise hell over there, and interrupt that refueling, and maybe foul the deck for
the mid-day close air support launch. He knows that men on the ground will be
counting on that CAS launch. But those concerns are for the carrier CO and
strike group commander to concern themselves with. He is the air defense
commander - he has his responsibilities, and if necessary for the greater good,
he is willing to be over-ruled. He picks up a red phone, and speaks on the
encrypted satellite command net known as Strike Group Command: "Alpha Romeo,
Alpha Whiskey - launch the alert
fighters."
> Aboard the carrier,
the CO picks the phone up in Aux Conn. He weighs the TAO's words, weighs their
position alongside, weighs the amount of fuel he has already taken on. Weighs
the number of days until the next opportunity to come alongside the oiler. He
checks the winds, hopefully. But no. Twenty degrees to port - no chance to
launch the alert while still connected to the oiler. Twenty degrees would be a
mere nothing in ordinary times, when free to maneuver, but it would be a
lifetime while connected and turning together in half degree increments, engines
surging forward and back to stabilized the different turning radii. No. He
purses his lips, raises his head and shakes it slightly. No, it would never do.
The decision is made, even before the admiral can call from TFCC. The Captain
turns to the conning officer and says lightly, as if unconcerned, "Emergency
break-away. Do it."
> In Flight
Deck Control, where rests a scale model of the flight deck, with miniature
aircraft planforms on every spot an actual aircraft resides, the Aircraft
Handling Officer, known throughout the ship as the "Handler," swears urgently,
passionately. He enlisted as a Sailor nearly 30 years ago. He was selected from
among his peers to be commissioned as an officer of the line. He has grown up
moving aircraft upon the hideously expensive real estate of an aircraft carrier
deck. He knows where each one goes without interfering with the others, how to
get fuel to it, how to get ordnance to it, how to get it down on the deck edge
elevators to the hangar deck for sustained maintenance, where he can spread
wings for missile checks, where the fire fighting gear goes, and a thousand
other pieces of critically important knowledge that no one else, not the
Captain, not the Air Boss, for whom he works, can replicate. The Handler is,
quite literally, irreplaceable.
And
he is pissed.
The wing stopped flying
last night at 2330. His yellow shirts got done putting the jets in place for
tomorrow's refueling, with starboard side jets pushed well inboard, to prevent
interfering with the refueling rigs. This also included spotting the alerts and
all of this went down at 0200. On four hours sleep, a quarter of them came back
to the roof at sunrise to help the fighter crews set the alert. When the word
gets passed over the loudspeaker to launch the alert, these last come alive like
zombies from their several places of respite, and dash with staggered steps to
their launch stations.
Things aren't
so simple for the Handler. In his mind, he's already past the launch, and
thinking about the recovery. He's thinking about having to recover an alert
fighter, and maybe its tanker, an hour and a half later. Just prior to the
scheduled CAS launch. Knowing that would be the first launch of the day, with
all the aircraft in the wing (save one, alas!) on deck, he would have loved some
space on the angle deck to spot for the launch. But with a recovering fighter, a
good post-refueling deck spot is an impossibility. This will be a horrible
snarl, 90 minutes later, but there's nothing he can do.
> Down on deck, in the alert
fighter, the lieutenant is sound asleep and dreaming of that Irish girl in Hong
Kong, thinking of the things he might have said, instead of that which he did,
wondering, in his dream like fugue, if it might have made a difference. He hears
a thumping sound, and in his dream, he transmutes its meaning, smiling
lasciviously. But the sound continues, grows, will not be denied. He awakens
abruptly to the sound of a plane captain thumping on the side of his fuselage,
screaming at him, "Sir, sir! - We're launching the alert! You're a
go!"
He snaps awake, and curses.
Looks over to his prospective wingman, another alert pilot from a sister
squadron, already spinning his auxiliary power unit. Cursing again, he signals
his plane captain to clear underneath, and cranks his own APU. He will not be
beaten airborne.
> In CDC, the
third class operations specialist picks up his gouge card, and reads the first
warning on Military Air Distress, a frequency that all tactical aircraft are
required to monitor: "Unidentified aircraft 30 miles southeast of Bushehr, speed
500 knots, heading 250: You are approaching U.S. naval warships operating in
international waters. Your identity is unknown, your intentions are unclear.
Request you alter course to the south to maintain a safe
distance."
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." - John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Ceasar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friederich Nietzsche
