DAN scrunched tensely in the little passenger seat, hardly daring to look back as the ship fell astern. The electric motors whirred composite blades into black disks. He was alone, except for two lightweight torpedoes slung on the cargo points. No pilot. And no semblance of controls in his cramped bubble cockpit.
The ship shrank to a gray dot. The machine tilted forward and gathered speed, skimming two hundred feet above a gray-green sea. He fought panic. Since being shot down in a helo during Operation Recoil, he liked flying a lot less.
Twenty minutes, he told himself. Only a twenty minutes’ flight. You can stand that.
The Harveys—UHARVs, Unmanned Heavy Aerial Resupply Vehicles—were recent arrivals in the fleet. Developed from General Atomics’ close air support UAVs, they were intended to eliminate the lengthy, dangerous procedures for ship-to-ship resupply and personnel transfer. Instead of hours of straight-line steaming a hundred feet apart, any ship with a pad could transfer ordnance, parts, personnel, and ammunition to another. Or receive resupply from shore, if it was within range. The Harveys had enough lift to tote a full-sized Alliance missile booster.
No pilot … but the takeoff had been smooth enough. A quick run-up of nearly silent motors, then a gut-wrenched launch straight up off the flight deck. A canting, a rapid climb … and now he was fleeing west sixty fathoms up, clutching the handholds and trying to talk himself out of screaming aloud. If they went down, Harveys were supposed to float. It wouldn’t be like trying to fight his way out of a flooded, sinking, inverted helicopter, boots kicking at doomed, wounded men strapped helplessly into litters … He shuddered, trying to push that horror out of his mind.
But he couldn’t help remembering a twist of white smoke tipped by white fire. Then a bang, the fuselage lurching, falling—
A slim black needle was threading the waves far below. A Hunter USV, sanitizing the sea around the carrier. So he was almost there … “Barbarian actual, this is Barbarian,” sounded in his earphones.
“Barbarian” was his own former CTF 76 call-sign, reactivated when he’d taken command of this far larger task force. He clutched at the familiarity of his deputy’s voice. “Barbarian actual here. Hey, Fred.”
“Welcome back, Admiral. Hold you ten mikes out. Hang on … ship has visual.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s self-defense lasers doubled as powerful reflecting telescopes. It didn’t add to his sense of security to know a two-hundred-megawatt pulse laser was zeroed on him as well. One miscue and he’d be burnt out of the sky like a gnat hitting a bug zapper. He breathed in, then out. Trying to take his mind to a happy place …
A pinprick on the horizon. It pushed up rapidly, growing into an eye-puzzling array of gray flat slabs, then suddenly, a ship. A supercarrier, powering majestically through gray-green swells. It left a flattened, nearly waveless superhighway behind it on the China Sea. He white-knuckled it through the approach as the drone lined up behind the carrier, selected a landing point, then descended.
Something hissed. He tensed, but the autonomous brain did not fail. The great gray deck, covered with the angular outlines of stealth UAVs and F-35s, slowly extended to blot out the sea. A jostle, a triple thump, and he was down.
A small group waited by the island. His staff. DEPLANE, the touchscreen read. A green light flashed and the windscreen unlocked. He slid it back and the wind hit his face, fierce, hot, thick. Smelling of burnt JP-5 and the sea.
ENZWEILER trotted into the elevator behind him, making it a close fit. The door sealed. Dan grew heavy, then light. “Video teleconference starts in fifteen,” his chief of staff said.
Dan nodded, glancing at his Seiko. He’d spent the morning visiting his COs. This afternoon would be the final confab with the component commanders, the generals and admirals in charge of the Indonesians, Indian, and Vietnamese forces that—along with the US and Australian core units—comprised Task Force 91 and the invasion fleet. “I have time for the staff, right?”
“If we keep it brief. Oh, and Commander Naylor wanted to know was it okay if he sat in. His clearance arrived, by the way.”
Dan smoothed his hair back. Hardly anyone wore caps aboard the carrier. Captain Skinner was a monomaniac about foreign object damage, and the low-mounted engines on the UAVs made it even more critical to prevent FOD. “Who?” he muttered, then remembered. PACOM had assigned a young reservist, one Lynwood Naylor, to his staff as a historian. Before the war he’d been a curator at the Navy Museum in DC. The guy had terrible posture and was rail-thin, but aside from a case of bad breath he was so unobtrusive it was easy to forget he existed. “For the staff conference? If he’s really cleared.” He took another deep breath. “Just keep him the fuck out of the video room afterward, okay?”
The doors opened and Dan stepped out. The air-conditioning was a freezing wall. Faces turned toward him. Everyone stood. He gestured them down. “Carry on, please. Let’s get this started, I have a VTC in fifteen.”
Enzweiler, Kitty Pickles, Sy Osterhaut, Donnie Wenck, Hermelinda Garfinkle-Henriques, Amy Singhe. He’d told BuPers he wanted people he knew for his staff. People who’d tell him the truth, without truckling to the stars he wore so provisionally. Without the truth, he couldn’t make the right decisions. Mistakes were inevitable. But anyone who cared more about his career, his impression, or his ego, than the mission, was undependable. Untrustworthy. And ultimately, useless. Dan had fired men and women, hating to do it, but knowing ruthlessness saved lives in war. They could find other jobs, and maybe the experience, realizing they’d fallen short, would change them for the better.
He might have to fire someone today. He hoped not. But it might be unavoidable.
The briefing started, with Tomlin, the WTI, briefing on the final exercise with Sea Eagle, the multi-domain battle manager they would depend on to fight a sixth-generation engagement. “A rigorous, broadly scaled warfighting checkout,” Tomlin was saying. “We networked eight nodes across five hundred nautical miles and three national platforms, demonstrating robust network management and maintained secure voice, data, and video connectivity against Cyber Command’s Red Cell.”
Dan tried to keep his mind on the brief, but found himself drifting. No. Had to concentrate. As a flag officer, he no longer carried a weapon, the way he had as a junior officer, or at the Tactical Analysis Group. He no longer directed a warship in combat, as he had as a commander and captain.
These days, he planned joint operations. Not nearly as dramatic. Briefings. Discussions. Simulations. Translating Fleet’s, Indo-PaCom’s, and JCS’s intents into a plan that could be executed with the available forces. Managing risk. Insuring against the unforeseen with alternate courses of action. Which meant long hours poring over briefing books, orders of battle, intel on enemy capabilities, and maps. Reviewing the drafts his planners produced. Scheduling tests and exercises to iron out weaknesses. Deconflicting operations. Bounding the theater engagement problem. Puzzling over possible enemy ripostes, and how to guard against them.
Not nearly as dramatic as combat.
But this was his fight now. Commanding the commanders.
Time-sensitive crisis planning, in the face of a dangerous threat and inadquate logistics.
He bit his lips to concentrate as Enzweiler outlined the overall situation. The fall of Taiwan had put optimism into everyone. But the mainland still lay ahead. Even if they were invaded, the Chinese could hold out for years. Vietnam came to mind, and the titanic struggle China had carried on against the Japanese before and during American entry into World War II.
But he couldn’t worry about that. That was for Blair to think about, and the administration she worked for.
He only hoped they were taking it seriously.
“Admiral, TF 91 is beginning the sorties from the various embarkation points. There’ll be no single rendezvous point and no concentration en route. We’ll pick up the various force elements between D minus seven and minus five. Transiting to a position off the Spratleys, we will conduct two practice landings to add experience to the amphibious elements and supporting forces. Meanwhile, the rest of the task force will restage at Cam Ranh Bay, then proceed to the amphibious oparea.”
Dan lifted a finger. “I think we’re up to speed on the big picture, Captain. I’d like to hear what Commander Garfinkle-Henriques has for us on the supply situation.”
His J-4 shuffled notes and cleared her throat. “Sir, the Mount Hood event set our timetable back almost six weeks, and we still haven’t fully recovered. We’ve made intense efforts to restock ammo from CONUS and other sources, but we’ll still be almost twenty-five percent below the original planning points for the operation.”
Don nodded. Even now, no one was sure what had triggered the detonation aboard the ammo ship. Maybe no one ever would. It would join the long list of inexplicable maritime disasters, from the Maine to the Cyclops … He blinked, realizing they were all watching him. He definitely had to get some sleep. But there wouldn’t be much opportunity en route … “Okay, two questions. One: are the practice landings going to be properly covered against attack? And, two, will we have the fuel and ammo in the pipeline to sustain a protracted land battle? I asked those questions before. So far, the answers from Log Force don’t make me happy.
“Bear in mind, we could face a major battle off Hainan. I want adequate fuel. At least double what we calculate as necessary. And we have to support the forces once they’re ashore. I won’t pull back and leave people stranded, like Frank Jack Fletcher did at Guadalcanal.”
Garfinkle-Henriques swallowed. “Double, Admiral? LogForce is planning based on a fifty percent reserve.”
Dan had read Admiral Turner’s report on the capture of the Marianas, the closest analog to Operation Rupture he could find numbers on. “We’ve got a long trip to the objective, Hermelinda. Not just fuel for ships, but hundreds of small craft, drones, the USVs, air cover … I’d rather have double what we need than fall ten percent short.”
The commander looked conflicted. “Sir, remember, preparations for this started two years ago. Two million tons of fuel to Australia. Two hundred tankers chartered. I can try to scrounge more, but frankly, sir, I doubt we’ll get it. Our instructions from Fleet are to economize. Refinery capacity back home—”
“I know, crippled by sabotage. Cyber. And riots. But what about the Indonesians? Brunei?”
“Brunei produces crude, but they don’t refine—”
Dan said, “In War II the Asiatic Fleet burned Brunei crude. Can modern gas turbines run on it? Look harder at regional supply. If we need more tankers, contract for them.” He checked his watch. Five more minutes. “Check thoroughly and see me tonight. Let’s move on to ammo.”
“As I said, the picture’s not good, Admiral. A third of our smart ordnance went up with Mount Hood. The Taiwan battle had priority for new weapons. A major effort to break out older stockpiles, but they’re largely GPS-guided.”
He nodded. “But that’s been down since the outbreak of the war. No retrofit kits?”
“They went to Taiwan.”
Dan frowned. “Has Admiral Custer been helpful, Hermelinda? You shouldn’t be having to dig this out yourself. Logistics Force should be doing most of this for us.”
His supply officer glanced down at her notes. “We’re not, um … getting a lot of cooperation from that end, sir.”
So Rupture was sucking left hind tit on ammo as well. Strapping advanced fighters and UAVs with dumb bombs meant more sorties per target, more exposure, higher loss rates. And more fuel consumption, adding to an already stringent fuel budget. But he couldn’t do anything about that either, apparently.
Lee Custer just wasn’t working out. Resentment at Dan’s elevation over him, or plain lack of application? It didn’t really matter. Tolerating substandard performance wasn’t the way to roll. Not when so many lives depended on it.
Which left one more sticking point. He nodded to a champagne-blond, dark-skinned captain with a dolphin pin on his coveralls. He’d asked for Andy Mangum as his staff submarine liaison. An Academy classmate. They’d worked together before off Korea, then again in the Indian Ocean, when Mangum had been CO of USS San Francisco. “Andy, what about those submerged missile batteries? They clobbered Tim Simko when we went in for the raid. Tell me we found them all.”
Mangum spread his hands. “I can’t guarantee, all. But we found four with the autonomous USVs and plugged in some Mark 48s. As far as we can tell, your route in to the beach is clear.”
“I’m willing to accept some risk. But we’ll have our guardian angels in the basement?”
“You’re covered, Admiral,” Mangum said. “We’ve accounted for every PLAN submarine still active. These still in port, we have Hound Dogs waiting at harbor exits.” Hound Dogs were autonomous torpedoes, with an added helping of cunning and silence. They crept into harbor channels at drift speeds, sank to the muddy bottom, and waited for a specific sound signature. When it came, they ballasted up, started their propulsors, and homed in.
“Sir, it’s time.” Enzweiler, beside him.
Dan got up, nodding to them all. “Cross any Ts, dot any Is. Remember, no operation will go perfectly. The enemy gets a vote. But we need enough margin to persist and overcome.” He sounded stuffy even to himself. Started to explain, then thought: Shut up and let them get to work. He caught an unfamiliar face in the back, and wondered who it was before he remembered: the reservist. The historian.
He nodded again, forced a smile, and followed his deputy toward the VTC room.
THE component commanders’ teleconference was already rolling. Four screens, each showing a face. The backgrounds all much the same: the drab interiors of ships or tents. In the background, men and women before terminals. Only the Indonesian marine’s backdrop was different: the airstrip outside Brunei; a corner of the headquarters prefab at the edge of the picture. “Good afternoon, all,” Dan said. “Admiral Daniel Lenson, US Navy, Task Force 91.”
“Major General Triady Isnanta, Korps Marinir.”
“Admiral Ramidin Madjid, Indonesian Navy.”
“Admiral Vijay Gupta. Commanding Indian Navy operations in the South China Sea.”
The fourth man was new. Dan had met the Vietnamese ground force commander at Cam Ranh. But this guy was pudgier, with what looked like an old burn seaming the side of his face. “Um, we were dealing with General Pham Van Trong.”
“The corrupt running dog Pham Van Trong has been exposed as an enemy of the people. I am his replacement. General Dao.”
“Oh. Um, well, welcome.” Seriously? A purge, now? “Has his staff read you in to the operation? We’re depending on you for the western prong of the landing.”
“I regret to say our regular forces may not be available. Much depends on the present battle.”
Dan opened his mouth to protest, then closed it. The bloodiest engagements of the war so far had been fought in northern Vietnam, where Zhang’s armies had pushed to Hanoi and beyond, to reimpose “historic” imperial boundaries. The fighting had been desperate from the start, and earlier that year the Vietnamese had reeled back under a massive ground offensive. The other Allies had only been able to supply limited help, mainly ammunition, weapons, and fuel through Cam Ranh port, and an Air Force bomb wing with fighter support and security elements out of Da Nang. The first raid on Yulin, Operation Quadrangle, had been designed—at least in part—to relieve pressure on the Vietnamese by forcing the Chinese to pull back forces to defend their own coast.
But this guy was threatening to subtract fully a quarter of the operation’s ground troops from the equation. Dan restrained himself from scratching the prickle of sweat along his scalp. Stay cool, he reminded himself. “General Dao. Hanoi—I mean, the Central Military Commission—made this commitment. We planned on that basis. We depend on—”
“You will have troops.”
He frowned. “We will? But—”
“But they will not be front-line troops. All our regular forces are engaged. You will have southern militia. People’s self-defense forces are mustering. They will embark at Cam Ranh and conduct training aboard ship.” Dao looked off-camera, then back. “If this is not satisfactory, Vietnam cannot participate in Operation Rupture. We are fighting for our lives along the Ho Chi Minh line.”
Which was he guessed where they were holding the Chinese, south of Hanoi. He stifled a scowl—his left prong would be weak, green troops against beefed-up defenses—but saw no alternative. “I understand your situation.—General Isnanta?”
The squat Indonesian sounded glad to announce his news. “As agreed, Indonesia is providing an expeditionary force of three marine divisions. Each has three combat brigades complete with combat and administrative support. The US Marines are providing training in amphibious operations. The US Army is providing reconnaissance, air support, and heavy artillery. Our preparations are on schedule. Our troops are embarking now.”
Dan asided to Gault, “Ask Colonel Osterhaut to sit in on this, sergeant.” To the remaining screens he said, “Admiral Madjid, Admiral Gupta, I hope you can report the same readiness.”
To his relief they both nodded. The Indian said that their newest carrier, Vikramaditya, would be added to the already committed destroyer and submarine escort component, strengthening protection of the transiting invasion forces. Dan briefly considered adding it to his own central strike force, but decided to keep it Japanese and American for interoperability. Anyway, the more air cover the lumbering transports had, the better. “Excellent, Admiral. We will welcome her and her accompanying tanker support, assigning them to TF 91.3.” A hint he hoped Gupta took aboard, that India couldn’t add ships without pushing fuel into the pot as well. “And Admiral Madjid.”
He didn’t remember the Indonesian, but apparently the guy remembered him. From the long hot days of the Tiny Nation Task Force’s wandering transit of the Sulu Sea. Madjid had been a mid-grade officer back then. Now he headed up the amphibious ready group transporting Isnanta’s marines to battle.
TF 91 would be built from three expeditionary strike groups. Two would be centered on US assault carriers, Hornet and Bataan. Madjid’s would be centered on Makassar, Surabya, and Adelaide, now guarded by the Indian carrier, along with Indian and Australian destroyers and submarines.
Dan called up a slide. It was marked TOP SECRET in red, and keyed so each receiving screen showed only a portion of the force’s track. Need to know, even at the general officer level. “The transit to the objective will keep the invasion components dispersed and combat power distributed to the maximum extent possible. This, to minimize detection and the possibility of nuclear strikes, the way the Chinese destroyed our carrier battle group in the opening days of the war. All components will exercise emission control.
“The Indonesian group will leave Brunei on D minus 5. They will restage at Spratley Base, then transit to Paracel Base. A practice landing will take place at Woody Island on D minus four. Two days reembark and restage, then advance to the final assembly area via a route now being sanitized by Allied submarines.
“The Vietnamese group will leave Cam Ranh Bay on D minus 4. They will transit to Paracel base and carry out a practice landing on D minus three.
“If preparations are detected for enemy spoiling attacks, the rehearsal landings will not be carried out.
“The main group will arrive off Hainan on D minus one and carry out heavy strikes to suppress resistance at the landing points”—he toggled to a map of Hainan—“Here, and here. They’ll cover the landings on D-day and resupply thereafter. Once General Isnanta is established ashore, I’ll transfer command to him as CLF. He will direct the ground battle in cooperation with our Vietnamese allies and other elements.”
On his screen, the Vietnamese general raised a hand. Dan nodded. “General Dao.”
“We must insist on one thing. From the Central Committee itself.”
“Yes, General?”
“No action must be taken against the Chinese Party. Obviously those involved in aggressive war must be removed from office. War criminals must be punished. But the rule of the Communist Party must be preserved. To do otherwise would invite chaos. As the United States saw when you dissolved the Ba’ath Party in Iraq.”
And it might call the continued rule of the Party in Vietnam into question too, Dan thought, but of course couldn’t say. He bobbled his head; Gupta grinned. “General, that’s far above my pay grade. General Isnanta will take what steps he deems necessary to govern once the island’s liberated. I assume, by imposing martial law. Whether there’ll be elections or multiple parties after that will be a political decision by the combined heads of state.
“Let’s not forget, we have to win this war before we can discuss what the world will look like afterward. And I’m afraid that’s all I can offer you right now, General.”
WHEN the screens went blue he sagged in his chair. Dragged a hand over a wet hairline. Sat with his head empty, staring into the azure light.
“Sir?” Gault, behind him. “Uh, sir? You eaten today?”
Dan flinched, and stood. Looked at his watch again. “Uh-huh … I mean, no.”
“I could have them send up something.”
“Thanks, that’s all right.” He straightened, hands to his back. His spine popped audibly. “I need to spend some time with real people.”
THE carrier’s mess decks weren’t exactly cavernous, but they were still noisy. They smelled of food and steam. Dan edged a green fiberglas tray along stainless rails. Meat loaf. Potatoes. Green beans. “Cherry pie, Admiral,” said a smiling server. She flipped a slice onto a plate before he could refuse, then capped it with butterscotch ice cream. Dan took the plate with a smile, though he had no intention of eating it all.
He carried the tray out into the echoing crowd of coveralled men and women and selected a table at random. Brown and black faces turned, blinking in surprise. Then hesitated, clearly uncertain whether to stand. Sergeant Gault took the next table over, angled so he could keep an eye on his charge. Dan sat quickly and nodded. “Hello, everyone.”
“Admiral.” Mutters eddied out from their table as others craned to see.
“How’s everybody doing?” he asked them.
“Oh, we good, sir.”
“Tired, but we’re hangin’ in there.”
Their expressions were questioning. Probably they wanted to ask the same questions everybody had. News got scarce in wartime. Those with phones had had to turn them in before the task force sailed. Ship’s company only knew what their skipper, their division officers, their chiefs, saw fit to pass on. The gaps were oakumed with rumor. “Anybody heard any good scuttlebutt?” he tried.
A heavyset, freckled petty officer with tightly braided hair squinted at him. “Heard we going up to China. That right, Admiral?”
He chose his words carefully. “It’s a major operation, all right. Can’t say where. But we need to be ready to fight. Yeah.”
“We got to do what we got to do,” the petty officer said. “Get this over with.” The others murmured assent.
The meat loaf was crusty on top, moist and tender inside; it fell flakily apart under his fork. As far as he could tell, it was the same cut everyone was getting. “This is tasty. Chow always this good here?”
They nodded, seeming to agree, but bashful. As if an internet celebrity, or movie star, had suddenly sat down among them. Oprah, or Tom Hanks. But one bright-eyed woman sitting opposite kept staring. He gave her a grin as he started on the pie.
“Admiral … they say you got the Medal of Honor.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “That was a long time ago.”
“How’d you get it, man?” the heavyset petty officer said eagerly. The table stirred, all eyes turning to Dan again.
“It was just before Desert Storm.” Seeing the blankness in the younger sailors’ expressions, he added, “The first war with Iraq. When Saddam Hussein tried to take over Kuwait. There was a report of some kind of WMD hidden in Baghdad. So they sent in a team to investigate.” He stopped there, but six attentive faces begged him to press on. “Uh, well … we managed to take it out. But everyone didn’t make it back. See the Marine over at that table?—his brother fought a rearguard so we could escape. And an Army doctor with us, she died later from the stuff we found.”
“What’d you find?” the petty officer said.
“Nothing good,” Dan sidestepped, since the mission had never been declassified. “Let’s just say it was too dangerous to leave in a dictator’s hands.”
“Speaking of dictators. What’re we going to do to Zhang?” another enlisted woman asked. “When this is over.”
“Not up to me.” Dan shrugged. “If he’s still alive, I’d hope, a trial.”
“Like Nuremberg,” the bright-eyed woman said.
“Before we hang him,” the heavyset NCO added grimly.
“Coffee with that, Admiral?” As he’d expected, the chief in charge of the mess had gotten word he was on deck. Dan said sure, thanks. “Anybody else want some?” he asked the table. “Master Chief here’s buying for everybody.”
They all broke into laughter at the senior enlisted’s abashed scowl.
EIGHT levels up, he washed his face in a spartan flag stateroom—he owned a much larger suite under the flight deck, but this cramped cubicle was handier to the flag bridge—and melted onto his rack.
Seventeen and a half minutes later—and he’d actually slept, a brief period of total unconsciousness timed by some obscure circuit in his brain—he roused again, dry-shaved, pulled on fresh coveralls, and went back to the VTC space. He set up his notebook and the printed op order for Rupture, handy so he could reach for them, but out of the field of view. Then waited, looking at the Ninth Fleet seal on the single screen. A spread eagle and anchor superimposed over the numeral nine, with a blue backdrop of the South China Sea.
Precisely at seven the seal faded to the interior of an office. Dan recognized the Bunker at Pearl, Fleet headquarters. Deep underground, it had survived the nuking of Honolulu that had finally finished off the old Savo Island. The seat was empty.
Two minutes later, a short officer in crisp summer whites slid into it.
Dan had worked for Bren Verstegen when the three-star had been the Indo-Pacific Command operations deputy. They’d toiled in obscurity deep in Level 2, two flights down from ground floor of the headquarters at Camp Smith, to plan Quadrangle, the first strike at China’s soft southern underbelly. He’d never exactly known how he registered with the vice admiral. The CNO, Dan’s reluctant rabbi Niles Barry, might have foisted him on Verstegen. The small man aligning his papers fussily before the lens gave no outward clue.
Finally he looked up. “Admiral Lenson.”
“Admiral Verstegen.”
“Is Rupture set to sail?”
“Sir, we have significant shortfalls. And a personnel change I need to recommend.”
Verstegen glanced away. “I know about your shortfalls. No one out here has all they want. Or in the Gulf, either. But you have enough. Are you ready to proceed?”
This wasn’t starting well. And what did he mean about the Gulf? Dan said, “Sir, every operation in this war has eaten ordnance and fuel at twice the rate the old allowances specified. I know the pipeline’s tight. Production’s tight. But I don’t want to take a hundred and thirty thousand troops and sailors into harm’s way without giving them the tools they need to prevail.”
Verstegen looked away, seeming to ponder his words. “Was it Mount Hood?”
“That didn’t help. But not that alone.”
“You were senior officer afloat. The responsibility for that catastrophe lies at your feet.”
“Sir, I don’t deny that. But if you believed someone else could have prevented it, I wouldn’t still have this task force.”
“All right, Admiral.” The little officer’s tone went steely. “What’s your recommendation?”
Dan took a deep breath. “Postpone the operation.”
Verstegen looked down at his papers. A moment passed. “Again? For how long this time?” he said softly.
“Four more weeks. To let me organize more fuel. And for you to get us more missiles. My J-4’s drafting a message outlining our shortfalls.”
“You want to postpone Rupture another month.”
“Yessir. We need to own this fight from the start, if it’s worth doing.”
They stared at each other eye to eye. Dan didn’t want to make it a pissing contest, so he dropped his gaze first. At last Verstegen turned away. He leaned to one side and whispered to someone off-camera. A keyboard rattled.
“That’ll have to go up the chain. We’ll need time to evaluate our options. The Vietnamese are insistent we start on time. The Chinese are pressing them hard. Let me give you some of the background.”
“I’d appreciate that, sir.”
“Intel thinks this offensive in Vietnam is a Battle of the Bulge–type last gasp. The Chinese army’s hollowing out. Famine. Lack of supply. And now, desertions by minorities and draftees tired of the war. They’re sick. Inflation’s starving their families. If the Viets can stop them there, while we invade Hainan, this war may be over.”
Dan said, “I understand the need to move, Admiral. But if we get our tails kicked, either at sea or once our four divisions are ashore, what’s that do to support for the war?”
Verstegen sighed.
Dan said, “Sir, I’m trying to wear two hats out here. Warfighter and logistics. I feel confident we can win against whatever the enemy has left. We have air and missile coverage. But I need two things.”
“What was the second?”
“I believe my logistics commander is … overextended.”
A gentle word, but one any senior officer could interpret. “Custer?” The fleet commander frowned. “Hard to believe. Lee’s always been a charger, in my experience.”
“Sir, I can only judge by what I see. So: If the Chinese are really weakening, another month will weaken them further. It’ll free up more time for training. This is a multinational force, and our Vietnamese are only militia. They’re going to arrive pretty much totally untrained. Four weeks will let ammo and fuel catch up too.”
“And what do you recommend in regard to Lee?” A touch of frost. Was Custer one of Verstegen’s golden boys? Was that what he meant by the “charger” remark?
Dan lowered his voice, though they were alone on the VTC. “I’ve lost confidence, sir.”
Lost confidence. The damning phrase that once pronounced could not be taken back. Command was a privilege, not a right. You didn’t need a specific charge to remove an officer from command. It was enough to doubt his ability to right a situation, lead his organization, act with decisive effectiveness whatever the challenge.
No officer had a career after that.
But in wartime, hard choices.
Verstegen said, “And replace him with who?”
Dan had expected this conundrum. “Sir, I don’t have anyone in mind. Jenn Roald, if she was available. But I doubt she is. Maybe his deputy could do a better job, and not have to start from square one.”
Verstegen was obviously pondering. “There might be a smarter way around this, Admiral.”
“Sir?”
“Another operation’s gearing up to the north. A major one. JCS planned on both taking place simultaneously. Synergy. Making Zhang split his remaining forces. So delay in the southern theater would be … perilous.
“The best solution might well be to have Lee Custer replace you. And you take over his billet in Logistics Force.”
Dan tensed his jaw, trying to disguise what felt like a punch to the plexus. He’d figured that might be Fleet’s response, once they got down to brass tacks. If Rupture had to go ahead, even without assurance of success. For political reasons, or strategic—it didn’t really matter, at his level.
He said calmly, “Sir, I’ll gladly accept that decision. If Indo-PaCom wants it that way. Lee’s senior to me, after all. But from where I’m sitting, no matter who occupies this seat after me, postponement’s the right option. Until we have the wherewithal.”
“I’ll have to get back to you, Dan. About both issues—the postponement and the … personnel matter you raised. Meanwhile, give us an alternate timetable. No promises. Minimal changes. But what you think needs to be done.”
It was the first time Verstegen had ever called him by his given name. A good sign, or not? He decided not to worry about it. To leave it in the hands of the gods.
The lofty deities who wore many stars, far above his own position in the machine.
We got to do what we got to do. That’s what the petty officer had said on the mess deck. It was true all the way up the line. Seamen, petty officers, officers, admirals … all the way up to where the buck stopped. And there too? Yeah, probably there too.
A curt nod, and the screen went blank. Dan sat for a while, wishing he hadn’t eaten the pie and ice cream, curdling now deep in his gut. Then got up and headed to Flag Plot, to start revising the plan.