Tom Clancy - Debt of Honor

The three in Connecticut were sitting in an open-sided shed when the Sikorsky employees arrived. The onboard systems were fully functional, and they had each been flown only just enough by the company test pilots to make sure that they could fly. All the systems had been checked out properly through the onboard diagnostic computer which, of course, had also diagnosed itself. After fueling, the three were wheeled out onto the ramp and flown out just after dark, north to Westover Air Force Base, in western Massachusetts, where they would be loaded in a Galaxy transport of the 327th Military Airlift Squadron for a flight to a place northeast of Las Vegas that wasn't on any official maps, though its existence wasn't much of a secret.

Back in Connecticut, three wooden mockups were wheeled into the shed, its open side visible from the residential area and highway three hundred yards uphill. People would even be seen to work on them all week.

Even if you didn't really know the mission yet, the requirements were pretty much the same. Tennessee reduced speed to twenty knots, five hundred miles off the coast.

"Engine room answers all ahead two-thirds, sir."

"Very well," Commander Claggett acknowledged. "Left twenty-degrees rudder, come to new course zero-three-zero." The helmsman repeated that order back, and Claggett's next command was, "Rig ship for ultra-quiet."

He already knew the physics of what he was doing, but moved aft to the plotting table anyway, to recheck the ship's turning circle. The Captain, too, had to check everything he did. The sharp course reversal was designed to effect a self-noise check. All over the submarine, unnecessary equipment was switched off, and crewmen not on duty got into their individual bunks as their ship turned. The crew, Claggett noted, was already getting into the swing.

Trailing behind Tennessee at the end of a thousand-yard cable was her towed sonar array, itself a thousand feet long. In another minute the submarine was like a dog chasing her own lengthy tail, a bare thousand yards abeam of it, and still doing twenty knots while sonarmen listened on their own systems for noise from their own ship. Claggett's next stop was the sonar room, so that he could watch the displays himself. It was electronic incest of sorts, the best sonar systems ever made trying to locate the quietest ship ever made.

"There we are, sir." The lead sonarman marked his screen with a grease pencil. The Captain tried not to be too disappointed. Tennessee was doing twenty knots, and the array was only a thousand yards off for the few seconds required for the pass to be made.

"Nobody's that invisible, sir," Lieutenant Shaw observed.

"Bring her back to base course. We'll try it again at fifteen knots." To the sonar chief: "Put a good man on the tapes. So let's find that rattle all, shall we?" Ten minutes later Tennessee commenced another self-noise check.

"It's all going to be done in the saddle, Jack. As I read this, time works for them, not for us." It wasn't that Admiral Jackson liked it. There didn't appear to he another way, and this war would be come-as-you-are and make up your own rules as you went along.

"You may be right on the political side. They want to stage the elections soon, and they seem awfully confident—"

"Haven't you heard? They're flying civilians in hand over fist," Jackson told him. "Why do that? I think they're all going to become instant residents, and they're all going to vote Ja on the Anschluss . Our friends with the phone can see the airport. The inbound flights have slacked off some, but look at the numbers. Probably fifteen thousand troops on the island. They can all vote. Toss in the Japanese tourists already there, and those who've flown in, and that's all she wrote, boy."

The National Security Advisor winced. "That is simple, isn't it?"

"I remember when the Voting Rights Act got passed. It made a big difference in Mississippi when I was a kid. Don't you just love how people can use law to their benefit?"

"It sure is a civilized war, isn't it?" Nobody ever said they were stupid , Jack told himself. The results of the election would be bogus, but all they really had to do was muddle things. The use of force required a clear cause. So negotiations were part of the strategy of delay. The other side was still determining the rules of the game. America did not yet have a strategy of action.

"That's what we need to change."

"How?"

Jackson handed over a folder. "Here's the information I need."

Mutsu had satellite communications, which included video that could be uplinked from fleet headquarters at Yokohama. It was a pretty sight, really, Admiral Sato thought, and so good of CNN to give it to him. Enterprise with three propellers wrecked, and the fourth visibly damaged. John Stennis with two already removed, a third clearly beyond repair; the fourth, unfortunately, seemed to be intact. What was not visible was internal damage. As he watched, one of the huge manganese-bronze propellers was removed from the latter ship, and another crane maneuvered in, probably, the destroyer's engineering officer observed, to withdraw part of the starboard outboard shaft.

"Five months," he said aloud, then heard the reporter's estimate of six, pleasantly the opinion of some unnamed yard worker.

"That's what headquarters thinks."

"They can't defeat us with destroyers and cruisers," Mutsu's captain observed. "But will they pull their two carriers out of the Indian Ocean?"

"Not if our friends continue to press them. Besides," Sato went on quietly, "two carriers are not enough, not against a hundred fighters on Guam and Saipan…more if I request it, as I probably will. It's really a political exercise now."

"And their submarines?" the destroyer's CO wondered, very nervous.

"So why can't we?" Jones asked.

"Unrestricted warfare is out," SubPac said.

"It worked before."

"They didn't have nuclear weapons before," Captain Chambers said.

"Oh." There was that, Jones admitted to himself. "Do we have a plan yet?"

"For the moment, keeping them away from us," Mancuso said. It wasn't exactly a mission to thrill Chester Nimitz, but you had to start somewhere. "What do you have for me?"

"I've gotten a couple of hits on snorting subs east of the islands. Nothing good enough to initiate a hunt, but I don't suppose we're sending P-3's in there anyway. The SOSUS troops are up to speed, though. Nothing's going to slip past us." He paused. "One other thing. I got one touch"—a touch was less firm than a hit—"on somebody off the Oregon coast."

" Tennessee ," Chambers said. "That's Dutch Claggett. He's due in here zero-two-hundred Friday."

Jones was impressed with himself. "Damn, a hit on an Ohio. How many others?"

"Four more, the last one leaves the pier in about an hour." Mancuso pointed at his wall chart. "I told each one to run over that SOSUS array for a noise check. I knew you'd be around to sniff after them. Don't get too cocky about it. They're doing a speed run into Pearl."

Jones nodded and turned. "Good one, Skipper."

"We haven't completely lost it yet, Dr. Jones."

"Goddamn it, Chief!" Commander Claggett swore.

"My fault, sir. Sure as hell." He took it like a man. It was a toolbox. It had been found stuck between a seawater pipe and the hull, where minor vibrations off the spring-suspended deck had made the wrenches inside rattle, enough that the submarine-towed sonar had detected the noise. "It isn't one of ours, probably a yard worker left it aboard." Three other chief petty officers were there to share the experience. It could have happened to anyone. They knew what was coming next, too. Their captain took a deep breath before going on. A good show of anger was required, even for his chiefs.