Shattered Trident - Страница 78

The commodore held up the discussion briefly while he looked the chart over. After a short examination, he looked up at Jerry and said, “Walk me through the engagement, Captain.”

“Yes, sir.”

For the next half hour, Jerry went step by step through the encounter, beginning with the initial acquisition of Santa Fe. Walker grimaced when he saw the unbelievably long detection range, and Jerry commented that the excessive noise from Santa Fe’s main propulsion shaft not only enabled the Chinese to find her, but almost certainly degraded her spherical array. When combined with the strong layer, it was understandable how Halsey could have missed the approaching ships.

Simonis grunted, and gestured for Jerry to continue. Turning to the page in his report with a video freeze frame from the Sea Tern UAV, Jerry showed the commodore the cable for the towed array streaming from the Luyang I destroyer, and emphasized that the prosecution was done passively. Only the Ka-28 Helix went active, and then probably only to verify Santa Fe’s position before dropping the rocket torpedo. That statement got a noticeable reaction from the commodore, as well as Jacobs and Walker. The Chinese had not demonstrated such sophisticated tactics before; the war was forcing them to learn quickly.

Jerry then walked Simonis and his staff officers through the Chinese attacks. When he got to the point where he described Halsey’s evasive maneuvers, Simonis roared indignantly, “Halsey turned the wrong way! What was he thinking!?” Walker’s face turned red with anger, but he remained silent.

“I thought that at first myself,” Jerry quickly interjected. “But my team found this in the post-engagement analysis. Look at the geometry, Commodore.” Jerry turned to a blown-up section of the chart in his report and pointed to the Helix’s position. “See here. The Helix dropped the APR-2E on Santa Fe’s port side. Warren did exactly what he had been trained to do. He turned away and launched countermeasures.”

“The helo was herding him?” Simonis asked incredulously.

“That, or the Chinese were just plain lucky,” answered Jerry. “Either way Warren reacted in accordance with doctrine, and it drove him straight into the two warships, here. Each ship launched a Yu-7, staggered so they wouldn’t interfere with each other. Warren intercepted one, but missed the other. That weapon hit Santa Fe. I think any one of us would have been hard-pressed to successfully handle three homing weapons in such a short span of time.”

Simonis slowly leaned back into his chair, suddenly quiet. Jerry’s description of the event had hit his preconceived notions hard—he had much to consider. Jacobs saw his boss’s reaction and knew Simonis was done, but the CSO had one question.

“Captain, the chart shows that you command-enabled your weapon, why?”

Jerry nodded. “Yes, I did. I was trying to scare the warships off. But they either didn’t hear the seeker’s transmissions or didn’t understand what it meant.” He looked down at the table briefly, then added, “I… I didn’t know what else I could do.”

At that point the discussion abruptly ended, the office becoming suddenly silent. Jerry looked at the three Squadron Fifteen officers and realized it was over. Pushing the chart, report, and DVD toward the operations officer, he said, “Commander Walker, this is for your reconstruction analysis team. The DVD contains digital copies of my ship’s sensor, fire control, and event logs, the UAV download, and my report with the annotated chart. I’d appreciate it if you’d send a copy back to my parent squadron, SUBRON Three. I know Captain Corina would like to see them.”

“Certainly, Captain. I’ll have the files e-mailed over the secure network.”

“Thank you,” replied Jerry.

“Gentlemen.” Simonis spoke as he rose. “If there is nothing else, I’d like to speak to Commander Mitchell alone, please.”

Jacobs and Walker quickly collected their notes and the patrol report, and after shaking Jerry’s hand again, headed for the door. As Walker was about to exit, Simonis called out to him, “Rich, shut the door please. Thank you.” The click of the doorknob latch seemed particularly loud.

Simonis marched over to the carafe on a side table and refilled his mug. Grabbing a second cup, he poured one for Jerry. “How do you take your coffee, Captain?”

“Uh, black, sir,” said Jerry, a little confused. He was sure the commodore had heard him decline earlier. “I’m not an advocate of highly adulterated coffee.”

“Excellent!” responded Simonis, pleased. “Somehow I knew you weren’t a mocha cappuccino latte kind of guy.”

Jerry smiled slightly. “I think that’s three different drinks, Commodore.”

“Whatever,” shrugged Simonis. “All I know is that you can’t taste the coffee with so much milk, chocolate, or other crap mixed in.” He placed the steaming cup in front of Jerry, raised his, and said, “Cheers.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“How’s your crew holding up?” asked Simonis casually, taking his seat.

“Hmmm,” Jerry uttered, sipping his coffee. “They seem to be doing okay. None of them were exactly thrilled watching Santa Fe being attacked and sunk. Some are taking it harder than others.”

“And how are you taking it?”

Jerry’s cup stopped just short of his mouth, and he slowly lowered it to the table. “I, uh… I guess I would put myself in the harder than others category.”

“I suspected as much,” grunted Simonis. “You implied in your initial message that perhaps you could have done more to help Santa Fe, and just a few moments ago you reinforced that impression. You’ve had three days to study the logs and the after-action report, weren’t you able to find anything?”

Embarrassed, Jerry shook his head no.

“Really?” replied Simonis with a condescending tone. “You disappoint me, Captain. I thought you were smarter than that.”

Rage suddenly filled Jerry; his stomach churned and his jaw drew up tight. Fighting to keep himself in check, he looked at Simonis with intense anger. Through clenched teeth, he was just barely able to choke out the words, “And what should I have found, Commodore?”

Simonis leaned forward, his gaze equally intense, his voice just as stern. “That you were not in control of the situation, Captain.”

Stunned by Simonis’s statement, Jerry found himself unable to speak. The young captain’s blank expression told the commodore that his first volley had hit home. He had Mitchell’s undivided attention.

Simonis quickly rose again, pacing as he spoke. “In one of my previous assignments, I was the head of tactics development at DEVRON Twelve. For two years, I reviewed every event reconstruction from boats on both coasts. By the time I left, I could dismantle an after-action report in a couple of hours, three tops. I can say with reasonable confidence that after reading your initial message and hearing your brief, there was absolutely nothing more you could have done to help Halsey. Furthermore, there were a number of bad decisions that you didn’t make that potentially could have cost me two boats. And your attack on the Luyang I was well executed. All in all, Captain, I’m quite impressed with your performance.”

Jerry was awestruck; his anger washed away as fast as it had formed. He heard Simonis’s words, but he had trouble wrestling with their meaning. It was not what he expected.

“But, sir… I failed to get Santa Fe home. I left them all behind,” Jerry croaked, his voice heavy with emotion.

Simonis stopped and looked at Jerry. “Captain, get it through your thick skull, there was nothing you could have done that would have changed the final outcome. Given the circumstances, there was no way you were going to pull that rabbit out of the hat. I know it sucks, but this was a no-win situation.”

“But, sir…”

“But nothing!” exclaimed Simonis firmly. “I know about your ties to the SEAL community. They are damn fine warriors, and they have a right to be proud of the fact that they bring everyone home. But Jerry, we don’t have that kind of luxury.”

Simonis then raised his right arm and made a large sweeping motion toward the Pacific. “We lost fifty-two submarines out there during World War Two, and you can add Scorpion and Thresher to that tally. In almost every case, we lost entire crews, every single last man! And, we lost them permanently! There’s a reason why we say they are on eternal patrol. In our line of work, Jerry, if a boat goes down, everyone on board is left behind. That’s just the way it is.”

Swallowing heavily, and fighting back the tears, Jerry nodded stiffly. Simonis was right, but that wasn’t much comfort at the moment. A boat had been lost, colleagues, fellow submariners were dead, all because of the misfortunes of war. And then there were the Chinese sailors on the destroyer he had torpedoed; most of them probably died as well. Ironically, there were no indications the Chinese ships knew it was an American sub they were attacking. Life seemed so damned unfair at times.

As the emotional turmoil settled down, Jerry was finally able to talk. “I hear you, sir. I don’t like it. But I understand, now.”

“Good,” replied Simonis, satisfied. “I need you firing on all cylinders. This war is getting worse by the day, and if the rumor mill is correct, we’ll soon be in the thick of it. I’ll need every boat to be operating at one hundred percent, and that includes their skippers.”