Sailors Take Warning by Malcolm Torres, CHAPTER THREE - DAY 1

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Sailors Take Warning by Malcolm Torres

CHAPTER THREE - DAY 1



 

High in the USS Nimitz’s superstructure, Captain Reginald Fox, the ship’s commanding officer, stood on his weatherdeck looking through binoculars.  A stiff breeze ruffled his pant legs and shirtsleeves.  He braced his elbows on the rail and watched the scene unfold.  Disappointment filled him as the USS Hayward approached on the ocean’s rolling blue surface.

“Dammit!”  Fox wanted to call his electronic-warfare team into his office and ask how the Hayward could possibly have found the Nimitz after only 93 days.

Here came the Hayward, cutting a wide turn on the sea a few miles to starboard, moving swiftly into position alongside.  Her masts bristled with spinning arrays and satellite dishes.  Her sleek bow rose out of the water, exposing black paint on her keel, then plunging beneath and scooping a big splash out of the sea.

He didn’t have to think back over the entire 93-day mission.  He knew things started going wrong on the seventy-second day, when his reconnaissance pilots returned from a scouting sortie to report the Hayward’s position.  His analysts, always crunching data and plotting colorful charts, had determined that on six of the past ten days the Hayward was closer to the Nimitz than at any other time since the exercise began.  They didn’t seem to know the Nimitz’s precise location, but they were obviously drawing a bead.  Suspecting that the Hayward had intercepted his encrypted messages requesting jet fuel replenishment, Fox slashed the flight schedule and ceased all communications.  But the Hayward continued closing in.

And now here she was coming alongside.

Fox lowered his binoculars, because now he could clearly see faces smiling at him through the windows on the Hayward’s bridge.  A helicopter lifted off from the helipad on the Hayward’s stern.  It sped over the ocean, circled toward the Nimitz and came in for a landing.  A string of colorful signal flags on the Hayward’s mast caught Fox’s eye.  He frowned as he read the message, “Tag you’re it.”

He did not appreciate the joke.  He curled his fingers into a fist and pounded lightly on the rail.  “I can hide from you for more than ninety-three days, by God,” he muttered, “and I’m determined to do it.”

The instant he moved toward the door leading into the Nimitz’s bridge, his armed marine bodyguards snapped to attention.  One opened the door and stepped inside.  The other followed him through and latched it behind.

 

*   *   *

 

Five months earlier, Captain Fox first came aboard the Nimitz during a storm on the Northern Pacific Ocean.  He and his team of electronic warfare technicians and TenRay Corporation engineers, arrived in six Sea Scorpion jet-propelled helicopters, loaded with a dozen crates, each marked TOP-SECRET in red stencil.  Rather than pull into Pearl Harbor and hold a formal change of command ceremony, Fox relieved the previous captain immediately and kept the Nimitz at sea for several extra weeks.

Rumors ran wild among the crew as their aloof new captain, and his cadre of techs and engineers, unpacked the mysterious crates.

One day Fox and his team were in the bowels of the ship upgrading the sonar equipment, and the next they were studying blueprints in a compartment crowded with high voltage equipment outside the reactor plant.  Along the main deck passageway, they hoisted steel plates and laid cable alongside the ship’s circulatory system of ventilation ducts and pipes.  They installed cameras in the catwalks, and pointed them out at the sea.

From the flight deck, where aircraft launched and landed around the clock, men and women craned their necks to observe workers high atop the Nimitz’s towering superstructure.  In hard hats and fall protection harnesses, they assembled tall scaffolds and draped them with white canvas sheets.

All hands wondered what their new captain was doing to their ship.

At night, the canvas sheets were backlit by cutting torches as workers cut away the old antennas and radar arrays.  The metal pieces were hand-carried down ladders, taken aft to a garbage chute and dropped, with a splash, to the bottom of the sea.

Communication specialists pulled miles of fiber-optic cable, connecting the new cameras to a light-speed network.  And finally, in an air-conditioned compartment in the Nimitz’s superstructure, they booted up the TenRay supercomputer.

After a few weeks at sea, Captain Fox ordered all hands to stand down for a special announcement.  His voice came from speakers throughout the ship while the crew of over 5,000 listened attentively.  All ears prickled with curiosity as they heard his voice for the first time.

“This is Captain Fox speaking.  I want to chat with you because my staff tells me you are buzzing with rumors about the new system we’ve installed, but you don’t have to wonder any longer, because I’m here to tell you that the Nimitz is now equipped with a cloaking system that can make the ship invisible.”  Fox relished the fact that he could reveal mysteries to seafaring men and women.  “You heard that correctly,” his dignified voice a bit nasally and full of authority, as he spoke into a hand-held microphone while standing on the bridge.  “We now have the capability to make the ship invisible.  The way it works is quite simple.  Fifty cameras mounted around our outboard perimeter feed a three hundred and sixty degree panorama to a computer that fits the incoming video together and sends it to a projector atop the superstructure.  The projector is a new piece of technology that casts a pyramid-shaped holograph that conceals the entire ship.  The easiest way to explain it is that anyone or anything looking in our direction sees right through us.  We also have new arrays in the sonar bulb below the water line and atop the superstructure capable of detecting anyone looking for us and deceiving them with electronic misinformation.”

Every person listening tried to fathom the idea that they were on an invisible ship.

“Right now the system is fully operational, and the next step is to train our electronic warfare team to use it, but first we will stop in Pearl Harbor for a few days of much deserved shore leave.”

A cheer arose from all hands, and Fox relished the adulation before speaking again.

“After we leave Pearl Harbor, we will spend several weeks training our team to operate the new system, and then we will be stopping in Manila Bay for a few days.”

Another cheer arose from the crew.

“After we leave Manila we will make the ship invisible and the USS Hayward, a ship with powerful electronic tracking capability, we begin hunting for us.  Normally, we sail with a task force of other ships, but while the Hayward is attempting to find us, we will be sailing alone.  I anticipate that the exercise will last in excess of one-hundred days.”  Fox paused to let that cheerless message sink in.  Then he continued.  “Our goal is to prove that the TenRay cloaking system is ready for installation on ships across the fleet.  I want everyone to understand that we are embarking on a voyage of discovery.  Our ability to make this ship invisible will shape the art of naval warfare for centuries to come.”

 

*   *   *

 

Unlike the anemic sailors working below decks under fluorescent lights, Captain Fox had a healthy tan.  A touch of gray at his temples contrasted with his neatly trimmed dark hair, giving him a dignified look that worked to his advantage when directing often cocksure and occasionally timid young officers.  He projected a dignified demeanor, from his regal profile to his shined black shoes.  His pressed khaki shirts precisely fit his tapered waist and square shoulders, providing a commanding palette for the golden eagles tacked to his collar points and the stacks of ribbons above his chest pockets.  High-wasted pants showed off his long legs, and his lengthy stride made it difficult to keep up with him as he moved quickly through the ship’s passageways.  An action-oriented disposition prevented Fox from sitting behind his desk for more than a few minutes.  He exited boring meetings and darted off to the bridge or the electronic warfare command center.

 

*   *   *

 

A technician wearing a headset stood at a large touch-sensitive, see-through screen that showed a 3-D image of the ship with the cloaking system components glowing green.  Rows of technicians wearing headsets with wrap-around microphones sat at banks of computer monitors managing data in the ship’s electronic war-fighting systems.  At the back of the dimly lit compartment, behind floor-to-ceiling Plexiglas panels, tiny green lights blinked on the TenRay supercomputer where it sat running in air-conditioned darkness for the past 93 days.

Fox stared at the tiny green lights wondering if the supercomputer had an unknown vulnerability—or had one of the technicians made a mistake.

His bodyguards maintained a tight perimeter around him as he stepped across the compartment toward Mr. Bradmore, his cloaking project team leader.  “Prepare to shut it down, Bradmore,” Fox said with an angry sigh.

“Yes, sir,” Bradmore replied, and raised his voice so everyone in the compartment could hear.  “Prepare for shut down.”

They stepped over to the 3-D display.  Bradmore removed a key from his pants pocket and slid it into a keyhole on a panel covered with dials and glowing green lights.  On a touchscreen, he entered his user-ID and password.

The green lights blinked and then turned a steady yellow.

“TenRay report,” Bradmore ordered.

“Null spectrum,” a tech shouted back.

 “Video?”

“Cameras idle, sir.”

“Radar and sonar?” Bradmore shouted.

“Minimum capacity, sir.”

“Holograph lasers?”

“Ready to go offline, sir.”

Fox slid his key in, then entered his user-ID and password, and watched the yellow lights switch to a steady red.

A subtle hum that had filled the compartment for the past few months, a noise nobody seemed to notice anymore, wound down until an awkward silence filled the entire space.

The game of cat and mouse between the Nimitz and the Hayward was over, but Fox’s mind burned with the question:  How did they find us after only 93 days?

 

*   *   *

 

Cryptographers, intelligence analysts, meteorologists and pilots sat around a big Mahogany table strewn with coffee cups and tablet computers.

“Attention on deck,” someone yelled.

Everyone leaped to their feet and stood at attention.

“As you were.”  Fox sat and his marine guards took their places, standing at ease behind his chair.

A tall, thin lieutenant with short black hair and gold wire-framed glasses stood at the far end of the compartment.  He’d come over on the helicopter from the Hayward to brief Fox and his team.

Surprised at seeing none of the Hayward’s senior officers, Fox made a mental note to inquire about that.

“Well,” he said to the Hayward’s lieutenant, “Tell us how you found us.”

“We used satellites to search for the unique wake the Nimitz leaves on the water’s surface,” the lieutenant explained.

Mr. Bradmore bolted forward in his chair, put his big elbows on the table and said, “The rules banned the use of satellite cameras.”  One of his hands curled into a fist the size of a softball while the other wrapped around it as if he was going to hurl a fast pitch at the scrawny lieutenant.

“Your wake is a unique fingerprint, and satellite cameras enabled us to find it,” the lieutenant replied.

“I’m crying foul,” Bradmore objected.

“You can file a complaint with the Pentagon planning team,” the lieutenant shot back, “but I think you should consider your mission a success—”

“A success?”  Bradmore was incredulous.

“Mr. Bradmore, I share your objections,” Fox said, “but, let’s discuss it later.”

Bradmore sat back and crossed his muscular arms.  “The mission parameters clearly stated the Hayward could use technology only available to other nations,” he said, “not US satellites.”

“That’s not how we read the rules,” the lieutenant quipped.

One of the recon pilots chimed in, “We’ll never be able to safely cloak this ship from US satellites.”

Fox thought about how he was going to shut down this lively dialog without deflating the team’s enthusiasm.

“Every day we took a billion pictures of the ocean’s surface,” the lieutenant explained.  “Then we fed all the pictures into a pattern recognition software package that searched for every ship’s wake.”

It dawned on Fox that the Hayward’s senior officers had skipped this briefing to avoid the conversation that was about to happen.  Everyone knew, but no one wanted to admit, that there was only one way to cover the Nimitz’s wake from satellite cameras.  As the lieutenant spoke, a bubble of unease swelled until one of the analysts finally said, “The only way to cover our wake is to put a mirage projector on our stern.”

“I appreciate the enthusiasm,” Fox glared at everyone around the table, “however, we will not have this discussion now.”

“Ninety-three days is a long time to hide from the Hayward,” the lieutenant continued.  “We had technicians inspecting pictures of every wake across Southeast Asia.  They searched for a picture of a wake without a ship, and most of the time we had no idea where you were.”

“The Russians and Chinese don’t have access to US satellites,” Bradmore fired another objection and turned toward Fox.  “So why should the Hayward?”

Fox looked at Bradmore’s piercing eyes and big hands.  Voicing the groups’ concerns, he was leading with courage and hedging against the installation of a mirage projector on the Nimitz’s stern.

“I appreciate the question,” Fox said, “but please, let’s have this conversation after this briefing.”

“To make the TenRay cloaking system a success,” Bradmore said, “the Hayward must be banned from using satellite cameras.”

“Agreed.”  Fox’s patience began to ebb.  “As I indicated, we will discuss this in another meeting.”

“Sir,” Bradmore said, his voice bold with concern, “the only way to prevent overhead cameras from seeing our wake is to install a mirage projector on our fantail.”

Every person at the table nodded in agreement.

“Is that so, Mr. Bradmore?”  Fox gave up his effort to prevent this confrontation.

With a thin layer of nervous perspiration forming on his brow, Bradmore pushed ahead.  “A mirage projector will generate unstable levels of static electricity—”

“Are you worried about static?” Fox interrupted.

“Yes, I am,” Bradmore said, “as we all should be.”

“We will begin another cloaking exercise in a few days,” Fox said.  “Therefore we should not allow him,” Fox pointed at the Hayward’s lieutenant, “to hear us discussing our technology options.  Do you understand, Mr. Bradmore?”

“Yes, sir,” Bradmore conceded.

“Please continue,” Fox told the lieutenant as he set his mind to figuring out how he would focus Bradmore’s passion and creativity.  Fox decided he’d get to know Bradmore a lot better in the next couple of days.

The cloaking system’s success meant unprecedented warfighting advantages for the US Navy, but for Fox personally it meant admiral’s stars on his collars and a plum executive position at the TenRay Corporation after he retired from the Navy in about a year.

Before adjourning, Fox cleared his throat and said, “Mr. Bradmore, draft a memo listing your concerns, and we’ll discuss it before sending it to the exercise planners at the Pentagon.”

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