Piranha

She snickered at the unintended double entendre, but it went right by Dog and the others. He introduced two Navy officers as liaisons with the fleet, informing Je

“If you can give us a quick timetable,” he added in his deep voice. She had trouble turning her mind back to the project, and the reason she’d come.

“It’s straightforward. First up, we get the control gear into the planes. By tomorrow night we should have two new probes. Beyond that, there are some tests and fixes I’d like to try. Oh, and I have a fix, no, not a fix, just a tweak, on the wake detectors—I’ll put that in first. Shouldn’t take too long; it’s a software thing.”

“So how sensitive is the passive sonar?” asked one of the Navy people.

“Good enough to follow submarines of the Trafalgar type at twenty miles. I have the diffusion rates, all the technical data here.”

The officer had obviously asked the question to see how much she knew, and Je

“We’ve had a few problems with the amplitude when the temperatures shifts quickly, such as when you go into a different thermal layer. We think it’s hardware, though I’ve tried two different versions of the chip circuitry and had the same results, so I’m not sure. Here—maybe you have some ideas. Look at the sines, that’s where it’s obvious.”

She started to unfold the laptop. The intel officer had turned purple. Delaford rescued him.

“I think for now we better just stay focused on equipping the other planes,” he said.

Je

“How long to install?” Zen asked.

“Three hours per plane,” she told him. She took a long strand of hair and began twisting it, thinking. “We’re going to route the com units through the Flighthawk backup gear and use the panels for the display. We didn’t have time to actually test it, but I think it’ll work.”

Dog wanted to grab her, just jump her right there—it was as blatant as that, raw, an overwhelming animal urge. His eyes bored into the side of her head; she hadn’t looked at him after coming in, probably because she felt the same way.

“All right. We need a fresh weather report. Storm should almost be out of the tracking area, which will make our job easier, at least until the next one comes through. They were talking about a twenty-four-to-forty-eight-hour window, which means one full rotation. Then, the probe goes home.” Dog resisted the urge to pace—there simply wasn’t room in the small trailer. “Our Navy friends have worked on some idea about where some of targets may be located. We’re going to work with a group of P-3’s flying at a very long range on the west side of the Chinese battle group, from here over to the Vietnamese coast.”

Dog’s hand slid across a massive area of ocean as dismissively as if it were a small parking lot.

“If we find something or get a good hint, we launch. Quicksilver is up next. They replace us on station in six hours. Raven comes on six hours later. If there’s no launch, Quicksilver still helps the Navy with patrols, but we’ll take the next shift. Bu sometime tomorrow, or maybe the next day, Kitty Hawk should be in the patrol area and that will change things. I’m not sure exactly what the admiral had in mind at that point.”

Dog’s lineup would mean at least twelve-hour shifts for the crews, with three or four hours prep, six hours on patrol, two or three hours to get back and debrief. No one complained—which didn’t surprise Dog in the least.

He glanced over at Je

Of course she was looking at him. Everyone was.

Dog forced himself to nod, shifted his gaze to Fentress, and nodded again. When he turned toward Brea

“Captain?” he asked her in surprise.

“Nothing.”

“Captail Williams will give us the latest on the Chinese and Indian forces,” Dog said, turning to the Navy officer. Williams had come from the G-2 section of Admiral Allen’s staff to facilitate intelligence sharing.

“The storm slowed down the progress of the task forces.” He pulled out a small manila folder and handed some papers around. Dog glanced down at his and saw it was actually a cartoon rendering of the situation—on one side of the South China Sea was Donald Duck, on the other Mickey Mouse, both posturing on top of the aircraft carriers.

“You draw this yourself?” said Zen, an obvious snicker in his voice.

“Just keeping things in perspective,” said Williams. He dished out another version—this one a detailed sketch based on the latest reports. “Probable area of the Indian submarine is that crosshatch just to the east-southeast of the lead Chinese carrier, which is where they launched from. They haven’t found it yet, at least as far as we know. Good submarine captain—and I think we have to assume this fellow’s at the top of the heap—would use this storm to skitter around, get a new location. The Chinese don’t have an all-weather ASW capability, not from the surface anyway, their submarines may be different story, but as you can see from the diagram, they’re still at best a day away from joining the aircraft carriers. Even then, frankly, their probability of intercepting the Indian boat is not going to break double digits.”

The Indian aircraft carrier had managed to link up with the cruisers and destroyers. If everyone steamed toward each other at flank speed, they could be firing at each other within twenty-four hours.

“More likely, they’ll just shadowbox,” said Williams. “Plenty of opportunity for you to get information about the submarines. Yesterday’s show of force by Iowa seems to have dampened some of the war fever; the diplomacy’s at high pitch.” Hoping to fire a diplomatic flare of his own toward the Dreamland contingent, Captain Williams added, “By the way, that’s a good name for a Megafortress. Her Navy namesake would be proud.”