The Bear and the Dragon - Tom Clancy [460]
"Weird, ain't it, sir?"
Gregory smelled the smoke. It had to be Senior Chief Leek. He turned. It was.
"Never seen this sort of thing before."
"Nobody does real often, 'cept'n those guys over there who operate this thing. Did you take the chance to walk under the ship?"
"Walk under ten thousand tons of metal?" Gregory responded. "I don't think so."
"You was a soldier, wasn't you?"
"Told you, didn't I? West Point, jump school, ranger school, back when I was young and foolish."
"Well, Doc, it's no big deal. Kinda interesting to see how she's put together, 'specially the sonar dome up forward. If I wasn't a radar guy, I probably woulda been a sonar guy, 'cept there's nothing for them to do anymore."
Gregory looked down. Water was creeping across the gray metal floor—deck? he wondered—of the dry dock.
"Attention on deck!" a voice called. Sailors turned and saluted, including Chief Leek.
It was Captain Bob Blandy, Gettysburg's CO. Gregory had met him only once, and then just to say hello.
"Dr. Gregory."
"Captain." They shook hands.
"How's your project been going?"
"Well, the simulations look good. I'd like to try it against a live target."
"You got sent to us by the SecDef?"
"Not exactly, but he called me in from California to look at the technical aspects of the problem. I worked for him when he was head of TRW."
"You're an SDI guy, right?"
"That and SAMs, yes, sir. Other things. I'm one of the world's experts on adaptive optics, from my SDI days."
"What's that?" Captain Blandy asked.
"The rubber mirror, we called it. You use computer-controlled actuators to warp the mirror to compensate for atmospheric distortions. The idea was to use that to focus the energy beam from a free-electron laser. But it didn't work out. The rubber mirror worked just fine, but for some reason we never figured out, the damned lasers didn't scale up the way we hoped they would. Didn't come up to the power requirements to smoke a missile body." Gregory looked down in the dry dock again. It certainly took its time, but they probably didn't want to drop anything this valuable. "I wasn't directly involved in that, but I kibitzed some. It turned out to be a monster of a technical problem. We just kept bashing our heads against the wall until we got tired of the squishy sound."
"I know mechanical engineering, some electrical, but not the high-energy stuff. So, what do you think of our Aegis system?"
"I love the radar. Just like the Cobra Dane the Air Force has up at Shemya in the Aleutians. A little more advanced, even. You could probably bounce a signal off the moon if you wanted to."
"That's a little out of our range gate," Blandy observed. "Chief Leek here been taking good care of you?"
"When he leaves the Navy, we might have a place for him at TRW. We're part of the ongoing SAM project."
"And Lieutenant Olson, too?" the skipper asked.
"He's a very bright young officer, Captain. I can think of a lot of companies who might want him." If Gregory had a fault, it was being too truthful.
"I ought to say something to discourage you from that, but—"
"Cap'n!" A sailor came up. "Flash-traffic from SACLANT, sir." He handed over a clipboard. Captain Blandy signed the acknowledgment sheet and took the message. His eyes focused very closely.
"Do you know if the SecDef knows what you're up to?"
"Yes, Captain, he does. I just spoke to Tony a few minutes ago."
"What the hell did you tell him?"
Gregory shrugged. "Not much, just that the project was coming along nicely."
"Uh-huh. Chief Leek, how's your hardware?"
"Everything's a hundred percent on line, Cap'n. We got a job, sir?" the senior chief asked.
"Looks like it. Dr. Gregory, if you will excuse me, I have to see my officers. Chief, we're going to be getting under way soon. If any of your troops are on the beach, call 'em back. Spread the word."
"Aye aye, sir." He saluted as Captain Blandy hustled back forward. "What's that all about?"
"Beats me, Chief."
"What do I do? Getting under way?" Gregory asked.
"Got your toothbrush? If not, you can buy one in the ship's store. Excuse