Free Tomahawk by David Poyer

designed it, one open to fire, all the others closed. But that’s not gonna be your typical tactical employment. Let’s say you’re gonna do a two-ABL launch, get eight missiles in the air. That means you got the clamshells open on number one when number two fires. Not only that, you’re gonna be dumping a hell of a lot of toxic exhaust right on the centerline.”
    â€œWhat do you suggest, Sparky?”
    â€œSplit them up. Put half between the stacks here and the rest down on the lower deck, pointed forward. The way the Soviets do it on the
Sovremennys.
Or, you don’t like that, turn them end for end.” He shook cigarettes out of a pack and demonstrated as the steward came out with fresh coffee.
    â€œThey fire across the ship?” Dan said doubtfully. “Left to right, right to left?”
    â€œSure. Why not? That way, the blast and the exhaust goes outboard instead of inboard. Your loading equipment goes in the center. Which is better, too—you get more wind and spray protection.”
    â€œYou’d need two blast shields instead of one,” the rep pointed out.
    â€œBut each can be lower. Who cares how much blast you dump outboard?”
    â€œHow about these Phalanxes? What’s the arc of fire on them when the clamshells are open? And what are we going to do about the ship’s boats?”
    Dan said, “Look, we don’t have all day. Will Systems Command take on the redesign? If we can come up with an improved siting plan?”
    The NAVSEA rep said no, that would delay delivery.
    They went around for two hours on how to resite the boxes and add additional structure to reposition the Phalanx to fire over them. Dan tried to reason with the guy, but he wouldn’t even negotiate handrail locations. Finally, he pointed to the phone on the bulkhead. “Is that connected?”
    â€œI believe so.”
    â€œI want you to do a mod to the design, grouping four launchers on the oh three level, firing over one another, and the other four aft on either side of the sixteen-inch director, facing forward and outboard forty-five degrees. Listen up now, because this is your big chance to make a speed bump out of yourself. Your boss is Admiral Obuszewski. You tell me no can do one more time, and I’m going to pick up that phone and call Admiral Niles. Niles has got Admiral Willis shitting in his in-box every day because SECNAV’s shitting in his. Then Willis can call Obuszewski and we can let two three-stars do our jobs for us. Or does that sound like a bad idea?”
    The rep sat mute, scowling. Finally, he muttered, “We’ll redesign it.” But the look he got told Dan he wasn’t ever going to get anything else out of NAVSEA again.

    He couldn’t leave—this was essential stuff—and he realized late in the morning that they weren’t going to makeit to Point Mugu that day. He called over to get word to the contractors that the meeting was postponed until tomorrow. He asked the site rep to let them in to see the launcher, and help them get whatever measurements they needed.
    The next morning dawned misty. Sakai put the headlights on as they headed down toward the sea. Dan asked him about what he’d been doing at Dahlgren, and he got an evasive answer, something about an electromagnetic gun. Whatever it was, he sounded anxious to get back to it. “Not that I don’t want to help you guys,” he said. “Just that stuff stops getting interesting for me when the theory’s cold and you’re just down to twisting wires together.” Dan and Burdette exchanged eye rolls.
    What everybody called Point Mugu was officially the Pacific Missile Test Center. It was on a peninsula fifty-some miles north of Los Angeles. Low buildings squatted between bluffs overlooking the ocean. Sakai said he knew his way around, but Dan tried to keep oriented as their security escort took them to what he called “the