Free First Salvo by Charles D. Taylor Page B

Nelson read his orders. He turned to the former captain, saluted, and intoned the ritual words, “I relieve you, sir.” He then became Commanding Officer of U.S.S. John Hancock ,7,800 tons of destroyer, as big as a modern cruiser—bigger than anything he’d ever ridden.
    Now Wendell Nelson was reading the latest operation orders, the details put to paper by the administrative types. These were law, the golden words passed down from Washington to Norfolk to the fleet command in Naples to the battle group at sea to the individual commanding officers. Throughout his reading, Nelson always came back to what all captains of all surface ships knew—the carrier was the heart of the battle group, the one element that could launch a devastating strike on enemy territory. It was the ship that had to be protected at all costs. Destroyers were expendable!
    Hancock was an antisubmarine destroyer with surface-to-air missiles for point defense. She was part of the screen whose duty was to protect the carrier from submarine attack, to search out and kill Soviet attack submarines before they got within range of the carrier.
    He finished his reading and carefully locked the material back in his safe. On top he placed the shrink-wrapped op orders that were only to be opened when Condition One was set—when war was declared.
    Nelson ambled up to the bridge after a tour around the main deck of the ship. He leaned on the railing outside the pilothouse for a moment, adjusting his eyes to the darkness so he could identify the other ships in the screen. In the center, miles distant, he could make out the mass of the carrier John F. Kennedy.
    Then he went into the pilothouse to the chart table and opened the night orders. The chief yeoman was efficient—Nelson’s orders were already inserted in plastic to protect them from weather. And, he noted, they had already been passed around the wardroom, for the signature of each officer was already below them. It was a good omen, he decided—a good, efficient ship. He knew they’d do a fine job for him. The wardroom’s initial surprise at a black CO gave him an advantage early on, he decided, remembering the night he’d been drinking with Dave Pratt and Bernie Ryng in some long-forgotten “O” club. Ryng had claimed Nelson’s dark features were inscrutable, a perfect face for intelligence work. Pratt had agreed with Bernie. An inscrutable captain also, Nelson mused now with amusement.
    He wandered out on to the bridge wing again and stared back over at the imposing outline of Kennedy. He was sure Pratt was on the bridge, surveying the new command surrounding him. I’m glad you’re calling the shot s, Dave , Nelson said to himself. We’ll do all right.

TOM CARLETON
    L ike Cobb and Ryng, Carleton could sleep anywhere, and he took advantage of the long flight to rest himself as much as possible. But like Pratt and Nelson, he was also excited about his new command. He felt like a child wandering into a candy store clutching five dollars in his hand and with no one to tell him how to spend it.
    Yorktown was the key to defending a carrier battle group from air attack. Her AEGIS fire-control system coupled with sophisticated detection and tracking functions could direct the weapons of the entire force. One-third of her cost was for the ship herself, the rest for an electronic installation unrivaled by any in existence. Tom had spent his last six months as a prospective commanding officer in schools and simulators. He’d commanded destroyers before and he was an engineer, but he had to relearn his trade, especially in accepting the reality that the commanding officer of an AEGIS cruiser no longer fought his ship from the bridge. Instead, he sat before a fire-control display system inside an electronics-filled space and communed with a computer to fight his ship.
    It was a totally different Navy from the one his father served in during the Second World War. As a child, Tom had thrilled to tales of