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31
Susan droppedher fork onto her plate with a clatter that seemed to shake the suddenly silent cabin. She wasn’t the only one.
“Cooked?” the President barely choked out the word.
“Yes, only partially, but yes. He’d been superheated inside his cockpit.”
“Cooked?” The President repeated. Hard to blame him; it was too unreal.
“Did you wish me to repeat that, Roy? The word is accurate. Verifiable by simple observation without any conjectural inaccuracies. His flightsuit and seat showed significant signs of burning. As did his face protected only by his visor.” And Miranda began cutting into her roast chicken. “Internally he was—”
“I don’t need any more details on that.” The President looked positively ill.
“If you like. It may not be directly connected to the cause, however it is relevant to the crash and the damage to the USSTheodore Roosevelt…herself.” Miranda paused her chewing for a moment and appeared to actually look directly at the screen. “Isthataccurate?”
“Is what accurate? You’re the investigator on site.”
“Like the majority of US Navy ships, the USSTheodore Rooseveltis named for a male. Yet in colloquial English, we refer to a ship as she. The Russians call their ships by the masculine-gendered pronoun, which seems far more consistent with both their and our own ship-naming practices. Perhaps you should change either the common pronoun usage or how you name your ships, Roy.”
What would have completely flummoxed Susan six hours ago now had her laughing along with the other members of her team. The captain looked unamused but Susan noticed that General Nason and President Cole were smiling.
“I’ll give it some thought, Miranda,” the President nodded.
“I’d be glad to send you a list of some truly exceptional women who have served in the military and government, sir.” Susan couldn’t quite believe her own cheek.
“Yes, the naming is disproportionately male,” Miranda observed. “Especially when compared to modern forces. Including historical forces skews that of course, because of the bias of the military against inclusion. Roy, was that in violation of the law, discrimination based upon sex?”
“We’ve fixed that rule, Miranda.”
“Oh, good.” Miranda appeared mollified and returned to her meal.
“Sir,” unready to turn to her own meal, Susan turned to the President. “Has there been any progress on thewho?I have done limited research from here, enough to know about the prior, ah, harassment of allied aircraft by Chinese ship-based lasers. They were mostly low-powered dazzlers intended to temporarily blind rather than…” she nudged her plate of roast chicken farther away, “…severely injure. Could this be an escalation of those practices?”
“Nothing more concrete than such a conjecture at this time.”
“Miranda,” Susan was having a hard time looking at her enjoying her meal. Was that why Miranda never looked directly at someone, she found it too upsetting? “Would there be anything to distinguish one country’s laser from another?”
“No. Coherent light, or in this case infrared light…hmm. It seems unlikely that anyone has developed such a powerful maser, doesn’t it?”
“Maser?” Susan hadn’t heard of that one.
“A microwave laser. No, I think they’re still in the testing stages for weaponization. It must have been a laser tuned to the infrared—an iaser perhaps, though that is an awkward vowel construction. As I was saying, coherent light, whether or not it lies within the visible spectrum, is still coherent light no matter whose equipment generated it.”
Susan had always thought she herself was tough and that nothing could forge past her guard. But watching Miranda eat roast chicken while discussing how the pilot was burned out of the sky was more than she could manage. A quick glance around the table showed that Miranda was the only one immune to the metaphor. Could she not see it?
Miranda waved a fork as if indicating the flight deck above them. “All of the rest of what happened was due to his actions during the landing operation. It was really a fascinating sequence of events that we don’t have fully mapped yet. The Landing Signal Officer noticed the first atypical flight action between five and six seconds ahead of the landing itself; that was probably the initiation of the laser strike. I haven’t had access to the PLAT cameras yet.”
“The…what?” The President had been a soldier, not a Navy pilot.
“It’s the Pilot Landing Aid Television, Mr. President,” Captain Brightman answered. “It records every aircraft’s approach as an aid to the LSO—the Landing Signals Officer. It hasn’t been our highest priority.”
Susan swallowed hard and carefully nudged her plate completely aside. “Miranda, is there anything on the PLAT that will tell you more about the attack itself?”
“Beyond the precise moment of initiation of the attack, no. All the rest was a straightforward series of events. An unlikely sequence, but Mike’s witness interviews have corroborated the observed results to date. The pilot’s actions were commensurate with attempting to protect the ship as he was dying, though he achieved quite the opposite result.”
The President and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs exchanged looks that Susan could easily read.
She spoke up, “We’ll get back to you if we have any new developments. We await your further instruction.”
“Right,” the President faced the screen. “Captain Brightman, no, we weren’t mistaken in your promotion. Carry on, Commander Piazza. Your instincts were good, but I need no protection from Ms. Chase. Miranda, thank you, you have our numbers if you find anything else. For future reference, you have my permission to call either of us under any circumstances, even when someone tries to order you not to. I’m sure that Ms. Harper can convince any reluctant parties to comply.” He offered a wry smile at the last.
“Aw, Mr. President,” Holly replied. “You’re just making this girl a happy little vegemite.”
But Susan knew that no matter what she said, Holly was not as random or as carefree as she’d have everyone think.
The screens blanked.
Still, no one was eating. Sadie sat up in her chair and sniffed toward Susan’s chicken. She cut a few pieces onto a tea saucer and placed them on the seat cushion beside the dog.
But she still wasn’t ready to eat any herself.
