She rose from the captain's chair and took a final look around the darkened Combat Information Center. At each workstation, a face was backlit by the cool glow of the monitor screens. Voices were steady.
Eyes were level. There might be tension here, concern, quite probably fear. But it was controlled, buried deeply beneath multiple layers of training, self-discipline, and professionalism. This was a United States Navy war crew, and, at times like this, Amanda felt humbled that such people served at her command.
All hands were intent on their duties; none noticed the salute their captain gave them before she departed.
The passageways were nearly empty and red-hued by the battle lighting.
The Duke had closed up to general quarters and all hands were at stations, waiting out the final minutes to mission commit.
"Captain!"
The voice spun her around. It was Arkady.
Bulky in his flight gear, he carried his helmet under his arm. The scarlet illumination made his skin ruddy and his black hair flame.
"We've completed the hot refuel on the Enterprise's CSAR helos and they've taken departure, ma'am," he said formally. "We're moving out now. I just thought you'd want to know."
There might have been a set of steel bars between them.
There was a job on.
"Thank you, Lieutenant. Good hunting. Take care."
"And yourself, Captain."
He turned abruptly, breaking off the meeting of their eyes, and started back to the hangar bay. Amanda headed forward again, clenching her fists to stop the trembling of her hands.
262 James H. Cobb This was all part of the world she had chosen for herself.
But she also knew, deep down in her heart, that she didn't have many more good-byes like this one left in her.
Reaching the bridge level, she paused at a gear locker and donned her own armor: the foam and Kevlar combat vest and the gray ballistic helmet that bore her rank stenciled on its brow. She twisted her hair up onto the back of her head and settled the helmet over it, containing her mane with the helmet's inner webbing. Stepping forward again through the light curtain, she heard the old, traditional cry.
"Captain's on the bridge!"
Four decks down and a hundred and fifty feet aft, stars glittered over the open pit of the hangar bay. Retainer Zero One was on the elevator platform, ready to be lifted topside.
Zero Two stood poised to follow as rapidly as the helipad could be cleared for her. All conceivable preflight checks had been made. With every system double-tested, the AC hands stood back against the bulkheads, awaiting the order to launch.
Someone else waited as well. Christine Rendino leaned in the hatch frame, her arms crossed, an unusually somber expression on her face.
"Hey, sis, seeing me off?" Arkady said.
"Yeah," she replied quietly. "I need to tell you something."
"Like what?"
"Like this. Don't push it! You are going to be going downtown on this job. Right where all the bad boys live. If it looks too hot, or if things start to go strange on you, abort!
Don't play Mr. Hero. Don't stretch the envelope. Just tell the Chinese you don't want to play and get your ass out of there."
"Aw, shucks, I didn't know you cared." Arkady grinned back.
Christine looked up, the battle lights flashing in her eyes.
"This is a no-shitter, man!" she whispered fiercely. "You are staying alive for another person now! You no longer have the right to do stupid!
You hear me?"
SEA STRIKE 263
Startled by the intensity of her words, the aviator stepped back a pace.
The arch came out of the Intel's spine and a rueful humor came into her voice. "She can't tell you stuff like this, but 1 can. Okay?"
Arkady suddenly understood what she was saying. ' ' hear you, sis," he replied with a smile.
They exchanged a silent thumbs-up, putting a seal on their corners of the new pact, then the aviator moved on to his waiting mount.
Gus Grestovitch was already aboard the Sea Comanche, running his preflights. "Good morning, Mr. Grestovitch," Arkady said, lifting himself into the forward cockpit. "All ready for your moonlight tour of the mystic Yangtze."
"None of this is my idea, sir."
"You just lack imagination, son." Arkady's harness buckles clicked as he locked them down. "Let's hear that stores list one more time."
"Fuel cells, flare and chaff dispensers: full, full, and full.
SQR/A1 dunking sonar pod on port-wing mount. Magnetic Abnormality Detector on starboard. Internal weapons bays, two Hellfire rounds, and two seven-round Hydra pods."
They would be doubling in brass this night. Not only would the Duke's Sea Comanches be hunting the Chinese boomer but, should a strike aircraft be downed in the Shanghai area, they would be tasked with flying cover for the Combat Search and Rescue mission.
"Check, check, and check. DTU is coming back." The aviator passed the loaded Data Transfer Unit over his shoulder to the S.O. Grestovitch, who in turn socked the cassette into the helicopter's systems access slot, downloading the mission profile into the onboard computer. Telescreens lit off, computer graphics sketching out the environs they would be operating over and the flight path they would follow.
"We're set."
"Roger D."
Arkady caught the eye of the waiting pad boss. ' Take us up," he said, gesturing with a quick vertical jerk of his thumb.
The elevator moaned under its burden and Retainer Zero One was borne smoothly to deck level. The lift pad sealed
264 James H. Cobb off the red light of the hangar bay, leaving the helo isolated in the night.
"Ready for the engine-start checklist, Lieutenant ... Lieutenant? You okay, sir?"
Vince Arkady had been given a few seconds to think during the elevator ride.
"Yeah, Gus. I'm okay. I was just studying all of the different ways life can get complicated on you."
"Do fuckin' tell, sir."
On the bridge, the time hack repeater metered away the passage of seconds. A column of digital clock readouts on the CRT screen, it counted down the scheduled events on the Stormdragon time line. Amanda looked on as the uppermost hack approached zero.
Back aft, the howl of aircraft turbines became intermingled with the growling drone of rotors grabbing for lift. The lead hack zeroed out and disappeared.
"Retainer Zero One taking departure," an emotionless voice reported over the intercom.
Amanda stepped out onto the bridge wing and watched as a thundering shadow swept past the flank of her ship, momentarily hiding the stars as it climbed away into the night.
Zero Two followed within five minutes.
"Communication, this is the Captain," Amanda said into the command mike.
"Advise Task Flag that our helos are away on schedule and that we are proceeding to the next phase."
Lifting her thumb from the transmit key, she turned to the watch officer. "Come right to two seven zero. Close the range with the Chinese coast."
TASK FORCE 7.1
0120 HOURS ZONE TIME; AUGUST 28, 2006
Macintyre and Tall man had been sipping desultorily at mugs of coffee that neither particularly wanted. Now both admirals looked up sharply at the approach of Tall man's chief of staff.
"The Cunningham reports that her helos are in the air and that she is moving into firing position," he reported. "The Strike Boss also reports that the line of battle has been formed. We are two minutes and thirty seconds away from launch. The Strike Boss reports all boards are green.
He is standing by for strike commit."
"Any word in the pipeline from D. C.?"
"Negative, sir. We are maintaining open links with both the Joint Chiefs and the National Command Authority at this time. No change in mission authorization. We are still good to go."
Tall man studied his tepid cup of coffee for a moment more before speaking.
"Very well, then. Inform the Strike Boss that he has stri
ke commit."
Tall man set his mug on a console top. "Come on, Eddie Mac, let's go out on deck and have a look at this. It's going to be something to see."
The carrier had swung to the east, screening herself with her own helicopters and freeing her destroyer escorts to form the line of battle. Now, off to starboard, half a dozen big Spruances and Ticonderogas swept through the darkness, nose to tail, clearing their firing arcs for an objective far over the horizon.
At one time, massive gun turrets would have been indexing around; now, silo doors snapped open and launcher tubes elevated with a nasal whine of hydraulics.
Down in the Combat Information Centers, firecontrol systems murmured cybernetically across the datalinks, appor
266 James H. Cobb tioning targets, cycling through prelaunch checklists, counting away the seconds.
The count reached zero, and the human-born cry of "Fire"
that sounded through the 1-MC circuits was a mere formality.
Warning horns blared and boosters ignited. The first cruise missile flight salvoed into the night sky, each round trailing a curtain of golden flame. More flights followed, the crackling roar of their launch building and reverberating across the sky.
A mist of luminescent exhaust vapor hung low over the water and the warships were backlit in the glare of their own firepower, a shadow squadron sailing across a sun-colored sea.
For almost rive full minutes, the launch raged on. It was one of those moments of piercing beauty that sometimes occur during war at sea, and all who saw it would remember.
The scattering of hands topside abandoned the pretense of going about their duties to stare at the developing spectacle through narrowed eyes.
Finally, the last missile flight hit the sky. Darkness returned as their jettisoned booster packs rained down into the sea like glowing embers.
The thunder began to fade as their turbojet sustainers carried them away toward the horizon.
On the Enterprise's flight deck, a new wall of sound began to grow. The first attack diamond of F/A-22s were on the carrier's catapults, the magnified vacuum cleaner moan of their engines reaching a crescendo as they spooled up to flight power.
Ponderously, the massive warship turned into the wind.
"Admiral, Captain Kitterage is requesting permission to launch aircraft."
"Inform the captain that he may launch at his discretion."
Down on the steam-streaked deck, Moondog 505's canopy settled onto the cockpit rails, closing out the thunder of the night. "Set?" Digger Graves called over the ejector-seat back.
"Set," Bubbles replied laconically from the rear cockpit.
Following the directions of a wand-wielding greenshirt, 505 waddled into position at the base of number-two catapult.
Below the Sea Raptor's nose, one set of flightdeck SEA STRIKE 267
hands linked the plane's forward landing gear to the cocked catapult shuttle.
Simultaneously, checker hands verified that all ordnance safety pins had been drawn and that the fighter-bomber's wings were locked down. They also watched as Graves cycled his control surfaces: rudders, elevators, ailerons, flaps, spoilers, air brakes. They flashed Digger the thumbs-up. All go. Ready for launch.
Jet-blast deflector plates lifted into position behind the poised aircraft. Digger felt his aircraft come under tension as the catapult charged. He flared his landing lights, signaling his readiness to the cat officer, then put his throttles to mode four.
Diamond-studded flame spewed from the engine exhausts as the afterburners fired; the piercing scream of the turbofans became something beyond mere sound.
Digger took a deep, deliberate breath and settled himself deeper into his ejector seat. A night carrier launch is possibly the single most dangerous routine conducted in aviation.
There is one plus to it, however: brevity. If you are going to die, it will probably happen within the first three seconds.
The cat monkey made the theatrical windmilling gesture that signaled to the rest of the deck that a plane was about to hit the sky. Dropping to one knee, he stabbed his fist forward.
The cat officer squeezed the launch trigger. Thirty tons of aircraft, explosives, and human life hurled down a hundred and-fifty-foot track into the darkness.
The stealth bomber hovered off the end of the angled flight deck, balanced on the knife-edge between flight and not flight. In the cockpit, Digger Graves performed a quick series of critical actions.
He had to reorient himself using the glowing HUD display, staving off the vertigo of being flung out into absolute blackness.
He had to retract the landing gear and tail hook. He had to hold Moondog 505's wings level and he had to keep her nose lifted above the invisible horizon. All within a matter of a few racing heartbeats and all while recovering from the gut slug of a cat launch. To simplify his agenda, Digger didn't bother with breathing.
Somewhere in the middle of that longest second in the 268 James H. Cobb world, the Sea Raptor made its transition from projectile to flying machine.
The landing gear thumped into the fighter-bomber's belly and the flaps went flush with the wings as Digger finished cleaning up the aircraft.
The blue glare of the afterburner flame disappeared from the rearview mirrors as he throttled back to climb power. That left only the night and the stars and the dim rogue constellation of the Enterprise's deck lights dwindling away astern and below.
Digger banked the Sea Raptor toward the distant coast of China, and two protracted exhalations hissed in the plane intercom. "You know," Bubbles said for possibly the hundredth time, "I really fucking hate that part."
YANGTZE APPROACHES 0130 HOURS ZONE TIME; AUGUST 28, 2006
"Bridge, this is the stealth bay."
"Bridge, aye."
"We're approaching radar return limits. Captain. The Reds are going to be picking us up on their screens in another couple of minutes."
"Thank you, Mr. Mckelsie. It's not going to matter too much here presently."
Beyond the bridge windscreen, the coast of China showed as a band of total blackness between the obsidian of the sea and the starblaze of the sky. The bow of the Cunningham was a shadow dagger aimed dead-on at its heart.
Dix Beltrain's was the next voice to fill her earphones.
"Captain, we have verification from Task Flag that the touch has been executed. All cruise-missile streams are inbound and on course."
"Ordnance status?"
"All missile flights are hot. All launch cell doors are open.
All systems are sequencing to fire time on target. T minus forty-one seconds and counting."
"Status on the Retainers?"
SEA STRIKE 269
"Lieutenant Arkady reports both Retainers are at initial point, ready to move out. We are standing by for launch commit, Captain."
"Fire when ready, Mr. Beltrain."
"Very good, ma'am. All systems enabled. Five ... four ... three ... two
... "
The Cunningham's deck horns squalled their flat warning.
The destroyer's first round lanced into the sky, the bridge crew shielding their eyes from the yellow glare of the booster flame.
The stealth cruise missiles leveled out a meager fifty feet above the wave tops, razor-blade wings and rudderators snapping open from out of their angular fuselages. As the land-attack variant of the weapon, they had the ability to strike at a target over a thousand miles away.
Tonight's mission was point-blank range for the SCM, the equivalent of firing a high-powered hunting rifle across a poker table. It did guarantee, however, that the job would get done.
The first warning the Red Chinese had of the attack was when their beach sentries spotted the light flare of the Cunningham's launch on the horizon. Twelve missiles in twice that many seconds. The second warning came a quarter of a minute later as the first of the cruisers whined in over the beach.
The crews of the coastal radar stations had no chance. The inbound stealth weapons reg
istered on the Red radar screens for only seconds before impact. Unlike the HARMs that had taken out the antenna arrays, these weapons went directly for the station control centers, guided in by the impulses of the Global Positioning Satellite System.
Just short of their objectives, the missiles pogoed, climbing steeply, then diving into their targets. The radar sites had all been hardened, either hunkered underground or heavily sandbagged.
However, the half-ton, semi-armor piercing warheads of the SCMs struck with the force of Thor's hammer.
Total kill.
Inland, some Red systems operators realized what was happening as the coastal stations began to drop out of the datalink net. Shouting a warning, they fled their operations 270 James H. Cobb rooms, throwing themselves flat on the ground or into adjacent air raid trenches. A few survived.
One third of the SCM strike had an objective other than the radar sites.
Running nose to tail up the southern channel of the Yangtze estuary, they scanned the left bank with microsecond bursts of laser light, seeking the match for a specific structural template stored in their guidance systems They found it: the quay at Waigaoqiao that served as the power and communications head for the hidden ballistic missile sub.
One after another, the cruise missiles peeled off, streaking in toward the target.
A string of fiery detonations flashed down the length of the pier, shattering unmanned fishing boats as if they were orange crates. Amid the smoking conflagration, there came the sharper flare of an electric arc. The Communist government's link to its nuclear ace in the hole had just been severed.
Offshore and centered in a bull's-eye of spray, Retainer Zero One held low over the wave crests, her sister helo hovering a few meters away. In the Sea Comanche's cockpit, Arkady counted off the flashes of the warhead detonations.
"Ten ... eleven ... twelve. Twelve out and in."
The ECM threat receiver's warning tone went silent as the last radar sweep died.
Slightly to the northwest, a closer series of explosions rippled along the surface of the sea. The Cunningham's followup strike had just eliminated the guardships lurking outside of the estuary mine barrier.
"Gray Lady, this is Zero One. We have a clear board and the guardships are down. We are departing initial datum point. Zero Two, move out!"
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