In that moment, the Captain of the Shiloh, a man with twenty-five years in the Navy and five at-sea commands, was so proud of his crew he could have cried.
He turned away from the OOD to hide the expression on his face. Just as he did, the ship rocked violently to starboard. Seconds later, water geysered up on the port side, spewing against the bridge window glass and splashing against the closed bulkheads.
The captain lost his balance as Shiloh pitched further and further to starboard, and loose gear and sailors slid across the deck toward the starboard side. He felt himself skid, and hit the deck hard with his right hip.
His eyes sought out the inclinometer. Twenty degrees, twenty-fivethe red needle tipped toward thirty, then passed it.
Thirty-five degrees, forty. He knew a moment of despair, and yelled, “Come on, Shiloh! You can do it, you can do it,” urging the ship to recover from the roll.
The screams from the crew on the deck and throughout the ship almost drowned him out. Even braced as they were for the possibility of a mine, sailors would be thrown free, rammed into gear, and pinned by sliding equipment. Shiloh was built to take punishment, but serving as a minesweeper had never been in her design specs.
The moment lasted forever. Slowly, imperceptibly at first, he felt the ship hesitate in her downward swing. She hung there, suspended between water and sky, the ocean clearly visible through her starboard hatch porthole, far closer than it had any right to be.
The heel back to port started slowly, the barest shift in her deck evidence of her center of gravity taking control of the problem. The rate of change accelerated markedly, and Shiloh rocked violently to port, almost as far as she had to starboard. Injured sailors slid back across to the other side of the bridge, frantically grasping for a handhold, arms flung around the radar repeater, the corner of the plotting tableanything to stop their mad plummet from side to side as the ship rocked.
It seemed an eternity, but three minutes later the Shiloh settled into a five-degree list to starboard. Damage-control reports began pouring in from the outlying teams.
The captain swore violently and turned to the OOD, who was just regaining his feet. The OOD had his weight all on one leg, the other one trailing oddly behind him. He clutched his arm close to him, white and pasty-faced.
“Are you okay?” the captain asked.
The OOD started to crumple. The captain darted forward, grabbed him, and laid him out flat on the deck. He turned to the boatswain’s mate of the watch. “The corpsmanget him up here as soon as you can.”
“Aye, aye, Captainbut Damage Control just reported he’s down in the mess decks with two critically injured sailors.”
The captain turned to the junior officer of the deck. “You have the deck, mister. Get me a damage-control status.”
He glanced at the JOOWthe junior officer of the watch. “You still have the conn.”
Noting that both men looked stricken and shaken, he added, “Just do it the way we’ve trained. That’s all I ask. If you have any questions, speak up. But for now, you have my complete trust and confidence. Get hot.”
He turned his attention away from the ship and back to the frantic messages from the damage-control teams being relayed over the sound-powered telephones. They’d taken a hit to port and the mine had opened up a two-foot, almost circular jagged hole on the forward bow. Sonar had dogged the compartment down. They reported there was little chance of repairing the damage, but that they would simply maintain watertight integrity.
“Did everyone get out?” the captain asked tersely. He could see it in his mind, one of the moments he dreaded and saw in his nightmaresmen trapped behind a dogged-down hatch, struggling against rising water, drowning while still within the confines of the ship. He shuddered, trying to think.
“They all got out, Captain.”
The Damage Control phone talker looked as relieved as he felt. Instead of cheering, however, the captain nodded. “Very well.”
He dismissed the matter and turned his attention to the next crisis.
1120 Local
Tomcat 201
“What are they doing, Bird Dog?” Gator demanded. “Dammit, I can’t see from back here.”
“Hold on, I’ll give you a look.”
Bird Dog’s voice was grim. He put the Tomcat into a tight circle, edging closer to the mouth of the Bosphorus. “We could overfly.”
“No way.” Gator’s voice was firm. “That Aegis is going to be one pissed-off cruiser, and we’re not getting anywhere near the edge of her engagement envelope. You’re not anywaynot as long as I’m in the backseat.”
The two aviators gazed down at the ship ten miles from them. Aside from the cloud of dirty, debris-laden water churning around her starboard side, there wasn’t anything apparently wrong with her. Sure, there were no sailors on the weather decks, and she was not making any way. That and the motor whaleboats arrayed out in front of her would alone have been enough to cause them concern.
They listened to reports Shiloh made to the carrier on the mine strike, each one silently thanking their higher powers that they were aviators instead of surface sailors. If they were going to die in battle, let it be in freedom, in airspace, and by their own mistakesnot trapped in a ship, maybe even below the waterline.
“Dammit, I wish there was something we could do to help,” Bird Dog muttered.
“Not a thing except keep the bad guys off them,” Gator said. He shook his head. “That shiphell of a captain on her.”
“Lead, Two.” The quiet voice over the tactical coordination circuit was from Skeeter. “Is there anything we can do?” he asked, unconsciously echoing Bird Dog’s comment just moments earlier.
“Not a thing, Two. You heard the report. How’s your fuel state?”
“Seven thousand poundsenough for now.”
“Roger. Don’t waste it, Skeeter. The tanker’s still out here, but those Hornets suck down gas like it’s going out of style. Loiter speed, most conservative airspeedyou know the drill, straight out of the books.”
“Just like you did a little while ago?” Skeeter asked innocently.
Bird Dog sucked in a hard breath at the young pilot’s audacity.
Evidently, his wingman was not going to quickly forget about his dash on afterburner. He started to answer, then gave it up as a lost cause as Gator howled in the backseat with laughter. “Whose side are you on anyway?”
Gator ripped off his oxygen mask, choking and spluttering. “Dammit, it’s about time I saw thatthat young’un’s gonna give you a taste of your own medicine, Bird Dog. Oh, shit, I can’t believe he said that-“
Gator’s voice broke off as a new peal of laughter ripped through him.
“Yeah, wellit’s about teamwork, isn’t it?” Bird Dog muttered.
The squeal of the RHAWS ESM warning gear cut through Gator’s jocularity. The RIO swore and reached for the silent switch. “F-14’s inbound, Bird Dogand they ain’t ours. Based on their direction, I make them from Turkey.”
“Concur,” Bird Dog said crisply. He flipped over to the tactical circuit. “You getting it, Skeeter?”
“Got it.”
“High-lowI’ll take high.”
Bird Dog goosed the jet up, settling in the classic high-low combat spread that was the favorite fighting position of the United States Navy. Separated by altitude, with the higher aircraft slightly aft of the lower one, this combination gave the two-fighter team superb visibility. Additionally, it allowed the high station to back up the low as the low engaged the incoming target.
They fought the way they trained, in twos. Bird Dog just hoped Skeeter remembered that.
“Got himbogey inbound. Fifty miles, bearing zero-nine-zero.”
“Tomcat 201. Weapons free, weapons free.” The carrier TAO’s voice was calm and assured. “Good hunting, gentlemen.”
“How many of them are there, Gator?” Bird Dog said, maintaining station on Skeeter. “A number.”
“I mak
e it to be thirty-twogive or take a couple,” Gator said.
“Jesus, they’re launching a full-scale strike at us.”
“We need to get at least two of them real fast then. With twenty of us, and no ready source of fuel, we don’t have time to knife-fight it. Not for long anyway.”
“Skeeter, Phoenixlet’s get’em broken up a little bit. Who knows, we might even get lucky and hit something.”
“Fox Three, Fox Three,” Skeeter said immediately.
Bird Dog smiled. Evidently the younger pilot already had had his finger poised over the weapons-selector switch and had already acquired a tone lock on the lead target.
Over the tactical, he heard the other Tomcats and Hornets identifying their targets, selecting their Phoenix, and unleashing a barrage of the long-range missiles on the incoming targets. At the very least, it would force Turkey on the defensive, give the American fighters a little maneuvering room as the raid streaked in toward the trapped carrier below.
“Twenty miles and closing,” Gator reported. “They’re coming after us first, Bird Dognot the carrier.”
“Good thing too,” Bird Dog said, “those assholes aremissile inbound.”
Bird Dog rocked the Tomcat into a hard driving turn. The missile had just appeared on his heads-up display and was only four miles away. He swore quietly. “What the hell was that, Gator? How the hell did it get so close so fast?”
“I don’t knowkeep an eye out for another visual,” the RIO reported, his voice muffled.
Bird Dog twisted and weaved in the sky, shaking the missile easily.
It streaked on past him, tried to home in on a Tomcat behind him, and was just as easily evaded.
Finally, its fuel spent, it ceased forward motion and plunged into the ocean below.
“Got one,” a voice over tactical crowed. “Ain’t never saying another bad thing about a Phoenix.”
For a few moments, the circuit was cluttered with jubilant cries as five Phoenix missiles found their targets.
1130 Local
USS Shiloh
“Get this ship underway.” The captain’s voice was cool and confident. “We’ve got the damage under control, and whether or not we’re underway won’t make any difference to the corpsman.”
The situation around him was becoming increasingly desperate. The twenty fighters that had been loitering just north of them were fully engaged with the incoming Turkish fighters. They were holding their own for now, but under the constant pressure of attack, there would be no opportunity for them to refuel, and sooner or later they’d run out of missiles. The battle was already edging forward into the edge of Shiloh’s air-engagement envelope, but there was no way she could take a shot, not without risking taking out a friendly fighter instead. Not with the furball that they were in.
“Indicate zero-two-one revolutions for three knots,” the OOD said.
The captain watched as the helmsman carefully rang up the ordered rounds on the engine-order telegraph.
The cruiser inched forward slowly, preceded by her escort of motor whaleboats. She was still listing to starboard, and the five-degrees tilt on the deck felt much more significant than it actually was.
For the next ten minutes, she proceeded by fits and starts, creeping forward at three knots, going into a full-astern bell at the slightest indication of trouble from her waterborne lookouts. They edged closer and closer to the edge of the Black Sea.
The second mine caught Shiloh just under the bow. The ship slammed up, her bow tossed out of the water by the violence of the explosion. The crew, braced unconsciously for another hit on the beam, was thrown back against the aft bulkhead. Again the screams, the wails of the dead and dying, as the explosion catapulted already injured sailors into cold steel surfaces.
The bow crashed back down on the water, the forward weather deck completely submerged. The sea coursed up over it, lapping hungrily at the forward bridge windows before subsiding. The fore-and-aft pendulum motion dampened out more quickly than the side-to-side roll had. Within a couple of moments, the ship was bow-down and still listing to starboard.
“Damage report.” The captain’s voice was a harsh croak, but still understandable. The reports started pouring in.
He made his assessment quickly, still somewhat dazed by the hard blow he’d taken against the chart table. The forward part of the ship below the waterline was a complete casualty. The explosion had ripped off the sonar dome, buckled steel plates, and twisted stanchions. The sea was pouring in, had completely inundated the forward boatswains’ locker, as well as the first twenty frames of the ship. The damage control team had already established watertight boundaries, but there was no hope of pumping out the flooding.
Most worrisome was the indication that some of the watertight doors forward had been buckled by the stress to which the steel frame of the ship was exposed. Damage Control teams reported leaking around some of the hatches, controllable for now, but likely to get worse. The captain ordered secondary boundaries set and casualties evacuated, and ordered the ship forward.
1140 Local
MiG-31
Yuri led his flight of MiGs due east, then cut southeast across the Caucasus mountain range. Skimming above the towering peaks, they rendezvoused with the tanker, took on fuel, and topped off tanks. Finally, when the last hungry MiG was at max capacity, they turned south-southwest.
The ancient Ottoman Empire below them was invisible through the light haze and cloud cover, but Yuri remembered the smells and sounds of his last trip to Istanbul. These peopleclose cousins but still so different. For a moment, he wondered why there couldn’t be room enough in the world for both of them.
No, it was a historical impossibility. Since the earliest days of their history, the Turks had sought to dominate the region. That they were now backed by Pan-Islamic nationalists from the Middle East did nothing to stabilize the area. Unless the Americans could be forced to intervene and stem the burgeoning tide of Muslim radicals, a second Ottoman Empire under the control of Shiite reactionaries would soon dominate the entire region.
The Caucasus Mountains would not hold them off for longsoon enough they’d cast greedy eyes on the fertile plains of Ukraine.
“Feet wet,” Yuri announced to his GCI, indicating they were now over the water. They out-chopped into the Aegean Sea, then vectored northwest toward the entrance to the Bosphorus Strait. The weapon under his wingsjust what was it?
Remembering the damage that the last one had caused, Yuri had plenty of reason to be concerned. With a flight of forty-eight MiGs hot on his heels, another EMP pulse was not acceptable.
Though it might prove a decisive victory over the Americans, it would also wipe out the delicate electronics that kept them all aloft.
Were his superiors willing to make that sacrifice?
He knew the answer to thatof course they were. Balanced against the future of Ukraine under Muslim domination, the sacrifice of forty-nine fighter aircraft was insignificant, especially when the current Naval inventory held more than 250, and production facilities were in full gear to produce more.
He fingered the weapons-selection switch, still set in its off position. There was one settingno, it didn’t bear thinking about. If he did that, his entire future was gone. Gone as surely as if it had disappeared in a nuclear blast.
Yet his thoughts kept returning to the possibility. Could he do it?
Jettison his weapon, go empty-winged into the conflict ahead?
He shook his head and dismissed the option. His career, not to mention all the family he still had remaining in Russia and Ukraine, was at stake. He had no choice but to follow the mission as briefed.
Heroes come in odd shapes and sizes, a silent voice insisted.
1155 Local
USS Shiloh
They were passing Istanbul now, and the sight of the city shook the captain almost as much as the mine attacks had. The waterfront was still and silent. The piers were crowded with fishing vessels tied up
and vacant. Not a soul moved, not even the shipfitters and fishermen that normally crowded the waterfront and piers.
Ahead, the Black Sea beckoned. To the captain, it was probably the most beautiful sight in the worldfree, open water, probably devoid of minefields. Probably. The thought made him pause. Who was to say the Turks hadn’t seeded the entire Black Sea with mines. Mines were cheap, readily available, and one of the easiest defensive emplacements to deploy.
But intelligence reports had been fairly uniform. There was no indication that there were mines past the point about five hundred yards ahead. Like it or not, he would have to rely on those reports.
Five minutes later, Shiloh slipped past the breakout point. She was battered, water-logged, and clumsy in the waterbut she was free.
1200 Local
USS Jefferson
“Flank speed,” Batman snapped. “Send a signal to Shilohwell done and clear the area. How bad is her damage?”
“She’s still afloat, Admiral,” the TAO reported. “Barely.”
Batman nodded. “I’ll see that her captain gets so many decorations he walks with a port list. In the meantime, get us back into this fight. I’ve got aircraft overhead that need some company right about now.”
1201 Local
USS Shiloh
“Right full rudder.”
The captain felt the ship respond slowly, too slowly. She sluggishly veered off to the right, steadying up on a new course to clear the area. He walked onto the bridge wing to stare aft.
Behind him, the aircraft carrier plowed through the ocean like a behemoth. Huge bow waves sputtered up around her hull, an indication she was balls to the walls. The captain stuck his head back into the bridge and ordered another five knots of speed. Best to be clear of the carrier. In any conflict over who had the right of way, tonnage always counted.
1202 Local
USS Jefferson
“What’s our relative wind?” Batman asked.
“Spot on,” the bridge answered. “Ready to commence flight operations.”
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