Brown, Dale - Independent 01

by Silver Tower (v1. 1)

  “One more minute.” He cleared the GPC flight code once again. “This is it, you contrary s.o.b. If you don’t go, I leave you to fry on your way down.” He reentered flight code two-oh-two and the computer screen blanked.

  “The GPC’s not accepting the maneuvering code,” Marty radioed to Hampton.

  “Then let’s get the hell out of here. Hull temperatures are increasing. If you wait much longer...”

  “On my way,” Marty said. He was about to leave the commander’s seat when a sudden thought stopped him. He sat down and cleared the in-flight maneuvering code, punched in the code to erase the IPL and the mass memory areas. He was eliminating all the shuttle’s schooling.

  Suddenly the code came back as “202,” the in-flight maneuvering code.

  “A perverse lady.... Reverse psychology, works every time—”

  “Say again, Enterprise?”

  Marty sat back in the commander’s seat and took a firm grip on the control stick.

  “I say, lead on, America. Enterprise is right and ready to go.”

  Marty Schultz, along with Ken Horvath, hovered over yet another piece of free-floating SBR console, grabbed it and secured it back in place with another piece of tape.

  “Attention on the station,” Saint-Michael announced over interphone. “Target-area horizon crossing in one minute. Stand by. This station is on red alert.”

  Horvath nudged Schultz, looking around the command module. Almost every panel and console in the entire module—ceiling as well as wall mounted—had been removed during the past five days and only about half of them had been put back in their original places. The rest were either floating, attached or semiattached to some other piece of equipment somewhere else in the module. Bundles of wiring of all descriptions crisscrossed the module in all directions: it was easier for the crewmembers to float around the wires than to try to route the wiring behind the ever-changing landscape of electronic components. Pieces of equipment borrowed from other modules— computers and monitors from the recreation module, wiring from Enterprise, tubing and insulation from the cargo module, test components and, in many spots, entire console sections from the scientific module—added to the seemingly random piles of equipment scattered throughout the command module. But the mountains of gadgets only partially concealed the huge silicone patches on the module walls, the areas of scorching where fires had broken out, and the occasionally flashing environmental warning lights (the warning horns had been deactivated long ago; they went off all the time but everyone watched the warning lights anyway).

  One of the silicone patches had recently been removed, and a large data-transmission cable had been strung through the hole before a new silicone patch was applied. The cable ran from the command module out across space and connected to a port in America's cargo bay; the spaceplane had been secured beside Silver Tower by having America's manipulator arm grasp and hold the station’s central keel. A few consoles had been removed on America's flight deck and a hasty rewiring job had also been managed there.

  “Jon, we’ll be ready to transmit in a few minutes,” Saint-Michael radioed to Hampton aboard America.

  “Roger,” Hampton replied. “TDRS set to fleet tactical, and TDRS link for America to Armstrong shows active and ready. Standing by.”

  Saint-Michael turned back to the master space-based radar console —actually, the one that was acting as the master display. Parts of the master console were spread throughout the module, but they had managed to cluster most of the important controls together to make it easier for one person to operate it. Ken Horvath took his place beside Saint-Michael and studied the displays, shaking his head.

  “I’m having trouble deciphering all this.”

  “I’ll explain,” Saint-Michael told him. “You may have to relay this information to Nimitz or Ticonderoga like an air traffic controller if the TDRS relay doesn’t work. Okay, our SBR display computer is all gone, so it can’t draw the informational maps and target symbols for us. But we still get the raw data that would have been fed into the SBR display computer—range, bearing, altitude, heading and velocity of the object being tracked. All of that is displayed on these two screens. The SBR can also analyze the target—tell us if it’s an aircraft, a ship, its origin and even possible destinations—and that’s displayed on the left screen. You match up target designation codes to find which is which.”

  Horvath was feeling more confident. “Sounds easy enough.”

  “It isn’t. The SBR can pick up objects weighing as little as a few hundred pounds, so we’ll be getting a flood of information. We’ll probably need to squelch some of the SBR data—delete the stuff we don’t want to look at. We have a monitor that records what’s being squelched but we can’t see it from here. So be careful.... If we link up with the Nimitz via TDRS, the third minitor here will show his position as well. I’m hoping that Ticonderoga's computers can digest these raw data into their information-center’s digital display.”

  Saint-Michael checked the right-hand display. “Attention on the station. Target-area crossing.” Then to Hampton aboard America, “Activate the TDRS link, Jon.”

  USS NIMITZ

  “Admiral, urgent message from the Ticonderoga.”

  Edge water quickly read the message form. “Admiral, it’s from Armstrong Space Station. They’re back transmitting....”

  Clancy was already staring in surprise at the liquid-crystal repeater display. It began to shimmer and undulate as if streams of phosphorescent water were pouring down its face. The numbers and scales of the display itself began to change at first, then the symbols of the ships belonging to the Nimitz carrier group. After a few moments land and political boundaries were drawing themselves at the upper edge of the screen.

  And at the right-hand side of the screen was the Arkhangel carrier group, its escorts spread out into the “Russian star” formation. Soon even finer elements were being added: the display identified aircraft, helicopters, even types of radar emissions from each vessel. The side of the display showed codes belonging to each ship and its course and speed.

  Clancy hurried over to the master CIC console and picked up a headset. “Patch me into Ticonderoga. I want to talk with the space station.”

  The relay took a few minutes, but Clancy soon heard the familiar crackle of the scrambled satellite transmission and another familiar sound.. .. “Nimitz, this is Armstrong Station. How copy? Over.”

  “Jason, I’m damned. I heard someone in space command might get off their duffs and fix that station but I didn’t dare believe it. Very glad to hear your voice.”

  “Likewise, Admiral,” Saint-Michael said. “We don’t have much time. I’ve passed the essentials to Ticonderoga but here’s our situation: we’re on an equatorial orbit this time. That means we have coverage of you for only twenty minutes every ninety minutes. That’s twenty on, seventy off, twenty on, seventy off. Best we can do.”

  “I understand, Jas. That’s fine. Hell, even twenty minutes of SBR data is valuable. Listen, what’s your level of damage up there? Do you have any defense?”

  Saint-Michael gave a sideways glance at Marty Schultz as he exited the command module hatch. “We’re working on that, Admiral. We might even have a surprise for anybody who happens to drop in on us. Anyhow, we’re hanging tight here. Out.”

  RUZLAN ATTACK FORMATION

  The attack plan had been coordinated down to the very second.

  The six Soviet Tupolev-26 Backfire bombers attacking from Iran each carried one AS-6 Kingfish antiship cruise missile semirecessed along its centerline weapons hardpoint, plus two AS-12 Kegler antiradar missiles on the intake-weapons stations. At three hundred miles distance from the northernmost escorts of the American aircraft carrier Nimitz, the six Backfire bombers would launch their missiles from eleven thousand meters. Then as the six cruise missiles climbed and accelerated to their cruising altitude the bombers would drop low for the long overwater supersonic dash toward the fleet. Once within ninety kilometers of an
y American vessel, the Backfire bombers would launch their antiradar missiles at any acquisition of tracking radars they met up with.

  At the same time as the AS-6 missile launches, the first wave of Sukhoi-27 Flanker fighters would launch from the Arkhangel toward the Nimitz. Along with the fighters, two waves of five supersonic swing-wing Sukhoi-24 Fencer bombers would launch from the escort attack-carriers Kiev and Novorossiysk and begin attacks on the M- mitz’s escorts from the south and west. Each bomber carried two AS-12 antiradar missiles, four AS-16 advanced long-range armorpiercing missiles and one thirty-millimeter Gatling-type strafing gun with armor-piercing shells.

  The two-pronged attack, involving twenty-four heavily armed supersonic aircraft, was timed to near-perfection. The copilot aboard the lead Backfire bomber, First Lieutenant Ivan Tretyak, was responsible for force-timing for the six Backfire bombers from the Caspian Sea aviation base at Baku.

  “Checkpoint coming up, copilot,” the navigator-bombardier called up to Tretyak. “Ready, ready... now.”

  “Seven seconds late,” Tretyak said, checking his flight plan and chronometer. “New groundspeed, navigator?”

  “Stand by.... New groundspeed to next checkpoint—one-one- nine-five kilometers per hour.”

  “Copy,” the pilot, Major Andrei Budanova, replied. Carefully watching his Doppler groundspeed readout, he nudged the throttle of his twin Kuznetsov NK-144 turbofans up until the groundspeed read the proper value, then reset the Backfire’s wings until the proper launch angle of attack was reestablished. “Groundspeed set.” He switched his radio to the air-to-air command frequency. “Ruzlan flight, new throttle setting ninety-four percent. Wing-sweep setting forty degrees.” His five wingmen acknowledged the call.

  Perfect, the attack-formation commander told himself. Dead on time, six good bombers and not one hint of detection or threats anywhere. Perfect....

  USS NIMITZ

  “Sir, SBR is reporting six large high-speed aircraft approaching on an intercept heading from the northwest. Armstrong Station’s SBR is calling them Backfire bombers.”

  “Range?”

  “Aircraft are still over Iran, sir,” the seaman aboard the Nimitz said. “Six hundred sixty nautical miles and closing at Mach one. All still at high altitude.”

  “Sound general quarters,” Edgewater ordered, then looked to Clancy, waiting for a countermand or change. Instead he got: “Launch alert flight Romeo to intercept and get Whiskey One on the catapults. Send the cruiser Mississippi northwest to follow the Tomcats to assist. Broadcast messages on all frequencies warning all aircraft within four hundred miles to identify themselves or we will fire without further warning.” “Aye, sir.”

  Clancy slapped his hands together as his aide handed him a life jacket and helmet.

  “Nimitz, this is Armstrong. We’re showing aircraft heading your way. Do you copy?”

  “We got ’em, Jason,” Clancy radioed back. A happy warrior now. “You guys spotted ’em a full three hundred miles before Aegis would have even known they were there. You may have just saved this battle group. Well done”

  Saint-Michael took a deep breath. “Thanks, Admiral. We’ll be maintaining surveillance for another one-five minutes. Let’s hope the Russians don’t get too feisty while we’re on the back side of our orbit.”

  “That’s up to us. Thanks again on this end. Nimitz clear.”

  “Luck, Admiral. Armstrong out.”

  RUZLAN ATTACK FORMATION

  “I am showing ninety seconds to launch point,” Tretyak announced.

  “Acknowledged, copilot,” the bombardier replied, inside the dark bombardier cubicle a few meters behind Tretyak. Khabarovsk glanced across the narrow aisle to the defensive-systems operator, pulled a flask from his boot and took a long pull.

  But he wasn’t quick enough about it: the electronic warfare officer, First Lieutenant Artemskiy, spotted him. Khabarovsk thought he’d be in big trouble. To his surprise, Artemskiy nodded toward his own electronics countermeasure cubicle behind the pilot and opened his two gloved hands. Khabarovsk expertly tossed the flask into them.

  Artemskiy unscrewed the flask and sniffed the contents. Not vodka? He swirled it around, glanced at Khabarovsk. The bombardier rolled his palm over his stomach.

  “Coming up to missile-launch point.”

  “Acknowledged.” Khabarovsk gave Artemskiy a thumbs-up and carefully rechecked his switch positions for missile launch. “Checklist complete. Ready for launch commit and ten-second alignment countdown.”

  “Ruzlan flight, Ruzlan flight,” Budanova, the pilot, called over the air-to-air radio, “launch commit. Repeat, launch commit.” Bombardier Khabarovsk moved the LAUNCH COMMIT button to the COMMIT position.

  Artemskiy returned Khabarovsk’s salute, then nodded at the flask. One sip couldn’t hurt. They were still miles away from the extreme range of the American’s radar. He tipped the flask up to his lips—

  A threat-warning buzzer sounded on his panel. Startled, Aremskiy dumped a mouthful of home-made distilled grain alcohol straight down his trachea and into his lungs.

  “Defense section. Threat warning. Bearing and type immediately.”

  Artemskiy upchucked onto his tiny workshelf beneath his electronics console, but it did little good—he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. The flask clattered down his flightsuit, drenching his pants leg and deck with alcohol.

  “Defense. Report. Bearing and type to threat---------- ” Still no reply.

  “Ruzlan flight, evasive maneuver Echo-five-echo. Execute.”

  “Negative,” Khabarovsk called out. “Still five seconds to go on missile countdown....”

  “Disregard missile countdown, bombardier. Place your missile in countdown hold and get ready to launch after we roll out. Defense, give me a bearing on the threat.”

  But it was already too late. The lead pilot’s only evasive maneuver in a line-abreast cruise-missile launch formation was a hard pushover to a three-“g” dive for the safety of the sea, and because he would be on the same heading during the maneuver the push had to occur immediately after threat detection. He did not have time to ask for bearings or give orders. Just at the point he decided to execute the evasive maneuver a U.S. Navy AIM-54 Phoenix missile struck the Backfire bomber’s right-wing root and sent the one-hundred-fifty-ton bomber to a fiery crash in the Arabian Sea.

  Attacking from one hundred miles away with long-range Phoenix missiles, six F-14E Tomcat Plus fighters from the USS Nimitz screamed toward the scattering Backfire bombers. The Phoenix missiles were relatively less reliable launched at their extreme range limit, but even though only one Phoenix missile found its target the attack achieved its effect. The AS-6 cruise missile required a steady launch platform within narrowly defined acceleration limits ten seconds before launch, and all six of the Backfire bombers had immediately exceeded those limits.

  The devastation continued after the Tomcats closed in. With no internal bomb bay and the AS-12 antiradar missiles installed on the underside intake weapon stations, the Backfire’s limiting speed was Mach 1.5, but the bombers were already at Mach one before they began their evasive maneuvers. As soon as they started their emergency descents for the safety of the radar clutter of the sea, they reached and then exceeded the normal weapons limits. The fortunate ones jettisoned the AS-12 and AS-6 missiles before reaching the emergency carriage speed limit of Mach 1.8; the rest found their supersonic bombers shaking themselves to pieces and their AS-12 missiles ripping free of their weakened pylons.

  Of the original six-bomber attack force, three survived the initial F-14 Tomcat attack that had seemed to come out of nowhere. Of these three, one was chased down and destroyed by a medium-range Sidewinder heat-seeking missile. A second failed to jettison its AS-12 missiles, one of which ripped free of its pylon and struck the horizontal stabilizer, making the aircraft spin out of control.

  The remaining Backfire bomber ended its evasive maneuver immediately after beginning it, realigned its AS-6 cruise missil
e and launched it seconds before two Tomcats hit it with three air-to-air missiles. The AS-6 missile, riding a long, bright yellow column of fire, sped skyward, leveled off at fifty thousand feet and went southeast at Mach three. The American Tomcats had no hope of chasing it down.

  But the AS-6 missile tracked directly over the guided missile cruiser USS Mississippi, which had been trailing the Tomcats from the Nimitz and had been tracking the AS-6 almost since launch. It brought both of its fore-and-aft Mark 26 dual-rail vertical launchers to bear and fired a salvo of four SM2-ER Standard missiles at the speeding AS-6 cruise missile. The AS-6, in spite of its advanced design, accuracy and awesome destructive power, was still not capable of any evasive maneuvers; flying at high altitude and in a straight line toward its target, it also made itself an inviting target. The U.S. defense missiles intercepted the Soviet cruise missile several seconds later.

  USS NIMITZ

  “Bridge, CIC. Aegis reporting radar-contact aircraft bearing one-five- zero true, range three-one-five, closing fast. Multiple inbounds.”

  Well, the fleet wouldn’t have Silver Tower to help them out on this one, Admiral Clancy thought as he and Captain Edgewater paced the bridge of the USS Nimitz, dividing their attention between flight-deck operations and the Aegis battle-management radar-repeater scope.

  Edgewater studied the scope. “We’ve got Tango flight on patrol to the southeast, Admiral. Four Tomcats.” He picked up the phone to CIC. “Combat, this is Edgewater. Got a count on those inbounds?” “Negative, sir. So far only three targets, high altitude, fast moving, within two hundred miles of our cruiser South Carolina’s position.” “Better get another flight airborne to back up Tango against those inbounds,” Clancy told Edgewater. “I don’t believe the Arkhangel’s only sending up three planes. It’s more than likely three formations-two attack and one fighter escort_____ ”