Arsenal c-10

by Keith Douglass

  She settled back against the rigid gunwale and thought about it. Why should she judge them harshly for killing a dog, when Cuba had made few bones about murdering thousands and thousands of its countrymen?

  Should Americans be held to a higher standard of honor than foreign nations? And if so, how does one fight rogue nations like Cuba, those barely civilized hordes of hotheaded fascists now in possession of some of the world’s latest technology?

  Fire with fire, she decided. That’s what it would have to be. But some part of her mourned the death of that dog.

  0635 Local (+5 GMT)

  Fuentes Naval Base

  The Cubans hunkered down in the command bunker twenty feet below ground had escaped the bombardment with minimal damage. Plaster had crumbled off the walls as a result of the vibrations bombarding the center, and a few chunks of ceiling had detached themselves from the steel beams overhead and shattered on the concrete floor below, but everything was still operable.

  Santana wished he could say as much for the launchers above. How had the Americans managed to locate the underground launch tubes? A satellite, he supposed, or perhaps one of those damnable reconnaissance flights. No matter he glanced at the weapons status indicator panel again, and was relieved to see it was unchanged.

  The rows and columns of idiot lights looked like Christmas. At least half of them were glowing steady red, indicating that their components were beyond reinitialization or repair. Another half was blinking red, clamoring for operator attention to either reset critical parameters or simply clear something obstructing a launch hatch. Finally, on the far right-hand side of the board, three columns of lights glowed bright, steady, reassuring green. At least three missiles were still operational, if the damage indicators could be trusted. Three chances to strike, either at the mainland, or at the battle group poised to strike from the south.

  The mainland, he decided finally. That had been their intent all along, and the first hint of attack against their landmass would no doubt send the Americans sputtering and sniveling to the United States.

  That alone would tie up their forces for days, while Cuba negotiated a massive aid package in exchange for an apology from the United States for their uninvited incursion into a foreign nation. The fact that Cuba had retaliated all out of proportion to the alleged violation would be ignored, as it always was. In terms of politics, the Americans were the perennial patsies.

  The crew in the command center was still alert and coherent, although some of them appeared shaken by the man-made earthquakes they’d experienced in the last five minutes. He thought he could count on them he would have to count on them, at least until relief crews could be brought in, the rearming process could be started, and his country could begin working back toward full military power.

  In the meantime, only one thing mattered getting off that one shot at the U.S. mainland that would show them just how capable Cuba was, and how serious it was about its sovereignty.

  He gathered the technicians around him, soothed them with words about their courage and the greatness of the act they were undertaking, and sent them back to their stations recharged and energized. As their missiles would be shortly.

  0637 Local (+5 GMT)

  Tomcat 202

  Tombstone, get the hell out of the area,” Batman snarled over tactical.

  “No argument, just do it. Now!” Puzzled, Tombstone flipped the Tomcat into a tight turn, slinging it around like David lining up against Goliath. It was an article of faith among aviators that when the air traffic controller insisted on immediate obedience, you obeyed first, questioned later. That the man directing his tactical disposition was another admiral made little difference to Tombstone.

  Surely Batman had good reasons for it, although it frustrated the hell out of him to be taken off his mission once again.

  What was it about this island? Would he ever get a damned look at the BDA?

  “Roger, coming right to one-eight-zero now, angels ten and ascending.”

  Tombstone waited for a moment, then asked, “What now?”

  “The UAVs,” Batman said. “I need you well away from the ground site.”

  “Why not send me in?” Tombstone asked. “I’ve got five-hundred-pound bombs on the wings, and I think I still remember the basics of strike warfare. We can be in and out before” “No time,” Batman said.

  ‘Tombstone, the Cubans are getting ready to launch. I don’t want you anywhere near that area when the first missile heads out toward the United States. Your electronic emissions, the fire control radars that are lit off buddy, get your ass out of there. Buster. I’m going in with everything I’ve got in one last try to blast those burrowing moles out of the ground. I don’t want you anywhere near the fireball.”

  Tombstone switched his microphone back to the ICS.

  “You listening?” he asked Tomboy.

  “I am. And there’s something missing from this equation,” she said thoughtfully. “Surely the UAVs don’t carry tactical nuclear warheads?”

  “I don’t think so,” Tombstone said, although suddenly he wasn’t nearly as certain as he’d have liked to be. “Deploying tactical nuclear weapons in my theater of operations even that would be going too far.

  Sure, they might put UAVs on the Arsenal ship without my knowledge, but to get us involved in a nuclear conflict no, I don’t think so. It was bad enough that they tried to micromanage the targeting, but surely they wouldn’t” “What if the Cubans have them, and the U.S. knows it?”

  Tomboy persisted. “And Batman’s so worried about us being close init’s not the blast, it’s the EMP he’s worried about. What else could it be?”

  EMP-electromagnetic pulse was the first and most devastating effect of a nuclear explosion. The deadly forces unleashed by the weapon disturbed the electromagnetic field of the earth, shorting out sensitive microelectronics and transistors for miles around. Cars would stop, computers would fail, and the delicate instrumentation of the fly-by-wire Tomcat would immediately cease to function.

  He’d be left with only manual hydraulics, if that. And no electronics whatsoever. That meant he couldn’t fire missile shell, he’d be lucky if the EMP didn’t trip something in the fire control circuitry and inadvertently ignite something while they were on the wings.

  “Nukes. My God. And if they miss, or don’t fire?” He let his voice trail off.

  “Then we’re in the middle of the biggest political cluster-fuck in twenty years,” Tomboy finished. “Tombstone, that command center it’s gotta be destroyed. And we can’t trust a UAV that’s never been tested in combat to do it.”

  His RIO his wife was making eminently good sense.

  There was no longer any question in his mind about BDA.

  What he needed now was complete and total destruction of the command center before it could launch weapons possibly nuclear weapon sat the continental U.S. Furthermore, he needed to make that happen before the United States was tempted to use its mobile nuclear arsenal, now circling, he suspected, in the skies over Cuba.

  “You’re right,” he said softly. He paused for a moment, then asked, “Are you up for this? You know it’s dangerous.”

  Tomboy’s voice was calm and level. “You know I’m in.

  We’re all in this together. Tombstone. This was our role in life before we met each other, and right now it’s more important than anything I’ve ever done. Except maybe no, let’s go on,” she concluded firmly.

  Something in her tone of voice bothered him, but he let it pass, pressed as he was by the need for an immediate decision on the mission.

  As pilot in command, he had the ultimate say-so in where the Tomcat went and how she executed her mission. And in this case, that would include disobeying orders from the rightful battle group commander. He flipped the switch back over to the tactical circuit. “Batman, you’re coming in weak and broken. I can’t read you at all.” He felt oddly amused at that old, hoary trick that pilots and aviators used everywhere for avoiding comp
lying with directions from the ground they didn’t like.

  Batman knew the ploy, too. “Damn it, Stoney, don’t you pull this crap,” he roared, his rage clearly evident over the crystal-clear circuit. “You’re not having radio problems.

  Don’t you even” “Switching to secondary,” Tombstone announced calmly.

  “Home Plate, this is Tomcat Two-zero-two, switching to secondary.

  Primary circuit is weak and broken, possibly from some form of, uh.

  .

  sunspot interference. Yes, sunspots. I do believe that’s it.”

  Tombstone switched the radio off.

  “What will he do?” Tomboy asked softly. “I know he doesn’t believe you.”

  “You’re almost right he doesn’t believe me about the radio, but he does believe I’m going to ignore his orders. It’s up to him now. Give me a vector back to the command post.”

  Tomboy spieled off a series of numbers, directions, and speeds, and Tombstone jerked the Tomcat around in a tight turn. He finished off with a barrel roll just for the hell of it, not bothering to let Tomboy know about it beforehand. Her yelp from the backseat registered her protest.

  “Ten minutes,” Tomboy said, her voice still a few notes higher than normal. Among other things that he’d have to pay for the barrel roll would be among them.

  “See if you can find that UAV for me,” Tombstone said.

  “It’s probably over water, though I gather it’s inside the twelve-mile territorial limits. If it weren’t. Batman wouldn’t be as worried as he is about us bustering out of here we’d have a little bit more time.”

  “No sign of it,” Tomboy said promptly. “I’ve been scanning for it in tracking mode ever since Batman mentioned it. Those little bastards are hard as hell to find, Stoney. I wouldn’t count on our gaining contact.”

  Unless we’re both inbound on the same target area and our separation decreases dramatically, he added silently.

  That may be the first time we’ll get contact on it as we’re both launching at the target. And if that little bastard is nuclear. God help me. And Tomboy. Again, something in her comments over the last few minutes, coupled with an odd sense of resignation in her voice, nagged to be understood. He let his thoughts linger on it for a moment, on how he’d met her on board Jefferson during a cruise, how they’d gradually come to know and respect each other, first as aviators and then as lovers. And on the impact she had made on his life, in marked contrast to that of Miss Pamela Drake. What had he ever done to deserve such a wonderful woman? A superb, giving lover, tender and supportive spouse, and dynamite bulldog tactical officer in the air if he’d made up his own wish list of what he wanted in a wife, he would have sold Tomboy far short.

  But her voice … he pushed the thought aside, and concentrated on the land coming into view ahead. By now, the sun was nearly half visible over the horizon, and streaks of rose and orange striped almost the entire sky. Night was no longer a protecting cloak.

  As the minutes passed. Tombstone could feel the tension mount in the cockpit. It was a familiar sensation, but still fraught with all the fear and anxiety that going into combat always brought. He and Tomboy had been here before, done this time after time together, both over the Spratlys and the Aleutian Islands. Why should this occasion be any different? It wasn’t, he suspected; it was just the fact of their marriage that made it seem odd.

  An odd silence hung in the cockpit as well, unalleviated by any tactical chatter from the secured radio or communication with other pilots. According to the radar, the furball to the southeast was still in frantic action, American pilots chasing the nimble MiGs across the sky, periodic flashes of increased radar detection indicating that another airplane had exploded into a massively reflexive ball.

  American or Cuban there was no way to tell until the flash settled down and Tomboy could verify whether Or not the surviving blip showed IFF transmission.

  As far as he could tell, it looked like the Americans were winning. An EMP would change that, knocking both the American and Cuban aircraft out of the sky more effectively than the smartest air-to-air weapon in either inventory.

  “Tombstone. I think I’ve got it.” Tomboy’s voice sounded forced, but calm. “Look out at zero-nine-zero; see if you can see anything. It’s an intermittent blip on radar. Could be the UAV.”

  Tombstone turned his head right and stared into the rising sun. Just occulting in front of it was a small, dark blip, barely more visible than a pinprick. The UAV he was almost sure of it. It was all the wrong shape, had all the wrong movements for a fighter aircraft. “I’ve got it. Yes, I think that’s it.”

  “Good. I hold it inbound toward the same target area.

  Speed Mach one-point-two, altitude five thousand feet.”

  Tombstone nodded. That matched his visual identification. “So Batman’s going in with it.”

  “Maybe. Remember, he’s still holding us on radar as well.

  Did you secure the IFF?”

  “No. So he’s at least got that to break our radar blip out of the pack. He knows where we are, and he knows his newest play toy is headed dead for us. This is one decision I can’t make for him.”

  “Feet dry,” Tomboy announced, refocusing him on the mission. Tombstone nosed the Tomcat down, heading for the deck. He’d make his initial run at five hundred feet, see what intelligence he could gain from his first pass. Then, time permitting and depending on what Batman did with the UAV, he’d vector back in on a bombing run.

  The command post was reportedly located under twenty feet of dirt, but the five-hundred-pounders at least had a chance of damaging it. Maybe fatally. It was better than losing all the aircraft currently airborne to EMP if the UAV held the warhead he suspected it did.

  “Two minutes,” Tomboy said. She suggested a tiny course correction, which Tombstone promptly adopted.

  Again, the odd silence descended on the cockpit. With nothing else to do except watch for antiaircraft fire and wonder if some prehistoric idiot armed with a Stinger would be sitting on a hill waiting for them.

  Tombstone found odd pictures flashing into his mind. Tomboy, the first time he’d seen her, climbing into an aircraft. Her face at their wedding, brilliantly radiant. And later. Tomboy in bed, the small, voluptuous frame responding to his every touch, her passion rising to meet and, exceed his. He shook his head, let his mind linger one last time on the lush curves and smooth swells of her body, and then”Tomboy?

  You’re not pregnant, are you?” There was horror in the voice, as much as he hated to have it there. If she were, and she hadn’t told him, then flying this mission was perhaps the most foolhardy thing she had ever done in her life. Her condition would require an evaluation by a flight surgeon before she could remain in flight status.

  “No, you idiot, of course I’m not pregnant. What in the world gave you that idea?” Tomboy’s voice was lightly amused. “Jesus, Tombstone get your head in the game.”

  “Okay, I just wanted to never mind.” Now was not the time; then again, there might never be a decent time to discuss it, not after the blunder he’d just made with his new bride. “Where did you say that UAV was?”

  “There.” Tomboy inserted a special target designator in his heads-up display. “Our only chance to keep Batman from using the UAV is to go after the target ourselves. You know that, I know that. Let’s get moving.” Her crisp tone of voice brooked no argument.

  Tombstone corrected his course and bore in on the Cuban naval base.

  “Trouble,” Tomboy announced calmly. “Stoney, I’m getting targeting indications from the carrier. I think they’re talking to our little unmanned friend over there. Now if I see there it goes. It’s changing course, Stoney, climbing, getting some altitude.”

  “How far behind us is it?” he asked.

  ‘Ten miles now.”

  He shook his head. Not enough time. Air distance, in this case, though in the arcane geometry of the sky, time, and distance seemed to merge into a single lethal puc
ker factor.

  How much fuel did the UAV have left on board? Would it be able to accelerate to a max cruising speed of Mach 3, or would it have to choose a more fuel-efficient speed?

  That depended on how long it had already been in the air, and whether he’d be required to make any other moves to avoid detection. Two other factors he didn’t know.

  Damn it. Batman, you could have told me. It might have given me an edge might even have talked me out of this last-ditch effort. As it stands now, I have no choice about it.

  If I can stop you from making a possible nuclear strike on Cuba, I have to. The EMP-we’ll kill more of our own pilots than the Cubans can.

  “You know, there’s one other possibility,” his backseater said. “This UAV may not even be under Batman’s control.

  Remember the arguments on installing that remote targeting and firing option on the Arsenal ship? Sure, they would have needed some cooperation from Arsenal to launch UAV, but what if all targeting and deployment control is directly under JCS now? Arsenal may have some relay communications gear or some other way to override, but I doubt it. That’s what the politicos would have wanted direct control over the missiles once they’re launched. That turns the whole carrier battle group into just a remote control weapons launch platform, doesn’t it? Next thing you know, they’ll be able to fly an F-14 off the deck with the pilot sitting in it like a monkey. I don’t like this one little bit.”

  Tombstone considered the matter. “It’s possible, I suppose.” Even as he admitted it. Tomboy’s explanation seemed more and more probable.

  “If Batman’s not controlling it, you can bet he’ll be on the circuit telling JCS we’re inbound on the target. Might make them abort the launch.”

  “I guess we’ll find out,” Tomboy answered. “The hard way.”

  0650 Local (+5 GMT)

  South of Cuba

  The water was almost blood temperature. It soothed his strained muscles like a hot tub, coaxing the pain and soreness out of his back and legs. Bird Dog gradually relaxed into the flotation device, letting it carry his weight.