Not on my watch, buddy, the TAO thought, staring at the symbols tracking across the screen.
1240 local (Zulu -7)
Hornet 401
“Low level’s no trick, buddy,” Thor said out loud. “Just what the hell are you up to?” He watched the Flanker make a minute change in course and tapped the flight controls to follow it.
He glanced at the clock. In another ten minutes, it would all be over anyway. The Flanker would transit the battle group, and then either turn to make another pass or continue on to wherever it was bound. He could follow until the aircraft left the battle group’s airspace, take a quick drink from the tanker, and then head home.
Suddenly, the Hornet’s ALR-67 radar warning receiver buzzer went off. A radar was sweeping him, radiating a fire control signature. He felt a sudden chill.
“Hawkeye, I’m getting — what the hell is going on?” he said on the tactical net. “That’s a damned Aegis radar!”
“Roger, Hornet, we’re getting it. Aegis is locked on to the incoming bogey,” the E-2 replied.
“Oh, shit. Hawkeye, talk to me! They’re not thinking of shooting, are they?” Thor’s hand itched to push the throttles forward of its own accord. To be this close to a bad guy — or even a potential bad guy — with missiles in the air, wasn’t healthy. He fought down the impulse to get the hell out of Dodge. If the Aegis was planning on launching one of its SM-2 anti-air missiles in their direction, Thor had a burning desire to be very gone. The SM-2 was the same missile that Vincennes had used to shoot down an Iranian airbus in 1988, believing that the contact was an Iranian F-14 fighter. If their electronics emanations were any clue, the Vincennes was still confused about who the good guys and who the bad guys were.
The SM-2 was a long-range, high-speed missile, capable of attaining velocities exceeding Mach 2. Its 1,556 pounds of massed destruction carried a high-velocity controlled fragmentation conventional high explosive atop a single-stage dual-thrust Aerojet Mark 56 solid-fuel rocket. It had an inertial navigation system with two-way communications link for midcourse corrections from the Aegis ship, along with monopulse semiactive radar homing and a proximity/contact fusing system. It was the standard missile (SM) used by surface ships against any airborne target, aircraft or missile. A potent, lethal missile, and one that Thor was not interested in trying to outsmart and outmaneuver.
The Flag TAO’s voice came onto the circuit. Thor listened as the Admiral’s staff berated the Aegis cruiser and ordered them to cease targeting the Flanker. The signal blipped off his ESM warning receiver.
The Flanker kicked in its afterburners, and the twin Saturn/Lyulka AL-3 IF turbofans spat bright fire out the twin tailpipes. Thor felt the increase in its wake buffet the Hornet as the Flanker ascended. Reflexively, he followed the Flanker, maintaining a good firing solution on it from behind.
The Flanker twisted and turned, behaving for all the world like a fighter suddenly engaged in air-to-air combat. Since he was carrying no missiles, the pilot would be solely concerned with allowing Thor to get a decent shot off.
The Flanker veered suddenly and raced back along its original course, heading for the coast of Vietnam, still twisting and dodging. It must have taken being illuminated by fire control radar seriously, and the pilot must be thinking he was in immediate danger. Thor let the pilot open the distance between then, wishing there was some way to convey that despite his air-to-air armament, he had no intention of taking a shot at the other pilot.
He followed the Flanker, still conducting evasive maneuvers, to the edge of the air protection envelope, and then broke off. Paranoid little bastard, he thought, and felt a moment of sympathy for the other pilot. If Thor’s experience was any guide at all, the Flanker driver was going to need a clean pair of skivvies as soon as he got back to his base.
1245 local (Zulu -7)
Hunter 701
“Any activity?” the TACCO asked again.
“Nothing.” Rabies took his eyes off the window and turned in his seat so he could see the TACCO. “You’re pretty antsy about this one. Quit worrying — we’re far enough off that we can outrun anything a Flanker’s likely to shoot at us.”
“This isn’t feeling right,” the TACCO answered over the ICS. “That Flanker hauling ass out of here after passing targeting information down to the sub — why?”
“You don’t know for sure it was talking to the sub. Maybe it was just some sort of exercise. And she went buster because idiot Aegis lit her up. How’d you feel if an unfriendly carrying long-range surface-to-air missiles lit you up with fire control radar?”
“About like I do right now, Rabies.” The TACCO leaned forward, trying to see out of the cockpit. The sub was out of sight, lost to view by being head-on into the setting sun.
“Getting machinery noise, flow tones. Hull popping — she’s changing depth!” the AW said suddenly. “Sir, where is she?”
The TACCO felt a cold chill. “Rabies, get us out of the damned sun,” he said urgently.
“Ready one,” the copilot announced as the S-3B moved — now painfully slowly, it seemed to the TACCO — out of line of sight with the sun.
“Sir!” the AW insisted.
The TACCO strained forward to see out the canopy.
Below them, he saw disturbed water, dark shadows moving below the warm murk of the South China Sea. Was there movement? He couldn’t tell for sure. Illogically, he wondered whether the submarine could see him through the canopy, looking up at the aircraft through the periscope. Could it see his pale white face peering forward between the two pilots’ seats? He rubbed his hand over his chin, feeling the rough afternoon growth.
Suddenly, the water below them exploded into white froth and foam, boiling up from below like an undersea geyser reaching higher and higher into the sky. Twenty feet above the water, the sea peeled back like a banana skin, revealing the slender white form inside it.
“SHIT!” Rabies screamed, throwing the S-3B into a hard right turn. The copilot lurched in his seat as he completed the remaining sequences to drop the torpedo, coldly reporting his actions to the carrier. The TACCO felt the Viking buck, as 506 pounds of Mk-46 torpedo dropped away from the wing.
“It wasn’t a fucking Grail,” he shouted over the ICS. “That wasn’t aimed at us!”
“What the hell was that?” the E-2C was screaming at the same time over the tactical net. “Hunter, what the fuck?”
Rabies knew the rest of his crew had seen the missile, but they hadn’t really seen it. They’d seen what they expected to see — another SAM launched at their aircraft.
“It’s a cruise missile!” Rabies screamed over the net. It wouldn’t be bothering with the Viking circling overhead. No, the ships in the battle group provided a much more inviting target.
1246 local (Zulu -7)
Combat Direction Center
USS Vincennes
“Missile inbound, sir!” the EW yelled on the net, as his SLQ-32 ESM gear detected the missile seeker head and started blaring warnings. Seconds later, the air tracker jumped in, reporting the radar contact.
The TAO reacted instantly. The Aegis combat systems were fully capable of handling an entire air engagement on full automatic, doing everything from identifying threat targets to assigning weapons based on priorities and firing the air-to-air missiles. When it was on automatic. Under the current threat condition, though, it still required operator intervention.
The TAO acknowledged the contact on his screen, his fingers flashing over the keys. He was aware of the CO standing behind him, asking questions and demanding answers. Reflex and training paid off — within seconds, the SM-2MR streaked off the rails, another missile sliding into firing position immediately behind it.
The TAO, his eyes fixed on the radar screen, said, “One away, Captain.” Now that the actual missile was launched, he had a few seconds to wait before he would decide whether to launch a second salvo. There was still time.
It looked good. The attack geometry was perfect, and the
y’d had enough warning and data to get a good fix on the incoming missile. There were too many friendly ships and aircraft in the area to indiscriminately launch a spate of long-range missiles, especially when the geometry for a single-shot kill looked good.
Even if the missile missed, the cruiser had one last-ditch chance against it, as did the carrier. Both ships, as well as all the other ones in the battle group, were equipped with CIWS. The TAO prayed it wouldn’t be necessary. While CIWS could fire like a gatling-gun and nail a missile up to two miles away, even a destroyed missile would probably shower the ship with burning fragments of fuel and flak. The debris could knock out either the SPS-49 air radar or the super-sensitive SPY-1 that made the Aegis such a formidable platform.
Ten miles from the carrier, the SM2-MR caught up with the intruder. On the radar, the two blips merged, then disappeared. From the bridge it would have been a spectacular sight, the fireball of missile-on-missile lighting up the sky and reflecting off the water. Here in combat, in the bowels of the Aegis cruiser, only a faint dull thud provided outside confirmation of what their radars told them.
“I guess next time you’ll listen up,” the CO snarled. A look of unholy jubilation lit the older man’s face. “I knew those bastards would try something! If I hadn’t had those birds on the rails, we would all be toast! Think about that next time, before you start running off at the mouth.”
“Yes, sir.” The TAO leaned forward over his screen, staring at it as though it held some secret. Whatever doubts he’d had about the CO before seemed grossly unprofessional. No matter that Captain Killington had been prepared for air-launched missiles and a submarine had actually taken the shot. The launch platform was irrelevant because the captain’s instincts had been right. The TAO’s best judgment might have gotten the ship sunk.
He glanced over at his coffee cup. He’d drained down the last bitter dregs just before the missile shot. With the ship at General Quarters, he was unlikely to get a refill anytime soon. Not until they stood down to Condition Two, at any rate. It didn’t matter right now, while the adrenaline from the missile shot still pounded in his veins. Four hours from now, however, he knew he’d be aching for a caffeine fix.
Just as well that he couldn’t get a refill on the coffee right now. The other thing that was secured during General Quarters was the head.
He wondered whether caffeine deprivation and full bladders played much part in the course of war at sea. Probably so, he concluded, as he remembered that the Captain of the USS Stark had been in the head when his ship had taken a near-fatal missile shot in the Persian Gulf. That hadn’t been a declared war, either, although a lot of sailors had died.
From down here in the sandbox, he concluded, it didn’t matter that there was no declared war or prior warning. They could be just as dead, and just as short on head calls and coffee, as any force had been in a declared war.
At least with Captain Killington in command, it looked like Vincennes would never take a hit. And that was of more comfort to the TAO than caffeine right now.
CHAPTER 10
Saturday, 29 June
1245 local (Zulu -7)
TFCC
USS Jefferson
“Now just how the hell do we explain this to Seventh Fleet!” Tombstone shouted into the receiver. “This was supposed to be routine FON ops — how many times do I have to explain that to you? Do you think that includes lighting up a foreign national’s aircraft? With fire control radar? Do you suppose he and his government might take the slightest bit of offense at that? Damn it, Killington, that’s a violation of every known rule of peacetime engagement!”
“And because my ship was ready, I’m talking to you now, Admiral! With all due respect, if you are ordering me to compromise the safety of the Vincennes, I decline.” Captain Killington’s voice was coldly self-righteous.
Tombstone glanced across the desk at the JAG officer, a lawyer with extensive expertise in international maritime. The JAG shrugged and nodded.
No help from that corner, Tombstone thought. I know as well as he does that no Board of Inquiry will ever blame him. That SOB is damned lucky he got shot at! The end justifies the means, in this case. But it’s entirely probable that he provoked the whole incident.
“I better not see a single action that can possibly be interpreted as aggressive out of you,” he warned Killington. “You’ve damned near gone over the line this time.”
“If I had, you’d have already relieved me,” Killington snapped. “And if you’re certain I have and you don’t, then stand by to join me at that long green table, shipmate. Because if I go down, you’re going with me!”
Tombstone slammed the receiver down and flung himself back away from the desk. The bitch of it was that Killington was right. If he relieved the man of command now, Killington would claim that he’d energized his fire control radar in self-defense. And if he didn’t, he would appear to condone any subsequent actions by the Aegis cruiser CO.
“You’re taking notes,” Tombstone said finally to the JAG officer sitting quietly across from him.
“Yes, Admiral. For what it’s worth, I don’t envy your position.” The JAG officer shook his head. “Either way, we’ve got problems. Can you afford to take the chance that he was right?”
“At this point, I’m going to. My gut tells me not to do it, but I’m going to leave him in command. Maybe the Navy knew what it was doing when it gave him command, maybe it didn’t. For now, I’ll trust the selection boards — if not Captain Killington himself.”
Tombstone leaned forward and punched the intercom button for CAG. Captain Cervantes answered up immediately.
“CAG, get me some air-power up there. I don’t want any repeats of the Stark business.”
As the JAG left the office, Tombstone glanced at the Western history book still open on his coffee table. As surely as Wyatt Earp had known what awaited him at the OK Corral, Tombstone knew that the battle group was standing into danger. If the Chinese wanted a shoot-out in the South China Sea, he’d be damned if he’d show up unarmed.
1300 local (Zulu -7)
Flight Deck
USS Jefferson
Onboard Jefferson, life suddenly became simultaneously much simpler and more complicated. Most of the more restrictive rules of engagement had just gone out the window on the trail of the submarine’s cruise missile, uncomplicating the maze of determinations a commander needed to make before launching weapons. However, the logistics of getting enough metal into the air to protect the carrier battle group more than made up for any simplification of the battle group’s engagement status.
The flight deck boiled with technicians. Red-shirted ordnance technicians hauled yellow gear to waiting S-3B and ASW helicopters, manhandling the torpedoes up to the weapons stations on the wings. Other ordies restocked the sonobuoy slots along the underbelly of the aircraft. Purple Shirts, the enlisted men and women who handled refueling, waited impatiently. Refueling and rearming an aircraft simultaneously was too dangerous.
The helos were ready to go first. They carried smaller weapons loads than the fixed-wing ASW aircraft, only two torpedoes each. The SAR helo, always airborne during flight operations, circled the carrier, waiting for the carrier to declare a green deck.
Up in Pri-Fly, the Air Boss swore to himself. He’d left two S-3’s on alert ten. As he watched, the stubby ASW hunter-killers taxied to the bow. The first, Hunter 702, lined up on the waist catapult. Hunter 7 10 went straight ahead to the port bow cat, its jets throbbing with the low, mesmerizing sound that gave it its nickname of Hoover.
The bow cat was ready first.
“Green deck!” the Air Boss snapped, scanning the flight deck for any lingering technicians within the lines that delineated the operating area.
“Green deck, aye,” the Air Traffic Controller, or AC, echoed. He repeated the Air Boss’s order into the sound-powered microphone that hung around his neck, and it was relayed to the Yellow Shirts and catapult officers on the deck.
&nb
sp; The Air Boss saw the handler motion, and two technicians scampered out from under the forward Viking. The shuttle was now attached to the S-3’s forward wheel strut. The Viking’s engine ramped up, crescendoing into the full-throated roar of military power. The handler snapped off a salute, then ran to safety. The Air Boss could almost feel the catapult officer pause, take one last look around, and then press the pickle switch that would unleash the steam piston.
The Viking shot forward, reaching over 120 knots of ground speed in four seconds. With thirty knots of wind across the deck, that equated to 150 knots over the wings, enough to keep the aircraft airborne until its own engines could get it moving faster.
Fifteen seconds later, the same intricate ballet was complete on the waist cat, and the second Viking was airborne. The ASW helicopters followed in short order, three of them.
The Air Boss looked grimly satisfied. With a total of six ASW aircraft, along with the towed arrays of the surface ships and the cruiser’s own ASW helos airborne, being a submariner just got a lot less fulfilling.
1305 local (Zulu -7)
Admiral’s Cabin
“Admiral, how about a JAST Tomcat?” Batman asked quietly. “That look-down capability might come in real handy about now.”
Tombstone shot his former wingman a thoughtful look. “Are they configured to handle a sub-launched missile?”
“Don’t see why not. The best parts of the new avionics and radar are designed to handle sea-skimmers. Can’t come much closer to the sea than getting shot from a submarine, now, can you?”
Alpha Strike c-8 Page 11