by David Poyer
All at once he remembered what he’d read about that weave. It was a Soviet tactic, one they’d passed on to the forces they’d trained.
It was the way a strike group of missile craft approached a surface barrier patrol, screening the approach of a higher-value unit behind them.
“Ask him to look behind them. About fifteen miles behind.” Dan picked up the phone beside his chair and ratcheted the barrel switch, by feel, fast, clickclickclickclick. “This is the skipper,” he told the bridge. “General quarters, no drill, right now.”
As that was going out, the incoming track data showed a sudden drop in speed. At the same time the petty officer on the ESM stack, the electronic listening gear, yelled, “Square Tie radar, bearing two-five-two, threat close.”
The assistant TAO, Kim McCall, was going through the pubs, but Dan already knew what that meant. Odds were their contacts were Osas or Komars. Small, fast missile boats the Soviets had provided to their third world clients by the dozen. Komars had sunk the Eilat, an Israeli destroyer, not many miles from where Horn was right now. Cheap to build, fast, and packing two to four heavy, huge warheaded missiles.
The 1MC cut loose, so loud it hurt his ears. “General quarters, general quarters. All hands man your battle stations. This is not a drill.” The alarm cut in, the rapid electronic note that haunted the dreams of every man who’d ever heard it for real. “Traffic route is up and forward, starboard side; down and aft, port side. Set material condition Zebra throughout the ship … I say again, general quarters, general quarters. All hands man your battle stations.”
The intruders seemed to be slowing. Now he had them at ten knots, same base course. He told Camill to set emission control, shutting down the radars except for single sweeps on order. They passed that to the bridge, and a moment later it came over the 1MC as well. Watertight doors slammed. He tucked his pants cuffs into his socks, strapped on his gas mask carrier. The compartment was a bustle of others doing the same, the general quarters team coming on and getting briefed up. Fortunately, Camill was the tactical action officer for general quarters, so he didn’t have to turn over or brief anyone, just stayed where he was. Dan saw perspiration reflect blue light between the stubble of his incipient hair.
The radar pictures faded to blank screens. Dan didn’t plan to stay in electronic silence, but he wanted to see what these guys had in mind before he laid out his hand. If they were what he thought, they’d be searching out ahead for a target. So far, thanks to the patrol aircraft, he knew about them, while at thirty miles they probably hadn’t detected him yet.
“Okay, Kim, where are they from?”
“For the Med region the pub lists Russia, Algeria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Yugoslavia as having Osas and Komars.”
“That doesn’t cut it down much.” But this close to the southern shore, he guessed Egypt or Libya, with Iraq, Algeria, or Yemen more distant possibilities. He slid out of the chair and stood beside Camill studying the display at close range. So far they showed as unidentified. As he watched, Horn’s transmitted input took effect, rippling change into the data readouts. “See if Tiger’s willing to go over there and get some visual ID. Infrared. A side number or something.”
“We could launch Blade Slinger, if they can’t. Get a better targeting solution, if we need it.”
“If they see us launch a fast mover, they’ll know we’re a combatant. Don’t send it voice, either. Send it on the data link.”
They’d drilled all this so many times, it was so much second nature now, that even though most of the crew had been in their bunks, barely six minutes passed before the 21MC said, “Captain, Officer of the Deck. Battle stations manned and ready, Zebra set throughout the ship, time six minutes fifteen seconds. Emcon condition bravo set throughout the ship.”
“Very well.” Dan studied the display. Even though his own radars were shut down, he was getting data from Tiger, from Moosbrugger, and also from Kocatepe, the former USS Reasoner, which had the box directly to the north of them. The intruders were speeding up again, but had stopped weaving. He brought Horn to a course that would take her across their path.
Assuming they were Osas, the most likely possibility, they carried the SS-N-2, some variant of the infamous Styx. Not welcome news for a Spruance, which wasn’t well equipped for hard-core antimissile engagements. The Styx had a maximum range of about forty-five nautical miles. But without over-the-horizon targeting assistance, its practical firing range was no more than twenty-four miles. He doubted Horn would show up on their radar at less than twenty miles in this sea state, and with his radars shut down, they couldn’t tell he was a warship. If he timed this right, he could simultaneously appear on their radar and issue a voice radio challenge commanding them to heave to.
Unfortunately, one of those prickly questions was starting to loom. His orders were to prevent transit of his barrier area. But so far, he had no rules of engagement, nor did they have a designated enemy, nor instructions on what to do if somebody didn’t feel like cooperating.
But if they kept coming, at some point he’d have to either shoot or let them go by. Since he couldn’t open fire unless somebody told him to, he’d have to give them a free pass. But he figured first, if they kept coming after the challenge, he’d illuminate them with his SPG-60. It was clearly identifiable even with rudimentary electronic surveillance equipment as a fire control radar. A bluff, a threat he couldn’t back up, but the best he could do.
With this in mind he pulled a red handset out of its clip. Keyed the scrambled satellite phone, waited for the beep that meant it was synched. “Vigilant Dragon, Blade Runner, over.”
A hiss, a beep. “Vigilant Dragon, over.”
“Tracks 2383 and 2384 are approaching Blockbuster Mike from the west at high speed. ESM tells me they’re Osas, but not whose. Unless otherwise directed, I’m going to challenge, then illuminate, but if they don’t stop, I’m letting them go by. Advise, over.”
“Vigilant Dragon. Stand by, over.”
He turned up the volume so he wouldn’t miss the callback and re-socketed the handset. The spring popped it out again and he had to reseat it hard to make it stay. The Harpoon engagement planner was twisted round, looking at him. Dan nodded to him. “Take it easy. This isn’t a combat situation. But you might as well get set up. Just for grins.”
“Double-round engagement?”
He nodded, reflecting that though two rounds per target was doctrine, on two boats it would leave him with only half his loadout of Horn’s most effective antiship weapon. His magazines were still heavy with Tomahawks, but he had only eight Harpoons. The Sparrows aft had a secondary antiship capability, though, and as a last resort he had the guns. He left the petty officer keying and went over and talked to the EWs about how they’d go about jamming a Styx. Then went back to his chair. 2383 and 2384 were still closing. They hadn’t detected him yet.
“All right,” he said. “Time for their wake-up call. Cancel emission control, illuminate, and challenge.”
AS he watched them close in he mentally reviewed tactics and countermeasures against missile boats. Material that was as much a part of the core knowledge of surface line officers as how to tie off an artery was to a surgeon. He’d studied them years before aboard USS Barrett. Refreshed when he went to the Gulf in Van Zandt as exec, and again during tactical training before taking command of Horn. If these were hostiles, and if they were actually running an attack profile, the next thing that’d pop up when they realized he was here would be a Drum Tilt fire control radar. Big ifs, but that was what made the Med interesting. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d been shot at out here.
“TAO, EW. I have a Drum Tilt bearing 237. Associated with SS-N-2 Styx missile.”
Camill looked at Dan. “Captain?”
Now they were radar illuminating each other. But were they both bluffing? He felt the first tension in his shoulders. “Fight the ship, Herb,” Dan told him.
“TAO, EW. Drum Ti
lt’s locked on to us.”
The lieutenant cleared his throat. Dan hoped he didn’t clutch now, this was where the rubber might just meet the road. He called out, “SWC, Harpoon solution?”
The surface weapons coordinator, five feet from Dan’s chair, had been talking into his headset, studying his orange plasma screen. Satisfied he had it under control, Dan twisted where he sat to look past him at the Harpoon plotting team. He asked the chief in charge, “Jay, how’s the solution look?”
“Time of flight three and a half minutes, STOT, two Bulldogs each on targets one and two. Recommend air warning yellow. Recommend weapons posture one on all ASUW and AAW systems. Recommend CIWS in auto air ready and man all gunnery stations. Mount 51, HE-CVT, Mount 52, HE-IR.”
Dan watched Camill process this. The chief had just given him a lot to think about. That the Harpoon—its on-air code name “Bulldog”— was ready to engage, with the missiles arriving at each target at the same time—STOT meant simultaneous time on target. He’d also recommended telling everyone in Blockbuster an air attack was likely. Next, he was suggesting all antiship and antiaircraft weapons and fire control systems power up, so all it would take to shoot would be “pulling the pickle”—pushing the fire button. He was recommending Phalanx be switched to auto mode, giving the radar-controlled twenty-millimeters permission to shoot down anything that looked like a threat to their computers. His last advice was to load the forward gun with high explosive, radar-fuzed ammunition, and the after mount with infrared-triggered rounds.
Camill was still thinking. Dan started to slide forward on his chair. Had it been this hard for his skippers, waiting for him to come through? Three seconds … four… he opened his mouth to take over.
The lieutenant said, smoothly and distinctly, as if reading from a script: “SWC, CIWS to auto/air. Set air warning yellow. CSRO, set weapons posture one, surface and air weapons. CSOOW, WEPS, CSRO: Set weapons posture one, all surface and air systems.” Voices answered with loud “Aye, ayes.”
“Whiskey, this is Delta. Air warning yellow, bull’s-eye mike delta. Sector one-eight-zero to zero-zero-zero.”
“This is Bravo, roger out.”
“Charlie, rog out.”
A slight pause, then an accented voice. “Golf, roger out.” Kocatepe, the Turk.
“WEPS, radar two, posture one set.”
“Mount 51, posture one set.”
“Mount 52, posture one set.”
“Mount 51, 52, roger up.”
“Very well,” Dan and Camill said together.
“WEPS, CIWS. Posture one set mount 21 and 22.”
Sparrow rogered up, too. Dan asked for a range to the nearest contact. Thirty-two thousand yards. Well inside Styx range. He forced a deep breath. Another. Just another seagoing game of chicken. Like the ones they’d played with the Soviets in the old days.
“Weps, Harpoon. Tech’s en route to Combat. Needs the permission-to-fire key. Soon as he has it, posture one will be set.”
“Poon, WEPS, roger.”
The weapons system supervisor keyed a different mike. “Posture one set all AAW and ASUW systems with the exception of the PTF key. HER Tech en route Combat to get it.”
“Got the key, Herb?” Dan asked him. “Just in case?”
Camill held it up on the chain around his neck without looking back. He was listening to the CSOOW passing the weapons posture information on his interphone. The man turned his head. “TAO, CSRO. Posture one set AAW, ASUW except for HER. Tech should be here in a second or two to get the permission-to-fire key.”
Camill nodded as someone reported that CIWS was now in auto air ready. A blue-glittering bead was working its way down the back of his neck.
“Vampire, Vampire, Vampire!” the electronic warfare supervisor and the radar operator called out simultaneously.
SUDDENLY no one spoke. Time seemed to slow. He could feel it draw out between the very pulses of his heart. If he or Camill or the petty officers on the launch consoles screwed up, the people in this dim compartment had only seconds to live. Styxes were huge, and at this range they’d be full of fuel, too.
“Vampire” meant inbound missile.
“TAO, EW: Vampire emitter is A2Z4, correlates to seeker for SS-N-2-C. I hold two, possibly three emitters. Hard to tell, all on the same bearing and freq.”
“I hold Vampire composition two. Vampire one from target one, Vampire two, target two.”
Dan didn’t hear it fast enough. He yelled, “EW, chaff! Now!”
“Chaff, aye—”
Camill called out, “SWC, take vampires. Engage with Sparrow, shoot, shoot, look. Backup with 51, 52, CIWS.”
Dan got a grip on himself. He had to let them do their jobs, and get the word out what was going on. He grabbed the red phone, the Med Satellite High Command net. “All stations this net, this is Horn actual. I am under attack. SS-N-2-C. Composition two. Missiles launched from probable Osas, flag unknown, out.” He socketed the phone without waiting for replies and pointed to the petty officer controlling the P-3. “Tell Tiger to stand clear during real-world engagement.”
“All hands stand clear of weather decks … missiles inbound… missile firing imminent,” the 1MC said over the gabble that was rapidly rising in Combat.
Dan could feel, hear, the main engines revving to full power. The deck begin leaning. The officer of the deck was applying the ship’s maneuverability to the tactical problem. Bringing to bear as many weapons as they could, but giving the incoming Styxes the least possible lock profile. Meanwhile, he had to take out the incoming missiles and destroy the shooters before they got off the next salvo.
“TAO, SWC. Sparrow locked on to Vampire one. Mark 86 has target two. Stand by.”
The flight deck TV showed the Sparrow launcher suddenly slew around. The gun elevated, too, then whipped around to port.
All at once the noise started. Slam. Slam. Slam. Two guns, each pumping out a seventy-pound projectile every three seconds. A more rapid drumfire from directly overhead: the chaff mortars, firing rounds of radar reflective foil. Styx was a big missile, but not a smart one. The chaff would probably fool it. But it was better to make sure.
A high-pitched wail, the missile fire warning alarm. A rattling bang, then the avalanche roar of a truckload of gravel being dumped. On the monitor the missile leaped out, blanking the image first with a flare of light and then a cloud of cottony smoke. Another roar, flare, and cloud, and two mach-three missiles were on their way. The guns had been firing for some seconds, but they’d pass the shells in the air. A fire control petty officer began chanting time and distance. Then called out, “I have target bloom, Vampire one … Evaluate as kill!”
“Vampire two turning left… no … seems to be seeking,” Camill told him.
Dan nodded. One hard kill. But the second Styx was trying to decide on its target. The small, hard blip its mother fire-control computer had told it to attack? Or the big new ones that had suddenly appeared? It turned away again, then back toward Horn once more. The guns were still banging away. Camill was gearing up for a second Sparrow salvo.
“TAO, Guns: radar video consistent with target breakup. Evaluate Vampire two as kill.”
“TAO, EW: Emitters ceased.”
Camill called, “Cease fire. Cease fire!”
“Ninety seconds from launch to splash,” Dan said, looking at his watch. Both missiles splashed at four miles from the ship, and within five seconds of each other. But it wasn’t over yet. Camill was looking at him, waiting.
“Take ’em,” Dan said.
“TAO, SWC: I have positive solution both targets.”
Camill said, eyes still locked with Dan’s, “Kill targets one and two with two Bulldogs each.”
“Salvo warning.” The SWC activated the salvo warning and vent damper alarms. The compartment ventilation fans spun down in a whirring decrescendo. The siren went off again.
Closer and much louder than the fantail-mounted Sparrows, the departing Harpoons rattled the deck
plates and vibrated the tote boards like an elevated train going over their heads. A circuit breaker alarm began warbling. It went on and on. Faintly someone yelled, “Bulldog one away. Bulldog two away. Bulldog three away. Bulldog four away.”
Dan concentrated on his Seiko. Despite the closed dampers, a smell like scorched brake linings reached them. Time of flight: about three minutes. “All hands stand clear of Harpoon deck in preparation for launch,” the 1MC said. Yerega had gotten a little behind script, but it didn’t matter now. What counted was how well the millions of lines of code running in the dozens of linked computers had been written. How carefully some production drone had screwed parts into a missile body on a California assembly line. Maybe they’d get lucky. If they didn’t…
Sweat was trickling down his back, but he felt icy cold. He was waiting for the next “Vampire, Vampire.” Waiting with every muscle in his body drawn taut. But it didn’t come … It didn’t come.
Finally he couldn’t stand it any longer. “Targets?”
“Gone,” Camill said, staring at the big repeater.
“Turn to short wavelength.”
“Okay, now I have small intermittent returns at that range and bearing. Consistent with debris. Five … four … none.” He waited for the next sweep of the radar. Looked up. “Nothing but sea return.”
Dan mopped his face with his sleeve. The Combat team looked at him, to him, he supposed, for some hint as to whether it was okay to cheer. He couldn’t give them what they wanted. Frozen, paralyzed by the felt knowledge of how horribly other men had just died. Torn apart by explosive, burned, clawing at the sea as they sank into the final bloody darkness.
He couldn’t rejoice.
But neither could he be sorry. Whoever they were, they’d tried to kill him first.
Christ! Agonize about that later, Lenson! The question was, Who the hell had they been? And why had they fired? No state of war existed. No blockade or interdiction zone had been declared. Any regularly commissioned ship of war could have blown off Horn’s challenge and passed clear, and there was nothing Dan could have done about it.