by Dale Brown
“Levitow,” said Breanna, acknowledging.
“Thirty seconds to launch point,” broke in Jazz.
“Very good,” said Dog, making sure he was precisely on course.
Aboard the Abner Read,
in the northern Arabian Sea
0622
STORM’S HEAD HURT SO BADLY HE HAD TO SIT ON THE SMALL fold-down jumpseat at the side of the holographic display. He knew he was bleeding—every time he wiped his forehead, his fingers were drenched in fresh blood.
“Weapons, what’s our status?”
“Ready to launch on command, Captain.”
“Stand by. Weapons will launch on my command.”
In the days of sailing ships, the order to attack another ship could take hours to carry out, with crew working feverishly just to position the ship, let alone fill and fire the cannons. Now it took only fractions of a second.
“Weapons, fire all missiles.”
“Firing, Captain.”
A pair of missiles flared from the forward deck, followed by two more, then another pair, then another. The ship’s bow bent down toward the waves with the fusillade.
“Deal with that, you bastards,” Storm muttered as the missiles leapt away.
Aboard the Levitow,
over India
0626
EEMWB FOUR CLUNKED OFF THE LAUNCHER, ITS ROCKET motor igniting with a burst of red flame. Breanna immediately changed course to the southwest.
“Flight of Su-27s closing in on us from the south,” said Stewart. “Thirty-five miles away. Four aircraft. They have AA-12s.”
“Target the lead element. Reserve four Scorpions. I want two missiles apiece for the Tai-shan aircraft.”
“Targeting.”
“Bay.”
“Bomb bay open.”
“Fire as soon as you’re locked.”
“Bree, I have launch warnings.”
“Fire Scorpions. Crew—stand by for evasive maneuvers.”
“TALK ABOUT IMPOTENT,” MUTTERED ZEN AS THE MEGAFORTRESS jerked away from the Indians’ antiaircraft missiles. He switched his main view from the sitrep screen to the Levitow’s forward video camera, then killed the display altogether and took off his helmet. Flying wasn’t a spectator sport, especially when you were under attack.
“They going to hit us?” asked Dork. He sounded scared.
“Nah. Captain Stockard likes to cut things close, but not that close.”
The Megafortress jerked so sharply Zen’s restraints cut into his chest.
“We ought to work on getting you a new nickname,” he told the other Flighthawk pilot as the plane straightened out. “What were you called in high school?”
“Dork, sir.”
A FLIGHT OF PAKISTANI AIRCRAFT APPEARED TO THE NORTH; very possibly the Indians had been looking for them when they found the Megafortress instead. That was of small consolation to Breanna, who was desperately wheeling Levitow between the clouds, trying to duck their missiles.
“SA-12 site tracking us,” warned Stewart.
“The more the merrier,” said Breanna.
“I have every ECM—”
“Keep them there,” said Breanna. “Chaff, flares, everything you got. We have another sixty seconds until the EEMWBs go off. That’s all we need.”
“Scorpion One has scored. Two—uh, near miss.”
“Good.”
“AMRAAMski going off track.”
About time, thought Breanna.
“One more.”
Breanna put her hand on the throttle, even though she knew it was at max power. Then she jerked her stick hard right, trying to turn the Megafortress into a hummingbird and veer out of the way of the missiles.
The computer complained that they were about to exceed eight g’s. Breanna kept the pressure on her stick anyway.
“Two more missiles missed,” said the copilot. “I can’t find the last one.”
Breanna sensed where it was and let off on the stick. The Megafortress stumbled, but began to recover.
As it did, the enemy air-to-air missile exploded under her right wing.
Aboard the Shiva,
in the northern Arabian Sea
0632
SOMEWHERE BELOW, A PAIR OF CLOSE-IN WEAPONS BEGAN TO fire. Fear surged through Memon so strongly that he could not move nor breathe, not even think. Cold air invaded his chest; his heart and lungs turned to ice. He waited, unable to do anything else.
The first explosion seemed incredibly far away; he heard a light rumble but felt nothing. The second, a half second later, was like the peal of thunder when lightning strikes a tree at the edge of a yard.
The third reverberated as if it were under his feet, twisting his chest and head in opposite directions. He flew against a console, thrown so abruptly that he felt as if he hadn’t moved at all. He lay on the deck, watching the others scramble to get up.
Only Admiral Skandar managed to stay on his feet. The Defense minister reached calmly for the phone, speaking as the ship rocked with fresh explosions. Memon wanted to get up and join him but could not; he wanted to move but found his body paralyzed. All he could do was stare from the depths of his cowardice and fear.
Aboard the Levitow,
over India
0632
THE AIRCRAFT LURCHED IN THE SKY, THEN FELT AS IF IT WAS going to fall out from under her. Breanna pushed against the stick, finally leveling off—the computer began compensating for the damaged control surfaces.
“Engine four—gone,” said Stewart. Her voice was surprisingly calm.
“Compensating,” Breanna told her. “Where are the other missiles?”
“One more going north. We’re clear.”
“Assess the damage.”
“Assessing. Ten seconds to first EEMWB pulse.”
Each individual system on the plane had its own shielding, but Levitow also had special deflectors—antennas that could attract the waves and disrupt their pattern—in the wings. As the techies explained it, the deflectors reduced the overall amount of T-Rays washing over the ship, making the components easier to shield.
Or, as the metaphor they used had it, reducing a hurricane surge to high tide.
“If you need help, we’re here,” said Bullet, the relief copilot behind her.
“Thanks,” said Breanna. “Stand by for EEMWB wave.”
“EEMWB One—”
“EEMWB One what?” Breanna asked Stewart.
The copilot didn’t answer. The interphone system had been wiped out.
And so had the GPS guidance, and half of the indicators on the systems panel.
Aboard the Wisconsin,
over India
0635
DOG CHECKED HIS WATCH. “SIXTY SECONDS TO FIRST EEMWB,” he told his crew. “Jazz?”
“I’m ready, Colonel. Looks like that SA-2 is trying to lock on us to launch.”
“He’s beside the point now,” said Dog. “Let’s go to manual control. Emergency manual procedure, authorized Bastian 888.”
The computer accepted the code, and Dog reached to the bottom of the center panel to engage the hydraulic controls. The stick felt almost dead in his hand.
As soon as they calculated that the last EEMWB had exploded, Jazz would remove their backup radio from its shielded case and plug its antenna lead to the auxiliary antenna at the side of cockpit between the copilot’s station and the radar operator. Dog and Jazz would be able to talk on the Dreamland communications network via a pair of headsets.
The Dreamland communications panel buzzed.
“Bastian.”
“Wisconsin, we’ve been hit by an air-to-air missile,” said Breanna. “We’ve lost some systems because—”
The transmission went blank, and the cockpit went dark. Their first EEMWB had exploded.
X
Tai-shan
Aboard the Abner Read,
in the northern Arabian Sea
15 January 1998
0635
“MULTIPLE HITS! MULTIPLE HITS!�
�
Storm pulled off the headset. Whatever else happened today, the course of sea warfare had been changed as dramatically as it had at Hampton Roads in 1862, when the Monitor met the Merrimack, or in June 1942 at Midway, when the U.S. and Japanese fleets fought each other completely by air. A small, relatively inexpensive warship had just crippled, and maybe even sank, a large aircraft carrier, until now considered the mainstay of any great naval power. His name would be written in the history books.
Storm sat on the jumpseat next to the holographic display, staring out the window of the bridge. He wasn’t meditating on history; he was trying to will away some of the pain. Finally, after little success, he pulled the headset back on.
“Eyes—where’s our Sharkboat?”
“They’re under way, but still an hour off.”
“All right.”
“Dreamland Fisher reports the Chinese carrier Deng Xiaoping is launching a new wave of aircraft,” said Eyes. “We have an Indian destroyer thirty-five miles south of us. We should not be on his radar, but he is moving in our direction.”
The Chinese—he’d take them out too. All he needed was an excuse.
“Captain?”
“Nothing,” Storm said. “Keep me informed.”
STARSHIP CIRCLED THE WEREWOLF BACK OVER THE AREA where the Indian pilot supposedly had gone down. He couldn’t see anything, not even debris.
“Tac, how long do you want me to keep at this search?” he asked. “There’s nothing here.”
“Head back to the Sharkboat and escort them toward us.”
“I’d like to refuel first, since I’m nearby and they’re quiet for the moment. We may not get a chance later.”
“Roger that. Come on in.”
Aboard the Levitow,
over India
0635
BREANNA WORKED THROUGH THE SYSTEMS WITH STEWART, checking for units that had been affected by the electromagnetic pulse weapons or the missile blast. The main flight computer itself seemed fine. She had lost engine four; parts of its shredded housing could be seen from the copilot’s station. Engine three’s temperature was a few degrees higher than normal, but the oil pressure and power output were steady. Two of the compartmented fuel tanks in the right wing had been damaged; the fire retardant system had prevented a catastrophe, but the indicators showed that fuel was leaking. The last three feet of the wingtip on the right side were gone, and the control surfaces were damaged but intact.
The satellite radio, the internal communications system, and the navigation gear were all offline. The self-diagnostic on the Megafortress’s native radar—not the larger, more powerful unit installed above the wings—indicated a number of circuit problems, yet the radar seemed to be working, identifying the Pakistani flight they had seen earlier. The PAF planes were in serious trouble, flying erratically and dropping altitude. They were deep in enemy territory, and their prospects for survival seemed dim.
“Recheck the weapons systems,” Breanna told Stewart. They’d pulled off their helmets so they could hear each other. “Open the bay. Make sure everything is online.”
“Weapons?”
“Yes.”
Stewart hesitated. “OK,” she said finally. “Testing weapons.”
Breanna looked at the fuel panel. The damage to the tanks added one more level of complexity to the problem of keeping the Megafortress balanced—an important consideration under any circumstance, but especially when you were missing an engine and a good chunk of a wing. The computer was doing a good job directing the flow, however, and Breanna turned her attention to engine three, whose temperature was continuing to sneak higher.
The aircraft shook as the bomb bay doors were opened. The increased drag cost them nearly thirty knots in forward airspeed, a huge hit. But Stewart was able to rotate the missile launcher and confirm that it was operable.
“Weapons system is in the green,” said the copilot.
Breanna had asked Lou and Bullet—the relief pilot and copilot—to run the diagnostics on the environmental and some of the secondary systems from the auxiliary panel on the starboard radar station. Lou came over and told her that aside from some of the lights and the fan in the upper Flighthawk bay, the systems were functioning.
“Coffeemaker’s gone, though. Ditto the refrigerator and microwave.”
“Don’t tell Zen about the coffeemaker,” said Breanna. “We have to keep his morale up.”
“There’s probably a pattern to the circuits that took the hit,” said the other pilot. “But I can’t quite figure it out.”
“We’ll save it for when we get home,” Breanna told him. “Give the scientists something to do. How’s your stomach?”
“Much better. I think some of your twists and turns jerked it back into place.”
The Megafortress contained only six ejection seats. If they had to ditch, two people would have to don parachutes and jump from the Flighthawk bay. Ejecting from the Megafortress in the seats was a harrowing experience—Breanna had done it and been banged around quite a bit in the process. Jumping out without the benefit of the forced ejection was even more dangerous. The slipstream around the big aircraft was like a violent, flooded creek, completely unpredictable. It might give you a decent push downward and away from the aircraft. Or it could bang you against the EB-52’s long body, smacking you like you a rag doll caught under the chassis of a car.
If it came to that, Breanna knew she would make one of the jumps herself. But how to choose the last person?
She pushed the thought from her mind. It wasn’t going to come to that.
NSC Situation Room
2038, 14 January 1998
(0638, 15 January, Karachi)
JED KNEW THE EEMWBS HAD WORKED AS SOON AS THE FEED from one of their satellites died. He immediately turned to the screen that showed data from one of the ELINT “ferrets,” or radio signal stealers, just outside of the effected area. The screen did not provide raw data, which would have been meaningless to the people in the room; rather, it presented a line graph of the volume of intercepts on frequencies used for missile control. The line had plummeted. Jed stared at it, willing it to stay at the bottom of the screen.
But it didn’t. It jerked back up, though only to about a fourth of where it had been.
“What’s going on?” he asked the operator.
“This is in the northern Arabian Sea. It’s too far from the explosions to affect them. But the target area was wiped out totally. Just about over to the coast—better results than expected.”
“Are the nukes down?”
“I don’t know for sure. Too soon.”
Jed went to the screens showing the U-2 feeds over the Arabian Sea. The display from the northernmost aircraft shocked him: Seven missiles had just struck the Indian aircraft carrier Shiva. The photo captured the exact instant of impact of two of the missiles, and showed two more about to strike.
“That’s the Shiva?” Jed asked.
“Yes,” said the technician.
“Wow.”
“That’ll sink her.”
National Security Advisor Philip Freeman had joined the President and his small entourage at the side of the room. He came and looked over Jed’s shoulder.
“The Chinese struck the Indians?” he asked.
“Those missiles came from the Abner Read,” said the techie.
“Our missiles?” asked the President.
The man nodded.
Freeman glanced at Jed in alarm.
“They came under attack,” said Jed.
“Captain Gale is certainly living up to his name,” said Martindale. “It’s too late now, Philip. We’ll deal with Storm later. And Balboa, who probably authorized this.”
“I want Balboa’s scalp,” said Freeman. “It’s way past due.”
“Mr. President, Jed—the NSA just picked up a transmission from China for the carrier,” said Peg Jordan, the NSA liaison. “Tai-shan. It’s a go.”
Aboard the Wisconsin,
; over India
0645
THE MEGAFORTRESS’S STICK FELT SURPRISINGLY LIGHT IN Colonel Bastian’s hand, the big aircraft responding readily to his inputs. They were in good shape; while the plane’s electronic systems were offline, Dog could talk to Dreamland Control via the shielded backup radio. When they reached the coast, Major Cheshire would be able to track them via one of the U-2s that was surveying the northern Arabian Sea. She would guide them to Chu and Dreamland Fisher, or all the way back to Diego Garcia if necessary.
A buzzer sounded in Dog’s headset. He said his name and then his clearance code. The system had to process both before the communication was allowed to proceed.
“Colonel Bastian?” said Jed Barclay, coming onto the line.
“Go ahead, Jed.”
“The Chinese have ordered the aircraft carrier to use the nuclear option.”
“All right, Jed. We understand. I’m in contact with the other aircraft and will be right back with you.”
Aboard the Deng Xiaoping,
in the northern Arabian Sea
0645
CAPTAIN HONGWU LOOKED AT THE CABLE AGAIN, EVEN THOUGH it contained only two characters: Tai-shan.
Much was left unsaid in the cable, beginning with the target. The captain knew it to be Mumbai, the large port on the coast that housed a major naval facility. The cable also did not say why the order had been given, though he knew it would only have been issued if the Indians had ignored the Chinese ultimatum not to fire their nuclear weapons. The cable was silent, too, on what the consequences of the action would be. These, Captain Hongwu tried to put out of his mind.
“Clear the flightdeck and prepare the Tai-shan aircraft,” said the captain. “Launch all aircraft.”
The men on the bridge began to respond.
“Captain, Squadron One is reporting multiple missile strikes on the Indian aircraft carrier,” said the air boss. “The missiles have apparently come from the American vessel.”
“The Americans?”
“It’s the only explanation.”
Without their radar helicopters, the carrier had no long-range sensors. While it was an exaggeration to say it was blind, Hongwu and his officers had a very limited picture of the battlefield.
“Investigate. Send two aircraft to find the precise location of the American ship and keep it under surveillance. Make sure they are prepared for surface attack.”