USS Towers Box Set

by Jeff Edwards

  The OOD looked surprised. “Oh. Sorry, Captain. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

  Patke raised an eyebrow. “If you’ve got something to say, son… Now is the time.”

  The OOD gave him an expression that was half-grimace, and half-embarrassed grin. “I was just saying ‘snickerdoodles,’ sir.”

  Patke frowned. “Snickerdoodles?”

  “Yes, sir,” the OOD said. “Like we were talking about last time. Almost getting an ass-whuppin’ when somebody else stole the cookies. But we’re stealing the cookies this time, aren’t we, sir?”

  “You’re right about that,” Patke said softly. “We are definitely going to steal the cookies this time.”

  The Sonar Supervisor’s voice came over the net again. “Conn—Sonar. Torpedo in the water! Sierra One Seven has a weapon in the water! He’s going after the destroyer, sir!”

  Patke raised his voice. “Weapons Control, this is the Captain. Match generated bearings, and shoot!”

  * * *

  USS Towers:

  The giant display screens flashed, strobed with random bars of color for several seconds, and then snapped suddenly into focus.

  The Tactical Action Officer turned toward Silva. “Aegis is back on line, Captain.”

  The screens began populating with symbols. First, the Towers and the Gerrard appeared, followed quickly by the two remaining hostile surface ships: the carrier and one of the Chinese destroyers. Then, the hostile aircraft symbols began appearing, and—for a few seconds—Silva wondered if the Aegis computers were malfunctioning. As new enemy air symbols continued to pop up on the screen, she began to hope that it was a malfunction.

  She whistled softly through her teeth. “Jesus… How many planes are those guys going to launch?”

  The TAO gave her a half-hearted smile. “Looks like all of them, ma’am.”

  The sheer absurdity of the situation hit her then. She had been in command for all of ten minutes. Half of her CIC consoles were out of action. She had no idea how many of her crewmembers were dead or dying. There was a hole in the side of her ship big enough to drive a minivan through. And China’s shiny new aircraft carrier was about to shove its entire air wing down her throat.

  It was like being twelve years old again. Standing on the uneven planks of her homemade raft, being swept down the river by forces beyond her control. Powerless to fight the current. Her plastic milk jugs and inner tubes bobbing helplessly on the waves.

  She felt her jaws tighten. The river had been stronger than she was. Her raft, the Spray, had been tiny and frail. But she had gotten her homemade vessel back to shore. She had brought her ship safely home. And she was damned well going to do it again.

  She made eye contact with the TAO. “We need to go after that destroyer.”

  “The gun is still off line, ma’am,” the Tactical Action Officer said. “And we’re all out of Harpoons.”

  ‘Understood,” Silva said. “Is VLS back on line?”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Then hit that contact with SM-3s.”

  The TAO opened his mouth to speak.

  Silva gestured him into silence. “I already know the next half dozen things you’re going to say, so you can save your breath. I know that the SM-3 missile is not an anti-ship weapon, and I know that any effect it has will be marginal, at best. I also know that our orders are to kill that ship. Unless you’ve got a better plan, we’re going to hit that destroyer with the only weapons we have left. Do I make myself clear, Lieutenant?”

  The TAO nodded. “Yes, Captain.”

  He swallowed, and keyed the net. “Weapons Control—TAO. Kill Surface Contact Zero One with SM-3 missiles.”

  There was a pause before the reply came. “TAO—Weapons Control. Say again, sir?”

  The TAO keyed the net again. ‘Weapons Control—TAO. You have your orders. Kill Surface Contact Zero One with SM-3 missiles. Now!”

  “Ah… Weapons Control, aye.”

  The deck rattled with the growl of anti-air missiles, tearing into the sky on a mission they had never been designed for. The tumult of the launches was much louder than usual, the sound reverberating freely through the open wound in the side of the ship.

  “TAO—Weapons Control. Six birds away, no apparent casualties. Targeted on Surface Contact Zero One.”

  “TAO, aye. Keep hitting that surface track. Don’t let up until there’s nothing left but a hole in the water.”

  Silva nodded her approval. She was about to issue amplifying instructions when the Sonar Supervisor’s voice blared from the 29-MC speakers.

  “All Stations—Sonar has hydrophone effects off the port quarter! Bearing zero-niner-eight. Initial classification: incoming torpedo!”

  Silva’s eyes darted to the tactical display screen, where a blinking torpedo symbol had appeared. “Come on,” she said. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

  She looked around sharply. The Undersea Warfare Evaluator had surrendered his console to a radar operator, and the Computerized Dead-Reckoning Tracer hadn’t been restored after the missile hit.

  In the heat of an air and surface fight, anti-submarine warfare assets had been pushed to the bottom of the priority list. Some of the sonar systems were apparently on line, and the sonar team was obviously still doing its job, but CIC was completely unprepared to handle a submarine threat right now.

  Where the hell had the sub come from, anyway? There was no time to think about that.

  Silva saw the Undersea Warfare Evaluator snatch a comm-set from a dead console, and jack the connector into an overhead panel.

  He keyed his mike. “Crack the whip! Bridge—USWE. We have an in-bound torpedo. I say again—crack the whip!”

  The reply was instant. “Crack the whip! Bridge, aye!”

  The Officer of the Deck’s voice came over the 1-MC. “All hands stand by for heavy rolls while performing high-speed evasive maneuvers.”

  In the background came the rising wail of the gas turbine engines as they spun up to maximum rpm. The ship would need flank speed to carry out the crack-the-whip anti-torpedo maneuver.

  The deck heeled sharply to port as the Towers began the first in a series of high-speed hairpin turns. If executed properly, the maneuver would create numerous propeller wakes at narrow intervals. The incoming torpedo would have to sort through a convolution of crisscrossing wakes, as well as a chaotic zone of acoustic interference caused by uncontrolled cavitation from the ship’s screws.

  According to the tactical manuals, the crack-the-whip maneuver was nearly seventy percent effective, providing it was used in conjunction with the towed acoustic decoy system called Nixie. Unfortunately, neither of the ship’s two Nixie units were deployed, and there wasn’t time to get one of them in the water.

  The cant of the deck grew steeper as the ship accelerated into the turn. Silva grabbed the back of the TAO’s chair to steady herself against inertia, and the increasing incline of the deck.

  She couldn’t remember how effective the maneuver was supposed to be without the Nixie decoys, but it was less than seventy percent. A lot less.

  But this was not the time to get tunnel-vision about problems beyond her control. Given the current situation, the USWE had employed the only available defense against the torpedo. It would either work, or it wouldn’t. There was nothing else she could do to cope with the submarine threat, so it was time to focus on issues that she could control.

  She shifted her attention to the missile symbols tracking toward the remaining Chinese destroyer. The six blue missile icons were packed so tightly together that they overlapped each other on the screen.

  The SM-3 missiles were intended for use against other missiles, aircraft, and—occasionally—satellites. Their warheads were not designed to attack hardened warship targets, but they were fast. Their top speed was more than ten times as fast as the Harpoon anti-ship cruise missiles they were now pinch-hitting for.

  Moving at nearly 5,200 knots, they covered the distance to
the target in under half a minute. The six missile symbols converged on the symbol for the Chinese destroyer, and then disappeared. The icon for Surface Contact Zero One remained on the screen.

  There was no way to evaluate how badly the enemy ship had been damaged by the multiple missile strikes. The Aegis computer system could not apply advanced reasoning, so it substituted simple binary logic. The target was still visible on radar, therefore the target still existed, ergo—it was time to hit the target again.

  Another grumbling reverberation went through the ship, followed by an announcement over the tactical net. “TAO—Weapons Control. Six more birds away, no apparent casualties. Targeted on Surface Contact Zero One.”

  The Tactical Action Officer was reaching to key his mike when the next report came in.

  “TAO—Air. Four Bogies inbound. Two flights of two.”

  The next wave of the air assault had begun.

  The deck righted itself and then began tilting in the other direction as the ship went hard-to-starboard in its next evasion turn.

  Silva spotted the four hostile aircraft closing on the tactical display. And she felt herself start to grin.

  This was it. This was her Kobayashi Maru. This was her unwinnable scenario. A torpedo in the water, too many hostile aircraft to count, an unfinished shootout with a Chinese destroyer, and an enemy submarine. All happening at once.

  Again, there was nothing she could do about it. Nothing, but keep fighting, and try to ride out the storm.

  The TAO caught her eye. “Captain, request permission to engage inbound hostile air contacts.”

  Silva nodded. “Permission granted. Hit ‘em! But do not let up on that surface contact.”

  The TAO issued orders to Weapons Control, and eight more SM-3 missiles leapt into the fray.

  And then the number of air contacts on the Aegis display began to multiply rapidly.

  Silva’s grin grew wider. There were at least twenty new air tracks on the screen—more aircraft than she had ever seen, in even the most exaggerated training simulation. But the new symbols were not the warning red color of hostile forces. They were blue.

  CHAPTER 54

  STRIKE FLIGHT

  VFA-228 — MARAUDERS

  BAY OF BENGAL

  WEDNESDAY; 03 DECEMBER

  0054 hours (12:54 AM)

  TIME ZONE +6 ‘FOXTROT’

  The Air Controller’s voice was low, but distinct in the headphones of Rob Monkman’s flight helmet. “Hammer, Bandits three-one-zero, for eighty, Angels two-zero.”

  For all its Spartan brevity, the communication was packed with information. The Air Controller had just informed the leader of Hammer Flight that hostile aircraft had been detected eighty nautical miles from Hammer’s position, bearing three-one-zero, flying at an altitude of 20,000 feet.

  The lack of the modifiers ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ indicated that the enemy planes were not directly approaching, or running away from Hammer. The absence of other modifiers relegated the message to a simple update, for purposes of situational awareness. No action required, but keep your eyes open for the bad guys.

  The flight lead’s response was even shorter. “Hammer.” Translation: This is Hammer Flight Leader. I hear and understand.

  Monk checked his AN/APG-79 radar for any sign of the enemy aircraft. The green-on-green monochromatic display seemed to glow under the image intensification of his night vision goggles, but the screen was clear of hostile contacts. His plane’s radar hadn’t acquired the targets yet. Not really a surprise, considering the range.

  He lifted his head and went back to scanning the sky through the false green brightness of his night vision gear. The APG-79 was excellent for aerial combat, but it didn’t have nearly the range of the massive APS-145 radar array carried by the E-2D Hawkeye.

  Per standard operating procedure, the E-2D was hanging back outside of the engagement area, supplying Airborne Early Warning coverage for the fighters. With its superior radar sensors and crew of air controllers, the Hawkeye could provide real-time target-cueing and tactical instructions to the American fighter pilots, allowing them to coordinate with a speed and precision that most nations could not even approximate.

  Hammer Flight was one of three divisions assigned to the fighter sweep for this mission. Each division was composed of four F/A-18E Super Hornets, which could fight as a single coordinated unit, or split off into two independent sections to engage separate forces.

  Monk was wingman to Lieutenant Dan Coffee (callsign Grinder), the division lead of Hammer Flight. His job was to keep Grinder in sight, follow the senior pilot’s orders, and shut the hell up until his input was asked for.

  Monk didn’t mind. They’d be getting the order to engage any minute now, and then it would be time to give some Chinese pilots a taste of what they’d given Poker.

  Somewhere, about a hundred miles back, was the strike package: a mixed-bag of Hornets and Super Hornets, tooled up for anti-surface action. Their mission was to take out the Chinese carrier with Harpoons and Mavericks.

  Monk wasn’t thinking about the strike package. He wasn’t really thinking about the mission at all. He kept seeing the Chinese air-to-air missile blast through Poker’s canopy. No warning. No provocation. Just a shot in the face, and the smoking wreckage of Poker’s plane tumbling into the ocean.

  The Air Controller’s voice came over Monk’s headphones again. “Hammer, Bandits three-zero-five, for sixty, Angels two-zero.”

  Grinder’s single word acknowledgement came a second or so later. “Hammer.”

  Monk glanced at his radar again. Still no enemy contacts, but the screen now showed eight hostile air symbols, being fed to his system from CED, the cooperative engagement data-link transmitter aboard the Hawkeye.

  Monk’s knuckles tightened on the stick. It wouldn’t be long now.

  He felt his lips move, and heard the low repetitive murmur of his own voice, but it took him a few seconds to realize that he was actually speaking. It was nearly a chant. “Payback time. Payback time. Payback time. Payback time…”

  He chopped it off short, and went back to scanning the night sky for visual contacts. Within a few seconds, the chant started again, apparently of its own accord. “Payback time. Payback time…”

  “Hammer, Bandits three-zero-zero, for forty, Angels two-two, hot. Commit!”

  Monk grinned. That was the magic word—commit. The keys to the kingdom. Go after your assigned targets, and kill them.

  Grinder’s response was as laconic as ever. “Hammer.”

  A half-second later, Grinder turned left out of the formation, and began closing on the Bandits, trailed by the other three pilots of Hammer Flight: Chuck ‘Barnstormer’ Barnes, Sheila ‘Redeye’ Lewis, and Monk.

  Grinder’s voice came over the ‘back’ radio, the circuit assigned to Hammer Flight for internal comms. “Hammers, sort by desig.”

  Target designators appeared on Monk’s head-up display, bracketing two of the hostile aircraft symbols, identifying the enemy planes he was assigned to kill.

  Monk keyed his mike. “Two, sorted.”

  This was followed immediately by acknowledgements from Barnstormer and Redeye.

  “Three, sorted.”

  “Four, sorted.”

  Using the old radio-only method, the target sorting process could have taken two or three minutes. With the help of the CED data-link, it was finished in three seconds. Everyone knew who their targets were. Now, it was just a matter of closing to missile engagement range.

  Grinder climbed to 35,000 feet and poured on power, gaining speed and altitude for the coming engagement.

  Monk adjusted his own speed and altitude to maintain position off Grinder’s starboard wing. “Payback time. Payback time…”

  At 34 nautical miles, an electronic chime told Monk that his APG-79 had acquired radar contact. He glanced down at the display to confirm that both of his targets were now on the screen. They were.

  He selected two AIM-120 AMRAAMs, design
ated one for each of his assigned Bandits, and allowed the fire control computer to give them their first look at the targets.

  The Normalized In-Range Display—better known as the NIRD circle—appeared on his head-up display. One of his Bandits was sliding into the engagement envelope, but the second hostile was still slightly out of range. He held fire until the range bar for the second Bandit slipped past the six-o’clock position on the NIRD.

  Both targets began to sheer off. Shit! Their threat-receivers had detected his radar lock! The range bars for both Bandits scrolled to the left, rapidly approaching the maximum range caret. He had maybe a second and a half before they slipped out of the envelope.

  Shoot now? Or wait for a better opportunity?

  It wasn’t a conscious decision. He thumbed the weapon selector, shut his eyes, and jammed the trigger twice.

  “Fox Three! Fox Three!”

  That was the code phrase for launch of an active radar guided missile.

  Through his eyelids, Monk could see two green flashes as the missiles tore away into the night. The image processor circuits in his goggles were programmed to keep the output of the light intensification algorithms from harming his eyes, but there was no sense in spoiling his night vision.

  The AMRAAMs blew through Mach 2 within seconds, and began gobbling up the distance to the Bandits. The 13,000 foot altitude advantage put the missiles into a dive, gravity and inertia giving them still more speed as they streaked toward the turning Chinese warplanes.

  Off Monk’s port wing, Grinder pumped out two AMRAAMs of his own, and executed a tight left turn to bring his flight into a lag pursuit behind the J-15s.

  Monk nudged his throttle and banked left to maintain his position on the lead plane.

  The Bandits dropped chaff, jinked and jived impressively in their attempt to break missile-lock, but the AIM-120 missiles were too close, and moving too fast. A pair of fireballs in the distance told Monk that both of his birds had found their targets.

  Grinder’s AMRAAMs caught up with their Bandits a couple of seconds later, and two more explosions illuminated the night sky.

  Then Monk’s own radar warning receiver was shrieking. Somebody had radar lock on him.