Even deep inside Combat, he could hear the missiles scream away from the ship and toward their target.
“That’s it, folks,” he announced as the noise finally faded.
“Weapons away.”
He saw the crew glance around at each other, puzzled looks on their faces. They’d all come from different ships, had been used to the routine of firing missiles, acquiring bomb damage assessments, and firing again. Many of them had served on the potent Aegis ships, working in Combat with a vast array of weapons under their direct control.
There was something unnatural about this, giving up control of their very essence to someone they couldn’t see, touch, or even be certain existed.
Yet, this was the very mission for which the Arsenal ship had been constructed. The captain stood and walked back out on the bridge to reclaim his coffee cup. As much as he might understand that, he didn’t have to like it.
A thin, high-pitched whine cut through the air like a buzz saw, at first barely audible, then quickly increasing in pitch and volume until it dominated the entire world.
Pamela shrank back against the cement wall, panic overriding her trained reporter instincts, desperately wishing that she were anywhere in the world other than at ground zero for this attack. How many times had she been near military actions?
Hunkering under bushes, darting around ruined buildings, following other freedom fighters on perilous missions against opposing forces whose ideologies seemed not too much different from that of the men she watched kill their relatives. Yet, never under any other combat conditions had she felt she was in imminent danger of dying. Why, oh why had she let her ego, her determination to get the best story before anyone else, lead her into this situation?
A Mach 2 missile gives its intended recipients barely enough time to appreciate the danger they’re in. The precision guided munitions flashed into view, barely discernible gray-white streaks on the horizon, then became clearly visible almost before her terror could reach its peak.
They moved too quickly for the eye to follow, streaking in over the gently rolling terrain to find their targets.
Two thousand meters away, the world exploded. One moment there was only the demanding keen of the missiles, the next a cacophony of noise and flame and fire. The earth blew up, shooting gouts of dirt and foliage into mushroom clouds of debris speckled with fire and metal.
Shrapnel shot out at all angles, slamming into the structures and vehicles around the missile sites.
The compression wave from the explosion caught her first, even before the noise had a chance to deafen her. It slammed her against the concrete, smashing the back of her head against the rough-laid surface.
She felt consciousness fade, and wavered on the edge of sanity. The microphone dropped from her hand unnoticed, and she paused for a minute, held against the building by the shock wave before sliding down to join it in a graceful heap.
Consciousness returned sometime later. She opened her eyes slowly, feeling raw and scratched, barely able to make sense of the images her eyes were transmitting to her brain.
Around her, the world was silent. The green fields, the awkward and ungainly missile launchers, were gone. In their place, huge craters spattered the landscape, and a thick dust made the air almost unbreathable.
She groaned, tried to shove herself up on her knees with one hand.
There was a sharp pain in her ribs, followed by the realization that every part of her body was dull and aching. She let it overwhelm her for a moment, then shoved it away, grim determination flooding her.
Along with it came a strange euphoria, a gratitude that she’d survived.
Life seemed sweet. Precious even, in a way it never had before.
The men scattered around her were starting to move as well, their groans and involuntary yelps of pain echoing her own. She felt along the ground, searching for her microphone, then looked for the substitute cameraman. She found him finally, still unconscious, his body wrapped around the old equipment protectively. She crawled to him, grabbed him by the shoulder, and shook.
“Get up.”
The man moaned, then his eyes fluttered. He stared off into the distance until finally his eyes focused on her.
“Que?”
“Get up,” she repeated. “We’ve got work to do.”
Ten minutes later, after gulping down tepid water from a canteen, she was ready. Her hair was pushed back out of her eyes, but she could feel it springing around her head in an unruly mess. She’d avoided looking in a mirror. It didn’t matter, not now. If there were streaks of dirt and blood on her face, so much the better.
She waited until she was relatively certain that the cameraman was functioning enough to depress the transmit button on his equipment, then stared steadily at the camera.
“This is Pamela Drake of ACN, reporting live from the western coast of Cuba. The United States has just completed a missile strike against this naval base not one mile from where I am standing.” She gestured behind her, hoping the cameraman had enough sense to pan the damage.
She saw him move, squint, refocus, and smiled. She let the time pass, waiting a few beats too long to increase the tension. Finally, she cut her hand down sharply and he snapped the camera back to frame her.
“This is the area from which I made my last live report. As you can see, the effect of the missiles has been devastating. The structures that were here before, which I postulated were missile sites a fact that was never denied by the present authorities in power are destroyed.
I have no word on casualties, but it seems” All at once her voice failed. I could have been one of them. Not minutes ago, it was…
“Casualties are yet to be determined,” she finished finally. She stared at the camera, letting her image speak for itself.
Twenty Miles North of Cuba Captain Heather paced uneasily back and forth on the bridge, staring out over the horizon at the barely visible land. Immediately following the launch the USS Arsenal had been ordered to assist other battle group assets in searching for survivors of the Jefferson’s collision with the small refugee boat.
Almost an hour after the attack, he still had no idea of how effective the attack had been. That was one of the problems of using cruise missiles alone, he reflected. At least when the battle group struck with aircraft and air-launched missiles, they had immediate feedback on the effectiveness of the attack. Not so with his ship.
He turned back to the OOD. “Any word yet?” It was unnecessary to ask, he knew even as the words left his mouth. The bda bomb damage assessment would be conducted by the USS Jefferson. Two F-14s specially equipped with TARPS camera units were orbiting in a starboard marshal even as he spoke. Accompanying them would be two EA6 Prowlers armed with HARM missiles, capable of attacking any radar installations or any antiaircraft sites that were foolish enough to radiate their radars.
Without knowing exactly how effective the attack had been, the aircrafts’ mission was only slightly less dangerous than an actual bombing run.
“No, Captain.” The OOD’s voice was impassive.
“I guess we’ll both hear at the same time, won’t we?” the captain said. The battle group’s circuit was wired into both the bridge and Combat. As soon as they knew anything, the carrier would let him know.
Or would they? He mulled the thought over for a moment. The political battle going on in Washington was making itself felt even down here.
Admiral Wayne, commander of the carrier battle group, and Admiral Magruder, force commander, were both naval aviators. Would it be to their advantage to delay the BDA information’s getting to the Arsenal ship? More important, even if it was, would they do such a thing?