"But our orders are to avoid USW operations," Captain Smith said, once again acting as devil's advocate.
"I know what my orders are," Batman said calmly. Judging from his reaction, the admiral was used to Smith voicing the objections no one else had the balls to. "I also know what my inherent right of self-defense encompasses. In my judgment, a unit under my command is in imminent danger. I'm justified in taking all reasonable and appropriate measures to protect here. Under the circumstances, that means letting the Russians know that we know they're there. No more safety-of-navigation ops bullshit. They've taken this to a new level with those MiGs." "Admiral?" the TAO asked, his face stunned. "You want to give away our hand like that?"
"You bet I do!" Batman said. He rolled back to look at me, pointed one finger at me. "You tell your boys back there that I want to know the second there's any increase in radio traffic or communication with this submarine. Or any hint that the Russians are objecting to us making a lot of noise out here, you hear?"
I nodded. "I'll just head back to CVIC and-"
The sudden blare of the bitch box cut me off. "TFCC, CVIC. Sir, we have indications of MiG31 launch ― looks like four aircraft ― sir, they're just taxiing now. As soon as they rotate and get to altitude, I'll know which way they are headed."
"Get our Alert Five aircraft airborne," Batman snapped. "And spin up four more Hornets and two Tomcats on the deck ― I want them at Alert Five now. A tanker, too ― and an E2. I want gas and eyes in the air the second we need them."
"TFCC, CVIC. TAO, those MiGs are headed in our direction. They're just clearing ten thousand feet and already starting their turn, sir."
"Roger, copy all." The TAO's fingers were flying over the keyboard as he orchestrated all the firepower of the battle group. He stabbed a button on the bitch box, got the bridge, and said, "Launch the Alert Five aircraft. And get six more birds on alert, including a tanker and an E2."
Seconds later, I heard the raucous blare of the 1MC announcing emergency flight quarters. Overhead, the Alert Five aircraft were already turning, their hard, screaming engines rattling the overhead fixtures.
"If CAG doesn't have them off the deck in six minutes, I'm going to have his ass," Batman muttered. From what I could hear over the bitch box, it sounded like CAG might break his own record for setting flight quarters.
Sure enough, four minutes after Batman had given the order, the first F/A-18 ripped off the catapult and into the air. I suspected that CAG and the air boss had stashed a couple of people up in the tower just in case of this very event.
In short order, all the fighters, along with the SAR helo, a tanker, and an E2, were airborne. They clustered in the sky overhead, the Hornets taking a quick top-up off of gas from the tanker before vectoring out toward the inbound Russian fighters.
The TAO was fielding calls from the lead fighters now, and he turned to the admiral and asked the million-dollar question "Do we shoot first?"
"Not yet," the admiral answered. "Tell them to continue to close the MiGs and keep their fire-control radars in search mode only. Let's see how serious they are about this. And put another section of Hornets in Alert Five." By now, the ones he'd ordered into an alert status earlier were already fully fueled and armed, just waiting for their turn. Another aircraft shot down the deck and into the air, shown in deadly menacing shades of gray on the plat camera. The first of the on-station Hornets started howling for fuel. The afterburners chugged it down like it was beer.
"They're turning," the lead Tomcat reported. Seconds later, our tactical display confirmed what his eyes saw first. The MiGs were peeling off, heading back the way they'd come. By the time the second section of Hornets launched, there were no more MiGs to deal with. Overhead the E-2C Hawkeye kept an anxious eye on the entire arena but there were no more indications of MiG launches or other hostile activity from our Russian friends.
"Harassing action, just like last time," Captain Smith announced.
"Seen it before ― it's an old Soviet standard ploy to get us to expose our hands." "But why now?" I asked.
Batman evidently overheard our conversation, and turned toward us and away from the screen. "You think it has something to do with the submarine?"
I nodded. "I don't know what they'll try, Admiral, but nothing else makes sense. Why did they launch on us? And why only four MiGs? That's not the Russian style, not the Russia I know. They deploy air assets in waves of overwhelming numbers ― you know how they are, they always have to have numerical superiority. So why just four? That's not enough to do any damage to an aircraft carrier that's on the alert. And they have to know we're on alert ― those submarines are talking to their masters, too." The Admiral frowned. "You may be right," he said slowly.
"The other thing that's odd is that there's no indication that they were prepared to launch missiles, other than from the aircraft. A real Soviet-style attack would come from all quarters and from all platforms," Smith said. "That's why I think it was intended solely as harassment."
"I'll keep that in mind, sir, when I debrief the pilots. See if they saw anything odd about the weapons load-out, about the formation, anything that might suggest that this was intended to distract us from the submarine problem," I said.
Admiral Wayne nodded gravely. "You do that, Lab Rat. And I want to know immediately what you find out. In the meantime, I'm going to keep an eye on things in here." He turned back to the screen and studied the positions of the three submarines. They were moving with glacial slowness compared to the air contacts we'd watched fight it out just moments earlier. "I don't like this ― I don't like this one little bit."
"Expand the range," Batman ordered. The TAO complied immediately.
A new chart sprang into being on the wall in front of us. I sucked in a hard breath, and realized that Batman had already suspected what we all now knew. To the south, still well inland, were four blood-red inverted V's. They were flying in sets of twos, the symbols so close together that sometimes they merged.
Behind them were three more sets of fighters, giving us a total of ten enemy aircraft inbound.
"MiG-31s by the looks of them," Batman muttered. "Shit. What the hell do they think they're doing?" He turned to me. "I'm open to ideas."
I shook my head, now fairly well at a loss. The admiral wasn't asking me what he should do about the incoming MiGs. The well-oiled machinery of the Jefferson's combat watch team was already swinging into motion, vectoring the aircraft now airborne toward the new threat and launching additional Hornets and Tomcats.
What the admiral wanted from me was something much tougher. Why? was his real question. Why were the Russians after our submarine, and why this air attack? Why now?
The compartment filled with the hard, shuddering roar of a Tomcat on the catapult. It built up, vibrating deep in our bones, until the deceptively gentle whoosh and thud of the catapult indicated that it had launched. Seconds later, another Tomcat spooled up.
"They're not going to attack, Admiral," I said, thinking furiously.
"You're right ― not with that few aircraft. The Russians' intelligence network is almost as capable as ours, and they know they don't stand a chance with an Aegis cruiser in our battle group and with our own air support. Therefore, there's something else behind this."
"Nuclear weapons? Maybe they're going for the EMP again," Batman said, pulling the fire-retardant flash gear over his hands. "Like when we were going into the Black Sea that time."