Jane's All the World's Warships for 2006 listed the Cunningham-class destroyer as having a top speed of "thirty knots plus," the "plus" being a modestly well-guarded secret. This night, bucking Force Five seas, the Duke's iron log registered a clean forty-two.
The twin prop wakes streaming aft from the propulsor pods met right astern and kicked up a thundering rooster tail that rose above the level of the well deck. The normal pitch and roll of her cruising state was gone, replaced by an unsteady floating sensation as the huge, 80,000-ton hull tried to lift and plane. She was no longer riding up and over the waves; rather, she was driving through them, her sharp-edged clipper bow smashing into each oncoming roller like an ax into soft wood, the jolting impacts radiating back along her frames.
"How are we doing, McKelsie?" All hands in the CIC wanted to ask that question, because over in the counter-measures bay, the battle had already been joined.
With all stealth protocols closed up, the Duke had the radar cross-section of a small cabin cruiser. However, even a small cabin cruiser could be tracked at ranges of up to twenty-five miles by a good surface-search system, and the Argentines had good surface-search systems.
Working in close would require that the enemy's own technology be turned back against him. In high sea states, search radar would frequently pick up "wave clutter," annoying random contacts and ghost targets brought about when the radar sweep reflected off the moving surface of the sea. Modern radars had electronic filters built into them to eliminate most of the phenomenon.
McKelsie and his spook team were counting on that. They were using a vast block of processing capacity to produce a continuously updating computer model of the surface wave patterns that surrounded the Cunningham. Then, employing that model, they manipulated the "mutability envelope" of the ship's Wetball stealth skin, phasing its radar return into the surface clutter being produced around it.
In effect, she was a chameleon, camouflaging herself by matching the color and pattern of its background. In theory, the Argentine radar systems would discard the Cunningham's, return along with the rest of the trash.
Of course, there was always the risk that some technology-distrusting curmudgeon on the other side might just switch his filters off and take a real look around.
"So far, so good, Captain," McKelsie reported. "No shift in enemy scan rate or frequency. No fire-control radars coming up."
Amanda eyed the Alpha Screen critically. The convoy was right where it was supposed to be, almost dead-on beyond the Cunningham's bow. However, the distant covering force was still designated as an outlined block of empty space off to port, a best-guess estimate of their position.
"You know, boss ma'am," Christine's voice sounded in Amanda's headset, "if the distant covering force has reversed back over to this side of the convoy's course line for any reason, this heading is going to have us plowing right into them. We could end up being exposed worse than I was the day my bikini broke at Waikiki."
Amanda smiled in spite of herself. "You aren't likely to enjoy it nearly as much either, fa' sure," she replied into her lip mike. "I'll take it under advisement, Chris."
Amanda called the thermographic imaging from the mast cameras up onto her own flatscreens and mentally demanded that they show her the presence of her enemies. Arkady looked on as well, from the station he had taken for himself behind the command chair. He was quiet, saying nothing, but she could sense his presence on the fringe of her personal space and catch that scent of Old Spice and kerosene that she had come to associate with him.
"Direction-finder arrays are picking up make-and-break static off multiple targets," Christine reported, suddenly businesslike. "Triangulating now."
How easy it was to forget how to breathe.
"Yeah! Confirm the distant covering force! Right where they're supposed to be! Passing down the port side at a seven-mile range! We're getting RSM reflection off them now."
Breathe.
A trio of target hacks replaced the empty block of space on the Alpha Screen and Arkady's hand appeared in the corner of Amanda's vision, a clenched fist with an upraised thumb that gave an emphatic shake. The time-on-target display for the cruise missiles ticked down past four minutes.
"Helm, return helm and lee helm to full manual control. Maintain current speed and heading."
"Aye, aye, helm and lee helm answering on manual."
Amanda keyed her headset over Main Engine Control. "Chief, we're in the groove and on final approach. If you've got any more revs in your pocket, I can use them right now."
Thomson's response was the slow quivering of the iron log up toward forty-three knots.
For a moment, she considered switching over to the MC-1 circuit and addressing the crew. Then she discarded the notion. She had either made them ready for this moment or she hadn't.
The time hack wound down to three minutes.
"Dix, set up a triple-deuce pattern on that nearest DD in the escort perimeter."
"Aye, aye, ma'am."
"Don't wait for my order. Lock up on him and launch the second we go active."
"Will do."
Dixon Beltrain's voice was completely level, totally confident. Whatever specters of personal weakness that might have haunted him at one time had been exorcised.
Two minutes.
"Enemy scan pattern changing!" McKelsie called out from his systems bay. "The lead, nearside destroyer."
"Does he have a lock on?" Amanda demanded.
"Negative, but his primary system is tight-sweeping this sector. He thinks he sees something out this way, but he's not quite sure what."
"Any fire control coming up?"
"Negative."
"Chris, anything on his talk-between-ships circuits?"
"All channels still clear. He isn't yelling yet."
A few miles away, on the other end of that radar beam, an Argentine skipper was mentally flipping a nickel, just as she was.
"Let's wait him out," Amanda ordered.
Sixty seconds.
Amanda started at a touch. Concealed in the low-lit dimness of the CIC, Arkady's hands had come down off the back of the command chair and were now resting on her shoulders. It was a good place for them to be, and she leaned back and braced herself against their warm pressure.
The time hack came up triple zero.
"SCM target-acquisition radars just went active on the western horizon!" Christine yelled. "Argentine search-and-fire control systems coming up all across the board!"
"Light off all radars! Initiate full-spectrum jamming and ECM! Commence firing!"
Topside, the RBOC mortars thumped as they hurled their aluminum-strip payloads into the sky, while back aft, decoy projectors tossed foxer pods into the sea. The Aegis system came fully on-line and Dix Beltrain's tactical screens blazed with targeting data. The TACCO's hands did their death dance across the keypads, making the designations and locking them down.
"Hot birds coming off the rails!" he yelled, striking the launch sequencer.
Thunder and lightning blazed on the Cunningham's fore-deck and the internal monitors glared with illumination overload. Six missiles, four Harpoon IIs and a pair of Standard HARMs, salvoed from the VLS cells. The rocket-driven Standards climbed away in high flaming parabolas, while the turbojet-powered Harpoons followed a shallower arc and leveled out ten feet above the wave crests. Set to short-range, "sprint" mode, they fired their afterburners and punched through the sound barrier en route to their target. At this range, the Argentine destroyer Heroina had only seconds to respond.
It was almost enough. Her captain had already started to turn toward and in to the faint ghost bogey they'd detected and her countermeasures men had been sitting with their hands poised over their systems controls. They buried their ship under a blanket of chaff and their jammers blared out a squall of electromagnetic white noise. Both of the Heroina's forward Dardo forty-millimeter twin mounts and her bow five-inch turret hosed their firestreams into the flight paths of the oncoming missiles.