“Good. You said what you needed to get their minds right and show your confidence in them. How did they look to you?”
“Ready to go, loyal, focused. Except the Panthers. Sensed a chill from them.”
“Yeah. I saw it, too.”
They bounded up a ladder and turned aft. Wilson decided to get some fresh air on the flight deck with his friend to discuss the mood of his air wing.
“Let’s go topside,” he said.
“Sounds good.”
Wilson led them to a hatch, and they stepped up a ladder and into a catwalk above the missile sponson. They stepped up another ladder and onto the flight deck, having to crouch low under a Hornet stabilator before they ambled aft between rows of jets parked on the bow cats. Under a high overcast, the visibility was unlimited, and Wilson noted it was warmer than he had expected.
“Mother’s pissed the Marines aren’t leading the charge and shooting down everything in the PRC.”
“He always has his nose out of joint,” Weed said. They walked at a slow pace, aided by the wind at their backs. Around them sailors tended to the jets, and ahead a bunch of green shirts worked on the Cat 2 JBD. Wilson continued.
“Everything out here is a thousand miles away from everything else. The Rhinos carry more fuel and bombs, and they’re tankers. If I need combat air patrol near the ship, the Panthers are my first choice, but when the bubble goes up, it’s going to be the Super Hornets on Day One.”
The men walked to the angle in silence. “I’m not going to worry about hurt feelings,” Wilson said. “We’ve got a job to do.”
“When do you think this is going to turn hot?” Weed asked.
Wilson scanned the horizon. “When we are within striking range of the South China Sea. I don’t know…. We probably have a few days to operate in the Phil Sea, wait for Solomon Islands to show up, wait for more Air Force assets in Guam. Admiral says Guam is practically full; they’re parking jets on taxiways and access roads.”
“Sure hope it doesn’t capsize,” Weed deadpanned.
Wilson smiled as they continued down the flight deck.
“Are you going to fly the first strike?” Weed asked.
“I want to… if The Big Unit lets me. It’s probably going to be an escort for the Growlers in support of the Air Force. Will have Olive lead it, and I’ll fly in her formation.”
“How about tomorrow?”
“Yeah, I want to be on the first wave, but my guess is it’s just going to be a day of surface search. Think we’ll be able to ease into this, whatever ‘this’ becomes.”
They got to the carrier’s ramp and looked at the eastern horizon. “Hey, check that out,” Weed said, pointing at a sea bird gliding over the waves off the port quarter.
“He’s a long way from home, wherever that is. Has a black body. What is it?”
“Gotta be an albatross of some sort. There’s nothing else out here.”
Both pilots contemplated Hancock’s wide wake that disappeared into the horizon as she ploughed ahead with purpose.
Ahead to the southwest, another long wingspan, this one manmade, soared above 100,000 feet, also looking east.
CHAPTER 27
Wilson climbed up the ladder of his FA-18F Super Hornet, call sign Bronco 200, parked at the base of Cat 1. His Weapons Systems Officer was already in the back seat being hooked in by the plane captain. Bronco 200 was loaded for surface combat air patrol.
That morning Wilson had learned that a Chinese high-altitude unmanned aerial vehicle was detected some 200 miles ahead, just outside the second island chain. Right on Hancock’s track.
“Guess they saw us coming along the Aleutians,” The Big Unit had said at his morning meeting. With Hancock still at EMCON and running at better than 25 knots, the carrier could make any Chinese targeting solution more difficult, but Wilson and company could assume they now knew where Hancock was in the Pacific. Intel showed no Chinese surface units beyond the first island chain, but much of their fleet was underway in home waters. Of concern to Blower was that not all PLA(N) submarines were accounted for, a concern the admiral and Wilson also shared.
As Wilson was strapping in, a China Hemisphere Airlines A380 that had taken off from Guangzhou, bound for Honolulu, was 100 miles to the west. It carried a comfortable 296 passengers and was cruising at 37,000 feet at .85 Mach. Hancock received a linked track that showed flight CH105 Heavy and all the civilian trans-Pacific traffic that funneled into and out of Japanese, Korean, and Chinese arrival and departure corridors. However, it was the UAV ahead of Hancock that had the attention of all — from the watchstanders in CIC to the Commander Seventh Fleet, VADM McGill aboard Blue Ridge.
Wilson and the other jets scheduled for the first event were starting engines as Blower and Admiral Johnson conferred on Hancock’s bridge. Once the launch was complete, they would run Hancock and Cape St. George south for fifty miles with Earl Gallaher maintaining the current track, southwest toward Farrallon Island. If the UAV maintained position, they would stay 150 miles from it, plenty of distance, and force the snooper to monitor Earl Gallaher before it lost interest. The Chinese UAV had a right to be in international airspace, but, in the quasi-war they were in, Hancock could not take a chance of steaming under it.
The UAV was equipped with a high-magnification, infrared sensor, and, at 200 miles, detected three objects on the surface, tracking west. Through a satellite link it transmitted the digital return back to Eastern Fleet HQ where database computers enhanced the images in minutes. The large image matched that of an American carrier, and with the approval of the fleet commander who was watching the Americans approach real time, a command was sent to CH105 Heavy.
The aircraft was ordered to increase speed to .89 and veer 10 degrees right. The pilots complied.
Three minutes later, two circular doors, one on each underside of the jumbo jet’s horizontal tails, rotated inside the surface to reveal an opening to the airstream. At 10-second intervals, six cylindrical tubes were ejected from the openings, and the doors closed. In the cockpit, an order to return to Guangzhou was received. Without questioning the order, the pilots contacted Oceanic Control to change their flight plan and turned to the left, away from Hancock.
After fifteen seconds of free-fall, wings and canards deployed to fly the tubes using linked information from the UAV over 100 miles away. The tubes, each with an infrared sensor and a 45-pound warhead, maintained an easy glide to intercept the object they were commanded to engage. Because the air defense and early warning radars of the carrier and her escorts were not radiating, the ships had no indication that the strange objects were closing.
At the distances involved, the tubes took twelve minutes to glide the 80 miles to the push-over point, where they shed their long, thin wings, keeping small control fins for terminal control. From 20,000 feet, the tubes were now five miles away from Hancock and their sensors recognized it as an American Nimitz-class carrier. Orienting the deck layout, their IR sensors tracked four sharp lines of heat, two at the front of the ship and two on the left side as it moved through the water. Through AI, the small tubes “decided” which line of heat each would take, with two of the smart bombs remaining back 20 seconds to assess.