“Black Formation, Mother; armament switches on.”
“Roger, Mother; armament switches on. Gyro on,” came the voice of Commander Tyler-Cole.
What the hell is a gyro? Franklin asked himself.
“Maneuver sharp, ready?”
“Ready.”
Franklin listened as the British Air Intercept Controller on board the Royal Navy aircraft carrier Elizabeth vectored the four F-35 fighters toward unseen targets. What the hell was a maneuver sharp?
“Black Leader; right turn now!” came an explosive command.
Franklin felt chill bumps race up his spine. What was happening? Were they firing missiles, or what? Damn, he hated not knowing. He looked at the heads-up display on the cockpit. Black Formation was making a sharp right turn. Franklin shook his head. What the hell were they thinking? That turn was going to expose their belly to the hostiles and degrade their stealth coatings, making them susceptible to radar detection. He didn’t like things happening in the air that he didn’t understand or that were surprises. This was both.
“Flares now, Black Formation!”
Flares would not be reflected on the data link display racing across the heads-up he was trying to follow while keeping his eye on Johnson’s Raptor and the sky ahead of him. Christ! He hated this. What the hell are the British doing and why aren’t they telling us? There were no other missiles in the air, so why the flares? Flares were part of the antimissile decoys for fighters.
“We have contact!” Tyler-Cole transmitted. “I have them on my radar. Mother, good call.”
“They have you also, Black Formation. Good hunting. Level off and immediately descend to two thousand meters.”
“Damn,” Franklin said aloud when he realized what they had done. Flares burn brightly when released to decoy infrared missiles, but in the few seconds when they first ignite, they create a virtual presence in the air. A presence that could be misinterpreted, if unexpected. Stealth fighters have to open their weapons bay door to fire missiles and when they do, they are detectable.
The flares had been picked up by the Chinese stealth bomber and misinterpreted as missiles being fired. The sharp turn by the British fighters had broken their stealth-ness just enough for the Chinese to pick them up also. Radar video returns can tell you a lot. A quick detection may mean the release of decoys such as flares. The longer detection caused by the sharp turn exposing the reflective underbelly of the Joint Strike Fighter caused the Chinese to believe the British had fired missiles at them.
To counter infrared missiles meant stealth aircraft had to break the radar reduction signature along their fuselage long enough to fire their own flares. Those small seconds gave the British an opportunity to detect and locate the Chinese fighter formations.
“Black and Raptor Leaders; we hold two formations of hostile fighters. Three per formation. Black Leader, come left, steady on course two-two-zero, maintain current altitude. Raptor Leader…”
Raptor Leader? That was Johnson and him. He leaned forward, listening intently to the Air Intercept Controller. Johnson did tell Mother she was the lead formation.
“… ease to course one-eight-zero, maintain current angels twenty-five.”
How were the British doing this? He could never imagine an American air intercept controller switching seamlessly between kilometers, meters, feet, and miles. That impressed Franklin more than the fact the British and Americans were in a joint engagement against the number-one military power in Asia.
“Where are the helicopters?” Agazzi asked, looking at Calvins, who was entombed in his sound-powered telephone talker outfit.
“I can switch off the UUV for a moment so we can see the Naval Tactical Data System, Senior Chief, if you want,” MacPherson said, glancing over his shoulder.
“No, need to keep the UUV steady on course. What course are you on now?”
“220 and 010 true.”
Behind him, Calvins was relaying the question to Combat. “Okay, Gentron, how are we going to know if the Chinese really mean to attack us or just showing us they could if they want to?” Bernardo asked. “You said they’d sneak away. Well, they’re still there.”
“Hey, don’t be snotty with my seaman,” MacPherson interjected.
“I’m not being snotty. He said if the torpedoes were fake, the submarines would leave. Well, they haven’t.” Bernardo turned. His eyes traveled from Keyland to Agazzi. “Come on, Senior Chief, Petty Officer Keyland; you both are curious also, aren’t you?”
Keyland crossed his arms and nodded. “Seaman Gentron, you want to share any other ideas? You were pretty good in the Sea of Japan—” Bernardo interrupted. “Yeah, Mertz; you were the first to figure out it was a North Korean submarine that sunk the Chinese sub. Not that we wouldn’t have figured it out, but you did it first.”
At the second UUV console, Gentron smiled, his face darkening in the blue light of the ASW Control Center as he blushed. “I did, didn’t I?” he said quietly.
“Ah, Christ,” Bernardo said. “Now we’ll have to widen the hatch to get his head through it.”
“Seaman Gentron,” Agazzi said. “What do you think we should look for?”
Gentron cleared his throat. “I think that if they were trying to sink us, they would have already fired another salvo.” “They’re still out there. Maybe they’re preparing to fire another round and just coordinating,” Keyland offered, leaning forward and putting his hands on the safety rail above the lower level of the compartment.
“That is true. I thought if they were firing to let us know they could sink us, then they’d fade away having accomplished their mission.”
“They haven’t. Therefore, maybe they’re going to fire again?” “You could be right, Petty Officer Bernardo,” Gentron continued, “but don’t you think they’ve had sufficient time to fire again?”
Agazzi nodded. He came down the ladder, moving toward the AN/SQR-25 passive sonar console where Bernardo sat. “That is true.”
“Unless they are less competent than we think,” MacPher-son added.
“I don’t think they are,” Agazzi answered. “These four submarines are out in the open ocean. China is no longer a coastal Navy.” He turned, glancing up at Keyland and then at Gen-tron. “It could also be China demonstrating to us that they can go anywhere in the world with their Navy.”
“They’ve done that before, Senior Chief,” Keyland added. “They’ve taken a small task force and circled the globe.” “But they didn’t take their submarines with them and that was nearly ten years ago. Since then, they’ve been poaching on our and other nations’ technology, putting their own scientists and engineers to work, and now they have a second aircraft carrier being built alongside the first.”
“They have over sixty SSNs and ten SSBNs,” Gentron said. “They’re already a force to be reckoned with with that many attack and ballistic nuclear submarines.”
Bernardo twirled around in his chair and started typing something on one of the data icons. A moment later, he stared back in Gentron’s direction, then at the senior chief. “They have sixty-two attack submarines and ten ballistic missile submarines,” he said quietly.
“Where’d you get all this knowledge?” MacPherson said, reaching over with a friendly push on Gentron’s shoulder. “You trying to be an officer or something?”
“They taught us in A school,” Gentron replied somberly. “The Chinese would have more submarines if during the Cultural Revolution…”
“What’s a Cultural Revolution?” Bernardo asked.
“It’s you understanding what a movie is without sex in it,” MacPherson replied.