“Stony, Greyhound One. Be advised I am turning north to come within the cruiser’s missile engagement zone.” The voice of the female pilot flying the COD was higher than normal. She was well aware of her own complete lack of defenses.
“Roger, Greyhound One. We’ll see you on deck.” Tombstone put the Tomcat into a hard turn, moving away from the COD. Inside the cruiser’s missile engagement zone, the COD stood a far better chance than under the protection of the Tomcat. While shooting down a missile with another missile was a particularly tricky evolution for a Tomcat, the cruiser’s Aegis system had proved itself up to the challenge many times before.
“Stony, One, be advised that the Russian carrier is launching its fighters. Condition red, weapons tight.” The admiral’s voice was calm and confident. His orders told each aircraft to be prepared to fire at a moment’s notice, and to maintain a continual tracking solution in all contacts, but not to release weapons unless attacked.
“Great,” Greene muttered, his head now buried in the hard plastic screen around his radarscope. This was what he hated most about flying in the backseat, having his attention confined to the radarscope and ESM gear and his actions limited to green pixels on-screen.
On his screen, there were ten symbols indicating hostile air contacts. They formed up just off the Russian carrier’s starboard beam, then turned as one toward the COD scampering for the carrier.
“No,” Jeremy said, not believing what he was seeing. “What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know.” The tactical circuit was now a continuous stream of reports, commands, and information, as every ship in the battle group set general quarters and prepared for what looked like the beginning of a Russian attack. But it made no sense, did it? This was not the Russian way, to attack with just ten aircraft. There should have been waves of aircraft inbound, supported by land-based missiles. Not ten aircraft that stood no chance against the heavily armed battle group and airwing, none at all.
“Targeting radar,” Jeremy snapped, as the ESM warning device at his side began howling. “Tombstone, it’s got a lock on us!”
“Wait one,” Tombstone said, although he was clearly no happier about it than Jeremy was. “Where’s the COD?”
“On final,” Jeremy said, as he watched the symbol for the Greyhound One turn in toward the aircraft carrier.
“Launch indications, launch indications — we have a launch!” For the first time, the air traffic controller’s voice ratcheted slightly higher.
“Weapons free, all Russian platforms,” the admiral snapped immediately over the same circuit.
Four new symbols, each with an impossibly long speed leader, popped into being on Tombstone’s HUD and on Jeremy’s screen. Missiles, launched by the Russian fighters — and all targeted on the helpless Greyhound.
Pamela’s eyes snapped open at the change in the aircraft’s vibration. The pressure of the straps against her chest told her they were in a hard turn, far too hard for normal maneuvers. “What’s going on?” she asked, speaking loudly to be heard over the noise inside the aircraft.
“They didn’t say,” Jeff answered, his voice placid. “No announcements.” Not that they could have heard them anyway, given the noise level.
“They’re kicking her in the ass, aren’t they?” Pamela said. She leaned forward to see outside the window. It was still light outside, although she could see the first beginnings of sunset behind them. Off in the distance, sun glinted off metal. Their escort — probably Tombstone himself, she mused. And what the hell was going on, anyway?
She started to get up and step into the aisle, but Jeff grabbed her arm, holding her down in her seat. He gave her a measured look, and with a sigh, she sank back into her seat. There was really no point in trying to find out what was going on. If they preferred criminal charges against her for being out of her seat during the flight, she could kiss any more COD flights goodbye. Besides, whatever was going on, there was nothing she could do about it anyway.
Off in the distance, she saw the Tomcat peel off and vanish from view as it went toward their stern. The vibration inside the COD increased, as did the roar of the engines. Everything started rattling, and it felt like things were coming apart.
She kept her attention on the window, suddenly scared. Then she saw it, coming up on them from the back. It was a slender white speck against the sky, growing rapidly larger. The sun glinted off it, making it unbearably bright at times, transforming it into a swath of light.
“A missile,” she said, horror in her voice. Unbelievable — who would fire on a COD in the middle of the battle group? But a missile it was, there was no doubt about it.
Jeff had his head turned away from her and his eyes were shut. Surely he wasn’t going to sleep now, of all times? Now, that didn’t make sense — and then she saw it, a small plastic unit pressed between his ear and the hard foam back of the seat. She jabbed him in the side, then grabbed it before he could protest.
“Hey,” he said. “Get your own.”
She pressed it to her ear and listened. “Entering the cruiser’s missile engagement zone,” she heard, as well as a flurry of other reports.
“It’s like a police scanner,” Jeff said, no trace of apology in his voice. “Rigged it up myself. You can only listen to the unclassified conversations — that squeal, it means a circuit is encrypted. But even the unclassified circuit is more than they’re telling us anyway, isn’t it? Like things are really going to shit out there.”
“Weapons free. Break, JPJ engage incoming.”
“Roger, birds away, birds away.”
“Lead, break right! I got him.”
“Fox two, Fox two!”
The chatter on the circuit was heart-stoppingly familiar. Jeff leaned over, cracked his head against hers, then pulled the scanner between them so they could both listen. Pamela turned her neck uncomfortably, trying to simultaneously keep her ear next to the scanner while she watched the air through the battered window.
Far below them, the ocean was a dark, smooth surface, unusually calm even for this time of year. A few distant whitecaps broke the surface, but there were long stretches of almost mirrorlike swells. She saw three new missiles arrow up from the direction of the cruiser, head straight up, and turn slightly toward the missile behind them. As she watched, the distance decreased between them at an alarming rate.
There was no use in denying it. She was terrified. But there was no way she was going to show it, not now. No one else in the aircraft, aside from perhaps the aircrew, knew what was going on. As far as they knew, the COD was simply making a particularly ragged approach on the carrier. If the cruiser missiles did not intercept the ones launched by the Russian cruiser, they would die with no more than a microsecond of warning before the aircraft was ripped apart.
Would she see it coming? Would there be a moment when she stared out at a blue sky, saw metal shredded, saw the fireball race through the aircraft’s fuselage? For just a moment, she envied Winston’s complete ignorance.
The four Russian Forgers split apart into two fighting pairs. They achieved horizontal separation while maintaining the same altitude, and turned to each point directly at the hapless COD. But just as the COD entered the cruiser’s missile engagement zone, they broke off suddenly, as though they were listening to other communications. They wheeled west, ascended, and turned toward Tombstone and the four other Tomcats.