Like the missile that had destroyed Roosevelt. He keyboarded an order pulling the formation in tight around the cruisers. If Zhang responded to the massive attack on the biggest port in China with another thermonuclear warhead, they’d have to cover the rest of the force.
With a sodden-sounding whunk, the vents popped open. The fans spooled up. Once again cool air breathed from the diffusers, fluttering the paper streamers someone had taped there. Chin propped on his knuckles, he sat immobile, gaze nailed to the flickering displays.
Over the next half hour the blue clouds merged with the darting red fireflies above the offshore islands, then over Ningbo itself. He clicked from circuit to circuit, trying to glean some sense of how the battle was going, but jamming was heavy and transmissions were garbled. Every few seconds he checked the high-side chat. Any orders would come through there, not voice.
Loss and damage reports began arriving. The air controller, shadowing the transmissions among the pilots, reported several S-400 antiaircraft batteries still active. Each time a U.S. plane blinked off the screen, Dan glanced at Staurulakis. But she just nodded. Keeping her head down, typing, or squinting at the displays.
So far, the plan seemed to be working. TF 76 reached the southernmost limit of his box. He checked with Kristensen, the ASW coordinator, then brought the formation around to the reciprocal, headed northeast.
On the leftmost display now — the merged feed from the drones, from the other Aegis-capable ships, and from the carriers, behind them — the leading formations detached from the gaggle over the mainland and headed back out to sea. Some lagged their wingmen. Their callouts read slow and low. On the right-hand display, the narrow low-angle beam of Savo Island’s own radar, in ALIS mode, fingered the horizon of northern China. Its amber fanlike spokes clicked across hundreds of miles of jagged mountains. Terranova’s round face bent over the radar control console, while the Thai physicist hovered perched on a tall stool. But seconds, then minutes, ticked by without the staccato buzz of the launch warning.
He got up abruptly, too hinky to sit any longer, and paced the length of CIC beam to beam. He glanced back at Staurulakis’s bowed spine, wishing he could bring her a little reassurance.
But what could he say, other than that the best and most daring died first? Some comfort that would be.
He stopped at the electronic warfare console, where Donnie Wenck was riding the stack operators. Wenck said that what with the jamming from the ground, and the strike group’s own jamming from the air, he’d never seen tactical EW this heavy. “Put it on the speaker,” he told the operator.
The pulsating whine was like a hundred planing mills, buzzsaws, table saws, going at once. The chief said, “We’re freq-hopping as fast as we can. But they’re tracking every radar in the task force, wiping us out. They pitch us a couple low-cross-section incomers, it’s gonna get brown and lumpy real fast.”
Dan grinned unwillingly at the “brown and lumpy,” but just nodded. Jamming explained the freezing screens, the green snowstorms of corrupted data that sleeted the displays from time to time.
Next he stopped at the radar control console, and watched over Terranova’s shoulder. ALIS seemed to be punching through, its concentrated beam flicking back and forth, a windshield wiper scrubbing China clean. He patted the Terror’s shoulder. She looked back, one quick blank glance, then returned to her screen.
When he got back to the command desk, Mills cleared his throat. “Admiral. On high-side chat: Reagan’s detaching from the strike group. Moving closer, with their screen units.”
“Moving closer? Why?”
“No reason given. I suspect, to recover some of those damaged aircraft. Maybe to back us up as well.”
“We could have used more air cover on the way in,” he grumbled. But the closer the carriers edged, the more risk they incurred. Or was that the idea? To test the robustness of the remaining forces? Sucker them into a prepared kill zone?
But no one had mentioned a follow-on action. The plan had been to strike, recover, then retire. Not to hang around, giving the enemy time to generate a counterpunch.
Maybe he should clarify what was going on. At his terminal, he typed:
BARBARIAN: Interrogative movement RRR toward enemy coast.
RRR was Reagan. A few seconds elapsed. Then:
ENCAPSULATE: Confirmed.
“Encapsulate” was the strike group commander, hundreds of miles behind him on Truman. Okay, maybe his question hadn’t been clear. He typed
BARBARIAN: Do you require TF 76 to fall back on you?
ENCAPSULATE: Negative. Maintain station pending recovery all strikes. Further orders to follow.
“Okay, that’s clear enough,” Staurulakis observed.
A harrumph. Enzweiler, a laptop under his arm. “I’m available, Admiral, if you should need a relief.”
“I don’t… well… maybe for a couple of minutes. Thanks, Fred.” He could take a leak. And maybe wash his face. He brought the chief of staff up to speed, making sure Cheryl could hear what he was saying. Then let himself out, to use the little head across the p-way from Radio, thirty feet aft of CIC.
When he returned, Cheryl requested permission to come into the wind to launch Red Hawk. A fighter with a shredded wing had gone sinker en route back to Truman. The pilot had pulled the curtain twenty miles west of 76’s box. Too close to the coast, but he couldn’t leave the guy out there. Especially with Staurulakis’s gaze on him. “Okay,” he said. “But get Strafer off the deck fast as you can, Cheryl. Then return to formation course.”
He crossed to the air combat controller and got Gambier Bay’s SuCAPs vectored out to top cover Savo’s helicopter. That left the cruiser uncovered at low to medium altitude, but with the rest of the returning strike passing overhead, he felt fairly secure for the time being.
A fresh cup of coffee steamed at the command desk. He got half down before being distracted by Mills, who wanted to discuss repositioning Hampton Roads for better coverage. Dan called Soongapurn and Wenck in to join the discussion. After pulling up various programs, he typed the order on the command net. Shortly thereafter, the other cruiser pulled out to the north.
More agonizingly slow minutes inchwormed past. He glanced at his watch, startled to see it was midnight. Or was it noon? No, midnight. Another pill, from Doc Grissett? No more pills. Or maybe another hydrocodone for his fucking neck. How much longer were they going to leave him flapping out here, parading back and forth like a tin duck in a shooting gallery? You could only push your luck so far.
He slid down in his chair and put his head back. Closed his eyes. Just for a second…
A hand on his arm brought him snorting out of a doze. Staurulakis. “Something’s developing over Okinawa. Also, air activity over Taiwan.”
“Fuck… we stayed too long.”
“What’s that, Admiral?”
“Nothing.” He blinked grit from his eyes, checking displays as he sucked down the dregs of the coffee. Ugh, glacier cold. How long had he been out?
Yeah, there it was. Air strikes forming up over the ex — U.S. Air Force base at Kadena. He keyed to the callouts, and got J-8s and J-7s.