Oh, hell. Let them celebrate. It’s not often that you know you’re going to be painting twenty fighter profiles on your superstructure within the next week.
For indeed, the computer had awarded confirmed kills for every missile they’d launched. A second shot on any one target had not been necessary, and all the shots had been well inside parameters. Even the destroyer, with her six missiles total, had each downed the target.
Yes, overall, an impressive record. But even as he joined in the muted celebration, the captain felt a sense of uneasiness sweep over him. Twenty missiles, twenty kills? No misses, no mechanical problems? Sure, maybe — but that hadn’t been his experience with technology. Parts rub, seals go bad, a stray electron hits the wrong beam of light — shit happens. And while he’d be glad to take the twenty missiles — twenty kills record if warranted, something deep inside of him worried.
“Lead aircraft inside their engagement zone,” the TAO announced. “Captain, we have time for four more shots on the far edge of the MEZ, if you want them?”
“Hell, yes, I want them,” the captain said, and this time the cheers in combat rose to audible levels. He watched what had quickly become such a smooth operation as four more missiles were launched.
“Captain — I have aircraft inbound from the north.”
“The north! What the hell?” He listened as his TAO called out the data and began an initial query of the aircraft.
“Looks like one of our fighters, sir. And it’s breaking IFF Mode Four. Whoever it is, it is definitely a friendly. No way I can target.”
“Call the carrier. Ask them if one of their boys is lost. Because he came out of nowhere as far as I could see — down from the Kurile Islands. And,” the TAO continued, a look of worry growing on his face, “he’s headed for the Jefferson.” Now worry dominated his expression. “Captain, the Jefferson doesn’t have air protection right now — and if we’re going to do something, we need to do it now. Should be within weapons range of the Jefferson in approximately five minutes.”
“Call the carrier, ask him what else is going on. And stand by to take it out.”
Coyote listened to the request for information coming over the circuit, and then turned to his TAO, a puzzled look on his face. “Who the hell is that? Some tanker or something? The Air Force get lost again?”
“I don’t know, sir — but if it’s squawking Mode Four, it’s definitely a friendly.”
Coyote swore quietly. “I’m going to kill some son of a bitch when I get back Stateside. What the hell are they doing, flying in this area without letting me know?”
Suddenly, a familiar voice came over an open, nonencrypted circuit, using designated code names instead of their real identities. “Big Brother, this is Homeplate. Be advised I have a friendly inbound for recovery — no time to generate message traffic or SPINS on it. But we’re taking her on board. I can’t explain anything else, Big Brother — just trust me on this one. Home plate out.”
“Batman!” Coyote roared. “Damn it, tell me what’s going on here.”
But there was silence on the circuit. Coyote turned to his communications officer, frustrated. “Where is he?”
The communications officer shook his head. “Jefferson only has one classified circuit. If he has a contact inbound, he’s probably talking to him on that. He can’t do both at the same time, sir. He just came on this frequency to let us know not to shoot.”
Coyote paced the compartment, barely able to contain himself. The roar inside TFCC was continuous as the air boss and the flight deck crew raced to launch every fighter in the inventory. There was so little time, so little.
As the wave of Chinese aircraft rolled in toward the carrier, the cruiser would attempt to eliminate as many of them as possible. Even the destroyer, operating under the cruiser’s guidance, could attempt to get off a couple of shots with her shorter range missiles while the enemy was inside the missile engagement zone, or MEZ.
But MEZ was a painfully small window of opportunity and within minutes the Chinese aircraft would be in the FEZ, or fighter engagement zone, and that was where the true test of skill, training, equipment and people would take place. American lives would then be on the line as the fighters took them on one by one.
“How many in the first wave?” Coyote asked.
“It looks like about seventy, sir,” the TAO said. “Using the cruiser’s data.”
And the cruiser’s data would be better than most, given the powerful SPY-1 radar. Still, there was a chance she could be mistaken — there might be fewer. Some processing error, human or machine, could lead to false contacts.
No. Don’t even consider that. Go with the numbers your people can give you, don’t depend on false hope. Because if seventy aircraft are inbound now, you can bet that there are another seventy behind them somewhere, already starting to launch. We’ll have to go for maximum damage from the very first, no quarter given or expected, in order to avoid being overwhelmed in very short order.
He clicked the mike on. “Weapons free, all Chinese forces declared hostile. Good luck people — let’s make them pay for this.”
Batman and Tombstone had known this, he knew now. The complete and utter frustration of sitting in TFCC, watching the intense engagement take place without your participation. There could be no more frustrating feeling, your fingers clenching, moving involuntarily as though you were in the lead aircraft yourself. Why hadn’t they told him it was this difficult?
“First engagement, sir. The cruiser’s targeted ten of them — we have a launch, we have a launch.”
On the tactical display, a series of ten missile symbols rippled into being, all barreling straight up from the cruiser and toward the incoming flight. The destroyer added another three long-range missiles to the pack. Although her slower fire control system was not able to process as many immediately, the Aegis was able to provide targeting data directly to her.
“Seventy minus thirteen, what’s that leave?” Coyote asked.
“Fifty-seven, sir,” the TAO answered, leaving unspoken the words that everyone was thinking.
Fifty-seven if all the missiles found their marks. And if, in the process of shooting them down, our own people don’t screw up badly enough to get in the path of the incoming. Because we can’t afford to lose even one of our own, particularly not to friendly fire. Not with the odds the way they are now.
And how many waves of seventy fighters will the Chinese send out? We don’t even have an accurate count of their air inventory, damn it.
Doesn’t matter. Right now, if it flies, it dies, and that’s all there is to it.
Thor was totally focused, and was ignoring the quick thrill of adrenaline in his blood. Discipline, that’s what it was about — the ability to control the blood lust that rose up in you as you contemplated what was to come, to control the fear that lay right behind it. Because this was the moment you trained for, dreamed about, you knew everything about in the world except how it would actually feel when you went into combat for the first time.