“I’ve lost Kirov,” said Otani. “The system is just guesstimating now.” SPY-1 was only reporting the last known location of the contact, and drawing an expanding area around it that encompassed all possible locations where it might have moved as the seconds ticked off—their electronic ‘farthest on.’
“Mister Nakano,” said Harada. “Do you still have that sub?”
“Aye sir, but it’s changing depth, climbing through 300 feet and reducing speed.”
Harada didn’t like the sound of that. Seconds later he heard what he had been fearing when his Sonarman called out: “Torpedo in the water! Bearing southeast, range 11 nautical miles and inbound on our position at 30 knots.”
“Helm, come hard right to 270 and ahead full!”
“Aye sir. Coming to 270 and all ahead full.” Harada was turning and running away from the torpedo. His ship could make those 30 knots easily enough, and those fish would never catch him… Surely that Russian sub Captain had to know that….
“Damn! Why you sly son-of-a-bitch,” Harada breathed. “He wanted to see if we had a fix on him! He wanted me to do exactly what I just ordered, and now he knows we had him in red. He’s coming up to run shallow at missile firing depth. That’s one cagey sub driver. Alright people, get everything hot, and I mean everything. Charge the laser and stand up the SM-2 system. We’re about to have unfriendly visitors.”
Kazan had finished firing at 11:41, and the missile warning had shaken the bridge to tense alertness. They were coming, blistering fast, and only seconds away at this range of just under eleven nautical miles. The air defense system was on full automatic, the aft deck cells on the SM-2 were already firing. The first missiles out would have a ghost of a chance at getting those Zircons, and in the first group of four, two of them would get hits.
But not a single missile fired after that would find its target. The Vampires were so close that they could not achieve their top speed in this short timeframe, but they were still coming very fast. A second after those first two kills, the ship’s Phalanx guns were grinding away at the incoming missiles, and had perhaps a 35% chance of hitting something in this equation, but they were not good enough that day. The Zircon was just too fast.
Three seconds later, Takami showed the Vampires some leg. The ship deployed its Mk 182 Chaff in an attempt to seduce the sensors on the incoming missiles. That had no more than a 10% chance of success, and it failed. They heard the laser fire and saw the bright explosion off the aft port quarter when it hit. There were three vampires left.
The SM-2s were still firing, but the Vampires weren’t going to be stopped by a missile now, they were too damn close. The J/NOLQ-2 ECM defensive jammer was trying to fry their brains, and it spoofed one of the missiles, causing it to malfunction, but the other two came ramming home. One hit the fantail, and they were lucky there was no Seahawk there being armed and fueled for operations. It came in a little high, the explosion a bright fireball that was mostly an air burst. It was as if the missile scudded right off the deck when it hit.
The other Zircon was fast and true, and it plowed right into Takami’s gut, achieving near 100% penetration. The explosion rocked the ship heavily, like a boxer being hit low. Takami rolled back through the black smoke, critically wounded. There was a flash on the bridge and then all systems went dark as the ship’s power failed. Heavy smoke obscured everything and the fire alarms were going crazy. Almost all the fuel that Zircon could have used to run out hundreds of kilometers was now feeding that fire.
The entire engagement had taken just twelve seconds, and the ship would not survive that hit. The destroyer listed heavily to port, shipping water from the enormous hole in the hull. The eight shiny new SSMs they had taken on from Omi would never be fired, nor would Fukada ever get to take a poke at his enemy with that rail gun at long range. Harada knew it was now only a question of trying to save as much of his crew as he could. He turned to Fukada, looked him in the eye, and gave the order: “All hands, make ready to abandon ship!”
Admiral Yamamoto’s Guardian Angel was out of the game.
“Admiral!” said Rodenko. “Kazan has launched missiles on Takami!”
“Show me.” Karpov rushed over, almost too late for Rodenko to point out the radar contacts.
“It’s about time,” Karpov breathed.
“Look how close he was, inside eleven miles. That’s an explosion, sir. They got at least one hit.”
“Excellent!” Karpov stood up, smiling and looking for Fedorov. “So much for this Captain Harada’s little game out here. Now he knows we mean business, if he even survived that. What did Gromyko throw at him?”
“Six Zircons,” said Rodenko. “Damn, sir. They were so close.”
“I think we can safely say that ship is dead. But what about these other bears out here north of Takami?”
Turkey 1 was still feeding them data, in spite of local interference as a residual effect of that nuke. They had seen three more contacts well north of Takami, effectively pegging the positions of Kirishima, Kongo and Atago. It was Takami three times over, and behind them there was still Admiral Kita with the carriers Kaga and Akagi, and that still left both the destroyer Takao and DDH Kurama in reserve.
“Looks like three more destroyers,” said Rodenko. These first two are reading Kongo Class.”
“You’ve got sensor emissions from them?”
“Aye sir. They’re modern ships. Look here’ sir. That’s a Seahawk returning to one of those destroyers.”
“Range to this contact? What is it designated… Brownbear?”
“Yes sir, Brownbear is at 120 nautical miles.”
“I see… Well Gromyko has fired and he’s probably running deep and sprinting to a new position by now. We can’t let him have all the fun, can we? Mister Samsonov. Key up four Moskit-II missiles and put them on Brownbear—low attack profile. Let’s see just how good that old Kongo Class is.”
Karpov had gone through the insanity of having to deploy a nuclear warhead, seeing Fedorov vanish and reappear before his very eyes as the ship phased in time, and still he was all business as usual, wanting to take advantage of any opportunity he could find. He seemed completely unshakable, for in truth, after having endured everything he had experienced in this long saga, he was unshakable, and this was a borscht he knew how to cook so very well. He wanted to keep fighting, even as Fedorov shook his head in amazement.
Seconds later, the four missiles were away, surging out 28 miles before they made a fifteen point turn to redirect at their target. The closed the range through the fifty mile mark, completely unseen. They closed through the 30 mile mark, rapidly nearing their target’s far horizon. They were running at 1,450 knots, 60 feet above the sea, each with a 320kg warhead.
At 20 nautical miles out, they crossed that horizon, and Kirishima’s radars picked them up for the first time. Captain Kenji Namura was shaken by the sudden alert, but reacted quickly, ordering offensive ECM and a full response from his SAM system. He was carrying 54 RIM-161 Standard Missile 2s, every bit as good as those that had been carried by Takami. Standard procedure would see two missiles assigned to each incoming Vampire, and out they went. It would take six to do the job, but they would get all four of those Sunburns.