He had one foot off when water cascaded around him like a fine-mist umbrella. It soaked him and drove the heat away. He immediately sat back down and rammed the truck against the helicopter, shoving it toward the edge of the deck. The DC team walked behind the chief and kept the fine, heavy mist sprayed over him. The water cooled his exposed, blistered skin. A second hose team washed burning fuel over the side, keeping it away from the insides of the USS Gearing.
Suddenly, the helicopter lurched to a stop, jerking the chief forward.
“Tie-downs!” the chief shouted, pointing to the tail where a chain ran to the deck to secure the helicopter to the ship.
“Chief, no torpedoes on her!” shouted the number two team leader.
“No danger there.”
Two members of the team ran to the two remaining tie downs glowing from the heat. Despite the heavy gloves, the tie-downs burned through the fire-retardant cloth, blistering their hands. Ignoring the pain, they twisted the locks loose and disconnected them. Two other team members pulled a body found near the tail of the helo, previously hidden by the smoke, to the rear of the hanger. Nothing held the helicopter on board now except its own inertia.
The chief pushed the pedal to the floor and the forklift, once again, shoved against the helicopter. The starboard strut of the helo shifted, trapping the left arm of the forklift.
The chief, unaware, inched the SH-60 toward the edge.
He continued the slow push of the burning wreckage until it reached the port side. As it began to ease over the side, the ship took a hard left turn.
A sharp tilt of the deck sent the helicopter tumbling overboard. The entangled forklift followed. The chief leaped, making a wild grab for the deck edge.
Seaman Jones grabbed for the chief’s outstretched hands, barely touched the fingertips, missed, and nearly went overboard himself. The chief’s head caught the edge of the deck, knocking him unconscious and leaving a smear of red along the edge. The radioman chief followed the helicopter and forklift into the sea. Someone grabbed a life ring off the hangar bulkhead and tossed it after him. The burning helicopter’s tail disappeared beneath the sea as the damage control members raced to the side.
They saw no sign of the chief.
“Number one Harpoon on target!” announced the surface search operator. A couple of seconds passed.
“Number two Harpoon on target!” He turned to the captain.
“Captain, they’ve hit. I show one video!”
“Combat, ASW; I have two explosions underwater. I think we’ve hit the mofo! No torpedoes in the water at this time!”
“Inbound missile. Time to impact twenty-five seconds!”
“ECM not effective!” yelled the electronic warfare technician.
“Missile is locked on!”
“SAM away!” shouted Lieutenant Howard.
The remaining Libyan fighter twisted to the right. Hares erupted from its ECM pods, successfully decoying the USS Gearing’s surface-to-air missile. The starboard CIWS fired for a full five seconds before the coolant pump burned out and the weapon system locked up.
“What happened?” Cafferty demanded.
“Starboard CIWS is out of commission. Captain. She’s froze up again!”
The fifty bullets spent before the CIWS ceased firing hit the Mig-23’s left wing, damaging the aileron and severing a hydraulic line. The Libyan pilot manually fought the controls, keeping the aircraft airborne. His fuel transfer light started blinking, forcing him to break off. The Mig-23 banked right and headed for the coast and safety.
“We have a miss. Enemy aircraft is in a starboard turn for another attack!”
“The surface video has disappeared. Captain. We’ve sunk her! Whoever fired those Styx missiles is a dead son of a bitch!”
“Ten seconds to impact!”
“Combat, Chief Engineer! Sir, I am losing another engine.
All gauges in the red. Max speed I can give you is twelve knots!”
Even as the chief engineer spoke, Cafferty felt the ship slowing. The rudders of the USS Gearing were pegged as far right as they would go as the ship turned hard to starboard in an attempt to uncover the vertical launch system in front of the bridge and hopefully bring the port CIWS into play against the inbound antiship cruise missile. He looked at the display showing the location of the Gearing: about twenty-five miles north of the Libyan coast. “Second SAM away. Third away.”
On board the fleeing Mig-23, the internal warning system began beeping incessantly in the pilot’s ears. Flares and chaff exploded from the Flogger as the Libyan fighter ran for the coast. The loss of hydraulic fluid made the aircraft barely maneuverable.
Two seconds later.
“Both misses.”
“Captain, enemy aircraft departing area,” added the air search operator.
“Signal bridge reports a smoke trail coming from the aircraft,” repeated a sound-powered phone talker in Combat.
“Styx missile impact five seconds. Five, four, three, two …”
“Missile starboard side!” XO yelled from the bridge.
Like slow motion, the sound of impact rippled through the forward bulkhead. The missile hit the USS Gearing where the forward five-inch sixty-two mount stood firing ineffective rounds at it. The blast shattered the frame integrity to the bow, causing the front of the USS Gearing to shear away at the waterline. The explosion ripped upward, tearing the gun from its mount and sending the barrel through the front of the bridge. Combat had the misfortune of being on the same level as the bow. The forward bulkhead to Combat imploded from the shock wave of the hit. Pieces of missile and shrapnel sawed through to ricochet within Combat. The electronic warfare technician died first. Murderous pieces of metal tore apart the AN/SLQ-32 EW console before decapitating her. Fires broke out at numerous locations as electrical surges and broken wires burned out and flamed up the very positions needed to fight a modern warship.
Cafferty woke on the deck with the barber chair on top of him. Blood flowed from a wound on his forehead. Dazed, he pushed the chair off and pulled himself up. Pulling a handkerchief from his pocket he pressed it against the gash across his forehead.
“Bridge, Combat!” he shouted into the intercom. He wiped more blood from around his eyes. No reply. He then saw that the intercom was no longer connected to anything.
He pushed his way toward the ladder leading up to the bridge. Around him, survivors discharged CO, bottles on the small fires while others began to search for the living and injured buried under the debris. Captain Heath Cafferty dragged himself up the ladder to the bridge. The ship seemed to be tilting forward.
On the bridge, bodies lay helter skelter where they had fallen. Lieutenant Commander Nash was on his knees, dazed. Blood covered his face. A shard of glass in the broken bridge windows cut his hands as he leaned forward, blinking his eyes to clear his vision. Where a bow used to slice through the mirror-smooth seas, nothing remained from the waterline up. The twelve-knot speed was pushing her under. The executive officer, a mustang with twenty-six years of naval service, reached for the annunciator and pulled it down to the reverse setting to slow the ship’s forward motion and, hopefully, keep her afloat a little longer. Keep her afloat a little longer … the thought made him reluctantly admit the Gearing was sinking. His hand smeared the throttle with blood. Anything he did would only delay the inevitable. Shocked, he sat down on the deck beside the helm and shut his eyes for a moment as he concentrated on slowing his breathing.
The door from Combat banged opened and Cafferty stumbled onto the bridge. Nash opened his eyes “Oh, my God!” Cafferty mumbled as he surveyed the damage. He moved to where the XO sat, his hand on the annunciator, and helped his number two to stand.