CARRIER 3: ARMAGEDDON MODE

‘ ‘Blue King Leader to all Blue Kings,” he called. ‘ ‘Close on my position.”

From across the sea the scattered Indian Harriers came, joining Tahliani’s aircraft and circling with him, their numbers growing.

0635 hours, 26 March

Rag bridge, Soviet aircraft carrier Krernt

Kontr-Admiral Dmitriev stood on his bridge, looking down through narrow windows at the aircraft arrayed on Kreml’s flight deck. MiGs and Sukhois crowded one another, competing for every square meter of deck space, strike planes and fighters, men and munitions. The ship’s Captain, Captain First Rank Soni, stood beside him.

“My Operations Department informs me that we will be ready to launch the strike force within the hour, Admiral,” Soni said. He was a small man, with sandy hair and pale, Nordic eyes. “MiG-29s and Su-25s. Their combat load will include cluster bombs and incendiaries, rockets, and both free-fall and laser-guided bombs.”

“Excellent. You have done well, Captain.”

“Admiral, we continue to get rather urgent requests from Captain Sharov aboard the American Aegis cruiser. Their Admiral Vaughn is pressing for us to add to their air defense posture.”

Dmitriev shook his head. “We must get our strike force airborne first. What kind of CAP do you have up now?”

“Four Yak-38s.”

Dimitriev made a face. He thought little of the V/STOL naval aircraft. “We need real fighters in the air. How soon can we launch the Forty-third Squadron?”

236

Kflflh Dougtess

Soni looked surprised. “They are ready for immediate launch, Admiral. But they are reserved to fly protection for the strike—”

“Forget that. We need a strong CAP now. A flexible CAP, in case our American friends cannot handle the load. How long will it take?”

“Twelve Mig-29s? Less than thirty minutes, Admiral.”

“Who is commander?”

“Captain Third Rank Kurasov.”

He remembered Ivan Andreivich Kurasov, a young, intense man with eyes of blue ice. He nodded. “Very well. Have Captain Kurasov launch at once. He will be our contribution to this battle until we can get our strike planes in the air.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Kurasov is a good man. His primary responsibility should be the safety of the Russian squadron, of course, but he may use his discretion in aiding the Americans. And after the launch of our strike force, perhaps we can contribute something more.”

“Very well, Admiral, I should mention, sir, that the Tactical Operations Department feels that it is unlikely that the Indians will attack our vessels. The American carrier is their primary target. We are both farther away and less, shall we say, politically expedient.”

Dmitriev grinned. The Indians had balanced on their fence rail of neutrality for years. Today, perhaps, they would fall off once and for all. From New Delhi’s point of view, it would be much wiser to anger the Americans rather than the Russians, who, after all, were much closer to their part of the world. ‘ ‘We will teach them a thing or two about political expediency, Comrade Captain! Give the orders.”

As Soni turned away, Dimitriev’s gaze returned to the Russian warplanes on the flight deck. His orders from Moscow had been as clear as they had been distressing. Pressed on every side by unrest and ethnic violence, by a chaotic economy, and—most significantly—by rising disaffection with the Russian military, the Kremlin desperately needed a stunning coup that would demonstrate to the world, as well as their own generals, that the Commonwealth of Independent States could be a world power.

Russian admirals such as Dmitriev had long admired the Americans’ supercarriers to the point of envy. It had taken the

ARMAGEDDON MODE

237

drive, conviction, and the political connections of the immortal Admiral Gorshkov, however, to finally make the Russian earner program a reality.

The thing was far harder to do than anyone had expected. The Americans, the British, even the French all had naval aviation traditions that extended back to the earliest days of military aircraft. They’d had a core of highly trained, highly experienced pilots to draw on throughout the thirties and forties, as carriers grew larger and more complex, their aircraft faster, heavier, and deadlier.

. In the early fifties, when the rise of jets had forced the adoption of such British innovations as catapults and angled . flight decks on aircraft carriers, Russia had continued to show scant interest in developing a carrier arm of its own. Back ; during the Great Patriotic War, of course, the navy had been visualized as an arm primarily geared for coastal defense and the support of amphibious operations. Stalin’s sole interest in naval warfare had extended to submarines, with the result that the technology for undersea warfare had for years been pursued to the virtual exclusion of all else.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *