A ship trembled on the edge of death.
0903 hours, 26 March CIC, U.S.S. Victoburg
“Admiral! Kremlin’s been hit!”
“What? When? Just now?”
‘ *They went off the air for a few minutes, sir. I thought it was a comm failure. Now they’ve started broadcasting an SOS. They must have gotten hit pretty bad.”
Vaughn glanced toward the Russian liaison officers. Captain First Rank Sharov was already hurrying across the compartment, an expression of sharp concern etched into the lines of his face.
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263
“Admiral . . .” he began.
“I heard, Sharov. I’m sorry.”
“Moskovskiy Komsomolets and VHyatel’nyy are alongside, Admiral,” the Russian staff officer said. “But they need additional help, and quickly. The fire on the flight deck is out of control.”
Vaughn looked up at one of the LSDs, a display set to show jhe dispositions of all of the vessels of the fleet Vicksburg, Jefferson, Kearny, and Winstow were all steaming together in
-a. fairly tight group forty miles across, with the destroyers
•serving as an antiair screen between the carrier and the coast. Amarillo and the Peoria followed a few miles astern of the Jefferson. Kremt and her two escorting destroyers lay seventy miles to the southwest. The Kresta-U cruiser Marshal Tonoshenko was steaming sixty miles northwest of the Russian carrier, which put her nearly ninety miles due west of the Vicksburg. The other ships of the two squadrons, two American Perry-class frigates and a pair of Soviet ASW frigates, were part of an antisubmarine net thrown out along an arc from the southwest to the east. One of these, Biddle, was in pursuit of me Osas that had slipped through the American screen over an hour earlier.
“Timashenko is closer than we are,” Vaughn said.
“The Marshal Timoshenko is pursuing a sub contact, Admiral,” Sharov said. “If they abandon the chase . . .” He left die warning unspoken. Submarines were a carrier’s deadliest opponent, deadlier by far than any aircraft.
Vaughn pursed his lips. The strongest arm of the Indian navy was without doubt their submarine force: six German Type 1500s, four Russian Kilos, and eight … no, make that seven Foxtrots.
According to the latest satellite reconnaissance, Chakra, the nuclear sub on loan from the Russians, was still, as expected, conspicuously in port, but that still left the Indians with a fleet of seventeen conventional subs. At least ten or twelve of them would be off India’s west coast and capable of striking at the j/abA task force.
Memories of his 1980 encounter with a Russian sub returned once more.
“I’m sorry, Captain Sharov,” Vaughn said. “There’s nothing we can do.” He gestured toward the LSD that showed the
264
Keith Doughs*
swarm of radar contacts within thirty-two miles of the Aegis cruiser. “Vicksburg is coordinating the air defense for my entire battle group. It’s just not possible.”
Radio calls crackled back and forth across the comm net in the background, disembodied and distant.
“Get him! Get him!”
“Bring it around, Shooter, I’m on his six. Fox two!”
“This is One-oh-five. Looks like they’re breaking through to the east. Somebody get over there and …”
“This is Two-two-oh! Two-two-oh! I’m hit! I’m hit! I’m—”
Sharov stared at Vaughn openly for a moment, then let out a breath. “Understood, Admiral. You can not sacrifice your battle group to save one ship.”
“It’ll come out right,” Vaughn said, feeling the emptiness of his words. “You’ll see.”
On the television monitor behind him, Vicksburg’s five-inch gun continued to slam away at the approaching aircraft. Amidships, the cruiser’s starboard CIWS Phalanx activated, pivoted, and fired.
The attackers were within two miles of the commaHd ship now.
0908 hours, 26 March IAFJ*gutf102
Colonel Singh held his Jaguar International at wave-top altitude. The sea was a gray blur beneath his plane as he raced toward the south.
The Illyushin-38 naval reconnaissance plane serving as coordinator for the strike had fed him the data he needed. The American target should be less than twenty-five kilometers ahead.
This time he was carrying only a single ASM, a bright-red, deadly-looking missile slung from his centerline stores rack. The AS.37 Martel had been developed in the early 1960s by France’s SA Matra and England’s British Aerospace Dynamics working together in one of the very first instances of European weapons collaboration. Weighing 550 kilos—over half a ton— and carrying a 150 kg warhead, the Martel had only recently