The last Styx missile, its radar guidance equipment smashed, smoke streaming from its propellant tanks, hurried past Jefferson’s island fifty feet above the flight deck. Sailors scattered or ducked as the projectile shrieked overhead. “Jesus!” one AE/2 shouted to the man lying beside him on the steel. “It’s fuckin’ World War Two!”
“More like War Number Three, man,” his friend yelled back. The rest of the reply was lost in the thunder of the warhead detonating in the sea a hundred yards off Jefferson’s port quarter.
CHAPTER 18
0744 hours, 26 March
CATCC, U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson
Tombstone’s eyes were on the PLAT monitor in CATCC. From his camera eye’s vantage point, he could watch as the final preparations were made to kick the two Alert Five aircraft into the sky.
He checked the bulkhead clock with mild surprise. Less than five minutes had passed since battle stations had been sounded. The first Indian missile strike had smashed into Jefferson’s defenses and been broken.
Now, though, the stakes were rising. Once Coyote and Shooter were airborne, the launch procedure for the rest of the carrier’s Tomcat defenders would begin. Tombstone could see more F-14s moving up into line behind Coyote’s and Shooter’s planes, and other aircraft were already being lined up on Cats Three and Four.
The Air Boss and his crew would be working flat-out to get the remaining Tomcats up as fast as possible. On the battle board, the Indian aircraft were moving southwest from Kathi-awar, an unstoppable wave of machines. Against them were eighteen Tomcats, eight from VF-95, ten from VF-97. Four Vipers were already aloft; the rest would be joining them soon.
They looked slow-moving and clumsy on the deck. Turkeys. Once in the sky, though, it was a different story.
Tombstone studied Coyote’s plane as though trying to memorize each detail, every line and marking. The numerals 204 on the nose were faint, hard to make out against the glare of the morning sun to starboard. Since the early 1980s, the Navy had
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Kettti Douglass
ARMAGEDDON MODE
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been using a low-contrast gray-and-gray scheme called low-viz, eliminating the garish paint schemes and squadron markings favored by aviators during the Vietnam era.
Gone were the grinning shark mouths, the stripes and badges and crests. Even the numbers and nationality emblem were muted to near-invisibility. It had been discovered during air trials in the late seventies that these bright markings not only made a big difference in sighting an opponent, they actually helped provide the heat contrast necessary for all-aspect heat-seekers to achieve a lock.
The wings on the two ready birds were swung forward into launch position. Green shirts completed the final check of the shuttle links. White shirts went around the aircraft’s bellies one last time, then signaled the launch director with thumbs up.
The jet-blast deflectors rose on hydraulic pistons from the deck behind the ready aircraft, protecting planes parked to the rear from the exhaust. Both pilots were throttling up now, as the launch officer rapidly spun his upraised fist.
“Deck clear,” the Air Boss’s voice said over the CATCC speaker. “Launch ready aircraft. Now launch ready aircraft.”
The engine nozzles on the two F-14s glowed orange as Shooter and Coyote went to Zone One burner. Tomcat could not hear the shriek of the jets in the noise-muffling soundproofing of CATCC, but he’d been in the cockpit or on the deck through enough launches to imagine the pulsing throb of raw power.
The Safety Officers gave their final all-clear signals. At each cat, the Catapult Officer returned the pilot’s salutes, raised one hand, and looked toward the shooter, the man with his finger on the button. Silently, Tombstone counted down the seconds. Go, Coyote, he thought fiercely. Go …
The officer at Cat One spun his hand and dropped to one knee, his thumb touching the deck. There was a hesitation . . . and then Coyote’s Tomcat hurtled down the deck, trailing steam from the shuttle slot beneath its belly. A pair of heartbeats later, the Cat Two officer touched the deck, and Shooter’s aircraft followed, leaping toward the carrier’s bows ahead of twin spears of flame.
“Two-oh-four airborne,” the Air Boss’s voice announced. “Two-four-eight airborne. Let’s get it the hell moving down there, people! We’ve got aircraft to launch!”