CARRIER 3: ARMAGEDDON MODE

” ‘If the slayer thinks he slays,’ ” Tahliani said, his voice a sonorous chant as he quoted from the Katha Upanishad, ” ‘if the slain thinks he is slain, both these do not understand. He slays not, is-not slain . . .'”

A suitable epitaph for the brave men who worked the ship that lay invisibly beyond the horizon. And perhaps it would serve as a plea for forgiveness as well.

It would take nearly five minutes for the Sea Eagles to reach their target. By then, the Harriers would be long gone. With a snap of his wrist he twisted his aircraft skyward, then around toward home.

0855 hours, 26 March

Vaughn looked away from the LSD he was studying as the Tactical Officer snapped a warning. “Missile launch!” the TO called. “Eleven new bogies, probable ASMs, bearing one-eight-five. Range seventy-five miles. Speed five-niner-four knots.” ‘

“Mach point eight-five,” Cunningharn said at Vaughn’s

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side. “Sea Eagles, just like the ones they smacked Jefferson with. Seventy-five miles, though. That’s pretty far for Sea Eagles.”

“Sir,” Harkowicz, the TO, said. “We’re not the target. It’s … Sir, it’s Kreml!”

Vaughn’s eyes widened. “The Kremlin? You’re sure?” He looked across the CIC suite toward the three Russian Officers at their communications center. “Where is she?”

Cunningharn pointed to a graphic symbol on the LSD. “About seventy miles southwest of us, sir. Parallel course, west-northwest, eighteen knots.”

“We’d better tell them, sir,” Cunningham said, following the admiral’s stare. “They’re not tapped into our data network.”

Vaughn’s anger at the Russians, at the way they’d been dragging their feet earlier, surfaced again.

But no, Cunningham was right. They did have to be told.

He hurried across the room to tell them himself.

QB56 hours, 26 March

Rag bridge, Soviet aircraft carrier Kwm/

“Urgent message from Vicksburg, Admiral,” the aide said as he handed the message sheet to Dmitriev. “They report several antiship cruise missiles have been targeted on us from the Southeast.”

He took the message and scanned it. It had been signed by Sharov. Dmitriev knew his Chief of Staff was prone neither to exaggeration nor to sensationalism.

The Russian admiral checked his watch and the information on the sheet. According to the report, the missiles were a bit over twenty miles away . . . three minutes at eight tenths the Speed of sound. “Is there anything on radar?”

The aide, already at attention, managed to convey a further ||”crisp snap to his posture that came short of clicking his heels. ^”•Negative, Admiral.”

“Hmm.” It could be an American ruse to hurry him in ^launching his aircraft, but he doubted that. Not that Vaughn ^Wasn’t capable of cheap theatrics, but . . . fe “Point defenses on full alert,” he ordered. “And notify

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Kurasov to check in that direction. We will take no chances.” Admiral Dmitriev was painfully aware of the crowded state of Kreml’s flight deck, where bombs and incendiaries were still piled high as fueling and arming for the strike continued. He’d thought that the Russian squadron was well enough sheltered by the American task force. If it was not . . .

The lessons of the Battle of Midway were taught at Russian naval academies as well as at Annapolis, and Dmitriev was uncomfortably aware that he might well be about to be cast in the modern-day role of Nagumo.

He checked his watch again. Two minutes . . .

0857 hours, 26 March

The air battle was rolling south toward the Vicksburg. The Aegis cruiser had shifted course slightly in order to bring her closer to the Jefferson, now some twenty miles to the east, starboard of the cruiser and slightly astern, but her antiair umbrella extended well beyond the carrier, striking down incoming aircraft with almost clockwork precision and regularity.

Both Vertical Launch Systems were in operation almost continuously, with the Aegis controlling at times as many as a dozen Standard missiles in flight simultaneously. Both the DDG Lawrence Kearny and the destroyer John A. Winslow had pulled in closer to the core of the battle group and begun taking their directions from Vicksburg. Standard missiles fired from the U.S. destroyers were actually being guided to their targets by SARH from the Aegis cruiser, extending her range and deadliness.

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