The Sea Hamer vaulted from the ski jump and into the sky. Tahliani redirected the exhaust ports to full aft and climbed. Other Sea Harriers followed, gathering in an assembly area five kilometer southwest of the Viraat.
From the high perch of his cockpit, Tahliani had a splendid view of the Indian fleet, spread out from horizon beneath him. Viraat and the smaller carrier Vikrant were at the flotilla’s heart. Kalikata, one of the Indian Navy’s Kresta II cruisers newly purchased from die former Soviet Union, led the van ten kilometers ahead. And surrounding these three were, the destroyers, frigates, and corvettes that made up the body of the fleet, all steaming northwest at a steady twenty knots.
“Blue King Leader, this is Viraat.” He recognized the voice. Admiral Ramesh himself was calling.
“Viraat, this is Blue King Leader. Go ahead.”
“Lieutenant … the battle may well be in your hands now.” Tahliani heard the strain in Ramesh’s voice. “Execute Plan Three.”
“Roger, Viraat. Plan Three.”
American ECM eavesdroppers might well be listening in. The melodramatic-sounding Plan Three referred simply to a .series of earlier briefings, covering possible contingencies in the event of an attack against the Indian naval squadron.
Plan Three called for Blue King to fly off the Viraat and head north for friendly airfields on Kathiawar. Along the way, they were to watch for targets of opportunity—American ships
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or aircraft that might be attacked with a minimum of risk for the Indian Sea Harriers.
Tahliani knew that Ramesh had been saying more but had not wanted to put it into words when he knew the Americans were listening in. The admiral was expecting some special effort from Tahliani’s squadron, an attack that would make the Russian-American effort too costly for them to pursue.
A flicker caught Tahliani’s eye. Looking down, he saw— thought he saw—a ghost of motion, something flashing low across the water at the very limit of vision. . . .
Viraat was firing her SAMs. He could see the contrails below him, like white threads against the dark water. The missiles were reaching toward the southeast Seconds later, he saw a flash, like the popping of a strobe light, far off on the horizon. There was another . . . and another . . .
Something skimmed in from the northeast, streaking straight toward the Indian carrier. Tahliani saw it and wanted to scream warning, but it was too late. There was a soundless eruption of smoke and debris close alongside the Indian carrier, as the widening ring of the shock wave raced out from the vessel’s hull on the water. The strike was so sudden that the surprise was like a physical blow.
The carrier is hit!
Surface-to-air missiles continued to rise, not only from the stricken Viraat but from the other ships in die fleet as well. The Indian navy had nothing like Aegis, however, to coordinate the defense, and the response was sluggish, befuddled possibly by the surprise and numbers of the attack, or by the fog of enemy ECM jamming on radars and fire control directors.
Another missile was hit short of the Viraat, but a companion skimmed past the fireball and planted itself in the carrier’s side. Tahliani saw the cascade of debris spewing out of the hull opposite where the missile had struck, saw the mushrooming pillar of oily smoke shot through with flame rising from the carrier’s deck. Viraat was burning now, her deck a sheet of flames fed by burst fuel lines and exploding munitions.
It took him several minutes to realize that Viraat had gone off the air, her radio dead. He wondered if Admiral Ramesh was still alive.
The sight of his carrier cloaked in rising smoke was so
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he scarcely noticed that other ships in the Indian fleet lit. A pall of smoke was hanging above Vikrant where at one missile had struck from the southeast, while the Kalikata was a blazing funeral pyre, dead in the water id listing hard to port.
There was no turning back now. Grimly, Lieutenant Tahliani JpgJMhered his squadron—eleven other Sea Harriers that had llpnanaged to launch before disaster struck—and turned toward