CARRIER 3: ARMAGEDDON MODE

True, the tactical situation always looked a lot different on the amber radar screens of CIC than it did in die cockpit of an F-14 on BARCAP, but the orders had been coming too little and too late during the evening’s engagement.

Well, that was no longer Tombstone’s concern. He brushed past the curtains that excluded outside light and entered the red-lit semidarkness of CATCC.

1000 hours, 25 March

CVIC, U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson

CVIC was more than Jefferson’s briefing-room-cum-TV-studio. The acronym was also applied to the carrier’s entire

ARMAGEDDON MODE

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intelligence department, which was the joint domain of the ship’s OS and OZ divisions. OS was made up of the cryptology technicians who encoded and decoded Jefferson’s communications. OZ—the two-letter designation led to the department’s inevitable nickname of “the Emerald City”—was responsible for providing intelligence data to Jefferson’s decision makers. Divided into five interlocking work centers, including Mission Planning and Briefing (MP&B) and Multi-Sensor Interpretation (MSI), OZ was regarded by the rest of Jefferson’s people as a truly magical kingdom that provided the battle group with a day-to-day picture of what was going on around them.

Of course, there was plenty of wry commentary when Intelligence was wrong, jokes about Naval Intelligence being a contradiction in terms, or how they used the Meteorological Division’s blindfold and dart board to come up with their predictions.

The division head was the Carrier Group Intelligence Officer, Commander Richard Patrick Neil. Boston-born and educated, Neil had a slow manner of speech laced with the broad vowels of New England. He stood at the podium before row upon row of folding chairs, facing the senior batde group officers gathered in the room. A projection screen had been unfolded behind him, next to a map of India’s west coast.

The morning’s briefing had been called for all of Jefferson’s division heads, as well as all senior personnel in Jefferson’s Operations Department. CAG Marusko and two of his staff officers were present representing the air wing, though individual squadron skippers were not.

Also in attendance were a number of special guests, visitors from other ships of the battle group. Captain Cunningham of the Vicksburg and several officers from his CIC and tactical staffs were sitting near the front. If a major air or surface engagement with the Indians was in the offing, the squadron would be counting heavily on the Ticonderoga-class CG and her SPY-IB radar.

‘ ‘Attention on deck,” someone snapped from the back of the room. Admiral Vaughn entered, trailed by his senior staff. The officers in the room rose as a body.

“As you were, as you were,” Vaughn said, making his way to the front-row seats reserved for his party. The others sat

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down as he did, with a loud rustle and squeaking of chairs. “Let’s get on with it, Neil.”

“Admiral,” he said, nodding. “Gentlemen. Good morning.

“By now, all of you have been informed that CBG-14 is being augmented this afternoon by the arrival of a Commonwealth naval squadron. I’ve been asked to brief all of you on the types and capabilities of the Russian ships, and on the opposing lineup we are likely to face if we’re forced to engage Indian naval forces. Lights, please.”

The room lights dimmed, and a slide projector at the back of the room winked on. Ships appeared on the projection screen, photographed in crisp, colorful detail. The largest vessel was a carrier caught obliquely in early morning light. Her wake was a pale green-blue trail in the dark purple water.

“These came down from MSI this morning,” Neil said, unfolding a telescoping pointer. “SOVINDRON consists of six surface ships and one submarine. We managed to catch these three in a TARPS run at zero-six-fifteen hours. The carrier you see here is the Kreml. Her escorts are a Kresta II-class guided-missile cruiser, the Marshal Timoshenko, and a Kotlin-class destroyer, the Moskovskiy Komsomolets.”

He signaled with his hand and the slide projector chunked. A magnified image of the carrier from a slightly different angle appeared. “Kreml, gentlemen. The Kremlin. Second of the Soviet supercarriers, he was laid down at the Nikolayev south shipyard in December of 1985 and completed in 1991. He is nuclear-powered, with four reactors and a speed of better than thirty knots.”

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