CARRIER 3: ARMAGEDDON MODE

Sooner or later, the American defenses would start leaking.

l Then the missiles would begin striking home. Young men

;’. would die on both sides, so that national honor, national

! policies could be upheld. And there was more to it than

that. . . .

He found himself thinking of lost Joshi. He gripped the v railing tighter, tighter, and still tighter . . . squeezing until the 4 .pain steadied him.

:•.” We will win, Joshi, he thought. Win or die! I promise you Tthat!

CHAPTER 17

0741 hours, 26 March

Seahawk 912, approaching U.S.S. Vicksburg

“What do you mean, *an alert’?” Admiral Vaughn had to shout to make himself heard above the racket of the helo’s rotors. “Who called it?”

The Seahawk’s crew chief shrugged and tapped his helmet’s earphone. “Sorry, Admiral,” he shouted. “It just came down from the pilot!”

Angrily, Vaughn thrust himself past the crew chief and made his way forward toward the cockpit. The HH-60 Seahawk was relatively new in die Navy’s inventory, having been acquired to replace the older HH-3A Sea Kings in both the ASW roles and for combat search and rescue. The machine he was on was a SAR helo with two pilots, two crewmen, and room for eight passengers.

The ship’s pilot turned as he stepped onto the cramped flight deck. “Word just came through, Admiral,” the man said. “The Indians have launched missiles at die fleet from about twenty-five or thirty miles out. They don’t know the target yet.”

“Well, find out! No, belay that! Find someone 1 can talk to!”

“Aye, sir.” As the copilot began speaking on the radio, .Vaughn fumed. What should he do? He’d left the Jefferson five minutes before. It would be minutes yet before they landed on fee Vicksburg. Should they return to the Jefferson, or press on?

He could see the Aegis cruiser through the windscreen ahead, long and gray with a knife’s-edge prow, the twin fortress towers fore and aft giving her an ungainly, top-heavy

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Keith Douglass

ARMAGEDDON MODE

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look. The seas were a lot heavier than he’d been aware of back on the stolid and unyielding bulk of the Jefferson. As he watched, a wave broke over the bow in an explosion of white, engulfing her forward five-inch mount and smashing itself against the forward deckhouse. It looked like they’d be in for a rough ride.

Vicksburg’s fantail was clear. It made no sense to turn around. He would be in the cruiser’s command suite in another few minutes.

“Admiral?” the copilot yelled, one hand pressed to his headset. “Jefferson CIC!”

“Patch me in!”

A radio jack was plugged into his helmet, tying him into the comnet. ‘Jefferson! Jefferson! This is Admiral Vaughn!”

“Commander Barnes, CIC, Admiral. Go ahead.”

“What the hell’s going on, Commander?”

“We have a full battle group alert, sir. We are tracking between twelve and sixteen missiles inbound.”

“From where?”

“Probable launch platforms were four OSA Us, Admiral. That means SS-N-2s.”

“Target?”

“Safe money would be on the Jefferson, sir.”

“Yes …”

“We’ve launched the Alert Five,” Bames said. “Captain Fitzgerald has authorized weapons free.”

“Yes,” Vaughn said. “Yes, quite right.” He felt sick. The carrier . . . his carrier . . . was under a mass attack.

0741 hours, 26 March Over the Arabian Sea

The SS-N-2 Styx flew more like an aircraft than a missile. Once it was launched from its storage pod with an assist from a solid-fuel booster, cruise propulsion was maintained by a conventional air-gulping turbojet slung under the missile’s belly. The Styx was a direct descendant of the V-1 buzz bombs employed by the Germans in WW II.

As it traveled a few meters above the wave crests, its inertial programming carried it into a specific target area. Once it was

within five nautical miles of its projected impact point, two separate on-board terminal guidance systems—an active radar-homing device and an infrared sensor—switched on, identifying and locking onto the largest target within the missile’s electronic field of view.

Sophisticated as it was, the Styx had no defense of its own. The Phoenix missile hurtled in from the north at Mach 5 and exploded as it passed low above the missile’s back. A fraction of a second later, the SS-N-2’s warhead detonated.

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