critical piece of information to him!
It fit. The Red Banner Baltic Fleet was outnumbered now, and in danger
of being destroyed. If Kreml and her escorts were destroyed, the Baltic and
the approaches to Leningrad would be wide open, helpless to Western invasion.
He needed to preserve his fleet … for the safety of the Rodina.
“Put us about, Kamarov,” he snapped.
“Sir?”
“Bring us around. Heading southwest. We have no chance of reaching the
enemy beachhead now. Signalman! Pass the word to the other vessels in the
fleet!”
“Yes, Admiral!”
Ponderously, beleaguered by the pinprick attacks by enemy air, Kreml and
his consorts began coming about. From the air, their wakes described enormous
white semicircles across the explosion-pocked blue of the sea as Kreml,
Tallinn, Irkutsk, and a dozen lesser vessels came 180 degrees about and began
heading back in the direction from which they’d come.
By chance the five ships of the Jefferson battle group lay directly in
their path.
0914 hours Zulu (1014 hours Zone)
Hornet 300
Over the Norwegian See
“Damn it, men, the bastards are trying to get away!” Tombstone felt a
wild, exuberant rush of emotion, a giddiness overwhelming his usual rational
approach to flying.
“Dragon Leader, Dragon Leader!” a voice called. “This is Tower Keep.”
Tower Keep. That was Shiloh, where Tarrant was coordinating the battle.
“I read you, Tower Keep. Go ahead!”
“Dragon, request a radar paint of Citadel. Can you comply, over?”
Tombstone put his Hornet into a sweeping turn. He was clear of the
triple-A now, and the enemy missile defenses appeared to have been scattered
by the arrival of more attack aircraft. Missiles continued to slide through
the air, to burst against the clear blue sky. Smoke spilled from stricken
ships plowing through oil-streaked seas.
Yes, he was in the open, unnoticed beyond the fury of the Intruder and
Harrier attacks. He guided the F/A-18 into a position where he could paint
the Kreml with the beam from his APG-65. “Roger, Camelot. How’s this?”
“Hold it right there, Dragon Leader, and keep your head down. Fire in
the hole!”
0914 hours Zulu (1014 hours Zone)
U.S.S. Lawrence Kearny
Vanguard of CBG-14
Commander James Tennyson had never expected surface combat to be like
this. For the first time since World War II, major surface warships were
slugging it out in sight of one another.
“Bridge, CIC!” a voice from the bridge speaker called. “We have a SARH
lock! Shiloh IDs it as the Russkie carrier!”
Shiloh had to be using spotters to sort targets from junk in the ECM
clutter that was filling the skies. “Then fire, dammit!” Tennyson barked.
“Fire before I have to ram the bastards!”
The launch-alert klaxon rasped warning. Then, with a roar of white noise
and a blinding glare, the first of Kearny’s Standard SM-1MR missiles blasted
away from the Mark 13 launcher on the forward deck, followed almost
immediately by its twin. As the missiles arced toward the north, the H-shape
of the launch rails swiveled and rose straight up. Hatches opened beneath
them, and two more Standard missiles slid straight up and onto the rails,
locking in place. The launcher swiveled again, tracking an unseen point in
the sky … and the roar engulfed the bridge once more.
Kearny was still firing minutes later, when three incoming SS-N-19 cruise
missiles launched from the Irkutsk struck the frigate amidships and detonated
with a shattering roar.
0915 hours Zulu (1015 hours Zone)
Hornet 300
Over the Norwegian Sea
Tombstone saw the Standards streak in from the south, homing on the
reflected radar energy from his APG-65. With a small shock of realization, it
occurred to him that this was like firing SARH-guided Sparrows at an enemy
plane, as he identified the Soyuz for the combat center aboard Shiloh and,
through her, the rest of CBG-14.
Only these ship-launched killers were each three times heavier than a
Sparrow and carried a hell of a lot more punch. Whipping across the waves,
they slammed into the Soviet carrier. Violent flashes snapped from Kreml’s
deck, just forward of the island; close by the ski jump; port, near one of the
elevators. Tombstone saw hull plating and radar antennas, tow tractors and