Pri-Fly.
“Tomcat Two-zero-zero” sounded in his headset. “This is God.”
God–also known in his mortal guise as Commander Jack Monroe, Jefferson’s
Air Boss. “Two-zero-zero copies.”
“Two-zero-zero, be advised of hostile aircraft in the immediate area. We
are expecting overflight momentarily.”
“Roger, God. It’ll save time tracking them down.”
Coyote glanced left and right, his eyes searching the skies above the
cliff tops on either side of the carrier. Contrails marred the random beauty
of the cloud deck overhead, arrowing southwest to northeast. Norwegians, he
thought, out of Valderey. “Whatcha got on radar, Teejay?” They should have
been getting a feed from one of the Hawkeyes controlling the battle.
“Nada, Commander. Junk City. I don’t know if-”
A pillar of water erupted into the sky one hundred fifty yards from
Jefferson’s starboard side. Coyote felt the shock through the water, and half
a second later he heard the thunder of the explosion.
“Christ!” Teejay shouted over the ICS. “What the hell was that?”
“Incoming!” Coyote yelled back. There was an ear-tearing sound from the
starboard side forward of the island, and a blur of motion. Coyote turned his
head in time to see the white contrail of a Standard missile streaking off
toward the north. There were more contrails in the sky now, some of them
twisting about, others skimming low across the northern line of cliff-top
ridges. Jefferson was under direct attack.
The red light by Pri-Fly switched to green.
“There’s our go. Hang onto your breakfast, guy. We’re getting off this
damned fat target!”
The yellow-jerseyed launch officer on the deck saluted and Coyote
returned it smartly, signaling that they were ready for launch. The launch
officer took a last look around, dropped to one knee with arm and leg extended
as gracefully as a gymnast, and touched the deck with his fingertips. There
was a pause … then the Tomcat hurtled down the catapult track, blasted from
zero to 170 miles per hour in two heart-pounding seconds.
0414 hours Zulu (0514 hours Zone)
MiG 501
Over the Norwegian Sea
Captain First Rank Sergei Sergeivich Terekhov checked his heading once
again–one-seven-five–straight for the island of Otroy at the mouth of the
Romsdalfjord. Black rocks stabbed from white foam a hundred feet beneath his
MiG’s belly. His eyes flicked to the weapons indicators. All correct.
His MiG-29 carried a warload of six AA-10 air-to-air missiles. The
scramble to launch on board the Soyuz had been urgent once word had come
through that the American carrier had been found, and there’d been no time to
reload with antiship missiles. Terekhov regretted that. It would have been
good to have a chance to hit the Jefferson.
As it was, though, there would be plenty of opportunities to kill
Americans. The first wave of Soviets had brushed past the screen of F-14s and
Norwegian F-16s with almost ridiculous ease, but his radar display was showing
an increasing concentration of enemy aircraft over the target. He would be
very busy indeed for the next few moments, clearing a path for the wave of
attack aircraft that was following close behind his flight of MiG-29
interceptors. The first antiship missiles had already been loosed–AS-10s and
AS-14s launched from a distance. The chances that they would lock onto a
target after being fired blind into the fjord were small, but they would
interrupt the Americans’ coordination, and who knew? They might get lucky.
Terekhov was sure, though, that they would have to take the air battle
into the fjord, sweep the American Tomcats and Hornets out of the way, and
attack the Jefferson directly. The Americans had been clever, hiding their
carrier inside a fjord with the surrounding mountains as cover. It was what
Terekhov himself would have done, had the situation been reversed.
The island of Gossen separated itself from the mountainous coastline
ahead, then from the larger island of Otroy beyond. His threat board was
showing lock-ons by several radars, and as he approached Otroy he could see
several lean, gray shapes in the island’s shadow.
It made sense that the Americans would post their escorting vessels
there, at the mouth to the fjord. Time enough to deal with them later, after
they’d taken out the heart, soul, and strength of the battle group–the