CARRIER 5: MAELSTROM By Keith Douglass

an Oshkosh into position to hose the flames down, as men and mules heaved and

strained at the wreckage, levering it over the side and into the fjord with a

heavy splash.

A stray shell from an aircraft cannon or a piece of shrapnel–it was

never learned which–struck the flight deck amidships with a shrill whine,

ricocheting into the back of a seaman running toward the island. For a few

moments, his screams echoed above even the roar of battle, at least in the

vicinity of the island, until a hospital corpsman could jab a needle into his

arm and inject him with morphine. Most of his intestines were strewn in a

slippery smear across the deck, unfortunately, and he did not live long enough

to reach sick bay.

Seconds later, an AS-7 Kerry antiship missile slipped past Jefferson’s

hard-pressed defenses, skimming out of the north just above the water,

ignoring RBOC blooms as it locked onto Jefferson’s radar image, traveling so

fast that three separate CIWS bursts served only to lash the water beneath and

to either side of the hurtling fish shape into white frenzy.

At Mach 1, its one-hundred-kilogram warhead slammed into Jefferson’s

side, beneath the overhang of the flight deck just aft of the port-side

forward elevator.

Every man on board knew that Jefferson had been hit.

CHAPTER 19

Monday, 23 June

0435 hours Zulu (0535 hours Zone)

cic, U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson

Romsdalfjord

He felt the shudder transmitted through the deck in CIC, a far-off thump

that echoed for several seconds through the steel caverns of the warship.

Tombstone looked up from the display monitor he’d been studying, frowned at

the overhead for a moment, then turned his attention back to the displays. If

the carrier had been seriously damaged, he would know it in a moment. There

was nothing else he could do, save stay where he was and watch the battle as

it unfolded around the Jefferson.

How long could it continue? He slouched forward in the raised,

leather-backed chair, following the crawling blips on the main display, blips

representing air targets tangling above the carrier. Over the 1-MC, a voice

announced a fire on the hangar deck and ordered damage-control parties and

shoring parties to report to a particular frame, but it was easy to ignore the

urgent call, concentrating instead on the crackle and buzz of voices calling

to one another over the tactical communication net. With the electronic

sounds, the flicker and drift of featureless points of light across glowing

monitors, it was more like some bizarre video game than a battle. The

engagement had long since passed beyond Tombstone’s control. He continued to

issue orders that were passed on to the warring aviators somewhere in the

unseen skies beyond the CIC’s overhead, the “roof” as they called the flight

deck. As new threats materialized, he deployed aircraft by twos or fours,

forming reserves, spending those reserves as each Soviet thrust appeared among

the shifting hordes of blips.

But the real battle had taken on a life of its own. Jefferson would live

or die now according to which side had the better aviators, the better

machines, the greater will. Jefferson’s computers could report, but not

manage, the struggle. It was now up to Coyote and Teejay and the others, not

to Tombstone.

“Admiral on the deck,” a voice called, but no one in the dimly lit

expanse of the CIC Air Module moved from the phosphorescent glows of their

radar screens. Tombstone swiveled in his chair and saw Admiral Tarrant

standing behind him.

“Hello, CAG. I got the word you wanted to talk to me.”

“Yes, sir,” Tombstone said, sliding from the chair. He’d left a message

with one of the admiral’s aides shortly after GQ had sounded. “I didn’t

intend to drag you from the battle, though.”

“It’s out of my hands now,” he said with a grim smile. “And yours too, I

expect.” He nodded toward the rows of consoles, the silent, bowed heads of

the electronics technicians and radarmen manning the CIC suite. “Actually,

since they jumped us before I could get back to the Shiloh, I figured I could

get a pretty good look right here.”

“Well, glad to have you, sir.”

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