A new blip appeared, separating from the radar return marking the Leslie
and closing silently with a fast-traveling blip just crossing the
one-hundred-mile mark. Moments later, the two blips merged, grew fuzzy,
then faded from view. A Standard missile had just killed a Kingfish.
There were no cheers, however, no celebration, though he thought he
heard a ragged cheer transmitted from the CIC aboard the Leslie, hastily
cut short.
Tarrant and the battle staff were already detailing another missile to
another ship, and there was no time for anything but curtly worded
orders and equally curt message repeats and acknowledgments.
0735 hours
off North Cape
Tomcats and Hornets, interceptors still deploying from both carriers
toward the front line of battle, ate away at the cruise-missile threat
by locking on to them one by one with their look-down, shoot-down
radars, then tagging them with AMRAAMs or Sparrows. Cruise missiles
that closed to within one hundred miles of Carrier Group 14’s center
began to take fire from the frigates posted in Jefferson’s outer
defensive zone. Normally spread across thirty thousand square miles or
more, the CBG’s escorting surface ships had redeployed along the “threat
axis” before combat, concentrating the group’s defensive fire between
the carrier and the approaching ship-killers. One after another,
shipboard radars locked on, missile mounts pivoted, elevated, then
loosed their deadly warloads in billowing contrails lancing into the
sky.
Explosions detonated across the sea, some direct hits, others
near-misses that sprayed thin skins and delicate electronics with
white-hot shards of shrapnel.
In minutes, the number of incoming cruise missiles was reduced to
seventy-six … then sixty-four … then thirty-eight. Circling
Hawkeye E-2Cs tracked the survivors, plotted their courses, and vectored
in additional Tomcats and Hornets to add to the mid-zone defense.
The surviving missiles kept coming.
0738 hours
Combat Information Center
U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson’s CIC was similar to the combat center aboard the Shiloh, but
far less elaborate. The carrier’s several radar systems–SPS-49 air
search, SPS-64 surface search, SPS-65 threat detection, and the
fire-control systems for her missiles and Phalanx CIWS–had a much
shorter range than the SPY-1, adequate for tracking ships and aircraft
throughout Jefferson’s area under most circumstances, but insufficient
to deal with the complex threat of a massed Russian air assault. That,
after all, was why the Navy had Aegis cruisers.
Tombstone was in CIC, watching the computer displays, listening to the
chatter of his aviators as they continued to press the oncoming mass of
Soviet bombers and their fighter escorts. A dozen separate dogfights
had broken out so far. Tomcats such as those flying BARCAP, after they
expended their loads of AIM-54s, still had Sidewinder and AMRAAM
missiles and were closing eagerly on the Russian formations. The F-14s
that had gone aloft with a warload of six Phoenix missiles had only
their guns to fall back on in a dogfight and were vectored out of the
fray by the all-seeing Hawkeyes, but the F/A-18 Hornets moved in close
to cover their withdrawal.
As far as he could see from here, the battle was quickly degenerating
into blind, random chaos.
And Tombstone could do nothing to help. Jefferson’s CIC was “off the
air,” her radio and primary communications networks shut down to avoid
detection and tracking by radar-seeking missiles. The data displayed on
the combat center’s screens were being transmitted via data link from
the Shiloh and from the orbiting Hawkeyes.
All he could do was stand in the eerie semidarkness, watching this clash
between anonymous points of light that had all the ferocity and
blood-lust of a video game. It was difficult to attach faces and names
to the voices he heard relayed over the room’s speakers.
“Rodeo Eight, Rodeo One. Come left three-five and goose it!”
“Ah, roger, roger. We’ve got Alpha Sierra Two-one in our sights. Goin’
for fox one.”
“Easy … almost on him. Lock! Fox one!”
“Echo Tango, Rodeo Eight. Splash Alpha Sierra Two-one …”
“Shit-fire, what was that?”
“MiGs! MiGs! We got four … no, five MiGs, coming down fast!”
“This is Echo Tango Seven-six-one. Repeat last and identify.”
“Echo Tango, this is King Three! We just got buzzed by a wing of
MiG-29s. That’s MiG Two-niner. Goin’ to burner! “Yah, we’re