CARRIER 6: COUNTDOWN By Keith Douglass

the frequency in a sultry, sexy voice that Coyote had never heard her

use before. “Was it good for you too?”

There was a momentary silence from the tanker, a stunned silence, Coyote

thought.

“Uh, roger, Two-oh-one,” they replied finally. “Why don’t you come on

up and see us again some time?”

Coyote backed clear of the refueling drogue, then let the Tomcat slide

gently to the right until it was out from beneath the tanker’s tail.

“Coyote,” Cat said over the ICS. “I’m a big girl. I can take care of

myself.”

“You certainly can, Cat. I stand corrected. Now, how about finding us

a bird farm before we have to go through that again.”

“You got it, Boss. Come right to one-nine-five. They’ve put CATCC back

on the air now, so I guess the welcome mat is out.”

Coyote could already see the Jefferson on the horizon, close alongside

that smudge of fuzzy black. He began to line the Tomcat up for

insertion into the carrier’s Marshall Stack.

He noticed that the radio traffic between aircraft groups had died down

quite a bit. It sounded as though the worst of the fighting might be

over.

0803 hours

Tomcat 202

Over the Barents Sea

Batman and Malibu were already in the Marshall Stack, waiting for their

turn to head back in for recovery. After launching, they’d taken up a

reserve position south of the Jefferson for several minutes, then been

vectored by a Hawkeye to a forward area from which they’d launched their

six Phoenix missiles, one after another. After that, with all missiles

expended and with plenty of fuel remaining, they’d been routed back to

the carrier’s Marshall Stack.

“I’m not sure I care for this modern warfare stuff,” Batman told

Striker, who’d been flying as his wingman in Tomcat 21 1. “Up, fire,

and down again.

Whatever happened to the knights of the sky, jousting in mortal

one-on-one combat?”

“Roger that,” Striker replied. “This push-button crap is for the

birds.”

“How about that, Pogie?” Brewer Conway’s voice broke in over the

channel.

“Pogie” was Conway’s RIO, Rose Damiano. “Sounds to me like the poor

dears can’t handle high-tech mayhem.”

“Ah, you know how it is, Brewer,” Pogie’s voice replied. “They prefer

to wade in with a club the old-fashioned way, mano-a-mano.”

“What have we here?” Batman replied. “Kibitzing from the nuggets?

Definitely contra-regs. How many kills did you girls rack up today?”

“We girls did just fine, Batman,” Brewer said. “Five for six, and

another probable. How about you?”

“six up, six down. Hardly fair, though. The poor bastards never knew

what hit ’em.”

“Actually,” Malibu interrupted, “we’re only being credited with four

kills. Two of our shots couldn’t be confirmed.”

“Hey, Malibu, whose side are you on anyway?” Batman said, sounding hurt.

“All in the interests of fair play and honesty in advertising, dude.”

“I make it five to four then,” Brewer said. “You guys buy the beer.”

“This engagement isn’t over yet, Brewer,” Batman replied. “We’ll see

who buys the beer when it’s over, right?”

“You got yourself a bet, XO. Only let’s make it interesting … beer

and dinner next time we’re in port. Your crew against mine. Deal?”

“Hey, they’re going big-time on us, Batman. I don’t know if we can

afford this.”

“Ah, show some backbone, Malibu. We can’t let these women think they’ve

got us where we want ’em, right?”

“Two-oh-two,” another voice cut in. “Home Plate. Charlie now.”

“They’re playing our song,” Malibu said.

“Roger. See you back at the farm, Brewer.”

He banked into his approach to the carrier.

0830 hours

Off the Kola Inlet

U.S.S. Galveston

The Los Angeles submarine Galveston continued to make her stealthy way

along the muddy bottom at the mouth of the Kola Inlet. Since her first

encounter with a Riga-class sub-hunter early that morning, four more

surface ships had exited into the Barents Sea, each time pinging loudly

with active sonar. Galveston, apparently, had not been spotted. Unlike

their World War II predecessors, modern submarines cannot rest on the

bottom, but Galveston was creeping just above the muddy and uneven

surface that tended to confuse the echoes reflected back toward the

listening warships.

She was further helped by a strong inversion layer that tended to trap

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