radar, six-barreled Gatling gun, magazine, and control electronics inside a prominent, white-painted silo fifteen feet high; hence, its other popular nickname, “R2D2.” The weapon, also called Phalanx, was mounted aft on Perry-class frigates, high atop their helicopter hangars and overlooking the helo pad on the fantail. As soon as the Indian Jaguars had launched, Captain Farrel had immediately ordered the ship turned away from the oncoming missiles in order to give the CIWS an unobstructed view of the targets.
The only problem was, Phalanx had been designed as a last-ditch, close-defense weapon, its effective range limited to about twenty-one hundred meters, less than a mile and a half.
An Exocet could cover that distance in something like seven seconds.
The missiles came in from Biddle’s stern, ten feet above the water. The heavy thump of her chaff launchers sounded like cannon-fire as they attempted to divert the deadly Exocets. On the frigate’s hangar, the Phalanx tower slewed about sharply on its axis, the six-barreled cannon swinging into line as the target came into range.
The barrels spun, rotating over one another like eggbeater blades, accompanied with a short, sharp, buzzsaw shriek. The flare of light from the muzzle flash lit up Biddle’s afterdeck like a stream of liquid fire.
“Firing phasers!” one sailor yelled, shouting above the screaming weapon, his hands pressed against his ears.
Phalanx fired depleted-uranium rounds, spin-stabilized slivers manufactured from the waste product of various nuclear programs. Neither explosive nor radioactive, each round was two and a half times heavier than steel, 12.75 millimeters thick, and was hurled from the gun at a velocity of 1000 feet per second. With a fire rate of fifty rounds per second, the CIWS was capable of dropping what was in effect a solid wall squarely in a missile’s path. The Phalanx’s J-band pulse-doppler radar simultaneously tracked target and projectiles, correcting the aim for each brief burst.
The CIWS fired again, corrected, then fired once more. A blossom of living light erupted in the darkness of the frigate’s starboard side, illuminating the ink-black sea. The Phalanx slewed again, its computer tracking the second target. Again, the shriek like a living thing … and a second flash lit up the night. Total engagement time: 5.2 seconds. And Biddle would survive to fight again.
“Tomcat Two-oh-one,” the voice in Tombstone’s headset intoned. “You’re clear for approach. Wind fifteen to eighteen at zero-four-five. Charlie now.”
“Roger, Homeplate,” Tombstone said, acknowledging the call to come in for his trap. He was tired. The weight of his flight helmet seemed intolerable, and the inside of his pressure suit was clammy with old sweat And fatigue.
They’d been summoned back to the carrier almost as soon as it was clear that the IAF aircraft were on the run. The Americans had been the clear victors in that nighttime dogfight, with at least four kills to their credit and no losses. It had been a close-run thing, however. One of the Indian Mig pilots had been a real pro, and only the rapid approach of more Tomcats had convinced the guy to break off and run for home.
Tombstone found himself wondering who that pilot he’d briefly seen was … where he lived, what he thought of the orders that had sent him against the U.S. battle group. That was never a particularly healthy thing to do, not when your life or the lives of others in your squadron might depend on your shooting that other pilot out of the sky, but Tombstone had always found it difficult to think of the enemy as unmanned drones, as lifeless targets to be racked up and taken down.
His thoughts complemented his mood. He’d become involved in a savage dogfight in pitch darkness, guided only by the impersonal flickers of light on his radar screen and the tersely coded guidance of his computer. With that one terrifying exception he’d not even seen the other aircraft in the battle, including the ones he’d chalked up as kills.
Well, such questions were pointless anyway. Tombstone kept his eyes on his instrument displays, especially his VDI where the ILS needles were guiding him through the night toward Jefferson’s deck. The carrier was completely invisible in the darkness, an unseen speck of life somewhere ahead in that black ocean. Of all maneuvers performed by Navy aviators, traps on a carrier’s steel deck at night were unquestionably the most disliked, the most feared. According to the flight surgeons keeping records of such things, a night trap tended to elevate heartbeat, respiration, and blood pressure more than a dogfight.
Tombstone, though, was past caring. The dogfight had left him drained, his reactions as automatic as the navigational guidance information from his Instrument Landing System. They had rendezvoused with a tanker for air-to-air refueling after the battle, and he’d gone through the motions like a machine, had not even remembered the problems he’d had in a similar maneuver … had it only been yesterday?
“Two-oh-one,” Lieutenant Commander Ted “Bumer” Craig, Viper Squadron’s LSO, called. “We have you at three miles out, altitude one-four-double-oh. Looking good.”
“Rog.”
“Hey, Skipper?” Dixie said over the ICS. “You see the bird farm yet? I can’t see diddly in this soup.”
“No sweat,” Tombstone replied. “We’re almost in.”
But he couldn’t see the ship either. During the past hour, a thick layer of clouds had moved in from the northeast, as though the Indian subcontinent itself were conspiring to drive the American ships and planes from her shores. The wind was picking up as well. He imagined that Jefferson would be a bit lively with a fresh breeze blowing across her flight deck.
And then the Tomcat dropped through the cloud deck and Tombstone saw the carrier’s lights. Perspective during a night trap was always a curious and stomach-twisting thing. The flight deck’s center line was lit up, and a vertical strip of lights hanging off Jefferson’s roundoff provided a clue to the vessel’s three-dimensional orientation. From the sky, the lights seemed no brighter than the stars overhead.
“Two-oh-one,” sounded in his ears. “Call the ball.”
It was time to stop flying the needles and bring his ship in. Tombstone glanced at the meatball, saw that he was a little low, and corrected automatically. “Tomcat Two-oh-one, ball,” he said. “Four point two.”
The F-14 slid down out of the sky, the nearly black mass of the carrier deck expanding to meet it. At the last moment, Tombstone saw the green cut lights go on by the ball, the nighttime signal that he was clear to land. There was a momentary illusion that he was flying into a hole outlined by lights … that the deck was winging up into a vertical wall dead ahead. Then the Tomcat slammed into the deck at one hundred thirty knots, the arrestor hook snagging the number-three wire in a perfect night trap as Tombstone first rammed the throttles forward, then brought them back to idle.
“That’s an OK,” Tombstone heard the LSO say over the net. “Two-oh-one down.”
Ahead of the Tomcat, deck crewmen moved in nearly total darkness, their hand signals revealed by colored light wands eerily visible suspended against the black. Carefully, Tombstone followed a pair of wagging yellow wands across the flight deck,
“Commander Magruder, this is the Boss,” Dick Wheeler’s voice said over the radio. “CAG wants a word with you as soon as you unstrap your turkey.” Turkey was popular carrier slang for the Tomcat.
“Copy that,” Tombstone replied. He glanced up toward the rounded, glassed-in protrusion from high up on the island, Pri-Fly, where the Air Boss reigned supreme.
There was no sense asking the man further questions, for he’d be concentrating already on Batman’s 216 bird due in forty seconds behind Tombstone’s. He was expecting to be debriefed, certainly. Aviators were always grilled after a combat engagement. But this sounded like something more.
Perhaps, Tombstone thought, the real fight was still to come.
CHAPTER 9
“Off the line!” The words struck Tombstone like a smash to the solar plexus. “God, CAG! You’re putting me in hack! What did I do?”
CAG Marusko leaned forward in his swivel chair, hands spread helplessly on the desk in front of him. “I don’t
