green-in-white-in-orange, stood out in sharp contrast to the plane’s overall blue-gray-over-white color scheme. “Indian Navy” was written in large English letters across the tail under a painted national flag, and the plane’s number, 101, was distinct on its nose. That was the force leader, Ramesh remembered, a young man of good family named Tahliani.
He felt a momentary sadness. Many young men of good families would die this day, and he could not forget that the combined navy-air force strike against the American fleet had been his idea.
Ramesh watched as the pilot slid his visor down over his face, saluted the deck officer, and grasped the throttle controls. The Harrier began moving forward, slowly at first, then gathering speed as the pilot vectored the engine nozzles aft. He hit the ramp with a swoop timed to the rising surge of the ship cresting the next wave. As the ship’s bow fell, the Sea Harrier was left hanging, fighting for altitude in the spray-misted sky.
By now, Ramesh thought, the Americans would know they were coming. The Osas had already launched … a deliberate thrust to force them to commit their fighters.
Today’s action, Ramesh was confident, would be a slaughter. Years before, the Soviets had developed tactics for just this sort of war.
Attack … attack … and continue to attack, with wave after wave, until the enemy’s defenses were battered down by sheer weight of numbers. Viraat’s Sea Harriers would overwhelm the American defensive fighters, opening the way for Indian air force strike planes. There would be losses, to be sure, from the American AA defenses, but the Indians could afford to lose three planes to one and still come out of the engagement victorious.
Sooner or later, the American defenses would start leaking. Then the missiles would begin striking home. Young men would die on both sides, so that national honor, national policies could be upheld. And there was more to it than that.
He found himself thinking of lost Joshi. He gripped the railing tighter, tighter, and still tighter … squeezing until the pain steadied him.
We will win, Joshi, he thought. Win or die! I promise you that!
CHAPTER 17
“What do you mean, ‘an alert’?” Admiral Vaughn had to shout to make himself heard above the racket of the helo’s rotors. “Who called it?”
The Seahawk’s crew chief shrugged and tapped his helmet’s earphone.
“Sorry, Admiral,” he shouted. “It just came down from the pilot!”
Angrily, Vaughn thrust himself past the crew chief and made his way forward toward the cockpit. The HH-60 Seahawk was relatively new in the Navy’s inventory, having been acquired to replace the older HH-3A Sea Kings in both the ASW roles and for combat search and rescue. The machine he was on was a SAR helo with two pilots, two crewmen, and room for eight passengers.
The ship’s pilot turned as he stepped onto the cramped flight deck.
“Word just came through, Admiral,” the man said. “The Indians have launched missiles at the fleet from about twenty-five or thirty miles out. They don’t know the target yet.”
“Well. find out! No, belay that! Find someone I can talk to!”
“Aye, sir.” As the copilot began speaking on the radio, Vaughn fumed.
What should he do? He’d left the Jefferson five minutes before. It would be minutes yet before they landed on the Vicksburg. Should they return to the Jefferson, or press on?
He could see the Aegis cruiser through the windscreen ahead, long and gray with a knife’s-edge prow, the twin fortress towers fore and aft giving her an ungainly, top-heavy look. The seas were a lot heavier than he’d been aware of back on the stolid and unyielding bulk of the Jefferson. As he watched, a wave broke over the bow in an explosion of white, engulfing her forward five-inch mount and smashing itself against the forward deckhouse. It looked like they’d be in for a rough ride.
Vicksburg’s fantail was clear. It made no sense to turn around. He would be in the cruiser’s command suite in another few minutes.
“Admiral?” the copilot yelled, one hand pressed to his headset.
“Jefferson CIC!”
“Patch me in!” A radio jack was plugged into his helmet, tying him into the comnet. “Jefferson! Jefferson! This is Admiral Vaughn!”
“Commander Barnes, CIC, Admiral. Go ahead.”
“What the hell’s going on, Commander?”
“We have a full battle group alert, sir. We are tracking between twelve and sixteen missiles inbound.”
“From where?”
“Probable launch platforms were four OSA IIS, Admiral. That means SS-N-2s.”
“Target?”
“Safe money would be on the Jefferson, sir.”
“Yes …”
“We’ve launched the Alert Five,” Barnes said. “Captain Fitzgerald has authorized weapons free.”
“Yes,” Vaughn said. “Yes, quite right.” He felt sick. The carrier … his carrier … was under a mass attack.
The SS-N-2 Styx flew more like an aircraft than a missile. Once it was launched from its storage pod with an assist from a solid-fuel booster, cruise propulsion was maintained by a conventional air-gulping turbojet slung under the missile’s belly. The Styx was a direct descendant of the V-1 buzz bombs employed by the Germans in WW II.
As it traveled a few meters above the wave crests, its inertial programming carried it into a specific target area. Once it was within five nautical miles of its projected impact point, two separate on-board terminal guidance systems — an active radar-homing device and an infrared sensor — switched on, identifying and locking onto the largest target within the missile’s electronic field of view.
Sophisticated as it was, the Styx had no defense of its own. The Phoenix missile hurtled in from the north at Mach 5 and exploded as it passed low above the missile’s back. A fraction of a second later, the SS-N-2’s warhead detonated.
The thunderous shock wave raised a geyser of water against the sky.
Before the geyser had collapsed, the sky was alive with the contrails of more missiles, still bearing on the carrier. Phoenix missiles sweeping in from the north connected with the ship-killers, one by one. There were more explosions, and missiles died.
But they weren’t dying fast enough.
“That’s a grand slam! Splash another one!”
Tombstone looked up as Batman’s voice rasped over the CATCC speaker. He could imagine the tension in the cockpit of the F-14 now, as the RIO monitored the horde of airborne targets.
“Tomcat Two-one-six, roger your kill,” a CATCC controller said. But more missiles were coming in fast.
“Two-oh-one,” Army Garrison’s voice added. “Phoenix away.”
Hurt twisted at Tombstone’s gut. Although carrier aviators did not always fly the same aircraft, one plane in the squadron was generally thought of as “theirs.” Further, there were no hard and fast rules to the practice, but tradition reserved the “01” aircraft to the squadron’s leader. As skipper of VF-95, Tombstone generally flew Tomcat 201.
Today, with his XO standing in for him, Army was flying the 201 bird.
He looked across the room at CAG. Marusko had just replaced a telephone handset and was now holding a microphone to his mouth. “Now hear this,” he said, his voice sounding over the bulkhead speakers. “I’ve just had
