know this jet is not a vacuum cleaner. It is a tactical military jet — and a damned fine acoustic chamber. In fact, since you backseaters are being so uncomplimentary, I may just have to prove it to YOU.”
“Come on, Rabies, no aerobatics. I had the pork chops for lunch,” the TACCO whined.
“I was thinking of singing a few bars of my latest work for you. I call it ‘She Left Me For A Dump Truck, But I Ain’t Dumping You,’” Rabies said gleefully. “And you’re really going to like the second verse. Hell, everybody likes country music — you just don’t know you do yet! By the time this cruise is over, you’ll be begging me to share my music with you.
“Come on, sir, this is officer business!” said AW1 Fred Harness, the enlisted technician in the other backseat. “I was on last cruise with you. Why do I have to suffer, too?”
The Lockheed S-3B ASW aircraft banked into a gentle turn to the left. Originally built during the Cold War era as a submarine hunter-killer, the aircraft had been upgraded into the “B-bird” in the early 80s. In addition to its acoustic processing suite and ESM capabilities, it was a superb surface surveillance and command and control platform. Armed with the APS-137 ISAR radar and Forward Looking Infrared Radar (FLIR), the S-3B could carry Harpoon antiship missiles, Mk-46 torpedoes, and sixty sonobuoys.
Today, Hunter 701 was on an ASW (Anti-Submarine Warfare) mission, with secondary tasking as SUCAP (Surface Carrier Air Patrol). Anything that floated on or under the water was fair game, at least until the carrier could determine what platform had caused the two explosions. Its radar and FLIR were designed to detect snippets of periscopes protruding up from the depths, and the S-3B’s look-down capabilities far exceeded that of the F- 14.
ASW, however, was not the most exciting of taskings. It was, thought Rabies, somewhat akin to watching grass grow.
The S-3B held a crew of four, two pilots in the forward two seats and a TACCO and an enlisted Aviation Anti-Submarine Warfare Specialist (AW) in the two backseats. The TACCO was a Naval Flight Officer trained in managing the intricate battle problem and sensors. The AW ran the acoustic sensor suite, monitoring the sonobuoys and Magnetic Anomaly Detector (MAD) boom that trailed fifteen feet behind the aircraft. While the S-3B lacked the flashy sleek lines of the fighter community, her long endurance, ability to operate at slower speeds, and remarkable flexibility made her much more than an ASW aircraft.
And, Rabies thought, at least she was a jet. He cleared his throat and said, “Okay, all together now. Just follow the chords — C major, F major, then E flat. Just imagine Waylon playing along with us. Ohhhhh, she may have dumped me, but I’m never dumping you. She may have been untrue, but-“
“Rabies, come back around south,” the TACCO interrupted. “We’re getting out of range of buoy seventeen, and Harness thought he heard something interesting.”
“Harness, don’t you be lying to the TACCO just to get me to quit singing,” Rabies huffed. “A little culture ain’t going to hurt you none.”
“No shitter, sir — I got something interestin’ sniffing around that buoy,” Harness replied. Not that he wouldn’t have invented something if he’d been certain it would get the commander to quit singing. Harness, who suffered from having perfect pitch and a keen appreciation for classical music, had gotten desperate enough to do just that on previous flights.
“Interesting? As in submarine interesting?” Grills felt a small surge of adrenaline.
“Probably just a whale farting,” Harness replied. “Still, I’d like to monitor the buoy a few minutes longer.”
“Never hurts to be safe. South it is.” Rabies put the aircraft into a steeper turn back toward their original course.
“Okay, that’s-shit, sir, we got one!”
“You gotta be kidding!” the TACCO said.
“No, sir, diesel submarine engine sounds. Looks like almost all the engine components! Hold on, look at-there it is! I’ve got a probable snorkel mast, bearing one-eight-three, range four miles! Picking up FLIR, too.”
Rabies stood the aircraft on its side, banking back toward the bearing Harness had indicated and using the turn to descend.
They’d been monitoring the buoys at seven thousand feet, but a snorkel mast from a submarine warranted a closer look.
“Classify this contact probable Kilo-class diesel submarine, snorkeling,” Harness announced.
Ahead in the water, Rabies saw the distinctive feather of disturbed water streaking away behind a large black pipe. “Make it visual identification. Wonder if this bad boy’s been launching any missiles at tanks lately?”
“Let’s get some practice. This is a drill, gentlemen. Setting up for deliberate attack,” the TACCO said, entering the steering coordinates for the pilot. The pointers and courses popped up on Grill’s display.
“Roger, got it. We don’t need a MAD run with VID. And gentlemen, please note that this is a simulation. It wasn’t our tank that got blown off the island, and we’re not killing a submarine today,” Rabies said.
While the pilot maneuvered into position for an attack, his copilot updated the carrier on the tactical situation, talking with the Destroyer Squadron Commander, or DESRON, onboard the carrier. The DESRON, a senior Captain with extensive surface ASW experience, inhabited the 08 level of the carrier, five decks above the Combat Direction Center. While the carrier had its own ASW module located directly off CDC, Hunter 701 had been chopped at launch to the DESRON for command and control.
“Surface, you sweet little bastard,” Rabies heard Harness mutter. “Just come on up all the way, baby, just for me. You wanna get some sun on that sail, let me get a good look at you!”
Uncannily, as though in response to the prayers of the technician, a sleek black hull emerged from the water. The sea ran off the submarine’s hull, cascading back into the warm water and creating a foamy froth around the hull. Two additional masts emerged from the still-dripping sail, and a small radar dish unfolded.
Fascinated, Rabies dropped his altitude another five hundred feet. At one thousand feet, he slowly circled the submarine.
“Oh, yeah,” Harness crooned. “That’s it, baby. Sir, can you get me in a little closer? First picture of the cruise is in the bag, and I’d like it to be a good one!”
Suddenly, part of the submarine’s sail slid back, and a small launcher emerged.
Rabies slammed the throttles forward hard, taking the nimble jet to full military power. His earlier fascination had just been replaced by clear, cold dread.
“What the hell?” the TACCO said, as his head slipped out of the radar mask and hit the back of his headrest.
“SAMs! Shut up for a minute, and let me get us the fuck out of here!” Rabies snarled.
He’d seen the intelligence reports, but had never seen a report of an operational surface-to-air missile on a submarine. Facts and figures flooded into his mind, gleaned from countless intelligence briefs and his own extensive studies. It was estimated that some of the Kilos carried a follow-on to the S/A-Grail missile, a shoulder-launched or small-launcher-controlled anti-air missile. With its infrared guidance system, the submarine version of the SAM was a fire-and-forget weapon. The missile probably had a range of no more than six nautical miles, he knew. It could probably do at least Mach 1, or about six hundred knots. The S-3B could do 440 knots on a good day. Downhill.
Rabies poured on the speed, not bothering to seek altitude. It wouldn’t help. If he couldn’t outrun it, then his only hope was to wait until it got close, and try a hard braking maneuver with chaffs and flares, hoping to coax the missile into overshooting its intended victim or going after the decoys.
His copilot was talking in clipped, short sentences to CDC, ignoring the frantic demands from the DESRON for information. With a missile on his tail, Hunter 701 needed to talk to other aviators, not the surface officers who were nominally in control of her operations. Rabies leaned forward against the straps that held him in the ejection seat, as though he could force more forward speed out of the jet by sheer willpower. They were too low to eke out a few more knots by trading altitude for speed. Irrelevantly, it crossed the pilot’s mind that there was a damned fine song in those words somewhere. Now if he could just live long enough to write it.
“Get those alert five Hornets off the deck! That Hoover needs some missile cover. And get the alert S-3’s rolling, too,” the TAO snapped at her assistant. She reached for the microphone that would put her in touch with the officer of the deck, six levels above her on the bridge of the carrier. Before she’d finished, the TAO heard the
