“The UAVs,” Batman said. “I need you well away from the ground site.”
“Why not send me in?” Tombstone asked. “I’ve got five-hundred-pound bombs on the wings, and I think I still remember the basics of strike warfare. We can be in and out before” “No time,” Batman said.
‘Tombstone, the Cubans are getting ready to launch. I don’t want you anywhere near that area when the first missile heads out toward the United States. Your electronic emissions, the fire control radars that are lit off buddy, get your ass out of there. Buster. I’m going in with everything I’ve got in one last try to blast those burrowing moles out of the ground. I don’t want you anywhere near the fireball.”
Tombstone switched his microphone back to the ICS.
“You listening?” he asked Tomboy.
“I am. And there’s something missing from this equation,” she said thoughtfully. “Surely the UAVs don’t carry tactical nuclear warheads?”
“I don’t think so,” Tombstone said, although suddenly he wasn’t nearly as certain as he’d have liked to be. “Deploying tactical nuclear weapons in my theater of operations even that would be going too far.
Sure, they might put UAVs on the Arsenal ship without my knowledge, but to get us involved in a nuclear conflict no, I don’t think so. It was bad enough that they tried to micromanage the targeting, but surely they wouldn’t” “What if the Cubans have them, and the U.S. knows it?”
Tomboy persisted. “And Batman’s so worried about us being close init’s not the blast, it’s the EMP he’s worried about. What else could it be?”
EMP-electromagnetic pulse was the first and most devastating effect of a nuclear explosion. The deadly forces unleashed by the weapon disturbed the electromagnetic field of the earth, shorting out sensitive microelectronics and transistors for miles around. Cars would stop, computers would fail, and the delicate instrumentation of the fly-by-wire Tomcat would immediately cease to function.
He’d be left with only manual hydraulics, if that. And no electronics whatsoever. That meant he couldn’t fire missile shell, he’d be lucky if the EMP didn’t trip something in the fire control circuitry and inadvertently ignite something while they were on the wings.
“Nukes. My God. And if they miss, or don’t fire?” He let his voice trail off.
“Then we’re in the middle of the biggest political cluster-fuck in twenty years,” Tomboy finished. “Tombstone, that command center it’s gotta be destroyed. And we can’t trust a UAV that’s never been tested in combat to do it.”
His RIO his wife was making eminently good sense.
There was no longer any question in his mind about BDA.
What he needed now was complete and total destruction of the command center before it could launch weapons possibly nuclear weapon sat the continental U.S. Furthermore, he needed to make that happen before the United States was tempted to use its mobile nuclear arsenal, now circling, he suspected, in the skies over Cuba.
“You’re right,” he said softly. He paused for a moment, then asked, “Are you up for this? You know it’s dangerous.”
Tomboy’s voice was calm and level. “You know I’m in.
We’re all in this together. Tombstone. This was our role in life before we met each other, and right now it’s more important than anything I’ve ever done. Except maybe no, let’s go on,” she concluded firmly.
Something in her tone of voice bothered him, but he let it pass, pressed as he was by the need for an immediate decision on the mission.
As pilot in command, he had the ultimate say-so in where the Tomcat went and how she executed her mission. And in this case, that would include disobeying orders from the rightful battle group commander. He flipped the switch back over to the tactical circuit. “Batman, you’re coming in weak and broken. I can’t read you at all.” He felt oddly amused at that old, hoary trick that pilots and aviators used everywhere for avoiding complying with directions from the ground they didn’t like.
Batman knew the ploy, too. “Damn it, Stoney, don’t you pull this crap,” he roared, his rage clearly evident over the crystal-clear circuit. “You’re not having radio problems.
Don’t you even” “Switching to secondary,” Tombstone announced calmly.
“Home Plate, this is Tomcat Two-zero-two, switching to secondary.
Primary circuit is weak and broken, possibly from some form of, uh.
.
sunspot interference. Yes, sunspots. I do believe that’s it.”
Tombstone switched the radio off.
“What will he do?” Tomboy asked softly. “I know he doesn’t believe you.”
“You’re almost right he doesn’t believe me about the radio, but he does believe I’m going to ignore his orders. It’s up to him now. Give me a vector back to the command post.”
Tomboy spieled off a series of numbers, directions, and speeds, and Tombstone jerked the Tomcat around in a tight turn. He finished off with a barrel roll just for the hell of it, not bothering to let Tomboy know about it beforehand. Her yelp from the backseat registered her protest.
“Ten minutes,” Tomboy said, her voice still a few notes higher than normal. Among other things that he’d have to pay for the barrel roll would be among them.
“See if you can find that UAV for me,” Tombstone said.
“It’s probably over water, though I gather it’s inside the twelve-mile territorial limits. If it weren’t. Batman wouldn’t be as worried as he is about us bustering out of here we’d have a little bit more time.”
“No sign of it,” Tomboy said promptly. “I’ve been scanning for it in tracking mode ever since Batman mentioned it. Those little bastards are hard as hell to find, Stoney. I wouldn’t count on our gaining contact.”
Unless we’re both inbound on the same target area and our separation decreases dramatically, he added silently.
That may be the first time we’ll get contact on it as we’re both launching at the target. And if that little bastard is nuclear. God help me. And Tomboy. Again, something in her comments over the last few minutes, coupled with an odd sense of resignation in her voice, nagged to be understood. He let his thoughts linger on it for a moment, on how he’d met her on board Jefferson during a cruise, how they’d gradually come to know and respect each other, first as aviators and then as lovers. And on the impact she had made on his life, in marked contrast to that of Miss Pamela Drake. What had he ever done to deserve such a wonderful woman? A superb, giving lover, tender and supportive spouse, and dynamite bulldog tactical officer in the air if he’d made up his own wish list of what he wanted in a wife, he would have sold Tomboy far short.
But her voice … he pushed the thought aside, and concentrated on the land coming into view ahead. By now, the sun was nearly half visible over the horizon, and streaks of rose and orange striped almost the entire sky. Night was no longer a protecting cloak.
As the minutes passed. Tombstone could feel the tension mount in the cockpit. It was a familiar sensation, but still fraught with all the fear and anxiety that going into combat always brought. He and Tomboy had been here before, done this time after time together, both over the Spratlys and the Aleutian Islands. Why should this occasion be any different? It wasn’t, he suspected; it was just the fact of their marriage that made it seem odd.
An odd silence hung in the cockpit as well, unalleviated by any tactical chatter from the secured radio or communication with other pilots. According to the radar, the furball to the southeast was still in frantic action, American pilots chasing the nimble MiGs across the sky, periodic flashes of increased radar detection indicating that another airplane had exploded into a massively reflexive ball.
American or Cuban there was no way to tell until the flash settled down and Tomboy could verify whether Or not the surviving blip showed IFF transmission.
As far as he could tell, it looked like the Americans were winning. An EMP would change that, knocking both the American and Cuban aircraft out of the sky more effectively than the smartest air-to-air weapon in either inventory.
“Tombstone. I think I’ve got it.” Tomboy’s voice sounded forced, but calm. “Look out at zero-nine-zero; see if you can see anything. It’s an intermittent blip on radar. Could be the UAV.”
Tombstone turned his head right and stared into the rising sun. Just occulting in front of it was a small, dark blip, barely more visible than a pinprick. The UAV he was almost sure of it. It was all the wrong shape, had all the
