weapons was simply a target waiting to happen.
But the camera stayed rock steady on the approaching MiG, tracking the missile as it bore in on him.
The MiG blinked. At what seemed the last possible second, it cut hard to the right, intending to break the radar lock and allowing the missile no time or distance to reacquire. It was a good move, one that should have worked. It almost did.
The Sparrow clipped the MiG on the canted tail structure, knocking off one portion of it. It was happening so quickly. All I saw was the thin, triangular shape tumbling away from the aircraft, then the fragments of missile pelting the air behind the MiG.
For a moment, I thought the MiG might make it. They were incredibly airworthy little beasts, and it was just possible that the pilot might be able to pull off a controlled descent, at least one long enough to give him a chance to eject.
But Thor had other plans. He was on him now, stitching the canopy and fuselage with the rapid-fire Vulcan cannon. I saw the MiG canopy shatter, bright shards of it reflecting in the hard sunlight.
The ejection seat fired. It must have been the pilot's last conscious act before the bullets penetrated the canopy and hit him. It slammed out of the aircraft at a forty-five-degree angle to the fuselage, hung in the air for a moment, and then the parachute deployed. By some miracle, the bullets hadn't shredded the ejection seat. It worked, just as its Russian designers had intended. But the pilot hung lifeless and inert below it. He and his aircraft both headed for the sea, one in a deadly flat spiral and the other drifting down gently.
'Now, Thor.' I reached for the microphone. This time I would act, order the brash Marine back to the carrier rather than let him take on another MiG with his guns alone.
Evidently Thor had the same idea. The camera swung away from the battle, found the horizon, then hunted for a moment before settling on the massive shape of Jefferson.
'Admiral, look.' I turned to see Lab Rat pointing at the large-screen tactical display. 'It's Hunter 701 ? he's got a visual.'
The NTDS ? Navy Tactical Data Display ? symbol made it clear just what Lab Rat was talking about. A submarine, classified as hostile by the S3 Viking orbiting above it. I could see the symbol for the aircraft almost superimposed on top of the hostile submarine mark.
'Well, it's about time,' I said heavily. 'They've got them, don't they? Why wouldn't they use them?'
'I'm putting up the ASW CRC ? the Anti-Submarine Coordination and Reporting Circuit.' Lab Rat fiddled with the speakers and the dial-up box next to it. It crackled, then came to life in the middle of a sentence. 'certain it's a Romeo,' I heard a voice say. A familiar voice ? I strained to put a name to it.
Lab Rat saw my Questioning look and said, 'Commander Steve 'Rabies' Grills, another Jefferson homesteader.'
I nodded, calling up a face to match the voice. Rabies had been a regular mainstay of our ASW evolutions for the past several cruises. He was a lusty Texan, I recalled, one who drove his flight crews to sheer desperation by singing country-western songs on the ICS during their long hours on station. Another strong player, in his way just as good as Bird Dog or Thor.
'He's still holding it?' I asked.
Lab Rat nodded. 'And from the looks of it, he's got so many sonobuoys in the water around it that we'll be able to track it just by the noise alone,' he added. He tapped a few keys and the sonobuoy lines popped into being, a regularly spaced line of listening devices that would keep track of the submarine if it decided to pull the plug and go sinker.
'What's he doing on the surface anyway?' I asked.
'Maybe he's got those anti-air weapons on board,' Lab Rat suggested.
A nasty prospect, but one that we had to consider. The new generations of submarines all had them, a small surface-to-air missile that could be extruded through an extension to the conning tower and fired at aircraft overhead. It was particularly effective against the smaller and less maneuverable helicopters, but I'd known one or two to take a shot at fixed-wing aircraft, as well. If anything, it would keep the S3 crew on guard. Rabies had personal experience with the weapons system, and I knew he wasn't eager for another encounter.
'I guess Rabies doesn't think so,' Lab Rat said. 'His altitude is three hundred feet.'
'If he sees anything-' I began, and then broke off. Of course he'd be watching, and of course he'd get the hell out of the area if he saw anything suspicious unfolding from the conning tower. Like a missile launcher.
Lab Rat spoke up. 'I haven't heard anything about them being back-fitted on the older submarines, and I'm not sure they have the power supply for it. Or the guidance systems.' He looked thoughtful. Then he continued. 'But I suppose it's possible. As miniaturized as some of these circuits are these days, the space wouldn't be a problem. It would just be a matter of tacking the missile assembly onto-'
'How far from the carrier?' I asked, interrupting his train of intelligence speculation and theorizing. All very interesting, but what mattered to me was whether or not the submarine was in a position to do damage to one of my ships.
'Well out of range, Admiral,' Lab Rat assured me. 'Almost twenty miles.'
'Not to say he couldn't close that distance eventually,' I said.
'Well, now that we know she's there, we can take some precautions.'
The appearance of a submarine in our area worried me. Worried, hell ? it scared the shit out of me.
There's something particularly terrifying about submarines, at least to an aircraft carrier. For sailors everywhere, ships are more than just weapons platforms or floating airports. A ship is the one little space in the world that's home, at least for months at a time. It's where your stereo lives, your spare set of civilian clothes so you can go on liberty, and those few precious possessions that you can cram into the small lockers and staterooms assigned to you. In short, it's home.
Ever since their earliest days, submarines have been weapons of terror. Until the last couple of decades, we'd had no way of knowing where they were, no way of tracking them with any degree of certainty, other than by saturating the air around the ships and hoping the submarines came up to snorkel. But with the advent of the nuclear-powered submarine, snorkeling had become unnecessary. Besides that, the age of Hyman Rickover and the nuclear submarine had upped the tactical stakes in two ways. First, the nuclear submarines were fast as hell underwater, while their diesel brethren were limited to either slow speed or being submerged for a short time. Second, the weapons were far more deadly. Without even getting into the devastation that one ballistic-missile submarine can wreak, the nuclear-tipped torpedoes alone could crack the keel of any ship. Even a big ship like a carrier.
Submarines just seemed so damn sneaky. They were undetectable, slipping silently beneath the water. It seemed so fundamentally a terrorist act to deploy them. At least, that's how the British had classified it in several world wars. I was inclined to agree with them. And now that they could shoot at aircraft too, with these extruding missile launchers mounted in the sail, there was even more to worry about.
I was hoping our couple of bombing runs, along with some political pressure, might bring the Vietnamese to the bargaining table. It's not like we were out to invade them. All we wanted to know was whether or not they had a nuclear-weapons manufacturing plant, and if so, who they were selling the weapons to. Moreover, we wanted them to stop. Now.
Two major strikes against their airfield ought to get their attention, at least. I knew other things were going on as well, behind the scenes. Diplomatic conferences, exchanges of pointed remarks between envoys, and our own Ambassador Sarah Wexler was raising holy hell in the United Nations about nuclear proliferation, the unprovoked strike attack against our aircraft, and just about anything else that could be force-fed to her by her staff. Don't get me wrong, Ambassador Wexler is a hell of a lady. She's maybe Tomboy's size, a little on the slight side, but chunkier, older, if you know what I mean.
In the last several years, I'd seen her take on the Chinese toe-to-toe, and after that the Cubans. The way she'd thrashed them up one side of the table and down the other, I'd almost pitied them. She would have made a hell of a fighter pilot.
But so far, Ambassador Wexler wasn't getting too far. The Vietnamese kept pulling out of conferences in a huff, insisting we were the aggressors, that we'd conducted unprovoked bombing attacks against a hospital facility and a children's camp.
Yeah, right. Even Vietnamese children don't get SAM sites for recess breaks. The claims of the Vietnamese were so far from the truth as to be absolute lies, although of course Ambassador Wexler wasn't calling them that.
