Armageddon Mode

CHAPTER 20

Batman adjusted his course, eyes glued to the graphic symbol marking the enemy Sea Harrier.

He still had one Phoenix … but the AIM54 was not a dogfighting missile. With no Sidewinders left, he would have to make a head-on pass, guns blazing. He might get lucky on the fly-by, and if he didn’t, he should be able to swing around and take the bandit on his six.

“Tomcat Two-one-six,” he radioed. “I’m in. Going for guns.” He flicked the guns control on his stick and saw the target reticle appear on his HUD.

He closed with the enemy head-to-head at better than Mach 2.

The range to his target was eight miles, and slowly decreasing. With part of his mind Tahliani concentrated on the target, and with part he focused on the enemy F14, coming in almost head-on. The Tomcat pilot was trying for a pass with his guns.

Grimly, Tahliani gripped the throttle with his right hand, the controls that vectored his four engine nozzles with the other. He waited, watching … The Tomcat exploded into view, a blur of motion felt more than seen.

Tahliani’s glimpse of the muzzle flash stuttering on the left side of the nose beneath the cockpit was so brief it was almost subliminal.

He yanked the vectoring throttles back …

Batman squeezed the trigger and felt the shudder of 20-mm Vulcan cannon shells spewing toward the target … Only the target wasn’t there! With a curse, Batman yanked back on the stick. The enemy plane had just performed a maneuver Batman had never encountered before in training or in combat. A maneuver that was impossible …

The maneuver was called viffing, a word derived by the Sea Harrier’s British designers from the acronym for Vectoring In Forward Flight. By swinging the engine nozzles around, he had abruptly chopped his forward speed. The Sea Harrier hovered, then skittishly drifted backwards, rising. From the American pilot’s perspective it must have appeared that he’d stopped in midair and started to fly backward and up.

Cannon shells slashed into the wave tops a hundred feet in front of him, where the Sea Harrier was supposed to be if it had been an ordinary aircraft. The F14 pulled up and thundered overhead, its shadow momentarily blotting the morning sun astern.

Then Tahliani rammed the vectoring controls forward again, returning to forward flight. He’d lost a few seconds in his pursuit but gained many seconds more on his target’s wingman. It would take a long time, long by the standards of modern aerial combat, for the wingman to swing around and come at him from behind.

Army squeezed the trigger and his M-61A1 Vulcan Gatling gun stuttered, sending a stream of 20-mm shells toward the target. He could see the missile now, a tiny black speck less than half a mile ahead.

“Batman, where are you?” he called. “This guy’s still on my six!”

“Damn, Army! I missed him! Airplanes can’t do that!”

Army shook his head, not sure what Batman was talking about. Gently, he squeezed the trigger for another burst. Gouts of water exploded on the ocean beneath the hurtling missile.

“Tomcat Two-oh-one, this is Victor Tango One-one. Break off pursuit!

You are entering Homeplate’s point defense zone!”

“Copy, Victor Tango! I’m out of there!”

He pulled up. Jefferson’s point Phalanx cannons would be on automatic, and any aircraft that came within two miles of the carrier would be shot down.

“We almost had the bastard, Dixie,” he said. The Tomcat clawed for altitude. He could see the carrier in the distance, huge and isolated on a vast, gray-blue sea.

“Army!” Dixie yelled over the ICS. “That bandit’s making his move! He’s right on our tail! Range six miles!”

“Shit!” Army pulled the Tomcat into a hard left roll. “He’s still with us, man! Still with us! Five miles! No … four! He’s lining us up for the shot!”

Tahliani had them in his sights. He let the aiming pipper meet the graphic symbol representing an American Tomcat as it twisted across his HUD less than four miles ahead, and heard the satisfying electronic warble in his headphones as one of his Magic AAMS “saw” the target. His finger closed on the trigger.

The R-550 Matra Magic was a French weapon, one deliberately designed to compete on the world’s market with the notorious American Sidewinder. It had an extremely flexible range for an all-aspect heat-seeker and was capable of engaging targets as close as two tenths of a mile, or as distant as six miles. It could even be slaved to controls in the launching aircraft’s cockpit, allowing the pilot to guide it to the target. Its one quirk was the extremely large amount of smoke it released during firing.

The exhaust cloud enveloped the Sea Harrier’s starboard wing, momentarily blinding Tahliani as it slid from the launching rail. Then he pulled out of the smoke in time to see the missile climbing rapidly on a billowing contrail, arcing up into the sky. The target was still too distant to be seen with the naked eye. Aware that the second Tomcat would be returning any moment, the Indian pilot pulled the Sea Harrier into a harsh turn to the left and struggled for more altitude fast.

Seconds after launch, the Magic air-to-air missile hit Mach 3.

“Launch! Launch!” Dixie cried. “On our six, Army! Comin’ fast!”

“Flares!” He heard no tone from a radar lock-on and assumed the missile must be IR-guided. He rolled hard to port, hearing the thump-thump-thump from astern as Dixie deployed flares in an attempt to confuse the missile. Trading altitude for speed, he let the Tomcat plummet toward the sea from sixteen thousand feet.

The nitrogen-cooled PBS seeker head was not fooled. At Mach 3, the Magic AAM slid past the Tomcat’s tail pipes. With less than a meter’s separation, the twenty-seven-pound warhead was detonated by an IR proximity fuze.

There was a flash, and chunks of nut-and bolt-sized metal sprayed across the F14’s engine housings. One piece slashed through the starboard engine compressor assembly, smashing the fan mechanism and sending pieces of turbine blade whirling through the engine’s guts like shrapnel. A fuel line from the wing tank was severed. JP5 sprayed across hot engine surfaces.

The explosion was a searing flash that scattered chunks of burning debris across the sky. Trailing flame, what was left of Tomcat 201’s fuselage tumbled end for end in a long and spectacular funeral pyre toward the blue-gray sea.

“Missile incoming!” Barnes yelled, rising in his seat. “Goddamn it, where’s point defense …!”

The Sea Eagle launched minutes before had entered Jefferson’s innermost defensive zone. Computers, radars, and high-tech electronics were supposed to bring the carrier’s Phalanx guns to bear automatically … but they did not.

It took an agonizing twenty seconds for the Sea Eagle to cross that final two-mile stretch to the Jefferson.

Someone had switched Jefferson’s point defense system off so that the carrier could launch aircraft without shooting down its own planes as they cleared the flight deck. By mistake, both the Sea Sparrow and Phalanx systems had been shut down rather than being put into hold. It took long, wasted seconds to realize what the problem was and correct it.

By that time the Sea Eagle was half a mile from the carrier’s starboard bow, five seconds away.

Switches were thrown, the system brought back on line. On the starboard side of the island, the Phalanx gun dubbed Huey came to life, its J-band radar reaching out and acquiring a target within its range. Two seconds to acquire and track … The target was almost too close to reach by the time Huey’s silo slewed around and the Vulcan cannon fired its first short, sharp burst. The stream of ultra-dense slugs reached past the speeding missile, missing.

Huey’s computer, following radar returns from both missile and rounds, corrected, shifted aim … Too late! The Sea Eagle struck Jefferson in the hull on her starboard side forward, halfway between her waterline and the flight deck, well forward of her Number One elevator.

The five-hundred-pound warhead punched through the outer hull and several bulkheads before exploding.

The ship lurched hard, knocking men on the flight deck to their knees, sending several men on the catwalk just above where the missile struck hurtling out and down into the sea. The clanging of an alarm bell cut above the yells and confusion. “Now hear this, now hear this! Damage control parties lay forward to the chain locker.”

There was a gaping hole in the ship’s side, and smoke was beginning to boil from the carrier and across the surface of the sea.

on the 04 deck, Tombstone had felt the deck shudder through his feet, but the impact was no more than a gentle rumble, like a far-off boom of thunder more felt than heard.

But he knew at once that something was wrong. It takes a fairly powerful kick to make something the size of an aircraft carrier shudder.

The call over the 1-MC a moment later for damage control parties to lay forward confirmed it.

“We’ve lost one,” CAG said.

That brought his attention back to CATCC’s domain. He could hear a chief at a nearby console calling a rescue helo.

“Aircraft down, aircraft down,” the chief was saying, “Angel One, this is CATCC. We have an aircraft down at bearing one-zero-four, range three miles from the boat.”

“Angel One copies,” a voice responded over the speaker. The heavy thup-thup-thup of helicopter rotors could be heard in the background.

“On our way. Do you have reports of chutes?”

“Negative chutes, Angel One. No witnesses.”

“Roger, Jefferson. We’ll let you know.”

Tombstone looked at the PLAT camera. Several sailors were still lying on the forward deck where they’d been knocked down by the impact. Black smoke was wafting across the deck between the camera and Jefferson’s bows. A pair of VF97 Tomcats still sat on the catapult slots, steam boiling around them from the deck.

With a fascinated horror, Tombstone watched as the F14 on Cat Two began to move, to slide forward toward the bow.

He couldn’t tell if a cat shooter had accidentally pressed the button, or whether a malfunction had triggered the catapult without a signal from the deck. Whatever the cause, the F14 was moving forward, but slow … slow … far too slowly to get airborne.

“Negative launch! Negative launch!” the Air Boss’s voice sounded over the speaker. Another voice in the background was screaming, “Eject!

Eject! Eject!”

The Tomcat reached the forward edge of the deck like a canoe reaching the precipice of a waterfall. There was a flash and a swirl of smoke.

Two figures could be seen jetting into the sky on rocket trails as the Tomcat balanced precariously for a moment, then swung tail-high and vanished over the bow.

Two parachutes broke in the sky above the flight deck, drifting back toward the ship. One man dropped safely onto the deck a few feet from where he’d launched seconds before. The other drifted aft, landing among the A6 strike aircraft being readied for Operation Mongoose along the carrier’s port side. Deck crewmen rushed up to him as he struggled with his harness, collapsing his chute before it could drag him over the side.

Tombstone turned away from the PLAT monitor in time to see a sailor marking new information onto the transparent acrylic flight status board. He’d not caught the number of the F14 that had been shot down.

Tomcat 201, Army and Dixie. The sailor was writing “MIA: 0801” in bold letters across the row reserved for them. His Tomcat … and his place.

I should have been there … He dismissed the thought immediately. The fates that determined each twist of life and death in combat were too capricious to be analyzed in so simplistic a fashion.

But it would have been him in that aircraft, should have been … had Admiral Vaughn not pulled him off the flight line.

Suppressing a shudder, he walked toward CAG, who was leaning against a console, studying the radar returns of approaching aircraft.

“Tombstone!” Hitman said. “Where ya goin’?”

“To get me an airplane!”

“Well, hey! Wait for me!”

“Goddamn it to hell.” Vaughn rubbed his chin with one hand. His own skin felt clammy and cold. “Goddamn it to hell …”

“Damage isn’t too bad,” the radio voice continued. “Minor fires in some stored paint abaft the chain locker, but fire parties have those in hand. Casualties so far are light, but a muster’s probably going to turn up some missing men blown off the deck.

“Our worst operational damage is to the catapults. One and Two are both down, and the cat crews are not real optimistic about getting them up again any time soon. There was some minor buckling to the deck, and the steam lines to the forward catapults are out.”

“Shit,” Vaughn snapped. “Are they still up at the waist?”

The radio operator passed on the admiral’s question.

“Three and Four are still operational,” was the reply. “Good pressure, and no apparent damage. We have DC parties checking them now.”

“Well, that’s something, anyway,” Vaughn said.

“It’s going to restrict operations, Admiral,” Captain Bersticer said, frowning. “They’ll have to shift aircraft aft to the waist to continue launching … and they won’t be able to simultaneously launch and recover aircraft. Operation Mongoose is supposed to go down in four hours. We’ll never make it without four working cats.”

Vaughn stared at Bersticer for a moment as the words sunk in. If they couldn’t launch the strike against the Indian supply columns … They had failed. He had failed, and before they’d even had a proper chance.

His fists clenched at his side, the frustration, the rage of the past twelve years surging up inside like a black, unstoppable tide.

It’s not fair! he thought. It’s not-fucking-fair!

“I want that airplane, CAG,” Tombstone said, cold steel behind each word. “It’s criminal idiocy to keep me here when we need aviators out there!”

CAG looked at Tombstone with level eyes. “What are you going to fly?” he said. “Two-oh-one just augered in.”

“Two double-nuts,” Tombstone replied immediately. “It’ll fly.”

He’d been spending his time since being put in hack catching up with his squadron’s paperwork. Tomcat 200, the aircraft in Viper squadron traditionally reserved for the CAG when he flew, had not been operational since before Wonsan. Stored in the aft hangar bay for repairs at the time, the F14 had been damaged during the battle at Sattahip Bay in Thailand when a rebel attack sent a rocket through an open elevator door and into the parked airplanes on the hangar deck. It was one of the two aircraft in VF95 with a maintenance downcheck.

Maintenance personnel had only finished installing a new engine a week earlier. The job had been inspected, but not tested. No one knew for sure yet if Two-double-nuts would run.

Or fly.

“Stoney,I know how you feel,” CAG said gently. “But I can’t authorize a damn-fool stunt like-“

Tombstone jerked a thumb at the bulkhead speaker. The voices of several aviators could be heard calling to one another. “My God, look at that!” a voice was saying. “One-oh-three, we have bogies inbound! Bogies inbound at fifty miles!”

“Those are my people out there, damn you,” Tombstone said, his voice carrying a deadly edge to it. “My people!”

“The plane’s not armed.”

“It’ll take twenty minutes to slip some Sidewinders on her. It’ll take that long just to get the rest of VF97 aloft with only two cats working.” Tombstone’s voice raised suddenly to a shout, and every head in CATCC turned in their direction. “Damn it, CAG! I’m going with or without your say-so, but I’m going!”

“You’re an asshole, Stoney,” CAG said. He shook his head. “And if you don’t watch your mouth the brig is where you’re going!” The two men stopped, staring eye to eye. Then CAG looked away. “So you’d better go before you say something that makes me put you there. Who’s your RIO?”

“Me, sir!” Hitman said.

Tombstone turned, surprised. He’d forgotten Costello was behind him.

“Hell, Stoney,” Hitman continued with a shrug. “I’d rather be your RIO than stay here and get shot at!”

“Get into your flight gear, gentlemen,” CAG said. “And get the hell out to your ship. I’ll inform the Boss you’re coming.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Shut up and git. Before I shoot you for desertion.”

Tombstone got.

“Commander?”

Tombstone stopped and turned. Three sailors were sitting at one of the consoles, watching him. By the light of a nearby radar screen he recognized the one who had spoken: Seaman David Howard, the sailor who’d become a hero at Bangkok.

“Good luck, sir,” Howard said.

“That’s right, Commander,” one of Howard’s companions said. The name stenciled over the pocket of his dungaree shirt read, “Gilkey, F.” The man gave him a sharp thumbs-up. “Beat the shit out of the bastards.”

“We’re right behind you, sir,” the third man, a second-class radarman, said. His shirt carried the name Benedict. “Kick some ass for us!”

It was strange. Tombstone did not know Gilkey or Benedict. A supercarrier was large enough that it was possible to live and work aboard her for months on end and never meet all the people aboard.

But these men certainly seemed to know him. Young Howard must have been shooting off his mouth, he decided. Still, it was a good feeling to know that he had men like these in his corner. It would make the sky a lot less lonely.

Tombstone grinned and tossed them a casual salute. “Watch my back, guys.”

Then he was through the door and pounding down the passageway toward the VF-95 Ready Room.