Silver Tower

CHAPTER 21

Saint-Michael entered the engineering module, where he found Ann. They stood together in the cramped compartment, exchanging polite nods. "I think this may be a good time to talk," Saint-Michael finally said.

Ann pretended not to hear him as she pulled a refrigeration coil from the food storage unit and began adjusting the temperature setting. "Ann—" Saint-Michael grabbed the coil from her and replaced it in the unit. "Ann, I want you to leave on Enterprise. In four hours."

She turned and faced him. "So now you're ordering me to go? What happened to my options?"

"If you want to call it an order, then it's an order."

She looked at him, weighing an answer, then sighed softly. "What gives, General? I mean, what the hell is this all about? I can repair Skybolt. I've found the problem. Only a few more days up here and I'll have the thing licked. But you're all fired up to see me leave without accomplishing what I came here to do. My job, for God's sake…"

"Ann," he finally said, "I want you back on earth." He paused for a moment, then added, "Safe." His-eyes narrowed with anger and frustration, but it wasn't anger at her — it was more at himself. "Dammit, Ann, do I really have to spell it out for you?" He paused, waiting for her to understand and respond. "All right, what I'm trying to say is—"

"Attention on the station," came the sudden blaring of the stationwide loudspeaker address system. "Emergency condition one. The station is on red alert." Then, on the stationwide earset address system: "General Saint-Michael, this is Walker. Satellite relay message from the Nimitz. They are under attack."

"I'll be righ there." He turned, stopped, and lightly touched her shoulder. "Safe from this, Ann." Then he was off to the connecting tunnel, leaving Ann with very mixed feelings…

Saint-Michael, back in the command module, ordered: "Report."

"An Air Force 767B AWACS picked up a small flight of six fast-moving low-altitude jet aircraft over Iran," Walker said, not taking his eyes off the master SBR status screen. "The AWACS was chased away by Su-27s from the Brezhnev, so we don't have details. They can't tell where the aircrafts' origin was, but they say they're moving too fast and too low for Silkworm missiles. They think they're Soviet cruise missiles launching from one of the Soviet navy's Caspian Sea bases. They're heading south at five hundred knots, right for the Nimitz battle group."

"How long until we cross the target horizon?"

"Still forty minutes. Could have been launched just after we crossed under the target horizon. They timed it perfectly. Looks like the Nimitz is stage-center, sir…"

"Tally, Tally, Tally! Lead's got 'em at eleven o'clock!"

The commander of the lead F-14E Tomcat Plus, J. B. Andrews, tightened his grip on the throttle as his weapons systems officer called out the report. He had been staring intently at the rolling, rock-covered hills rushing under the nose of his fighter as he and five other hunters from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz slashed across southern Iran, prowling for attacking cruise missiles.

Andrews and his fellow VF-143 "Puking Dogs" were knifing through thick air only a thousand feet above the Iranian desert, and the Tomcats were protesting every minute of it. The fighters performed much better at a high altitude, where their "lifting body" fuselages and big computer-controlled variable-sweep wings met little resistance. Down below, the aircraft picked up every tiny wind shift, every thermal and every dust devil, creating such violent turbulence that the formation had to spread out farther and farther apart to avoid collision. Everything depended on the lead aviator's eyes — if the leader hit the ground, the rest would surely follow. "Vectors, Chili," Andrews called out.

The backseat WSO checked the display of his enhanced digital AWG-9 attack radar. "Left ten. Altitude looks good. I'm locked on… fifty miles now."

"Pirate flight, lead is locked on to bogeys, coming left."

"Two's locked on."

"Three's locked on."

"Four is no-joy."

"Five no-joy. "

"Six is… stand by. Locked-on."

"We launch at twenty, Pirates. If you're not locked on, get ready to turn tight and bob till you drop." To conserve fuel and maximize performance, each Tomcat had only taken off with two AIM-120RC AMRAAM missiles aboard. Even so, after traveling at max afterburner for nearly twenty minutes the fighters were fast approaching their safe fuel-turnaround point. It was essential that they launch their AIM-120RCs in the next few minutes. "Forty miles. Still locked on."

"Four is locked on."

"Five?"

"No-joy. Five is bobbin. Thirty miles."

A faint high-pitched tone activated in the lead WSO's helmet. "Good tone. Ready."

"Rog. Count me down."

"Twenty-five… twenty-four… twenty-three…"

Andrews suddenly felt that inner calm that always preceded engagement. He wasn't thinking anymore. Reflexes had taken over. Reflexes honed in a hundred aerial maneuvers over four continents. Besides, this intercept should be no big sweat. Though cruise missiles were deadly against ships, they were sitting ducks for fighters. They couldn't maneuver or shoot back. The Tomcat's advanced digital attack radar made it possible for Andrews to attack from as far away as fifty miles, but twenty was optimal for—

"Pirate flight. Bandits. Two o'clock high!"

Andrews risked a quick glance to his right, caught the glint of sunlight. Four Su-27 Flanker carrier-based fighters were diving out of the sun. "Two, three, four — stay on the cruise missiles. Four and five — engage."

"Twenty miles. Good tone."

Andrews saw the target and radar lock-on symbols merge and the word LAUNCH flash at the bottom of the HUD, his head's-up display. Fighting off a massive wave of turbulence that shuddered through his Tomcat, he slid his gloved right thumb to the launch button. Suddenly, the target and radar symbols disappeared from the HUD and the word "LAUNCH" at the bottom was replaced with the word "FIRE" in the center of the display.

He pressed the LAUNCH button. Nothing. "Chili, check your switches. Negative launch." No reply. "Chili!" Andrews strained against his harness straps and turned to look behind him, recoiling instantly at the searing blast of heat that hit him full in the face and the grisly sight of half-charred, flaming flesh that had been his WSO. That had not been turbulence he felt a moment ago. His Tomcat had taken a missile right up the tailpipe.

The formation leader turned forward just in time to see two Sukhoi-27 fighter-bombers zip past his nose less than two hundred yards away. He yanked his stick left and up to pursue, but his Tomcat continued to roll sluggishly to the right and down. The HUD was blank. Most of the lights and gauges on his instrument panel were dark or at zero. He made sure the throttle was at military power — yes, he could still feel what he thought was thrust from his twin Pratt and Whitney turbofan engines. He began to get some stick response so he tried to reacquire visually the two Soviet fighters while he waited for his place to recover… he hoped…

He kept one hand on the stick and the other on the throttle, believing his crippled fighter was giving chase right up to the moment it slammed into a hillside just outside the town of Humedan on Iran's southern coast. He never had a chance even to consider reaching for the ejection handles.

"Bridge, this is Combat. ASM contact, zero-eight-zero degrees relative, sixty nautical miles, less than one hundred feet above water."

Matthew Page reacted instantly to the report of the oncoming cruise missiles. "Helm, left twenty degrees, heading two-six-zero. Conn, advise Nimitz of contacts. Combat, are any Tomcats giving chase?"

"No friendly fighters showing. Six Soviet fighters heading northwest back toward the Brezhnev."

He hadn't expected that the missiles would be escorted by fighters. It looked like everything might depend on his firepower. "Combat, launch commit all Standard missiles."

"Launch commit, aye—"

The controller barely had time to finish his acknowledge when the roar of missile-motor ignition filled the air.

Fully automatic, the California's fore-and-aft Mark 26 dual-rail missile launchers had stood like tin soldiers at attention, pointing straight up. At launch command, two SM2-ER Standard surface-to-air missiles slid from the magazine racks below deck up into each of the launcher's rails, and the launchers swiveled right and down until the missiles seemed to be pointing directly horizontal. There was a slight pause, then a burst of flame followed by a cloud of smoke that covered the bow and stem of the California. The launchers swiveled to vertical once again, ready for another reloading.

"Four Standards away."

"My course is two-six-zero, sir," the helmsman reported.

"Very well. Ready the starboard Phalanx guns and both 127-millimeter guns. Combat, where are those cruise missiles?"

"Showing heavy uplink jamming from something, possibly Soviet airborne jammers… Wait, now showing two cruise missiles in flight, sir. Bearing zero-seven-zero, twenty miles, course one-six-zero true."

"Helm, hard to port, left forty degrees, launch commit all Standards and the forward one-twenty-seven. Comm, signal Nimitz to begin evasive action to starboard. Move."

The USS California heeled sharply to starboard as it began a hard left turn, the deck tilting far enough so that only a few feet of freeboard remained. The deck made one small pitch to port when the ship completed its emergency turn as its computerized stabilizers fought to haul the eleven-thousand-ton vessel upright. A split second after the deck leveled itself, the fire, smoke, and noise returned. Four Standard missiles immediately leapt from their rails and arched toward the gray horizon, quickly speeding away from view.

"Four Standards away, sir. Forward one-twenty-seven ready. All Phalanx stations report ready."

"Commit the aft one-twenty-seven."

"Aye, sir… Nimitz reports launching aircraft but can't maneuver to starboard. They report their Phalanx systems operational."

Page's oaths were drowned out by the booming of the California's two five-inch, dual-purpose cannons. Alternating with computer-controlled precision, the two cannons fired one radar-guided three-hundred-pound flak shell every two seconds, the California seeming to jump sideways at each ear-shattering report.

"Status! Where are those damn—"

Page's next words caught in his throat as he stared, transfixed, out the starboard side of the bridge at an apparition that was coming ever closer. Like a flaming spear driving right for the heart of the California, it appeared to be flying slowly, almost lazily, its short cruciform wings and long cigar-shaped body blackened and burning. It trailed a long line of thick black smoke, and it seemed to wobble up and down unsteadily. Yet it kept coming…

"Hard starboard, flank speed," Page ordered. The helmsman spun the wheel but his reply was drowned out by the long, whining staccato of the starboard Phalanx Close-In Weapon System, a radar-guided twenty-millimeter Vulcan multibarreled machine gun used as a last-resort defense against antiship missiles. Page watched smoke issue from the Phalanx muzzle and then an answering puff of fire from the already flaming airborne spear, followed by a deafening roar…

Just before Captain Matthew Page died, he thought of his wife Amanda, her eyes the same sky-blue as the cloudless canopy over his head. He smiled as the darkness descended on him.

Ann bypassed the safety procedures and cross checks as she hurried to the command module. Crewmembers turned toward her as she approached Saint-Michael. "Still no word," the general told her. "The frigate Oliver Hazard Perry is alongside the California now.

"What did they say? What happened?"

"Our ships were attacked by six Soviet medium bombers," Jim Walker said. "The bombers had Su-27 fighters from the Brezhnev escorting them and carried Kelt antiship missiles. Apparently the Su-27s managed to down six of our Tomcats, which were pursuing. The California and the other escorts sent four of the bombers into the gulf, but the others got their missiles off. Two of the missiles hit the California broadside—"

"At least it wasn't nuclear," Saint-Michael said quickly, not looking at Ann. "The California radioed a distress call and the Oliver Hazard Perry got to her within minutes. We'll know better what the California's situation is when they put out the fires."

"How long… until we can restart surveillance on the area?" Ann asked, trying not to show what she was feeling.

Saint-Michael wanted to hold her at least, but for the time being they both had their roles to play… "Twenty minutes," he said in answer to her question. He wished he could say more, reassure her… but that would be phony as well as embarrassing. Looking at her, though, seeing what she must be going through in her worry about her father, he could only admire her and feel for her. A considerable lady, hell… a terrific woman…