“Sea skimmers, sir,” said Rodenko. “Very fast—over 1100 knots.”
“Well that rules out Tomahawks, and most every missile the Chinese have. Who the hell is attacking us?”
There were a lot of missiles out there, a train of 16 according to Rodenko, fast and low on the sea. Kirov’s Gargoyles responded now, but they would not have a good attack angle. The missiles would be coming in perpendicular to the train of Vampires, and would have to execute a turn to the left to catch them as they passed, apparently all directed at Kursk.
Karpov rushed to the window, and he could see the first explosions out near the horizon as the Gargoyles got kills. Kursk was trying to lock on, but was having difficulty getting reflection off the incoming vampires, so they were stealthy. It was up to Kirov, but given that attack angle, they had to use a great many SAM’s to clear that threat. The last five turned and had to race after the Vampires, finally catching them from behind with their superior speed. They had been using the medium range 48N6, which had an 80 mile range, but it had taken 27 missiles to catch and kill all 16 vampires.
When Karpov heard that, he started to become concerned. This entire situation was crazy. They were in waters that should have been entirely safe.
“Rodenko, were any of those airborne contacts to the northeast?”
“No sir. You can see all three contact pairs on the tactical display. I have no contacts behind us.”
“Then they might have come off a submarine,” said Karpov, returning again to the nemesis he thought he had sensed first thing that morning. None of this was adding up. Java was dark, all across the bandwidth; the network was down, and no one was responding to direct radio hails. Nikolin tried to raise the Enterprise, and got no response there as well. It was getting spooky. Then, before he could think another thought, the alarms jarred his nerves yet again.
“Vampires, low and fast, bearing on Kursk and just 16 miles out. The cruiser was out on the horizon now, and Karpov saw the white contrails of its SAM defense lacing up into the sky. This time, Kursk was firing Gargoyles. Soon the ship was lost in a great white cloud of all that missile exhaust, but they could hear the rolling thunder of explosions, just beyond the horizon, so they were getting kills. Kursk had 48 of those missiles, and it had taken 22 of them to do the job, but the cruiser stopped that Vampire train, another 16 missiles that had seemed to come from nowhere.
“Vampires!” said Rodenko again. “12-o-clock, at 530 knots.”
“9M96 system engaging,” said Samsonov. He went to the Growlers, fast and accurate at medium ranges. Even as he engaged, yet another train of fast Vampires came at Kursk from the west, 20 miles out. At 11 miles, their systems finally locked on and fired. It was suddenly a free for all, missile against missile, but the power of both cruisers was enough to win the day. Seconds after the last Vampire was reported killed by Rodenko, there were yet more coming in from the southwest, this time low and slow.
“Sir!” said Nikolin. “Kursk is reporting they are now depleted on all SAM’s.”
The ship had 48 Gargoyles and 48 Growlers, but all had been expended against those fast sea skimmers and glide bombs. They still had seven gatling guns, and Kirov started firing gargoyles to try and cover them. They were four for four, but got the last Vampire inside two miles from Kursk, which was too damn close as Karpov saw things. He was exasperated, still trying to figure out who was attacking them.
Another group of four missiles appeared coming in lazily from the northwest, and Kirov started firing again, clearing the threat. Then four more came from the southwest. They got three, but their fourth missile missed. Samsonov sent another, but it was going to be a race to the target. The Vampire broke through two miles, then Kursk directed three of its 30mm Gatling guns on the beast, and knocked it down just as that last SAM lanced through the smoke of that kill.
An uneasy quiet settled over the smoky seas around them. Anything they had been feeling that morning, that unseen threat, the sensation of impending dread, had suddenly materialized in to this well-coordinated and persistent attack. Yet it was completely unexplained. Yet Karpov had his suspicions, and that was a very dark road to go down if his misgivings were proved to be true. Could the Americans be behind these attacks?
It was now 08:30, and nothing more came at them. All they could see on radar were those very first two contacts, high at 60,000 feet, and moving away from them now to the northwest.
“Nikolin,” said Karpov, “signal Kursk to slow down. We will come up alongside her now.”
“Yes sir.”
“Well, what do you make of this, Fedorov? That looked suspiciously like a good sized carrier strike by stealth aircraft. Tasarov still has no confirmed submarine contacts, and we know damn well that attack wasn’t carried out by the Indonesian Air force. They don’t have the means.”
“A carrier attack? You’re suggesting the Americans did this?”
“With me,” said Karpov, wanting to take the conversation into the ready room. The bridge crew watched them go, and looked at one another, clearly confused and concerned. Why would the Americans suddenly attack them like that? It was the first question Fedorov asked when the ready room door had closed behind them.
“It makes no sense,” he finished.
“Nothing this morning makes any sense, but consider the kind of ordnance we just engaged. There were fast sea skimmers, over 1100 knots, much like the new American LRASM. Then slower missiles came at us, like Tomahawks, and also targets that presented like glide bombs. We never saw the planes until they were released, and they were about 60 miles out. That stinks of F-35’s and their damn GBU-53’s. What other planes could get in that close to us like that undetected? And guess what—the Chinese don’t have this kind of ordnance. The slower cruise missiles that attacked us were moving quicker than their YJ-100, and the faster cruise missiles weren’t YJ-18’s either. They were too far out to be moving at over 1100 knots. Could this be why we suddenly can’t see anything on the fleet network, or why the Enterprise would not respond to Nikolin’s hails? That strike group is just north of Java, about 380 miles from our position, which puts us right in their wheelhouse.”
“That’s quite a shit list,” said Fedorov. “Yes, now that you analyze it like that, it does sound suspicious.”
“Damn suspicious.” Karpov folded his arms.
“But why? I just can’t see why the Americans would suddenly turn on us like this, particularly after all we’ve done for them. Hell, we’re top dog for ship kills in this war, and with three carriers on the list.”
“Remember, Fedorov…. Wasn’t there a bounty out on us? Didn’t the West get messages, to Argos Fire from who knows where? Beware a ship, they said. Beware Kirov.”
That took a moment to sink in. Then there came another alarm. They rushed back out onto the bridge, and Karpov took a wide eyed look at the tactical screen, another massive string of Vampires was coming in at Kursk.
“I’m reading 40 contacts sir,” said Rodenko darkly. Karpov looked at Samsonov.
“SAM count!” he said.
“Sir, I have 79 Growlers and 61 Gargoyles. Attempting to resolve contacts.”
Too close, thought Karpov. The Vampires are too close to Kursk. We are several miles behind her, and it might take all our Growlers to have any chance of defeating that attack. If he give the order we might not even save Kursk given the weight of this attack, and our own SAM count would be dangerously low. But that doesn’t matter.