He glanced down to the last aircraft to start its engines. Mein Low had walked out to the airfield with Bien, then broken off to head for his aircraft without even a word of good luck. Now the five F-10’s, sleek and deadly, shimmered in the heat waves coming up off the tarmac.
At last, Bien started his Flanker’s engines. The engines spooled up, slowly at first, then the RPMs rising quickly as the stator gained momentum and overcame initial mechanical friction. The sound slid up octaves in seconds, and had soon picked up enough harmonics and undertones to be the normal full-throated scream of raw power.
His radio popped and crackled for a moment, then began spitting out permission for the Vietnamese fighters to launch. Bien led the two squadrons into the air. He quickly ascended to four thousand feet, and then began orbiting, waiting for the rest of his squadrons to join on him. He heard the voice on the radio change, and the language shift from Vietnamese to Chinese. He could see the Chinese fighters beginning their roll-out, rotation, and initial climb. The Chinese squadrons were joining up to the south of the airfield, the Vietnamese ones to the north. Evidently the spirit of brotherly cooperation did not extend to sharing airspace.
Finally, the signal came, first in Chinese then repeated in Vietnamese. Bien turned east, increasing his speed to 420 knots and climbing to seven thousand feet. His wingman bobbled for a moment and then settled down to his left, and the rest of the circling wolf pack of fighters broke into their respective flights. Behind them, the Chinese were settling into the fighting formation that Bien had seen entirely too many times in the last five months.
Seventy miles to the east, the American battle group waited.
“Well, will you look at that?” Tomboy said softly.
“Got them?” Batman asked.
“You betcha. Looks like about eighteen — no, make it closer to twenty-five high-speed contacts leaving the coast. Tight formation. Any other bird, it’d be difficult to break them out in this soup.” She twiddled with the radar, tweaking and peaking. “But I got them — oh, yeah, do I got them!”
“Best we wake Mother up, then,” Batman said, a tight note creeping into his voice. “I think we might just back up off the front line a little, too. At least until our posse arrives.”
“Concur. We just did our job at the OK Corral.”
“Homeplate, this is Doc Holliday,” Tomboy said into the mike. “Suggest you wake up Wyatt Earp.”
Wyatt Earp could have done with snipers, Tombstone thought, staring at the TFCC screen and waiting for the air battle to unfold. Snipers provide a force multiplier that can’t be beat. If a year at the Naval War College had taught him nothing else, it had taught him that operational planning was the key to winning an engagement. Define the desired end state, and plan for that state to exist. We studied enough military history and strategy planning to have a variety of examples, both good and bad.
The shoot-out at the OK Corral and the Peloponnesian wars. It was a combination that he didn’t think had even occurred to his professors.
“Could be another feint,” Batman said neutrally.
“Not with that many aircraft,” Tombstone said. “It’s gone on too long. We’ve held off long enough to convince them that we’re lulled. They’ll take advantage of our complacency. They’re convinced now.”
“You can’t be sure.”
“Neither can they. But look at it from their point of view. We haven’t reacted to the last two probes. In this sea state, they’re going to feel a little more confident that their submarine can get in close, and that our radar may be degraded. They’ve got to know that we’re tired, and they’re launching so that the sun will be in our eyes when we intercept them.”
“I almost hope so, for the aircrew’s sake. They can’t take much more of this, Tombstone.”
Tombstone shot his old wingman a hard look. “You think I don’t know what they’re going through? It hasn’t been that long, Batman, since you and I were pulling alert five.”
“We never pulled this many in a row, shipmate — not on top of normal operations.”
“I know that. But there was no other way. I know this air wing. They’re tired, but they can do it.”
“I hope you’re right, my friend,” Batman said softly to himself. “Because if you’re not — the options become unacceptable real fast.”
“As long as the Vietnamese do their part,” Tombstone said. “Feels really strange, depending on them.”
“You’re the one who’s always telling me that war is more than blowing aircraft out of the sky.”
“Let’s just hope the politicians understand that part of it. Because if they didn’t, that’s all this is going to amount to.”
“That’s it!” the TAO shouted. “Admiral, you were right! Tomcat’s reporting numerous fighters inbound!”
“TAO, get a raid count from that Tomcat,” Tombstone said quietly, ignoring the jolt of adrenaline flooding his body.
“Gunslinger 101 estimates ninety aircraft, Admiral,” the TAO replied. “Feet wet off the coast of Vietnam five minutes ago. Air boss requests permission to set flight quarters.”
“Do it,” Tombstone ordered. “And tell him I expect to see a new record set on launching the alert CAP.”
Ten seconds later, the thunderous roar of a Tomcat at full military power shook the space. Tombstone glanced at the CCTV and saw the afterburners light the deck in an eerie hell-like fire. Five seconds later, the catapult sang its rattling song, ramming forward to toss the first alert fighter off the deck.
The carrier shook with the differing rhythms, as a forward catapult, followed by the waist cat, then the other forward catapult launched the alert package. For ten minutes, the refrain was Tomcats. The lighter-voiced scream of the Hornets picked up the second verse, followed by the rumble of a KA-6 tanker.
Within twenty minutes, the carrier felt eerily silent, the last of the alert aircraft launched. Overhead, he could hear the odd rattlings and vibrations that came from aircraft being moved around the deck in preparation for normal launch.
Tombstone felt strangely disconnected from the battle. Unlike every other time in his career, this time he’d be following it on the communications net and from the radar screen instead of in the air. His hands curled, missing the feel of the vibrating throttle beneath them. Watching red symbols track across a screen was a poor substitute for the actual sight of the enemy raid.
Over the tactical net, he could hear the Hornet pilots snapping at each other, chivvying to be the first in line to top off from the tanker and get into the fight. The longer-legged Tomcats were already underway to the fight. Had he been able to come up with an excuse — any decent excuse would have done — he’d have been up there with them. But, as CAG had reminded him, it was time to turn the fight over to better eyes, faster reflexes, and the next generation. His place was here on the ship. The harder job, perhaps, except for the dying — watching it instead of doing it.
“Admiral! S-3 SUCAP reports a visual on a periscope!” the flag TAO said. “Where?” he demanded.
“Thirty miles to the east, sir. DESRON is vectoring them in for the intercept.” The TAO paused, and a frown crossed his face. “Lost it. It went sinker as soon as the S-3 got overhead.”