Elsewhere around the room were twelve smaller automated status boards, ASTABS in Navy jargon.
The array of screens was designed to present Vicksburg’s Tactical Department with every piece of information they might conceivably need during battle. Each screen was individually programmable. One LSD might be set to display surface shipping, a second close-in air contacts, a third distant targets, a fourth intelligence data or updates. ASTABS could show the status of ships or aircraft in the squadron, data on tanker loading, ship cargoes, engagement tracks, sub sightings, anything the tactical people needed to help them comprehend the incredible complexity and movement of the participants in modern combat. Seat after seat at console after console was manned by sailors monitoring the electronic world beyond the cruiser’s bulkheads.
Cunningham studied the displays showing the Vicksburg’s helo status for a moment. The Russian Helix had landed safely, dropped off her passengers, and was now headed for the Kreml with Admiral Dmitriev. The three Russian staff officers were now being escorted forward to Vicksburg’s wardroom. The second helo, the Seahawk carrying Admiral Vaughn and his staff, was inbound with an ETA of four more minutes. He should have met the Russians, he knew, but Vaughn’s instructions about no formal ceremony had been explicit. That was just as well. Seas were rough, and the Soviet officers would probably prefer to be greeted in the dry security of Vicksburg’s wardroom, rather than the spray-drenched openness of the CG’s fantail.
He would have to go aft to greet Admiral Vaughn, of course. CBG-14’s admiral would expect that.
He was just about to turn and leave the CIC when the Tactical Officer called to him. “Captain?” The officer was standing behind an ET chief seated at one of the consoles, puzzling at the display on one of the LSDS. “Something funny here.”
“What do you have, Hark?”
Commander Gregory Harkowicz pointed. The screen displayed numerous white blips against a dark blue background. Letters and numerals tagged most of the contacts, identifying them as ships and aircraft belonging to the battle group. But there were four close-spaced blips to the northeast, still unidentified.
Cunningham squinted at the screen. “Aircraft?”
“No, sir. Surface vessels. Range thirty miles. Contact is intermittent. They come and go. That suggests very small targets, maybe fishing smacks. Speed eight knots.”
That made sense. Seas were running at three to five feet. A small boat could easily be lost in the radar reflection from the ocean, registering only as it rose to the crest of each wave.
“How long have they been there?”
“We picked up something maybe an hour ago, Captain,” the ETC said. “But it disappeared and didn’t show again. This has just been within the last ten minutes.”
Cunningham stared at the display, trying to milk additional information from the uninformative screen.
“Five gets you ten it’s a dhow fleet,” he said softly. “But …”
Harkowicz looked at him. “You’re thinking patrol boat?”
“Could be. Cruise Druze.”
The TO chuckled. During the carrier operations off Lebanon during the early eighties, there’d been some concern that one of the warring Lebanese factions might attempt a suicide attack on a Navy ship with a light plane or speedboat packed with explosives … or even with a single fanatic on a hang glider. The hypothetical lone commando on a hang glider had been dubbed “Cruise Druze,” and the word had stuck.
“Give me a Jane’s readout for India, Hark,” Cunningham said. “List only.”
An ASTAB nearby flickered, and a column of ship names, numbers, and types replaced a readout on fleet fuel consumption. Cunningham scanned the list as it scrolled. His eyes widened. “Stop. Oh … shit.”
“Sir?” Then Harkowicz saw what the Captain had noticed. “Oh …”
“Thought I remembered Osas,” Cunningham said. “Eight Osa IIS, each carrying four Styx SSMS. We’d better-“
“Captain!” the ET chief called. “Unknowns accelerating! Radar makes it twenty knots! Twenty-five … thirty knots!”
No native dhow could manage thirty knots. “Battle stations!” Cunningham snapped. The Tactical Officer’s hand was already slapping down on a large, red button on a nearby console. “Sound fleet alert!”
But he wondered if it was not already too late. On the screen, new bogies were appearing, separating as if by magic from the larger blips marking the unknowns.
“It’s goin’ down!” Harkowicz shouted. “Missile launch! Missile launch!”
CHAPTER 16
Senior Lieutenant Javed Chaudry was a fatalistic man, but that didn’t stop him from slamming his fist against the bridge console and biting off a savage curse as the two Styx missiles roared off into the northwest, dazzling pinpoints of light drawing white contrails across the sky. INS Pratap, Patrol Boat K93, wallowed in the heavy seas to starboard, her two forward SS-N-2 canisters open and empty, the cloud of smoke from the double launch still boiling across the water’s surface.
He’d hoped to get closer before launching, much closer. The American carrier was barely in range of the giant missiles now, and the launch would alert the U.S. squadron that it was under attack.
Control reasserted itself. Whatever Pratap’s problem — equipment failure or accident in the rough seas, over-eagerness on the part of her weapons officer — what was done was done. He would have to make the best of it.
“Captain!” he barked. “Stand by to launch!”
“Sir!” Lieutenant Shahani, Pralaya’s commanding officer, snapped out in his best academy officer-on-parade voice. Afraid of crossing the tiny flotilla’s CO, Chaudry decided. The thought made him grin.
“We might as well hit them with everything we’ve got!”
“Sir!” Shahani began giving the orders to his weapons officer. The missiles’ inertial programming was already complete — it could have been a fault in Pratap’s inertial circuitry that had caused the premature launch, Chaudry thought — and all that remained was to release the safeties and fire. The SS-N-2s self-armed after launch.
Chaudry was aware that the Osa squadron’s part in Operation Python was a small one, a means of dividing the Americans’ defensive forces and forcing them to use up valuable anti-missiles, time, and fuel. Still, the thought that one of those sleek monsters now warming in their slatted tubes to port and starboard might be the one to strike the U.S. carrier and end the Yankees’ dreams of dominating India’s seas … “Pass the word to all boats,” he ordered. “Full launch, all craft.
Stand by!”
“Missiles one, two, three, and four ready,” Shahani replied.
“Very well.” He looked about the bridge, realizing that every eye was on him. “Signal the squadron. Fire.” He locked eyes with Shahani.
“Captain, you may launch.”
He’d been waiting for the order. “Missile one, fire!”
The narrow gray confines of Pralaya’s bridge were blasted by a deafening white sound, a waterfall of raw noise as flame and smoke engulfed the starboard bridge windows. Chaudry covered his ears with his hands.
While he’d been through training exercises often enough, this was the first time he’d ever fired an SS-N-2 for real. The sound was like nothing he’d ever imagined.
“Missile two … fire!” The weapons officer was shouting to be heard above the roar. “Missile three … fire!”