As they waited on the stern of Yorktown to be heloed back to their ships, the action reports from Saratoga filtered in. The second Soviet strike had been as bad as the first. Three more tiny frigates sunk, two Halsey-class destroyers badly damaged, one sinking, a guided-missile cruiser gone, Yorktown’s sister ship, Essex, in danger of sinking, and Saratoga had been hit four more times. Large deck carriers were supposed to be able to survive four cruise missiles — she had taken seven and was still afloat. Her flight deck was buckled and in shambles. She was dead in the water, engine rooms flooded, fires ravaging much of the inner hull.
Pratt announced later over the main radio net of his battle group that when Saratoga’s commanding officer asked for volunteers to try to keep her afloat, no able man would leave her.
The legend of the Battle of the Mediterranean was growing.
THE WAR IN SPACE
Russian reconnaissance satellites over the Mediterranean suffered the same ill effects from the nuclear blast as the Americans’. That was accepted by the Soviets. But timing was also to Soviet advantage, for they instituted a new series of launches from deep in the Soviet Union at Tyuratum, scheduled to achieve orbit after the old ones were rendered ineffective. Launches from Vandenburg Air Force Base soon followed. U.S. launch vehicles had been stockpiled for such an event; replacement recon packages were ready on the launch pads.
Anticipating the use of killer satellites was a specially trained squadron of Air Force F-15s armed with two-stage, warhead-carrying rockets. It was not difficult for the engineers in the United States to determine which were the killer satellites, and once identified, it was up to the F-15s to climb to maximum altitude and fire their rockets into space. In the vicinity of its target, each rocket could maneuver with tiny thrusters to achieve lock-on. At 17,000 plus mph, they disintegrated the Russian weapons.
The Soviet ASATs were actually orbiting satellites — but with one difference. They could maneuver in space, placing themselves in proximity with their target. Once in killing range, explosive charges propelled metal balls in the direction of their targets — which would be unable to maneuver. The outcome was much like the grape-shot used by sailing ships two hundred years before. Everything in its path was destroyed.
Unlike the action on the surface of the Mediterranean, the war in space was not initially harmful to human beings. Once the computers took over, it was artificial intelligence versus artificial intelligence. The intent of both sides was to deny the enemy the use of intelligence and communications at the most critical moment — when their forces were racing toward each other. The winner, according to the computers, would be the one that had the latest intelligence concerning the location of the enemy and the most advanced weapons systems employed at that moment.
Consequently, the space battle was not prolonged. Though both sides planned for the event, there were only so many rockets that could be positioned on the launch pads, only so many navigational, reconnaissance, or offensive weapons that could be placed atop the delivery systems. In the end, the space war — the first war of the future, the war that would shed no blood — was over in a matter of hours. The available machines had been exhausted.
Once again, it was up to the human intellect to determine the outcome.
ABOARD U.S.S. YORKTOWN, SOUTHEAST OF MALTA
Until the attack on the Saratoga battle group, Russian warships hung back. They remained close to friendly shores under the protection of their own air cover. Their mission was to advance under the envelope created by air-launched and sub-launched cruise missiles. The cruisers and destroyers were to mop up, to finish off the stragglers. Then they would move on the soft underbelly in support of amphibious invasions. A second front, if Russia controlled the North Atlantic, would be the kiss of death for NATO.
The picture beneath the surface remained murky for both sides. The objective of an attack submarine was to neutralize the aircraft carrier or any other capital ships. Often, this could be accomplished in conjunction with cruise-missile attacks by either surface ships or aircraft. But timing was vital, especially in the few short, crucial hours of actual combat. A submarine surfacing preliminary to the attack would be a sitting duck; after the attack, it would be unable to assist, its element of surprise compromised. To get into position to attack the surface force, a submarine was required to dispose of its own natural enemy — another submarine capable of equivalent stealth. Opposing groups of hunter-killer submarines were positioned in front of both Pratt’s and Konstantin’s battle groups. Their mission was to deny the other’s submarines the opportunity to break through into an attack position.
It quickly became a one-on-one situation that day. With detection capabilities greater than the range of their weapons, submarines attempted to outmaneuver each other to keep out of range, at the same time searching for a position to fire on the enemy. It was a prolonged, desperate cat-and-mouse game that could end only when one was sunk. In such engagements, the water would suddenly be full of torpedoes, each one intent on seeking out the target inserted by the mother-ship computer in its memory bank. A torpedo would attack on its own as long as its fuel held out. It was a deadly game — its outcome remained unknown to those who fought on the surface.
Tom Carleton looked from the shiny slick in the bottom of his coffee cup to the dim red lights above him. The last sip had been cold, the powdered cream at the bottom rancid tasting. The dregs reflected the reddish glow.
The status boards reflected the strategic situation in a ninety-degree arc from the Baltic Sea to North Africa. A second board displayed the area that he was specifically concerned with, the Mediterranean, and the enemy forces that would affect Yorktown and Kennedy’s battle group in the next few hours. The Soviet carrier group that had been off Alexandria the previous day was close to striking range — but not quite. Their job was not to initiate the attack on the American battle group. Both the Americans and the Russians knew that Kennedy’s group was much too strong, their attack aircraft superior to anything the Russians could yet launch from a carrier. But they should not retain that superiority after the initial salvo of cruise missiles — and that’s what the Russian group was moving up for now.
Saratoga’s group was no longer effective — what remained of it. An ASW squadron had been sent to their aid in an attempt to keep Soviet submarines from sinking the survivors. Though Saratoga’s group had been battered, they achieved what Admiral Pratt had most hoped for. They had absorbed the combined ravages of two cruise-missile salvos and submarine wolf-pack attacks, and enough of the ships were still afloat that they were keeping more units of the Soviet Navy busy than the enemy had obviously anticipated. That meant that the Russians were behind schedule. The elements of their fleet were not proceeding at the pace that Moscow had planned — and that was critical if the efforts in the Mediterranean were to coincide with the movement of the ground forces in Central Europe.
Saratoga had also contributed through the efforts of her attack squadrons. Their targets had been the closest air bases within the Iron Curtain; their purpose had simply been to take out as much Soviet airpower as possible and to destroy runways and base facilities. They had been successful. With assistance from the Air Force, they might have been overwhelming, but the latter had been withheld to support NATO ground forces in the event of attack. Kennedy had been much too far away to recover those few Saratoga aircraft that returned. They had either made their way to the few safe fields that were left within range, or they ditched. Their success had also verified a second factor that was accepted but never mentioned — once the shooting began, there would be no carrier for the surviving pilots to return to.