“Eagle Flight, I’m Winchester,” Roscoe said, letting whoever was left know he was down to guns only.
He pushed his jet past the MiG flat-spinning into the waves below, maxing the power to try to run down the cruise missiles starting to accelerate into the distance. Above him, the Russian and American jets grappled in a final violent confrontation that took six Russian missiles and two more MiGs out of the sky but also resulted in the destruction of three of the four American F-15s.
He’d hoped to catch one of the missiles with a lucky shot from his guns, but his luck had run out; the F-15’s damaged vertical stabilizer broke away like a shingle in a hurricane. “So there’s me,” said Roscoe to himself as he struggled with the bucking plane.
He eyed the ocean below, looking for the driest spot to ditch in. The left engine began to sputter. His war would end now. Roscoe took his left hand off the stick and reached for the yellow metal bar by his knee on which his crew chief had jokingly written Do not touch! in felt-tip marker. The plane’s violent pitching made getting a grip on the ejection handle far harder than he’d expected.
USS Zumwalt Ship Mission Center
“Twenty-six missiles incoming, sir,” said Richter with the kind of detachment that often accompanies extreme fear. “ATHENA shows Port Royal counterfiring.”
While not of the same design, the Port Royal was a sister ship of sorts to the Z. She had been the youngest of the navy’s Ticonderoga-class cruisers, and one of the first with the ability to shoot down ballistic missiles as part of the Navy’s Linebacker program. But in 2009, when it ran into a coral reef about a half a mile from the Honolulu airport, the ship earned a new, cruel nickname. The Port Coral, as it became known, didn’t sink, but the extensive damage to the ship’s hull, propellers, and sonar dome put the U.S. Navy’s then youngest cruiser on the target list for early retirement to the Ghost Fleet.
The Port Royal fired a wave of SM-3 air-defense missiles that sped upward from the vertical launchers embedded in its deck. The missiles arced up and then pitched down toward the low-flying cruise missiles. A wave of Seasparrow defensive missiles followed.
The collisions were almost instantaneous, showering the ocean surface with flame, fuel, and metal shards.
“I count that as fourteen hit, sir. We have twelve still incoming,” said the sailor.
“Full countermeasures and launch the Utah,” said Simmons.
A large metal canister that had been affixed to the Zumwalt’s stern separated from the ship with a loud bang. It popped thirty feet into the air and then dropped into the water with an anticlimactic splash, bobbing up and down.
Vern, who had been out on the deck checking a power-cable connection during a lull in the rail-gun fire, stopped to watch as the massive gray form the Z was leaving behind began inflating.
Mike ran up to her yelling, “We need to get back inside!”
Vern gave him a puzzled look and then returned her attention to the growing form, the words USS Utah unfurling on its side in white paint as it inflated. “What is it?”
“Now, Vern, move!” Mike half carried her roughly back to the shelter of the main superstructure. He steered her below decks and talked at the same time, occasionally pausing to catch his breath. “USS Utah was an old World War One battleship. By the time of the first Pearl Harbor attack, it had been turned into a floating naval target ship for our own gunners to practice on. But when the Japanese attacked in ’41, their pilots saw what looked from above like a real battleship. The old Utah was sunk, but not before she soaked up a ton of bombs that the enemy could have used on other, better targets. Our Utah is supposed to do the same.”
As they descended deeper into the ship, the matte-gray bag behind the Z continued to expand until it formed the silhouette of a small warship, with metallic reflective squares on it enhancing its signature. With a jerk, the towline finally paid out a quarter mile behind the ship, and the Utah now followed the Zumwalt, matching its speed.
“Sir, ATHENA says the incoming missiles are selecting targets. Twenty seconds out,” said the sailor in the mission center.
“ATHENA, full autonomous mode! Authorization Simmons, four, seven, Romeo, tango, delta,” said Simmons quickly.
The ship’s laser-point defense fired first. There was no noise or visible light and only faint, almost delicate movements as the solid-state, high-energy laser fired. It was a moment of faith for the crew, as the weapon lacked the certainty of gunpowder. The ship’s laser-gun camera showed a small flame spark on the target as the hundred-kilowatt beam came into contact with it. The missile caught fire and sank into the water. Then ATHENA automatically directed it to track and fire on a second missile.
At the same time, two Metal Storm computerized machine-gun turrets on the Zumwalt’s port and starboard sides came out of sleep mode. The weapons started to move back and forth, tracking the incoming cruise missiles with what looked like a predator’s patience. Then they locked targets and fired. The brief electronic zipping sound the guns made when they fired was as anticlimactic as it was effective; thousands of bullets shot out all at the same instant.
The Russian Zvezda KH-31 missiles were programmed to feint and dodge as they flew just above the ocean surface in order to complicate a defense’s firing solution. That tactic was of no use against the Metal Storm, as the missiles flew right into what was almost literally a wall of bullets.
“Seven missiles left,” said the tactical action officer.
“Activate Utah’s radar beacon,” said Simmons.
The remaining seven missiles’ ramjets kicked in, accelerating them to nearly three times the speed of sound as they closed on the task force, flying just fifty feet above the rippling sea surface.
As another missile was plucked away by a laser fire, the missiles broke formation like a startled flight of birds. Their targeting program picked out the largest ships in the task force. Two missiles vectored off toward the Zumwalt; two turned for the USS New York, a twenty-five-thousand-ton amphibious transport dock ship; two homed in on the USS America.
Aboard the Zumwalt, the Metal Storm turrets zip-fired again, and one of the incoming missiles turning toward the America disappeared with a spray of shrapnel.
Simmons held his headset mike close to his mouth with one hand and braced himself against the railing of the ship mission center’s second story with the other, looking at the sailors below him. “All hands, all hands. Incoming missiles, prepare for impact.”
As the two missiles sped toward Zumwalt, one appeared to twitch. It broke off and slammed into the Utah, the missile’s electronic brain registering what a human brain would have felt as satisfaction when it found its supposed target. The decoy ship exploded with a massive eruption of air and water.
The second cruise missile stayed true to its targeting-software designer’s intent. It made a final course correction and then enveloped the Zumwalt in a bloom of orange flame. The explosion rocked the ship, sending a shock wave through the mission center and tossing the captain over the center’s railing.
When he came to, Simmons found himself on the lower level of the ship mission center. He pulled himself up by the arm of the radar operator’s chair. Richter reached over and gave him a hand and then turned back to her screens. His back ached, but otherwise he seemed fine. Less so the room. Two of the wall screens had fallen off their mounts, one hitting the tactical action officer, who looked to have a broken collarbone. Acrid smoke made Simmons’s eyes water.
“Somebody get the air back on,” he shouted. He looked for Cortez. He had been beside him a second ago, but now he was gone.