He looked the bird over and checked underneath, gave her the thumbs up, then signalled the ‘take tension’ signal. The yellow shirt looked both ways before doing his two-hand signals at once. One hand was raised with a palm open to indicate ‘off the brakes’ and the other hand was outstretched straight forward to indicate take tension.
The Hornet then squatted into position, now at the end of a loaded CAT. The yellow jacket shooter waved his hand in the air furiously for the ‘run-up’ signal.
Ruby set military power, raised the launch bar, ran the controls, and did a final check of the instruments. Finally, he gave her the ‘select afterburner’ signal, looking like raising the roof. She pushed the throttle through the gate, and flame roared out of the aft. She could feel the bird was straining to go.
Ruby Frances turned to the shooter and saluted. The shooter returned the salute, pointed to each of his final check items, and then he touched the deck and pointed forward, signalling the launch.
With unreasonable force, her head was slammed back into her seat, and she kept her hand on the stick as the F/A 18 rushed forward. Suddenly the deck disappeared. Then came that uncanny feeling where they dropped below the flight deck. The bird, a screaming epitome of power, climbed out and away.
“Yo, go, baby. Ride me,” shouted Rusty. “Ride me, No Bone. I’s a coming.” They climbed, gear up, now, 3,000 feet.
They carried LRASM to the fight. The missile was hungry; the loadmasters had seen to that. They’d painted on its side a statement: “Ivan, lock up your daughters.”
“Ok, Rusty, where’s that Russian asshole with the ships?”
“He be that a’way ma’am, 032 degrees.”
She pulled the aircraft to the right from windward to the heading. Slung under each Plastic Bug Hornet were LRASM — Long Range Anti Shipping Missiles — with a range of 350 miles. Approach guidance was by passive infra-red, and it was highly jamming resistant to decoys. They also carried the AGM-84 Harpoon with a range of 120 miles. Rusty slapped the instrument panel top as he went into the squadron rap.
“Yeah, uuhh. Yeah, uuhh. Believe this shit, ya better believe this shit. Yeah, uuhh. Believe this, uuhh, motherfuckers, uuhh, yeah. Ya better beware, watch out: the Jokers are coming, we ain’t smoking. We calls ourselves the Jokers cause we ain’t joking. Yeah, uuhh. Better beware; shit’s happenin’, and it happenin’ to you, happenin’ to you. We ain’t smoking, mothers; the Jokers are on their way.”
The flight held a loose formation at medium altitude. It wasn’t far away when they’d have to hit the deck to get low and undetectable. At the right point, a shit storm of LRASM would precede them, followed by Harpoon.
She made her way through cold seas, ever southward towards the enemy.
Nathan figured it was time to let Lucy out. The more information the better, and the tail could act as a decoy too.
“Benson, stream Lucy. She’ll keep you company.”
The sonar wizard grinned. “Aye, sir.”
The tail was streamed out a half a mile behind the boat. Lucy listened to the surrounding seas and fed her take into a Cray supercomputer on board, where it was processed and fed to the crew in a manageable form.
“Lucy’s feed is integrated into the boat's sonar. Nothing new, but more beautiful detail. Lucy loves the sea, sir.”
“You and her both. Range to the enemy?”
Benson changed a marker on his scope. “We have the picket ships off to port 10 miles. The bulk is centred around Tango one; Peter stands out, sir. He’s around 16 miles due south, southeast of us.”
Nathan pulled his sleeve back and looked at his Omega Seamaster. Its black face read 05.18 hours. “Planesman, new heading 160 degrees, speed 12 knots.”
“160 at 12, aye sir.”
The boat rolled to the left and then slowly came level. He beckoned Nikki over to the chart display. Red ships with text markers attached indicated the position of the enemy.
“I’m going to use this location as datum. We should be there in around 50 minutes.”
“Pointers, sir?”
“Scooby’s in tube six; Ren is ready to go too. They’ll wait.”
Nikki shook her head. “You know, I once had an offer of a teaching job at a college in Macon. But like a fool, I joined the Navy.” She grinned at him. “I wouldn’t miss this for all the world’s chocolate.”
“Yeah, tell you what? Let’s grab a coffee in the galley and get what’s-her-name Kelly to come along too. We’ll be back here 06.30.”
“Right, sir.” Nikki walked of aft to get her friend.
They sat and had coffees, laughing at stories and joking. It took his mind off the coming battle. All was ready; it was just waiting time, and this filled it very well.
Soon it was over, and it was back to the control room.
He checked the time: 06.40. “Planesman, come to 40 degrees, speed 15 knots.”
“Forty at 15, aye sir.”
USS Stonewall Jackson was heading right for the enemy’s center of mass. She was alone; one boat against a Fleet.
The view from the aircraft’s windows was a stark dark whiteness. Bob Jones’s night vision goggles gave a true colour image of the landscape, unlike the earlier ones he’d worn that gave a green tone and were a light and dark version of reality. These were almost as good as full daylight. The B52 was now at 200 feet altitude. Below, ice sped by.
“Coming up to release one, sir,” said Ricky Garcia, Weapons Officer.
“Priming racks one and two. Birds waking, L1, L2, L3, L4, L5, L6, all report diagnostics clean, giros spinning up. Rack two, birds one to four report clean and mean. Sir, we’ve two miles to run. Nothing on the VLA. Trickster warming up. Opening bomb bay doors.”
“Green on the comm panel,” said Jones. “Looks like Gen Cooper wants this done.”
Bob Jones pulled the stick back and climbed to 400 feet.
“Point two miles, sir. Ready, ready. Bombs away, launch.”
Six LRASM and four JASSM missiles fell from the bomb bay, the motors lit, and they sped off to their targets at sea.
“Dropping trickster…”
An air vehicle fell out and spread its wings, looking like a large missile with stubby wings. Trickster lit its motor and followed the weapons. The trickster would dispense decoy missiles as the main offensive force reached the Russian fleet; these short-range dispensable missiles would jink and turn as though hunting their target down. Enemy CIWS, ie short range Gatling guns and point defence missiles, wouldn’t know the difference and would waste rounds and missiles on the decoys.
“Chicken Owl one, the birds have flown.”
From the rest of the strike wing, reports came in.
“Chicken Owl two, birds away.”
“Chicken Owl three, birds away.” It went on.
“Chicken Owl eight, our birds are flying.”
“Chicken Owl one, well done, flight. We’ve done the dirty deed. Time to bug out.”
Jones turned the stick to the left and applied left rudder. In typical BUFF fashion, it took several seconds, then it happened. The huge aircraft pulled to the left, and he applied some power to compensate for the lift falling off. The B52 wasn’t easy to fly; everything took its own sweet time, but shit. It would do what you wanted every time, all the time. It was a rock in the sky — in the nicest possible way, of course.
South of their position, Betty Boop’s boys’ F15 Strike Eagles were running in low and mean.
“Betty lead, come up 200. Closing on release datum. Two miles run. Ok, boys, wake those mothers up. It’s time for the missiles to get their asses out of bed.”
“Copy, lead.”
They all responded. Lead counted down, watching the release computer screen. He activated auto arm; the screen flashed amber.