One of the silicone patches had recently been removed, and a large data-transmission cable had been strung through the hole before a new silicone patch was applied. The cable ran from the command module out across space and connected to a port in America's cargo bay; the spaceplane had been secured beside Silver Tower by having America's manipulator arm grasp and hold the station's central keel. A few consoles had been removed on America's flight deck and a hasty rewiring job had also been managed there.
"Jon, we'll be ready to transmit in a few minutes," Saint-Michael radioed to Hampton aboard America.
"Roger," Hampton replied."
"TDRS set to fleet tactical, and TDRS link for America to Armstrong shows active and ready. Standing by."
Saint-Michael turned back to the master space-based radar console — actually, the one that was acting as the master display. Parts of the master console were spread throughout the module, but they had managed to cluster most of the important controls together to make it easier for one person to operate it. Ken Horvath took his place beside Saint-Michael and studied the displays, shaking his head, "I'm having trouble deciphering all this."
"I'll explain," Saint-Michael told him. "You may have to relay this information to Nimitz or Ticonderoga like an air traffic controller if the TDRS relay doesn't work. Okay, our SBR display computer is all gone, so it can't draw the informational maps and target symbols for us. But we still get the raw data that would have been fed into the SBR display computer — range, bearing, altitude, heading and velocity of the object being tracked. All of that is displayed on these two screens. The SBR can also analyze the target — tell us if it's an aircraft, a ship, its origin and even possible destinations and that's displayed on the left screen. You match up target designation codes to find which is which."
Horvath was feeling more confident. "Sounds easy enough."
"It isn't. The SBR can pick up objects weighing as little as a few hundred pounds, so we'll be getting a flood of information. We'll probably need to squelch some of the SBR data — delete the stuff we don't want to look at. We have a monitor that records what's being squelched but we can't see it from here. So be careful… If we link up with the Nimitz via TDRS, the third monitor here will show his position as well. I'm hoping that Ticonderoga's computers can digest these raw data into their information-center's digital display."
Saint-Michael checked the right-hand display. "Attention on the station. Target-area crossing." Then to Hampton aboard America, "Activate the TDRS link, Jon."
"Admiral, urgent message from the Ticonderoga."
Edgewater quickly read the message form. "Admiral, it's from Armstrong Space Station. They're back transmitting…"
Clancy was already staring in surprise at the liquid-crystal repeater display. It began to shimmer and undulate as if streams of phosphorescent water were pouring down its face. The numbers and scales of the display itself began to change at first, then the symbols of the ships belonging to the Nimitz carrier group. After a few moments land and political boundaries were drawing themselves at the upper edge of the screen.
And at the right-hand side of the screen was the Arkhangel carrier group, its escorts spread out into the "Russian star" formation. Soon even finer elements were being added: the display identified aircraft, helicopters, even types of radar emissions from each vessel. The side of the display showed codes belonging to each ship and its course and speed.
Clancy hurried over to the master CIC console and picked up a headset. "Patch me into Ticonderoga. I want to talk with the space station."
The relay took a few minutes, but Clancy soon heard the familiar crackle of the scrambled satellite transmission and another familiar sound… "Nimitz, this is Armstrong Station. How copy? Over."
"Jason, I'm damned. I heard someone in space command might get off their duffs and fix that station but I didn't dare believe it. Very glad to hear your voice."
"Likewise, Admiral," Saint-Michael said. "We don't have much time. I've passed the essentials to Ticonderoga but here's our situation: we're on an equatorial orbit this time. That means we have coverage of you for only twenty minutes every ninety minutes. That's twenty on, seventy off, twenty on, seventy off. Best we can do."
"I understand, Jas.That's fine. Hell, even twenty minutes of SBR data is valuable. Listen, what's your level of damage up there? Do you have any defense?"
Saint-Michael gave a sideways glance at Marty Schultz as he exited the command module hatch. "We're working on that, Admiral. We might even have a surprise for anybody who happens to drop in on us. Anyhow, we're hanging tight here. Out."
The attack plan had been coordinated down to the very second.
The six Soviet Tupolev-26 Backfire bombers attacking from Iran each carried one AS-6 Kingfish antiship cruise missile semirecessed along its centerline weapons hardpoint, plus two AS-12 Kegler antiradar missiles on the intake-weapons stations. At three hundred miles distance from the northernmost escorts of the American aircraft carrier Nimitz, the six Backfire bombers would launch their missiles from eleven thousand meters. Then as the six cruise missiles climbed and accelerated to their cruising altitude the bombers would drop low for the long overwater supersonic dash toward the fleet. Once within ninety kilometers of any American vessel, the Backfire bombers would launch their antiradar missiles at any acquisition of tracking radars they met up with.
At the same time as the AS-6 missile launches, the first wave of Sukhoi-27 Flanker fighters would launch from the Arkhangel toward the Nimitz. Along with the fighters, two waves of five supersonic swing-wing Sukhoi-24 Fencer bombers would launch from the escort attack-carriers Kiev and Novorossiysk and begin attacks on the Nimitz's escorts from the south and west. Each bomber carried two AS-12 antiradar missiles, four AS-16 advanced long-range armor-piercing missiles and one thirty-millimeter Gatling-type strafing gun with armor-piercing shells.
The two-pronged attack, involving twenty-four heavily armed supersonic aircraft, was timed to near-perfection. The copilot aboard the lead Backfire bomber, First Lieutenant Ivan Tretyak, was responsible for force-timing for the six Backfire bombers from the Caspian Sea aviation base at Baku. "Checkpoint coming up, copilot," the navigator-bombardier called up to Tretyak. "Ready, ready… now. "
"Seven seconds late," Tretyak said, checking his flight plan and chronometer. "New groundspeed, navigator?"
"Stand by… New groundspeed to next checkpoint — one-one-nine-five kilometers per hour."
"Copy," the pilot, Major Andrei Budanova, replied. Carefully watching his Dopler groundspeed readout, he nudged the throttle of his twin Kuznetsov NK-144 turbofans up until the groundspeed read the proper value, then reset the Backfire's wings until the proper launch angle of attack was reestablished. "Groundspeed set." He switched his radio to the air-to-air command frequency. "Ruzlan flight, new throttle setting ninety-four percent. Wing-sweep setting forty degrees. " His five wingmen acknowledged the call.
Perfect, the attack-formation commander told himself. Dead on time, six good bombers and not one hint of detection or threats anywhere. Perfect…
"Sir, SBR is reporting six large high-speed aircraft approaching on an intercept heading from the northwest. Armstrong Station's SBR is calling them Backfire bombers."
"Range?"
"Aircraft are still over Iran, sir," the seaman aboard the Nimitz said. "Six hundred sixty nautical miles and closing at Mach one. All still at high altitude."