“TAO — Weapons Control. Six birds away, no apparent casualties. Targeted on Surface Contact Zero One.”
“TAO, aye. Keep hitting that surface track. Don’t let up until there’s nothing left but a hole in the water.”
Silva nodded her approval. She was about to issue amplifying instructions when the Sonar Supervisor’s voice blared from the 29-MC speakers.
“All Stations — Sonar has hydrophone effects off the port quarter! Bearing zero-niner-eight. Initial classification: incoming torpedo!”
Silva’s eyes darted to the tactical display screen, where a blinking torpedo symbol had appeared. “Come on,” she said. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
She looked around sharply. The Undersea Warfare Evaluator had surrendered his console to a radar operator, and the Computerized Dead-Reckoning Tracer hadn’t been restored after the missile hit.
In the heat of an air and surface fight, anti-submarine warfare assets had been pushed to the bottom of the priority list. Some of the sonar systems were apparently on line, and the sonar team was obviously still doing its job, but CIC was completely unprepared to handle a submarine threat right now.
Where the hell had the sub come from, anyway? There was no time to think about that.
Silva saw the Undersea Warfare Evaluator snatch a comm-set from a dead console, and jack the connector into an overhead panel.
He keyed his mike. “Crack the whip! Bridge — USWE. We have an in-bound torpedo. I say again — crack the whip!”
The reply was instant. “Crack the whip! Bridge, aye!”
The Officer of the Deck’s voice came over the 1-MC. “All hands stand by for heavy rolls while performing high-speed evasive maneuvers.”
In the background came the rising wail of the gas turbine engines as they spun up to maximum rpm. The ship would need flank speed to carry out the crack-the-whip anti-torpedo maneuver.
The deck heeled sharply to port as the Towers began the first in a series of high-speed hairpin turns. If executed properly, the maneuver would create numerous propeller wakes at narrow intervals. The incoming torpedo would have to sort through a convolution of crisscrossing wakes, as well as a chaotic zone of acoustic interference caused by uncontrolled cavitation from the ship’s screws.
According to the tactical manuals, the crack-the-whip maneuver was nearly seventy percent effective, providing it was used in conjunction with the towed acoustic decoy system called Nixie. Unfortunately, neither of the ship’s two Nixie units were deployed, and there wasn’t time to get one of them in the water.
The cant of the deck grew steeper as the ship accelerated into the turn. Silva grabbed the back of the TAO’s chair to steady herself against inertia, and the increasing incline of the deck.
She couldn’t remember how effective the maneuver was supposed to be without the Nixie decoys, but it was less than seventy percent. A lot less.
But this was not the time to get tunnel-vision about problems beyond her control. Given the current situation, the USWE had employed the only available defense against the torpedo. It would either work, or it wouldn’t. There was nothing else she could do to cope with the submarine threat, so it was time to focus on issues that she could control.
She shifted her attention to the missile symbols tracking toward the remaining Chinese destroyer. The six blue missile icons were packed so tightly together that they overlapped each other on the screen.
The SM-3 missiles were intended for use against other missiles, aircraft, and — occasionally — satellites. Their warheads were not designed to attack hardened warship targets, but they were fast. Their top speed was more than ten times as fast as the Harpoon anti-ship cruise missiles they were now pinch-hitting for.
Moving at nearly 5,200 knots, they covered the distance to the target in under half a minute. The six missile symbols converged on the symbol for the Chinese destroyer, and then disappeared. The icon for Surface Contact Zero One remained on the screen.
There was no way to evaluate how badly the enemy ship had been damaged by the multiple missile strikes. The Aegis computer system could not apply advanced reasoning, so it substituted simple binary logic. The target was still visible on radar, therefore the target still existed, ergo — it was time to hit the target again.
Another grumbling reverberation went through the ship, followed by an announcement over the tactical net. “TAO — Weapons Control. Six more birds away, no apparent casualties. Targeted on Surface Contact Zero One.”
The Tactical Action Officer was reaching to key his mike when the next report came in.
“TAO — Air. Four Bogies inbound. Two flights of two.”
The next wave of the air assault had begun.
The deck righted itself and then began tilting in the other direction as the ship went hard-to-starboard in its next evasion turn.
Silva spotted the four hostile aircraft closing on the tactical display. And she felt herself start to grin.
This was it. This was her Kobayashi Maru. This was her unwinnable scenario. A torpedo in the water, too many hostile aircraft to count, an unfinished shootout with a Chinese destroyer, and an enemy submarine. All happening at once.
Again, there was nothing she could do about it. Nothing, but keep fighting, and try to ride out the storm.
The TAO caught her eye. “Captain, request permission to engage inbound hostile air contacts.”
Silva nodded. “Permission granted. Hit ‘em! But do not let up on that surface contact.”
The TAO issued orders to Weapons Control, and eight more SM-3 missiles leapt into the fray.
And then the number of air contacts on the Aegis display began to multiply rapidly.
Silva’s grin grew wider. There were at least twenty new air tracks on the screen — more aircraft than she had ever seen, in even the most exaggerated training simulation. But the new symbols were not the warning red color of hostile forces. They were blue.
CHAPTER 54
The Air Controller’s voice was low, but distinct in the headphones of Rob Monkman’s flight helmet. “Hammer, Bandits three-one-zero, for eighty, Angels two-zero.”
For all its Spartan brevity, the communication was packed with information. The Air Controller had just informed the leader of Hammer Flight that hostile aircraft had been detected eighty nautical miles from Hammer’s position, bearing three-one-zero, flying at an altitude of 20,000 feet.
The lack of the modifiers ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ indicated that the enemy planes were not directly approaching, or running away from Hammer. The absence of other modifiers relegated the message to a simple update, for purposes of situational awareness. No action required, but keep your eyes open for the bad guys.
The flight lead’s response was even shorter. “Hammer.” Translation: This is Hammer Flight Leader. I hear and understand.
Monk checked his AN/APG-79 radar for any sign of the enemy aircraft. The green-on-green monochromatic display seemed to glow under the image intensification of his night vision goggles, but the screen was clear of hostile contacts. His plane’s radar hadn’t acquired the targets yet. Not really a surprise, considering the range.