“TACBOSS on the bridge!”
Amanda brushed past the light curtain, entering the star- and telescreen-lit dimness of the LPD’s bridge. As with everything else aboard the Carlson, this, too, was of cutting-edge sophistication.
The helmsperson, lee helm engine controller, and duty quartermaster sat at computerized workstations in comfortable airliner-style seats. A score of additional repeater monitors glowed in a double row above and below the broad bridge windscreen. Continuously updating, they kept the officer of the watch apprised of ship’s operations, the status of the surrounding environment, and the developing tactical situation.
Lack of information was no longer a problem. With a single sweep of her eyes, Amanda could access more information than she could ever dream of gaining from a ship’s phone talker. The new naval officer’s challenge was not in accessing. but in assessing and using this wealth to build a true situational awareness.
The input flowed in not only from the Carlson’s sensors, but from the Cunningham’s as well. The two warships were symbiotically connected via the multiple data links of their onboard Cooperative Engagement Battle Management Systems.
Cybernetically speaking, the task group was a composite fighting entity, capable of reacting to any perceived threat as a single focused force. Should it be necessary to launch Sea Fighters, LAMPS helicopters, or RPVs, they, too, could be merged into the Cooperative Engagement net, magnifying their fighting capacity.
Commander Lucas Carberry, the Carlson’s commanding officer, looked up from the central tactical display, his pink-jowled face underlit in the graphics glow.
“Captain,” he stated formally, “the task force has been brought to general quarters.”
Over the prior month of deployment, Amanda had come to find Carberry a bit too formal for the likely propagation of a real friendship. Likewise, she found his personal command style a touch too autocratic for her tastes. However, she did acknowledge the chunky, dapper little officer to be a master of the unique and highly specialized field of amphibious warfare.
Effectively driving a “gator freighter” is not a task for just anyone. In addition to requiring both a capable naval officer and a superb ship handler, the position demands an individual who has the nerve and the cold blooded steadiness required to take his vessel and crew into a high-risk situation and keep it there until the task at hand is accomplished.
Amanda had ascertained Carberry to be such a man, and she could forgive him a great deal because of it.
“Very good, Commander,” she replied, joining him at the tac table. “What’s our situation.”
“The Cunningham is currently our actively radiating vessel and is defense coordinator. Commander Hiro reports we have a single aircraft coming in from the southeast.” Carberry’s blunt fingertip indicated a yellow graphics track crawling up the display toward the blue task-force hack in the center. “He is requesting instructions, Captain.”
Amanda nodded. The Duke, with her more potent radars and weapons systems, usually served as the task force’s stalking horse, permitting the more vulnerable Carlson to run emission-silenced and fully stealthed, the link between their Cooperative Engagement systems maintained via intercept-proof laser com.
“Put me through to Commander Hiro.”
Carberry glanced at the battle-management specialist standing by silently at the far end of the tac table. Snapping his fingers softly, he pointed to one of the overhead screens. The enlisted woman’s fingers danced briefly over her keypad, calling up the hot talk-between-ships channel.
The flatscreen filled with the image of Amanda’s former executive officer, lounging back in what had been her captain’s chair in the center of the Cunningham’s Combat Information Center.
The seat suited the stocky Japanese-American, as Amanda had known it would. It was very much non-reg for an officer to directly move into the command slot of a ship he had served aboard as an exec. However, when Amanda had been called to serve with the Sea Fighters, she had pulled the strings required to ensure her ship would be left in hands she approved of.
“Good morning, Ken. What do you have for us?”
“Morning, ma’am,” he replied, nodding back. “We have an Aegis contact. A slow mover. Speed one hundred and forty knots. Altitude fifty feet. The Bogey is running under full EMCON. No IFF transponder. No radio. No radar. We have no absolute target ID at this time but we’re getting a rotor flicker off him. I’d call it a big ASW helicopter, maybe a Syrian Super-Hip.”
“Um-hum.” Amanda glanced down to the tactical display, studying the bogey’s track. Sub-hunter helos could be a threat to more than submarines. They could also carry antishipping missiles — big ones. “Any chance this fellow could just be passing through?”
“I would doubt it, Captain. He knows we’re out here and he’s coming for us. Shortly after he popped over the horizon, he turned onto a direct bearing with the task force. As he’s not radiating himself, he must be homing in on our radar emissions.”
Amanda looked up again, this time at the low-light television monitor covering the Carlson’s foredeck. One level below the LPD’s bridge, the hexagonal box launcher of bow RAM (Rolling Airframe Missile) system was autotracking on the approaching aircraft, guided by the targeting relay being received from the escorting cruiser. Farther forward, in the sixteen-cell Vertical Launch System inset into the main deck, a silo door had swung open, revealing the dark plastic water seal over a quad pack of Enhanced Sea Sparrow Missiles. Farther forward still, at the peak of the Carlson’s forecastle, a Marine missileer team crouched, the gunner holding the tube of a Stinger shoulder-launched SAM at the ready.
Beyond that, the nonreflective shadow of the Cunningham could be made out occulting the stars along the horizon. A look at yet a third screen verified that the cruiser’s bristling Standard IV batteries and five inch mounts were also on line and armed to fire. All told, her task force could throw up a five-layered defense against any air-launched attack.
Still, trusting implicitly in a line of defense, no matter how formidable was an act of military imprudence Amanda Garrett had long ago grown beyond.
The unknown was crossing the twenty-mile line on the tactical-display range scale. Who or whatever he was, there was no time left for dithering.
“Gentlemen, if our friend out there is listening to us, let’s give him something impressive to listen to. Commander Carberry, bring up your fire-control radars. Ken, have the task force designate the bogey. All effective systems.”
A yellow targeting box blinked into existence around the bat-shaped air target hack.
The threat boards on the approaching helo must have screamed in agony as the interlocking guidance beams of multiple gun and missile radars fixed onto the aircraft. In the international military lexicon, it was a demand, succinct and unmistakable.
“Account for yourself! Now!”
A few seconds later, a double line of transponder coding blinked into existence beside the outlined target hack. The tactical systems operator tilted her head, listening to the voice within her headphones. “CIC reports Contact Able is now emitting both Israeli Air Force and NAVSPECFORCE IFF codes.”