Countdown c-6, page 30
part #6 of Carrier Series
Another target, one not yet successfully hit, had been Marine Air; after all, why should the Marines have their own combat aircraft when America had an Air Force?
Of course, those ideas had been fielded by the same folks who thought that the Navy should lose its strike aircraft. The blind, stupid REMFs who made such suggestions, Rivera decided bitterly, had never been in a foxhole with enemy artillery ranging in on their position.
The bombardment of the Marine position continued, gouts of mud and smoke thundering into the sky with each shrieking rattle of incoming fire. Moments later, though, a Marine sheltering nearby poked his head up and shouted, "Here come the A-6s!"
"Go Marines!" another voice echoed, but Rivera already had his binoculars pressed to his face, studying the gray, blunt-nosed planes howling down over the Kola Inlet from the north. "Those aren't Marines," he yelled, reading the block letters printed on each fuselage. "They're Navy!"
"Go Navy! Go Navy!" Traditional interservice rivalries were forgotten as the Intruders skimmed the hilltops above Polyamyy in a north-to-south run, coming in impossibly low. Bombs spilled from wing pylons, flashing in the sun as they tumbled end-for-end… and then the hill above Polyamyy vanished in a volcanic eruption of churning orange flame, fireballs boiling hundreds of feet into a smoke-splashed sky.
"Not bad, for squids," Larson said with a casual shrug. "Marines would've come in lower."
But it was better than "not bad," Rivera knew. Those A-6s had been dead on target, and the pounding of the 1/8 and 3/8 positions had instantly ceased.
Raising the radio receiver to his ear again, he began to pick out targets among the ships and subs clustered in the water below his position, calling them back to the battle-management people waiting offshore.
In the distance, as the hilltop continued to burn, the first Marine Super Stallions were already touching down outside of Polyamyy itself.
1230 hours
Kandalaksha Command Center
Kola Peninsula
"I thought you said you would be ready!" Karelin thundered into the mouthpiece of the red telephone he held clenched in one hand. "You should have been at sea by now!"
"We are ready, Comrade Admiral," Chelyag's voice replied. "We have been ready for the past eight hours. But the Americans-"
"Audacious Flame cannot wait on the Americans, and it cannot wait on you!
If your vessel is ready to put to sea, then go! Immediately!"
"Sir, there are reports of American Marines landing on the heights above cavern Three. Our forces are scattered or in retreat. A Naval Infantry colonel told me five minutes ago that there is fighting inside Polyamyy now!
The skies above the Kola Inlet are commanded by their planes! It is twenty-five kilometers to the open sea. We would never make it all the way!"
Karelin paused, then took a deep breath, forcing himself to stay calm.
Chelyag could have no idea of what was at stake here. "Listen carefully to me, Comrade Captain. Your original orders called for you to reach a strategic bastion before surfacing and carrying out the final part of your orders. But at this point, the launch itself is of more importance than the continued threat of your vessel. You could launch immediately, as soon as you are clear of the cavern."
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Karelin waited patiently, the phone to his ear. In the distance, outside the walls of his bunker, he could hear the dull thunder of a far-off bombing raid, the crump of antiaircraft guns, the distant wail of a siren. Things were going wrong, very wrong. Hours ago, Leonov's 5th Blue Guard had crossed the Volga at Simbersk.
Krasilnikov's senior strategists felt they were making an all-out drive on Novgorod, four hundred kilometers east of Moscow. Leonov's forces had to be stopped now, before they managed to isolate Moscow and the far north from loyal troops and supplies east of the Urals.
"You want me to launch as soon as I am clear of the cavern."
"Exactly, Comrade Captain. One missile, targeted on Chelyabinsk. After that, you will make your way up the inlet and into the Barents Sea."
"If possible." Chelyag sounded bitter.
"Yes, Chelyag. If possible."
"American air superiority-"
"Fuck American air superiority! I am giving orders now to the 23rd and 47th Frontal Aviation Regiments at Revda and Kirovsk to scramble immediately, to put everything they have into the skies over the Kola Inlet. The American air groups are tired and over-extended. They have already suffered heavy casualties. In one hour, you will see nothing but MiGs above Polyamyy. You have that long to get Leninskiy Nesokrushimyy Pravda under way."
There was another hesitation. "Very well, Admiral. It will be done."
"I am counting on you, Chelyag. Marshal Krasilnikov is counting on you."
"I am very sure my men will appreciate that. Sir."
Had that been sarcasm putting a bite to Chelyag's voice? As he hung up the phone, Karelin could not be sure.
1245 hours
Viper ready room
U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson
Tombstone walked into the ready room changing area without knocking.
After all, most of the squadron's flyers were either in the air or up in Ops or the CIC. But Lieutenant Commander Joyce Flynn was already there, and Tombstone caught a glimpse of long legs and small, bare breasts before he hastily looked away. Carefully avoiding either looking at her or too obviously looking away, he began pulling off his own uniform.
"I heard you're going up, CAG," Flynn said behind him. He turned to answer, and blinked. Wearing nothing but a pair of plain, white panties, she was watching him with a frank lack of embarrassment or self-consciousness. In one hand she held one of the bulky, rubberized survival suits. "Whatcha say, sailor? Can I hitch a ride?"
He gave her a wry smile. Nightmare had been disgusted at having his aircraft downgrudged, but he'd accepted Tombstone's suggestion that he make himself useful in Ops without argument. That had left Tomboy, his RIO, with some unexpected downtime. As hard as everyone in the squadron had been driving, he'd not expected her to squawk about that.
"You know, Commander," he told her carefully, "that might not be a real smart career move."
"Hey, you need an RIO, right?" She ran her free hand through her red brush-cut hair and dramatically tossed her head. She had pale skin highlighted by densely scattered freckles that went clear down to her chest and shoulders, green eyes, and an impish grin, all of which contributed to her decidedly less-than-military look at the moment. "I'm your man!"
Damn, he would need a RIO. The F-14 could be flown solo, barely, but it wasn't a pleasant experience ― about like playing piano with one hand while typing a letter with the other ― and it was suicide in a dogfight. He'd not been thinking ahead. Hell, maybe he needed someone in the back seat just to watch over him.
Tombstone sighed, then shook his head. "Get your shit on, Commander.
And move your tail. We don't have much time."
CHAPTER 28
Tuesday, 17 March
1305 hours (Zulu +2)
Flight deck
U.S.S. Thomas Jefferson
Twenty minutes later, helmets in hand, Tombstone and Tomboy strode side by side across the flight deck toward Tomcat 200, parked on Jefferson's port side just aft of the island. The "CAG bird," normally reserved for Tombstone when he wanted to log some hours, was being readied by several men in green shirts with black stripes, the air wing men who performed aircraft maintenance.
Before boarding, Tombstone and Tomboy both circled the aircraft, checking for faults, open access panels, and tugging at the weapons to make sure they were secure. Four Sidewinders and four AMRAAMs were slung beneath its belly and wings. Stores of AIM-54Cs had been running low, and in any case, the fighting over the Kola had mostly been close-in combat, a real waste of the high-tech, million-dollar Phoenix missiles. As Flynn settled into the rear seat and pulled her helmet on, Tombstone finished his walk-around, then clambered up the ladder and swung into his seat.
"You're already checked out and on the flight plan, CAG!" the plane chief, a burly man in a brown jersey, called up to him. "They're squeezing you in on Cat One right behind a KA-6."
Tombstone saluted his acknowledgment, then began running through his preflight list. He wasn't entirely sure why he was doing this… except for the obvious fact that his people had taken some heavy losses so far, and maybe he could help fill in.
Morale was still bad, and it would be worse when they started realizing their losses. More of them might be tempted into stupid stunts like the one that had killed Striker and K-Bar.
Maybe if the Old Man put in an appearance, it would help pull things together.
Hell, he was guessing and he knew it. Coyote and Batman were doing fine out there without him. But he wanted to be there. With them. With his people.
"Now hear this" blared from a 5-MC speaker on the carrier's island. "Now hear this. Rig the barricade. That is, rig the barricade. Crash crew, fire and medical personnel, stand ready on the after deck."
Uh-oh. Tombstone twisted in his seat, studying the hazy sky aft of the Jefferson. That would be Shotgun One-three coming in. He'd been following the damaged plane's progress down in Ops, and he'd reluctantly agreed to Arrenberger's request that he try to trap on Jefferson's deck rather than eject over the sea. There was still no response from his RIO. If Blue Grass was still alive, the violence of an ejection ― or of plummeting unconscious into ice-cold water ― would almost certainly kill him. Slider wanted to bring his crippled F-14 in ― a risk, certainly, but the only way to save Blue Grass's life. Tombstone had been in the same position once, years before, trying to get down on the deck with a wounded RIO.
Just aft of where Tombstone and Tomboy were sitting ― a fifty-yard-line seat if ever there was one, he thought ― two lines of deck personnel were busily erecting the crash barricade, a horizontal ladder of wire and fabric strips designed to stop an aircraft that, for whatever reason, could not make a normal arrested landing. Tomcat 209 had one engine out, and if his tailhook failed to engage an arrestor wire, he wouldn't have the power necessary to complete a touch-and-go and would bolter off the forward end of the flight deck again. For that reason, Slider and Blue Grass would be making a barrier landing.
Nearby, men in red jerseys with black stripes stood ready to go, fire extinguishers in hand, some of them crouched atop deck tractors rigged out as fire-fighting vehicles. Men in white with red crosses were hospital corpsmen, standing by with first-aid kits and wire-frame Stokes stretchers. The ungainly struts and braces of the four-wheeled aircraft-handling crane known as "Tilly" loomed above them in the lee of Jefferson's island. One man standing on the crane was completely anonymous, clad head to toe in brightly reflecting flameproof silver. He had one job only. If Shotgun One-three crashed and burned, he would be the one to brave fire and exploding fuel in an attempt to pull Slider and Blue Grass from the wreckage.
Looking aft again, Tombstone saw the Tomcat, dropping toward Jefferson's roundoff. Across the deck from him, the LSO and his crew were at their station in front of Jefferson's meatball, guiding the crippled aircraft down its long glide-path toward the steel deck. Closer… closer… nose high, flaps down, gear down… With its wings extended, the F-14 was a "floater," generating tremendous lift, and now it appeared to be suspended, hanging almost motionless in the sky astern of the carrier. Tombstone found himself willing the aircraft safely onto the deck…
… and suddenly it was dropping with alarming speed, plummeting after its own shadow across the roundoff, slamming down with a shriek of rubber on steel, sweeping ahead with a deafening roar into the barricade. Smoke boiled from the starboard engine… and then the nose wheel gave way, and the nose smacked onto the deck with a shattering rasp and showering sparks, plunging through the barricade. The fluttering straps of the barrier seemed to gather Slider's Tomcat in, before collapsing across the aircraft's wings and tail.
The crash crew was already rolling, surrounding the plane in seconds, the yellow-painted Tilly lumbering forward with its crane extended, the sailor in the flameproof suit clinging to one of its struts.
Tombstone found he was holding his breath. In seconds, someone had the Tomcat's canopy up, and they were helping Slider out of the cockpit. It took a few moments more to get Blue Grass out. From some two hundred feet away, Tombstone could see the sickening slime of blood covering the RIO as the crash crew pulled him free and strapped him into a Stokes stretcher.
"My God," he heard Tomboy say. "His legs are gone!"
Whatever had hit Tomcat 209 had slammed up through the belly and severed Blue Grass's legs between hips and knees. The man was dead; he must have bled to death moments after he was hit. "You still want to go?" he asked Tomboy over the ICS.
"Yes." There was none of the usual imp's humor in her voice. "But let's move it, okay?"
Around them, the carrier's deck operations continued their never-ending dance-on-the-deck. Launch ops had slowed their tempo quite a bit to accommodate aircraft coming in for recovery, and the Air Boss was alternating launches from the bow cats with traps astern. After the frantic activity of earlier that morning, and with brief, adrenaline-charged intervals such as Slider's barrier trap, the work load seemed almost light, the men going about their tasks with a casual jauntiness that belied their exhaustion.
The initial checkout complete, with Tomboy reporting all circuit breakers set and systems go, he switched on the engines. As the power built, he felt the aircraft shuddering, as though yearning to free itself from the confines of steel deck and sheltering hangar, to fling itself at the sky.
"Tomcat Two-zero-zero, Air Boss."
Uh-oh. If it was coming, here it was. "Two-double-oh. copy."
"CAG. I got someone here wants to talk to you."
"Put him on."
"CAG? This is Admiral Tarrant."
"Yes, sir." Tombstone had been gambling that Tarrant would take no notice of his unauthorized launch… or better, that he wouldn't find out until after Tombstone was away from the Jeff. Tombstone would not refuse a direct order to stand down, but he desperately hoped that that order would not be given.
"Stoney, Air Ops reports real heavy action over the Inlet above Polyamyy.
Watch your ass in there, do you hear?"
"Yes, sir!"
"That's one expensive item of machinery you've got there. Bring it back in one piece."
"Aye, aye, sir!" Tombstone found himself grinning idiotically.
A plane director was backing away ahead of the Tomcat, motioning Tombstone on. Carefully, he let up the brakes and followed, threading the thirty-ton aircraft past Slider's and Blue Grass's fallen, nose-down F-14 and toward the bow catapults.
1314 hours
Tretyevo Peschera
Near Polyarnyy, Russia
Captain First Rank Anatoli Chelyag leaned out over the edge of the cockpit, located high atop the Typhoon's sail. Naval Infantry troops lined the pier to which Leninskiy Nesokrushimyy Pravda had been moored, the younger ones among them looking scared as the sounds of gunfire continued to echo distantly through the cavern.
Line-handlers ashore had already cast off the enormous wire ropes securing the Typhoon to the bollards. Chelyag was watching now as the distance between pier and the sloping flanks of the behemoth he commanded gradually widened.
"We're clear to port now," he said, speaking into a telephone handset.
"Ahead slow."
"Ahead slow, Captain" came the reply from the officer at the helm in Pravda's control center.
The huge submarine picked up momentum, gliding through the filthy water with a sullen chug-chug-chug of her enormous screws. Chelyag remembered again Karelin's voice as he'd ordered the Pravda out of the cavern and into the hellfire outside. Reach the Barents Sea? They would be lucky if they cleared Polyamyy Inlet and made it to the main channel. Admiral Marchenko had been sending down hourly reports. That last one had spoken of Marines on the hillside directly above Pravda's hiding place.
But there was no refusing Karelin's orders. Chelyag would do as he'd been commanded, clear Tretyevo Peschera, then fire missile number one, already targeted on Chelyabinsk. After that… well, their survival depended entirely on the Frontal Aviation units now closing on Polyamyy from the south.
He brought the telephone to his mouth again. "Commander Mizin. Pass the word ashore to open the cavern doors."
"Yes, Comrade Captain." There was a pause. "Captain? We have a message from Admiral Marchenko."
"Read it to me."
"He says… 'Good luck, Pravda. Go with God.""
Chelyag could almost see the sneer, the curl to Mizin's lip, as he recited the message. His First Officer was a good atheist, a man who'd hoped with an almost religious passion that the return of no-nonsense hard-liners to power in Moscow would mean an end to the religious mania that had exploded throughout the nation during the days of Gorbachev and Yeltsin.
Evidently, he'd been disappointed.
"Tell Admiral Marchenko, 'Thank you. Message received and very much appreciated.""
And what, he wondered, did Mizin think of that?
1317 hours
Tomcat 200
Over the Kola Inlet
"We're coming up on the coast," Tomboy said over the ICS. "Feet dry."
"More or less," Tombstone replied. "We're not over land yet."
He'd swung far out to the east of the carrier battle force, skimming past the Marine amphibious fleet, then cutting south down the Kola Inlet itself.
The mouth of the gulf was four miles across here. East were the low, rounded hills of the island of Ostrov Kildin. Military-looking settlements were scattered along both coastlines, among bare-faced cliffs and gleaming patches of ice and snow. Ice still sheeted over much of the waterway, though the center of the narrow gulf had been kept open by icebreakers.
Smoke coiled away into the sky to the right. The western shore of the inlet at this point was held by American forces, the east by Russians. A large ship ― Tombstone thought it might be a destroyer ― lay half-submerged in the shallows near the west bank, beneath a greasy pall of smoke and surrounded by ice. Beyond, helicopters darted, insect-like, beneath the writhing tendrils of high-altitude contrails.
