Choosers of the Slain

by James H. Cobb

  DRAKE PASSAGE

  1630 HOURS: MARCH 25, 2006

  They committed to the intercept. The Duke held her course to the southeast as the Argentine spy satellite arced overhead. The moment it dropped below the horizon, however, she came about to the north, closing the range with her potential foes with every beat of her racing propellers.

  Both of her helos scrambled, each lifting into the sky on its assigned mission. Retainer Zero Two, with the radome of a Clear Water Airborne Early Warning pod bulging beneath one snub wing, took up its point station twenty miles ahead of the destroyer's bow, matching her course and speed. From here, serving as a mini-AWACS aircraft, her radar coverage would provide the sole link between the Cunningham and Retainer Zero One as the latter ranged ahead along their enemy's potential line of attack.

  The Cunningham's first team was fully closed up in the Combat Information Center. Amanda slouched in her command chair and used the sidearm keypad to flip the Large Screen Display from augmented computer simulacra to live radar and back again. The image being received from the hovering helicopter lacked the range and definition of the ship's big SPY-2 A arrays. They were just barely pulling in , the ghostly outline of the coast of Isla Grande and Cape Horn.

  Dix Beltrain rested his hand on the back of her chair and quietly asked, "Captain, may I speak with you privately for a moment?"

  Her normally amiable tactical operations officer had been quiet and indrawn ever since the Argentine attack. Amanda had sensed the crisis building and she'd been preparing for it.

  "Sure, Dix," she replied, sliding out of her chair. She led Beltrain to the quiet rear corner of the compartment next to the ubiquitous Navy-issue coffee urn.

  The younger officer was holding himself almost at parade rest as he began to speak in a low voice. "Captain, I need to confer with you about something that happened! during the Argentine air strike."

  "Presumably the total hash you made of our ESSM area defense during the engagement?"

  "That's it, ma'am. I bitched it! I bitched it really bad. I saw that those Exocets were crossing into the point defense zone. The warning flags had come up on my tactical screen. I knew that they were passing out of a successful engagement envelope and I still tried to set up a shot instead of shifting fire to the Rafale flights. I... I have no excuses or explanations, Captain."

  "You don't, Lieutenant?" Amanda replied mildly. "I do. It's a phenomenon my dad would have called 'buck fever,' probably mixed with a little whiff of raw terror."

  "Not just a whiff, ma'am. I was scared shi-- I was scared so badly that I made a critical error and I endangered the ship. I believe it's my duty to point this out to you, and to give you the option of pulling me out of the command loop."

  "Dix, a short time ago, some very capable people were trying very hard to kill us. They came very close to succeeding. The individual who wasn't scared under those circumstances would be the one I'd be inclined to pull out of the loop, primarily because it would be plain that they'd become detached from reality."

  Beltrain shook his head emphatically. "That isn't the point. I locked up so bad that I fumbled it. I should have been engaging those other bomber elements. I could have broken up the strike before they got within kill range. Instead, all I could see were those damn missiles coming in on us. I screwed up, ma'am!"

  Amanda shrugged. "I won't argue the point, Mr. Beltrain. You most definitely screwed up. Realistically, though, wouldn't that same potential have existed for anyone I might have put on the main console?

  "Someday, when you and he both have a little spare time, ask Chief Thomson about his experiences during Desert Storm. He was aboard the old Sacramento at the time, and he will vividly describe to you what it was like tending a fire room in the Red Sea in one-hundred-and-twenty-degree weather for six straight months. He's the closest thing to a combat veteran we have aboard this ship.

  "Come to think of it, I believe this was the first instance of a United States naval vessel coming under air attack since the Persian Gulf tanker war. So, if I pulled you off the main console, I'd be bouncing the most experienced missileer currently serving in the United States Navy. That would be a rather stupid thing to do, in my opinion."

  Beltrain ran his hand through his perspiration-damp hair. "That doesn't cover for the fact that I still committed a major error, ma'am."

  "Join the club. I imagine that when we conduct a post-action analysis on this furball, we're going to discover that a lot of people made errors. I'm willing to concede that I made mine. The thing is, we survived and we learned. We're blooded now. We won't make so many mistakes next time.

  "Don't get me wrong, Dix. I'm not tossing off what happened today. I just believe that you're still the best man available for the job. Now, push all of the guilt-trip cow hockey aside and give me a straight answer. If I leave you on the main console, will this happen again?"

  He took a deep, deliberate breath. "No, ma'am. It will not."

  "Okay, then." Amanda grinned and made a quick cross-shaped gesture in the air. "I grant you absolution. Go forth and sin no more, my son. Now get back to work."

  "Aye, aye, Captain." Beltrain grinned back, the weight on his shoulders starting to lift.

  From up forward, the Aegis systems operator called out sharply, "Distant contact! Slow mover turning south-southwest off Isla Grande beacon. Range two hundred and twenty miles, altitude eighteen thousand feet, bearing zero degrees relative off the bow. Multiple contacts!"

  Three fast steps took Amanda and her TACCO back to their workstations. A single fast look fixed the location of the air-target symbol drifting out of the Isla Grande ground clutter. There was no precise position hack for Retainer Zero One being displayed. The Sea Comanche was running fully stealthed and radio and radar silenced, invisible even to the Cunningham's advanced sensors. There was only an outlined block of space, indicating its estimated position, dead-on between the Duke and the advancing Argentine strike. A phantom guardian waiting for its enemies to cross its path.

  "Bring up your LORAIN flights, Mr. Beltrain." All trace of humor and warmth had left Amanda's voice. "Fight's on."

  One hundred and fifty miles off the Cunningham's bow and a meager fifty off the Argentine coast. Retainer Zero One circled just above the wave tops, her low-visibility paint merging into the color of the sea.

  Arkady used the trackball on the end of his collective-control stick to call up the fuel-status chart on his engineering telepanel.

  "Okay, Gus, fuel transfer complete. Internal cells to one hundred per. Stand by to get rid of the tanks."

  "Rog."

  Vince slid the cursor across the monitor face to the actions menu and into the "Exterior Tank Jettison" detente and squeezed the actuator trigger. He was rewarded with the clank of releasing shackles. The drop tanks scarcely caused a splash as they hit the water.

  "Green indicators. Verify me."

  In the air cockpit, the AC 1 twisted in his harness to port and starboard, peering aft and down at the helo's snub wings. "Tanks are clear, sir. Can't see any system leakage."

  "Okeydoke. How's the downlink look?"

  "Pickup is nominal and a clear board, and I hope it stays that way."

  "Show a little spunk there, fellow. Here we are, a couple of Uncle Sam's fighting bluejackets, out 'mid wind and wave, volunteering to do some of that hero shit for Mom, apple pie, and the girl next door."

  "Volunteer! I didn't volunteer for nothing!"

  "You were busy. I did it for you."

  "Fuck you very much, sir."

  "What was that, sailor?"

  "I said, 'Thank you very much, sir!'"

  "You're welcome, Gus."

  Grestovitch went back to brooding over his systems displays. He liked Lieutenant Arkady and enjoyed flying as his SO more than with any other pilot he'd ever been teamed with. The Lieutenant was a mustang; he'd started out as an enlisted man himself. He'd laugh and talk with you like you were both real human beings, and as long as you did your job, he wou
ldn't get in your face over the small shit.

  The downside was that you could find yourself doing foaming-at-the-mouth crazy stuff like this.

  For a moment, the AC considered the possibility that Arkady might be studding off for the benefit of their new lady captain, then he rejected the notion. If the Skipper had been fifty years old, male, and as ugly as a bucket full of assholes, they'd still probably be out here.

  LAMPS systems operators didn't get the chance to train in air-search mode as often as they did for other missions. So it took Grestovitch several seconds to recognize what was taking place on his screens.

  "Airborne contact! Just coming off the coast. Bearing one eight seven true. Altitude one eight triple oh. Range forty-eight miles."

  "Speed, Gus?"

  "Uh, one hundred eighty knots."

  "Relative bearing?"

  "Oh two five, relative bearing off the nose. Second target just coming on-screen, closing with the first."

  "Okay! That's our boy! Tallyho!"

  Arkady slewed Retainer Zero One around onto a course that would intersect with that of the Argentine strike.

  Captain Alfredo Cristobal applied the last-minute burst of thrust that socked his Tornado's refueling probe into the drogue basket of the Hercules. The control lights on the tanker's wingtip shifted pattern to indicate "Solid Connection" and "Transfer On." A flick of his eyes downward to the fuel-transfer panel verified that jet propellant was cascading into the fighter-bomber's cells.

  Another glance took in the threat boards, currently showing that the sky around them was clear except for a distant trace of American search radar. It was safe to back his concentration down a level. Cristobal relaxed into the padding of his ejector seat.

  Obviously the problem with the first strike had been the involvement of the Air Force. This was a job best dealt with by the Aeronaval alone. He would personally command this operation to ensure its success. At the same time, he would take the opportunity to heal his own wounded pride.

  Cristobal came from a culture that still primarily believed that women were to be protected, cherished, but above all else, dominated. This female Norteno captain had almost knocked him out of the sky during the harassment flight he had flown against her. She had humiliated him in front of his squadron and the entire fleet, and that brand had burned deep.

  Amanda Garrett had come to both enrage and fascinate him. He had pulled the dossier that the intelligence section had assembled on her and had spent hours studying it. The photographs told him more than the text. One of them was currently taped into an odd corner of his cockpit control panel. A red-haired woman in naval uniform peered out from it, sternly beautiful, coolly sensuous, totally self-confident.

  Alfredo Cristobal wanted to shatter that self-confidence more than he desired anything else on earth.

  This time, they would send their Exocets blazing in behind a wave of Matra STAR antiradar missiles. It would be more than enough to suppress the Americans' point defenses and assure at least one hit.

  For a moment he considered whether he should have incorporated another element of aircraft into the strike, one armed with iron bombs to finish the job the missiles might start. Too late now. Besides, all four of his Tornadoes were carrying a full load of armor-piercing incendiary ammunition for their 27mm Mauser autocannon. More than enough to give anything left afloat a good beating.

  There might be survivors. That would be interesting.

  With Cristobal's rage and fascination had come an unbidden fantasy. One in which he took this Garrett woman as his own personal captive, as the conquistadors of old would have done. He had visualized taming her as one; would a fiery mare, stripping her of her air of authority and self-control, heating that cool sensuality into hot passion.

  He shook his head regretfully. This modern day and age, no longer permitted such things. He would have to be content with merely killing her.

  "Raven's Roost is confirming the emission patterns of Tornado-type aircraft," Beltrain commented from his console. "Arkady called it right. They're coming right down the turnpike."

  "Um-hmm," Amanda replied absently as she studied the Alpha display. The Argentine target hack was just crawling, across the line into the estimated intercept zone. A few miles more and they would pass into the range of the Duke's long-range SAMs. She would wait, though. She had' promised Arkady the first shot.

  Amanda sank back into her chair and lightly bit her lower lip in thought. In her experience, there were two kinds of individuals capable of volunteering for a mission like this.

  One was the kind who believed in their own invincibility, that death only happened to the other guy.

  The other was the kind who were quite aware of their own mortality but who were still willing to surrender it to the cause that they served. Amanda found herself hoping that she would have the time and the chance to learn which defined Vince Arkady.

  Grestovitch' s fingers were sweat-sticky inside his Nomex flight glove as he called up the latest batch of intercept data.

  "Target speed over ground still one eight zero. Altitude still eighteen thousand. Range six miles. Rate of closure sixty knots."

  "We still in the groove, Gus?"

  "Rog. Target bearing zero degrees relative off our tail. They'll be overflying us in about four minutes."

  Arkady reflected that beyond this being the first helo-versus-jet intercept he had ever heard of, it was probably also the first ass-backward one where the bogey overtook the interceptor.

  "We still being painted?"

  "Negative, Lieutenant. They went active again on their radar a second ago, but all that we're getting is sidelobe."

  "Okay, that means we're under their search cone. Time to take her up, ol' buddy."

  Arkady squeezed the throttle trigger on the pitch lever and the twin LHTEC T800 gas turbines howled in reply. Rolling back on the collective, he lifted the little helo into a maximum power climb.

  This pop-up maneuver was critical. The twin Sidewinder X missiles the Sea Comanche carried under its snub wings were state-of-the-art weapons, but they had a range of only twelve miles, a range that would be greatly reduced if they had to climb after their targets. Retainer Zero One would have to do some of that climbing for them if they were to make a kill.

  "There they are, Lieutenant."

  Arkady tilted his head back and looked up through the cockpit's overhead Plexiglas panel. The Argentine tanker formation was passing almost directly overhead. Eighteen thousand feet was normally low for contrail effects, but in the chill polar atmosphere, all five of the aircraft drew thin streamers of ice-crystal vapor behind them. They were clearly silhouetted against the royal-blue sky. They were also clearly pulling too damn far away.

  Vince checked his altimeter and his airspeed indicator. His forward velocity was fading fast in the climb and he was falling behind his pursuit curve.

  "Gus, heat 'em up!"

  The air-to-air targeting reticule appeared in the center of his heads-up display and the high-pitched arming tone of the Sidewinders sounded in his earphones.

  The tanker flight was opening the range, and they still didn't have the altitude Arkady wanted. There was no help for it. He flared Retainer Zero One back, lifting its nose above the horizon until the helicopter shuddered on the verge of rotor stall. Laying the death pip of his sights into the center of the enemy formation, he squeezed the actuator to give the missiles a look at their target.

  The arming tone became a squalling growl.

  "I got good locks! This is it! I'm taking the shot!"

  Arkady squeezed the actuator again, and then again. At half-second intervals, the Sidewinders sliced off their launching rails trailing fire. He and Gus had done their best. Now it was in the hands of the gods and Ford Aerospace. Arkady dropped his helo's nose, dumped pitch, and dove for the sea.

  Fully topped off, Captain Cristobal and his wingman had dropped a quarter of a mile back and to starboard of the Fuerza Aérea Hercules, clearing the way fo
r the next element. Those two aircraft were now tucked in close beneath the tanker's wings and were taking on fuel, a task that would be completed in another minute or so.

  Cristobal had been thinking ahead, mentally reviewing the next phase of the operation, when a flickering yellow light and a warning buzzer yanked his attention back to the here and now.

  Tail warning radar! Cristobal jinked hard right and twisted around in his seat to check his six. He saw nothing but empty sky and a distant cloud bank.

  He eased off on his controls and came back on course.

  "Carcel, did you catch that?"

  "Sí, Capitán," his backseater replied. "A momentary weak contact on the tail guard system. I am receiving nothing at the moment, however."

  Cristobal frowned. His threat board was clear again, but now the warning was sounding in the back of his mind. He keyed his transmitter. "Tigre two, this is Tigre lead. Do you have any air-to-air contacts?"

  "Negative, lead. No activity."

  Cristobal acknowledged. He was about to shrug off his premonition when his tail warning system sounded again. An infrared return.

  He jinked left, wildly searching the sky. This time he spotted a pair of flickering orange sparks, each pulling a faint smoky trail behind it, arcing up beneath the tanker formation. Cristobal crushed down on the transmitter button, groping for words that might avert the coming disaster. He could find none.

  The Sidewinders were almost at the end of their range, with their fuel nearly exhausted and their velocity peaking. During the last second of its flight, the multiple targets presented by the C-130 and the two fighters holding formation with it confused the guidance system of the lead missile, making it bobble slightly. Instead of homing on an engine pod, it struck the tanker's belly. Punching through cleanly, its twenty-five-pound fragmentation warhead detonated amid the half-empty fuel bladders in the cargo compartment.

  The Hercules dissolved into a ball of flame, a sun-colored blister against the sky that swelled to engulf both of the accompanying Tornadoes and then burst to rain a cascade of blazing wreckage down toward the ocean far below.