by Adam Yoshida
“TAO, you are authorized to engage,” ordered the Captain.
“Vampire inbound!” called out one of the radar operators in the CIC at the Cape St. George’s SPY-1A detected a missile launch by the incoming aircraft.
“Raid-1 is turning away,” reported the TAO, “they’re not going to cross within our range.”
“We have twenty-four vampires inbound,” reported the CIC, “repeat: twenty-four missiles inbound. Engaging now.”
“Roger that,” replied the XO as the men and women on the bridge began to watch the missiles begin their approach.
“Kh-22s?” asked Admiral Collins.
“CIC,” said the Captain through the open intercom, “what have we go incoming?”
“Our systems say that those are Perseus missiles, Captain,” reported the TAO.
RIM-174 Standard ERAMs, more commonly known as the SM-6, began to burst forth from the Mk. 41 Vertical Launch System cells of the Cape St. George.
“Sioux City, Manchester, and Coronado all signal that they are prepared to engage if the missiles enter their range,” reported the communication officer.
“Let’s hope that it doesn’t come to that,” said Captain Gilmer. The three Littoral Combat Ships that had been detailed to accompany Task Force 47 largely on account of their negligible military value in a real confrontation. Their longest-range air defenses consisted of a handful of RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missiles, which had a range of just nine kilometres. If the Task Force was forced to engage with those, combined with the Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles that were held in the VLS cells of the Cape St. George, then the Task Force would be in serious trouble.
“Seven missiles still incoming. Range is now fifty km,” reported the TAO.
Another seven SM-6s erupted from the deck of the AEGIS Cruiser, soaring forth and and taking down the incoming supersonic anti-ship missiles one at a time. This round reduced the number of total incoming missiles to two, as the Standard Missiles found their targets and the range of the remaining missiles ticked to just under twenty kilometres.
“Hold on the Standards,” ordered Captain Gilmer.
“Hold on the Standards aye,” came the response from the CIC. The Task Force would engage the remaining incoming missiles with point defense weapons only. Within seconds the first of the quad-packed RIM-162 ESSMs launched from the deck of the Cruiser. Four missiles were launched, two for each of the incoming anti-ship missiles. One of the missiles was struck instantly and its remains fell harmlessly into the ocean. The final missile continued on its course, causing tension to ripple through the officers and crews of Task Force 47. This was broken moments later when one of the RAMs launched from the Coronado, which was positioned forward of the main body of the fleet, managed to strike and destroy it.
“Jesus,” breathed the XO, breaking the silence that hung over the bridge, “where did that come from? What was that?”
“Perseus missiles,” said Admiral Collins, “those are European weapons.”
“Right,” said Captain Gilmer, as she began to look at the map of the region that was spread out on a table in front of them, “and they were launched from the air.”
The Captain traced her hands across the map, before bringing them to a rest about two hundred miles to their northwest.
“Well,” said Admiral Collins, “they do have an airbase there. I mean, there’s been one for ages but they’ve kept at least a small actual force there ever since their war with the Argentinians.”
“They’d have to have reinforced the base,” said Gilmer.
“Last I heard they only kept four Eurofighters there. Twenty-four missiles inbound would mean at least twelve there now. The Argentinians are too broke to be a serious threat - they must have sent them there for us.”
“Then we have a problem,” said the Captain, “because they could have flown planeloads of missiles to the place and we just used nearly a third of what’s in our magazines dealing with a single raid.”
Bravo Troop, 2nd Squadron, 7th Cavalry, 1st BCT, 2nd Armored Division, Near Bismarck, North Dakota
Captain Andy Dumont jumped out of the HUMVEE that he was riding in and walked towards the approaching man on a motorcycle.
“A dispatch rider?” asked the Captain incredulously, “are they going to start sending us our orders via the fucking Pony Express next?”
The weary-looking Second Lieutenant dismounted and walked over to the Company Commander and saluted.
“Lieutenant,” said Dumont, returning the salute, “what’s this all about? Do you have any orders for me?”
“Captain,” I am relaying orders from directly from the Corps Commander himself. You are ordered to prepare to alter your your. When you hit the intersection with the I-29 at Fargo, you are to take follow the I-29 northbound.”
“Right,” said the Captain. The Lieutenant turned away and began to walk back towards his motorcycle and Dumont pulled out his tablet to take a look at the newly-assigned route.
“Wait a second!” shouted Dumont after the Captain, “that route is going to take us up into the Western Republic and fast!”
The Lieutenant waved him off.
“I’m just a messenger,” he said as he jumped onto the bike and sped off into the distance.
USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76), Mid-Atlantic Ocean
Vice Admiral Quentin Layton took a moment to catch his breath as soon as Admiral Collins finished explaining her plan.
“You do realize,” he said, “that we simply cannot send you any support. We are too far out of range and, in any case, this fleet’s strength is going to need to be conserved for when we are called into action here.”
“I fully understand that, sir,” replied Admiral Collins over the video chat.
“And, further, you realize that the situation is such that if you were to fail in this plan, you would suffer the single greatest defeat in the history of the United States Navy? You - or whatever Lieutenant Commander onboard one of the LCS who was still alive - would have little choice but to surrender nearly fifty-thousand American soldiers to a force hundreds of miles away.”
“I do, Admiral,” replied Collins.
“Well then, fight your ships,” replied Layton with a smile.
RAF Mount Pleasant, Falkland Islands
Wing Commander David Hennessy was at lunch when the young Flight Lieutenant came running in.
“Flight Lieutenant,” he said stiffly, “you’re going to have to slow down. If you go rushing about everywhere, you’ll be nothing more than a pack of nerves and quite useless when the moments that call for the real expenditure of energy come.”
“Sir,” explained the Flight Lieutenant, “the American fleet has changed course.”
“See,” said Hennessy, “there’s no need to panic: we expected that they’d do exactly that, for whatever good it’d do them. Since, after all, they’ve only got the one AEGIS Cruiser and we have plenty of missiles…”
“No, Wing Commander,” continued the Flight Lieutenant, “they’ve changed course to head directly towards these islands and they’re doing so at maximum speed.”
“With a bunch of broken-down cargo ships, a gimped Cruiser, and the rejects from the main body of the fleet?” asked Hennessy incredulously as he took the tablet from the hands of the Flight Lieutenant and began to examine the pictures and maps that it contained.
“Well… Well, this is lunacy,” said the Wing Commander.
“Perhaps, but they are doing it nonetheless,” replied the Flight Lieutenant.
USS Cape St. George (CG-71), One Hundred and Forty-Seven Miles Southeast of the Falkland Islands
“You know,” said Captain Gilmer, “eventually you’re going to have to answer to the Navy Inspector General for this. Never mind the insurance implications for the merchant ship.”
“Most maritime insurance policies don’t cover acts of war,” replied Admiral Collins.
“Well,” said Gilmer, “someone is going to have to pay.”
“Bridge,
CIC,” came the weary voice of the TAO over the intercom, “we have a further twelve targets incoming. Designating as Raid-1.”
“Acknowledged,” replied Gilmer, before turning to order, “steady as she goes.”
The timing of these manoeuvres was going to be extraordinarily delicate. The supply of anti-ship missiles over at RAF Mount Pleasant was, for all intents and purposes, infinite at least in the sense that it seemed as if it exceeded the supply of surface-to-air missiles in the magazines of Task Force 47.
“Vampire! Vampire! There are twenty-three missiles incoming,” called out the CIC.
“Very well,” said the Captain, “proceed with the pre-agreed fire plan.”
In the CIC the TAO shuddered as he directed the launch of twelve SM-6s against the twenty-three incoming supersonic anti-ship missiles. Launching fewer counter-missiles than those that were incoming was, of course, contrary to any sort of standardized procedure. However, given the small size of the escort force that was with Task Force 47, there was a great deal of sense to it.
“Ten hits,” reported the radar operator, “two misses. Thirteen still incoming.”
“Hold your fire until the range closes to forty km or less,” ordered the TAO.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” repeated the radar technician as thirteen Perseus missiles raced towards the fleet at three times the speed of sound with their final targets still unknown.
“Hold,” repeated the TAO, speaking very softly as the range ticked down. The missiles were just fifty kilometres away now. Then they were forty-five away.
“Ok,” ordered the TAO, “open fire.”
Thirteen Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles leaped forth from the cells onboard the Cape St. George and began moving towards their new targets as the entire personnel of Task Force 47 held on with white knuckles.
“Nine vampires destroyed. Four still incoming,” reported the radar operator, “range is now twenty kilometres.”
“Hold and engage with point defenses only,” ordered the TAO, his voice shaking slightly as the range between the fleet and the missiles closed quickly.
Within ten seconds, the range closed enough for the four warships of the Task Force to open fire with their Rolling Airframe Missiles. The short-range SAMs reached out and destroyed two of the missiles instantly, even as the final two continued towards their targets. The process was almost automatic now. The Phalanx CIWS onboard the Cape St. George automatically turned and engaged the threat. The Phalanx fired off a stream of bullets that contacted and destroyed the missile at a range of just over three hundred feet.
The final missile continued its course unabated, moving too fast for the RAMs launched by the automated SeaRAM system onboard the Coronado to catch up with it. It slammed into the MV Emma Mærsk, a massive container ship that had been pressed into service as part of the Fifth Fleet in order to meet the transportation needs of the Third Army. The single missile was hardly enough to sink the 170,000 ton monster, but it was more than enough to kill members of the crew and set fires.
The Tactical Action Officer didn’t have the bandwidth to immediately concern himself with the fate of the cargo ship.
“Launch Tomahawks, per the firing plan,” he ordered.
With the press of a few buttons two of the RGM-109E Tomahawk Missiles carried in the Cruiser’s tubes launched and headed off towards their targets.
.
From the bridge of the Cape St. George, Admiral Collins watched the fires burning onboard the Emma Mærsk.
“Can she still sail?” asked the Admiral of the damaged merchant vessel.
“There are at least seventeen dead,” reported the communications operator, “and they say that they’re having trouble with the fires.”
“We can send them help by helicopter if we must,” said Admiral Collins, “but I need to know if they can still make speed. Otherwise we are going to just have to leave them behind.”
The operator spoke into the radio and then listened for a few moments.
“They say that they can do it, Admiral,” he said.
“Well then, signal the fleet to maintain course and speed,” said Collins.
Over RAF Mount Pleasant, Falkland Islands
“Negative, 9N1,” called out the Air Traffic Controller, “you do not have permission to land. The field is not secure.”
Hennessy’s squadron was orbiting the Falklands air base as the crews on the ground struggled to deal with the damage caused by the two American cruise missiles that had beat the squadron back home.
“Well,” Hennessy replied, “I’m either coming down in a secure landing, or I’m coming crashing down when I run out of fuel, so you’d better figure out something.”
“Standby,” called out ATC.
The Wing Commander puzzled over the sudden and seemingly rash decision by the American Navy to turn towards the Falkland Islands, rather than running at high-speed to try and get out of range of his Typhoons.
Perhaps, he thought, the Tomahawks were part of it - they hoped to bombard the air base out of existence and, indeed, to reduce the threat posed by his fighters (or perhaps to eliminate them altogether) by closing to such a close range that it would be impossible for them to even take off from their base without being fired upon the by the long-range surface-to-air missiles carried onboard the American AEGIS Cruiser.
“Ummm… 9N1,” came a further call from ATC, “we have further hostile fire inbound. Stand by to divert.”
Fuck this, thought Hennessy to himself. He took a second and took a breath to steady himself.
“ATC, how far away is the inbound fire?”
“Two more Tomahawks, about one hundred and twenty kilometres away,” replied ATC.
“ATC,” he radioed, “the squadron is landing.”
“You are not cleared to land,” repeated the controller robotically.
“Fuck you,” he replied, “we’re landing always. You can court-martial me later.”
The Americans, thought Hennessy, must only have a handful of cruise missiles, not enough to actually take out the airfield. So instead they’re firing them off a few at a time in order to try and keep us from landing and launching further strikes against them. However, the Tomahawk, he knew, a slow air-breathing cruise missile. If those missiles are one hundred and fifty kilometres away, that meant that the RAF squadron had fifteen minutes.
“Land in sequence,” he ordered the squadron, “minimum intervals between landings. We have about ten minutes.”
“You are not cleared to land,” repeated ATC.
“Well, we are,” replied the Wing Commander.
USS Cape St. George (CG-71), One Hundred and Fifteen Miles Southeast of the Falkland Islands
“Admiral,” reported the radio operator, “MV Tallahassee Rain reports that they’ve suffered a mechanical breakdown of their primary generator. They’re not going be able to maintain speed. In fact, their engineer reports that they were shortly be adrift.”
“Order them to prepare their lifeboats,” ordered Admiral Collins.
“It’s not that extreme, let me be clear,” said the operator, “they’ve just had a breakdown. The ship isn’t in danger of being lost.”
“We can’t stop right now,” said Collins, “order them to prepare to abandon the ship in the event that we observe DU aircraft or missiles heading in their direction, as we cannot come to their aid at the moment.”
“Yes Admiral,” said the radio operator.
“Keep up the speed,” said the Admiral, rapping the console in front of her with her knuckles, “just keep up the speed.”
RAF Mount Pleasant, Falkland Islands
Wing Commander David Hennessy checked his watch the moment he felt his Typhoon come to a complete stop. He had begun to unstrap himself even before that.
“Tow this thing to a fucking shelter now!” he ordered the ground crew as soon as he stepped out of the cockpit.
“Wing Commander!” an outraged Brigadier General charged out onto the airfield.
He stepped off the side of the aircraft and jumped to the ground.
“We were preparing a diversion to a civilian airport!” shouted the General, “this rash and dangerous act was wholly unnecessary!”
“General,” said Hennessy as he began to move off the runway at a swift pace, “have you considered why the American ships have turned in our direction so suddenly?”
“They have several Corvettes with them. I suppose that they intend to put this airfield out of action by means of naval gunfire,” said the General, as he began to follow Hennessy.
“Perhaps,” agreed the Wing Commander, “that’s one possibility.”
“But, as I have said already Hennessy,” said the General, “there are multiple usable airfields here, even for Typhoons.”
“I know that,” said Hennessy, “and surely the Americans must know that as well.”
“So?” said the General.
“Their ships only have a limited number of anti-aircraft missiles. If they continued on their way, we’d be able to bombard them from a distance until they ran out of defensive weapons, and then we could smash them,” said Hennessy.
“Disrupting our flight operations might - might - give them a chance to get out of range,” said the General as they entered a nearby protective bunker.
“Possibly - but that’s not a certainty. I know what I would do if I was the commander of the American fleet.”
“And that would be?” said the exacerbated General.
“I would turn this way and seize this airfield and, indeed, the islands themselves,” said Hennessy.
“That would be mad, Hennessy,” said the General, “I’ve seen the reconnaissance photographs of the American fleet - they sent all of their amphibious landing ships north with the main body of the fleet.”
“Yes,” agreed Hennessy, “but they still have helicopters. And, beyond that, it’s amazing what sort of damage one might do with improvised weapons so long as one has no regard for whether the thing you are using will work thereafter.”
