by Adam Yoshida
“Good, good,” said the Admiral, before pausing for a second.
“What have we got on the deck?” he asked.
“Four more squadrons. Two each of Super Hornets and Lightnings,” answered the CAG.
“Our LRASM stocks?” asked Layton.
“Non-existent,” replied the CAG.
“How about old-fashioned iron?” said the Admiral.
Russian Aircraft Carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, 1253 Miles East of Puerto Rico
“All our aircraft are in their launching positions,” declared the Russian air wing commander.
“Very well. Launch all missiles,” ordered Khvostov.
Within seconds, the first of the enormous SS-N-19 anti-ship missiles began to emerge from their launch tubes. The massive missiles were characteristically Russian: they had incredibly advanced characteristics - indeed, only recently had the newest American model managed to match them in speed and range and they still lagged behind in terms of their payload capacity.
The unique design of the Admiral Kuznetsov meant that the Russian Carrier was able to join the nuclear-powered Battlecruiser Kirov in firing directly upon the American ships. Khvostov silently counted up to twelve as the missiles flew into the air and headed downrange one after another.
“All missiles are away, Admiral,” called out the weapons officer.
“Change course by one hundred and eighty degrees,” ordered Khvostov.
USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74), 1042 Miles East of Puerto Rico
Captain Joe Brendel watched from the Bridge of the crippled Carrier as the battle unfolded in front of him. For the entire day the crew had been working to counteract the damage done by the three Russian torpedo impacts that had occurred during the morning. The massively-redundant construction of the Nimitz-class carrier had been enough to keep her afloat in spite of punishment that would have sent most of the world’s ships to the bottom, but that was all that could be said for the condition of the ship at the moment: it wasn’t sinking.
Well, we’ll see how long we can say that for, thought Captain Brendel as he watched the tracks of the incoming DU missile strike move across the computer screens in front of him. The counter-missiles from the two destroyers accompanying the Stennis had managed to reduce the total of incoming missiles by more than two-thirds, but there were still plenty of missiles incoming and very little time to go.
The AEGIS system was a technical marvel. Designed under the guidance of Admiral Wayne E. Meyer in a time where an entire room full of computers had less processing power than a modern watch, it was still the best overall fleet defense system in the world. Now a destroyer that bore the name of the creator of its systems was one of the two ships fighting to protect the Stennis.
Standard Missiles flew from the magazines of both of the destroyers. They had been ordered to keep no reserve. Other ships were headed to their aid as fast as they could move and would be there before any plausible second attack wave could arrive. The SM-2s helped, killing a further forty-two of the incoming missiles, but they were not enough to bring the incoming wave to a complete halt.
The typical menagerie of point defense weapons now joined the fray. First Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles. Then the shorter-range Rolling Airframe Missiles. At last the Phalanx CIWS units began to turn and spew fire in the direction of the incoming missiles. It was not enough.
Captain Brandel watched as one of the Russian Shipwreck missiles bore down straight upon the John C. Stennis. He watched as it popped up and came directly for the Carrier. He watched until he was no longer capable of watching on account of the fact that the missile struck the conning tower of the ship. The fifteen-hundred pound warhead of the massive Russian missile tore apart the structure, killing the Captain and almost everyone else who was inside.
Seconds after the first impact, a second missile hit the hull of the Stennis along the waterline, blowing a massive hole in the side of the ship.
A third missile struck the crippled Carrier squarely on the fight deck, killing exposed crew members and twisting the steel beyond repair.
The Wayne E. Meyer, which had miraculously escaped the destruction , pulled up along side the severely-damaged ship and began to attempt to render what assistance it could, as if to atone for its failure to save it from harm. By the time that the Meyer had pulled up alongside the Stennis, the destroyer Mustin, which had also been hit, had already begun to settle into the water, wholly aflame from one end to the other.
U.S.M.C. F/A-18 Super Hornet, 1210 Miles East of Puerto Rico
Though it had not been strictly in accord with procedures, Admiral Layton had chosen to let Captain Michael Pope and the rest of the pilots of the incoming air strike know just what had happened to the John C. Stennis and Mustin. The utterly rapid pre-mission briefing had told the Marine pilots the rest of the details: the Russian part of the task force had broken off and approached the wounded carrier in order to fire a barrage of surface-to-surface missiles. However, the intelligence team of the Fifth Fleet had done the math: based upon the expenditure of missiles during their earlier engagement, the Russians had to be almost-wholly out of surface-to-air missiles. Given this the commanders of the fleet had decided that it was worth the risk to attempt to press the attack with the fleet’s air arm, in spite of their own severe shortages of missiles.
“Enemy fleet sighted,” came the call from Ghost, still serving as the primary airborne controller after having been refuelled twice, “approximately twenty-five clicks from your position. You are cleared hot.”
Pope and the rest of his squadron were carrying nothing more than ordinary laser-guided bombs (GPS guided bombs being, of course, utterly useless against moving targets at sea, setting aside the questionable reliability of GPS systems).
“Black Sheep, Ghost,” called out the AWACS, “you’ve got Russian fighters incoming, direction two-one-zero. Moving fast. Over.”
The Fifth Fleet’s primary strike was now colliding with the portion of the Combined Fleet that was in the process of returning to their own carriers.
“All units,” came the voice of the CAG through the radio net, “turn and engage the enemy strike.”
Pope’s Super Hornet lumbered to the right, weighed down by the load of bombs that it was carrying. However, like most of the planes involved in the strike, his fighter was also carrying a pair of medium-range air-to-air missiles.
“Fox Three,” Pope called out as the first missile left the rails.
Fleet Air Arm F-35 Lightning II, 1160 Miles East of Puerto Rico
Lieutenant-Commander Windsor yawned in spite of himself. This was the third mission of the day flown by himself and his squadron, each with an absolute minimum turn-around time. Before this operation someone had managed to toss his pilots a handful of sandwiches. Other than that, he hadn’t had any downtime since before dawn and it was beginning to show.
“Steady, steady,” he said quietly to himself as he noticed a slight wobble in his hands.
He and the rest of the squadron were carrying only a handful of Perseus anti-ship missiles, the rest of the stocks onboard the Queen Elizabeth having been expended during the fighting earlier in the day and with the additional missiles carried onboard the Prince of Wales being quite inaccessible on account of the poor state of that particular ship. To make matters worse, from a supply point of view, fourteen of the surviving F-35s from the Prince of Wales had managed to land onboard the Queen Elizabeth. The British carrier, however, was quite unprepared to store this many additional aircraft and so, for the moment, they were simply being parked anywhere on the flight deck were room could be found and armed with whatever could be found.
The greatly-reduced air contingent of the Combined Fleet had managed to maintain a close radio silence through their movement. In keeping with the late-breaking intelligence that had prompted this mission, they were flying in a long loop to the south before doubling back upon themselves, in the hope of evading detection by the main body of the American task force. Commander Win
dsor yawned again as his plane moved forward amidst the fading light.
The Prince was jolted awake when his incoming missile alarm went off. The Americans, it seemed, may have been somewhat careless in keeping a small force away from the rest of their ships, but their combat air patrol was still on the ball.
“Weapons free,” Windsor called out to his squadron as he fired the first of the two AMRAAM missiles that had been allocated to him.
He visually tracked the missile as it moved forward, streaking towards the American air group. He blinked hard the moment that he lost sight of the missile, realizing that he had been slightly mesmerized by the sight. The American AMRAAM was still headed towards him at several times the speed of sound.
The Prince took his aircraft into a sharp dive, increasing his speed as he did so. He increased his angle of descent and dropped chaff to attempt to confuse the incoming missile. Failing to shake it off and quickly running out of time, he attempted to pull the aircraft upwards and to execute a sharp turn while dropping even more chaff behind him. It was enough to distract the missile slightly, sending it past the tail of his plane as he surged ahead. The Lightning shook as the decoyed missile exploded nearby. Then it shook some more. Lieutenant-Commander Windsor checked his heads-up display: the near-miss by the AMRAAM had been enough to deal some very serious damage to his fighter. The shaking became violent and then uncontrollable. The Prince checked his readouts: he was a heck of a long way from home. Taking no more than a few seconds to consider his options, he ultimately chosen to accept the hazards of an ejection. He pushed the button in front of him and, moments later, began to drop towards the waters below.
USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76), 980 Miles East of Puerto Rico
Admiral Layton watched calmly as the results of his use of air wing unfolded. Diverting the strike force to engage the returning DU aircraft was paying notable dividends: the enemy force was being torn apart by the long-range missile fire of the strike package. The forces, he reckoned, could probably complete the destruction of the enemy air group.
Layton checked his watch. If they were to press their attack, then the window to strike at the Russian task group would close. He paused and took a deep breath before turning to face the CAG.
“Order the fighters to break off and to take the strike on it.”
HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08) , 1310 Miles East of Puerto Rico
The American strike had caught the Combined Fleet’s air strike at the worst possible time. Their planes were largely-denuded of weapons and low on fuel as they attempted to return to base. Admiral Childers watched the display and watched as the size of his force was steadily depleted.
“Admiral, reported the CAG, “the American strike group is headed in towards the Russians. We have the CAP ready to go.”
“What’s in the CAP?” asked Childers.
“We’ve got six Lightnings into the air, each with a full load of AAMs,” answered the CAG.
“Are the Americans pressing their attack on our air wing?”
“They seem to have mostly broken off,” replied the CAG, “though a few of them have broken off to pursue.”
The Admiral tapped his fingers against the computer console in front of him for several seconds.
“Six planes won’t be enough to save the Russians,” he said sadly, “but it might be enough to bring our own boys home. Direct the CAP to move to assist the air group.”
“Yes Admiral,” answered the CAG as he swiftly went to work.
U.S.M.C. F/A-18 Super Hornet, 1230 Miles East of Puerto Rico
The American aircraft, still laden with fuel, had sprinted on past what remained of the enemy air group and continued to move towards the Russian portion of the Task Group. The four MiG-29Ks that were hovering over the Admiral Kuznetsov had been swiftly shot down by long-range missile fire and now the entire strike package was heading directly on in.
“Get to at least 20,000 feet,” the squadron commander ordered, as the entire force moved to rapidly raise their elevation. The only effective weapons that the Russians had left were their point-defense guns and those couldn’t even reach 10,000 feet.
Captain Pope silently thanked God that someone had thought to outfit a number of the fleet’s X-47 stealth drones with laser-designation equipment. That meant that he and his comrades could fly clear of the most dangerous threats and instead leave the truly dangerous part of the operation to unmanned vehicles.
Upon reaching the specified altitude, Pope levelled off his Super Hornet and reduced his speed slightly. It was oddly peaceful as he soared forward through the air to his designated release point. The aircraft shuddered only slightly as he released eight two thousand pound bombs to begin their journey to their final destination on the surface below.
Russian Aircraft Carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, 1231 Miles East of Puerto Rico
Russian maritime engineers had designed their ships to be tough, but there are limits even to the brute-force approach that is typical of Russian engineering. As soon as Admiral Khvostov had realized what was happening, he had attempted to call his own aircraft back to support, but they were all either destroyed or fully engaged. He had attempted to appeal to the rest of the Combined Fleet for assistance, but they reported that they were fully engaged in their own defense.
The task group’s point defenses had managed to take out of a couple of the drones that were engaged in target-designation work, but there were simply too many of them to take out in the time available. A desperate appeal for whatever assistance could have been afforded by the rest of the Combined Fleet was simply ignored.
English bastards, thought Khvostov. That was the last coherent thought that he had. Within moments the bombs dropped by the American air strike began to descend upon the Russian task force, falling one after another. The first bomb wasn’t enough to to either destroy the Admiral Kuznetsov or the kill the Russian Admiral. Neither were the second or third. However, ultimately, some forty-three two thousand pound bombs managed to impact the Russian Carrier in a space of less than thirty seconds. During that brief time the Kuznetsov became some sort of version of the lowest circles of hell, a place where walls of fire were disrupted only by more explosions that impartially tore both men and machines to pieces. When several mortal wounds combined and caused the entire Carrier to simply explode, killing every single one of the 1742 people onboard, it was as much an act of mercy as it was anything else.
The dead sailors of the Kuznetsov were rapidly joined in Valhalla by the six hundred and eighty-seven souls onboard the Kirov, as the massive nuclear-powered Battlecruiser was likewise torn to shreds by a storm of American ordinance. Fate was somewhat-less merciful to the sailors onboard the Kirov. The rain of American bombs managed to break the massive ship in half, sending it to rapidly sink below the waters, but not before it managed to soak the surviving men and surrounding waters with a lethal dose of radiation. These losses were compounded by the destruction of the two last Sovremenny-class destroyers that had accompanied the Task Group. Those ships simply dissolved in fire as the rapid impacts of the American bombs annihilated both ships, adding another 704 men to the total Russian death toll for the afternoon.
HMS Prince of Wales (R09) , 1220 Miles East of Puerto Rico
Captain Derek Welch had was stooped over the table on the bridge of Carrier Prince of Wales. Just hours earlier he had been the Executive Officer of the Queen Elizabeth-class Aircraft Carrier. The previous Captain, however, had been fatally-wounded while attempting to lead the crew in dealing with the fires that had spread throughout the ship after the American LRASM attack. Now, after unbelievably heroic efforts in which a further twenty-two men and women had been killed outright and many more seriously injured, the fires were finally under control and the fate of the ship was no longer uncertain.
For all that that matters now, thought Captain Welch bitterly.
He had striven his entire life for a command such as this. He had worked his way up from being a lowly Midshipmen to command a Type 4
5 Destroyer. His assignment as the XO onboard the Prince of Wales was to be a temporary assignment, designed to give him some experience onboard a ship of this type before he took command of the Queen Elizabeth the following year. Now he was going to make a very different sort of history.
He wasn’t sure when the last time was that a ship of any nation had struck its colours at sea and surrendered to an enemy. Perhaps the American Civil War, he thought. He was pretty sure that the last time that a British ship had done so would have been during the Napoleonic Wars. He didn’t have internet access (or the time, for that matter) to check. Whenever it was, now he was about to do the same.
A handful of the Carrier’s helicopters had survived the fires and the damage caused by the middle strikes and were now being used to pull pilots and survivors from other damaged ships from the water as the Captain awaited the arrival of the group of Americans who were to formally take possession of the horribly-damaged ship. For want of anything else to do, the Captain was overseeing these operations, both as a way of keeping his mind off of his impending fate as well as to give himself something to do.
An AW101 Merlin helicopter was landing on the undamaged forward portion of the flight deck, with another three coming in fairly close behind it.
“Captain,” came a radio call from the Merlin, “we think that you’d better come on down to the deck to meet us.”
“I can’t possibly,” replied Welch, “I’m watching over this complete rescue operation. I couldn’t step away. Not now.”
“You’re going to want to come,” replied the pilot, “that’s my bit. Comsec and all the rest prevents me from saying more.”
