Carrier 14 - TYPHOON SEASON

by Keith Douglass

  Even an AT-40's guidance system was optimized for striking at large, slow-moving targets It had none. AT-4s were aimed by eye, like a gun; and their missiles, like bullets, could not be redirected after being sent on their way.

  The fifteen missiles came at Jefferson from all sides, and all within a few seconds of one another. Two of the Stingers fizzled out well short of the carrier, having been fired from almost five miles away. A third Stinger and one AT-4 veered off into the storm, the Stingers' infrared seeker heads confused by the cold spray, the AT-4's trajectory thrown off by a last-moment tilt of the boat from which it was fired. All these missiles disappeared into the raging rain.

  Of the remaining eleven missiles, seven were met by the Phalanx weapons, which detected them, targeted them, then spewed masses of slugs out at them. When the missiles met the barrage they exploded, sending sparkling debris into the gloom. For a few seconds, Jefferson was surrounded by a garden of bright, short-lived flowers. But the Phalanx system was subject to the same physical laws as any other piece of machinery. Nimble as they were, neither unit could aim at two simultaneously, or reverse direction faster than momentum would allow. Two missiles got untouched through the barrage. One was a Stinger, fired late but from almost dead astern; the other, an AT-4 aimed from the deckhouse of a junk on Jefferson's port side. The moment the Stinger lofted out of its fiberglass launching tube, its infrared-sensing head sought a heat signature. Although no aircraft were currently launching from Jefferson, the carrier's stern was crowded with parked aircraft that had recently trapped. TO the Stinger, their steaming exhausts stood out like beacons against the cold steel of the ship. The missile whipped toward this feast, and from the embarrassment of riches, selected an F-14 carrying a full complement of ordnance. It sang right up inside the left exhaust.

  The Tomcat's fuel tank was almost empty--but fumes, not fuel itself, is what burns. The rear half of the Tomcat disintegrated in a blinding flare, killing three nearby brown shirts and blowing their blazing corpses into the ocean. Simultaneously, the front half of the jet obeyed Neuton's Third Law of Motion by lunging away from the impact like a giant piston, crashing into the adjacent nose-tail-nose mosaic of parked aircraft. There was a rapid propagation of crumpling metal as wheels broke loose from tie-down chains, landing gear struts collapsed, knife-edged wings swung wildly. Aluminum skins ruptured. Jet fuel poured out onto the non-skid. Flames raised a roaring, yellow-and-black wall. In an instant, seven aircraft sat cooking wildly in the rain.

  The missile fired from the junk, the AT-4, had been intended to strike the "island," the heart of the carrier that included Pri-Fly, the bridge, and all the major communication and tracking equipment of the ship--and therefore the entire battle group. But even at point-blank range, Jefferson is a difficult target to hit from the lunging deck of a small wooden boat. The AT-4, flying straight and true, did not strike the island.

  Instead, it struck the underside of the protruding flight deck, just above the closed door to the aft elevator. Its conical warhead, a shaped charge designed to concentrate virtually all its explosive energy on a single spot, liquified the shell plate of Jefferson's hull and passed straight through, spraying molten metal and chunks of shattered steel before it at high velocity. The majority of the shock wave slammed up into the deck over the hangar bay, buckling it and sending a wave-shaped ripple through the flight deck above. There, sailors were flung off their feet as if someone had jumped on a trampoline beside them. Aircraft yanked and shuddered against their tie-downs, and deck plates sprang free from their rivets. Within seconds, what had been a flat surface the length of three football fields became a warped, rippled mess.

  In the hangar bay itself, the results were even worse. Flaming debris rained down on the parked aircraft and the hundreds of men and women working on the planes. Sections of catwalk scaffolding collapsed. There was a wild scramble for cover under fuselages and half-folded wings. Smoke filled the air, permeated by sirens, claxons, and screaming.

  Outside, the bow Phalanx immediately swung through ninety degrees in an attempt to acquire the last missile in the air, a Stinger that had been fired from almost directly off the bow. The horizontal blizzard of Phalanx projectiles reached the missile just as it made an abrupt vertical juke to follow a cloud of exploding jet fuel. The slugs nipped the missile's tail, shearing it off and sending the rest of the missile into an uncontrolled cartwheel. It broke into pieces from the centrifugal force, and in that condition almost accomplished the job for which one of the AT-4s had been intended Although the seeker head arched a hundred feet into the air and vaulted Jefferson entirely, and the explosive warhead skimmed past the bridge by four feet and spent its explosion in the water, the center section of the missile whirled directly into the island, shearing off antennas and destroying radar masts.

  In less than thirty seconds, the USS Thomas Jefferson was transformed from one of the most potent weapons in the world to a smoking, flaming hulk.

  1520 local (-8 GMT) Headquarters, PLA Air Force Hong Kong Garrison

  Tombstone knew the entire enterprise was hopeless, of course. Even if he and Lobo managed to escape all the way from the prison complex--not guaranteed, to say the least--what then? After all, they were being held somewhere in Communist China; for all he knew, just outside Beijing. It wasn't as if a Caucasian man and woman could wander around unnoticed. Still, they had to try. Tombstone Magruder wasn't going to end up like his father, dying in some POW hellhole. And he knew Lobo was with him on that decision.

  He already knew that this was not a prison of the sort familiar to Americans, nor even a POW camp like the one he'd heard described by Vietnam vets. It was more like a dungeon. Still, he was surprised to find that the short corridor outside the cell was not itself guarded. He glanced in both directions, and saw a door at either end. Whenever he and Lobo were dragged in or out of their cell, they were first blindfolded with a black hood, which Tombstone had always assumed was part of the psychological terror. But he'd noticed that trips to the outdoor compound were made to the right so he now turned left. wen he reached the door, he was surprised again. It was unlocked. He frowned; then, with Lobo right behind him, he eased the door open.

  Something on the outside hurled the door open with superhuman strength, flinging Tombstone up and out. In an instant he was drenched by a rain that pounded down on his back like a million ball-peen hammers. He gasped in shock, stumbling in the same blast of wind that had grabbed the door. Only by flinging himself sideways, tightly against the wall of the prison, was he able to halt his helpless flight.

  Squinting against the blasting rain and wind, he saw Lobo standing uncertainly in the doorway. He shook his head, then looked around.

  Through horizontal sheets of rain he saw various buildings move in and out of sight long, low structures for the most part, with trees arching overhead. The trees were mostly evergreens, their crowns tossing madly. Tombstone noted that most of their branches grew from the leeward side of the trunk; these trees had been shaped by weather like this. Straight ahead of him, perhaps thirty yards away, was a narrow paved road. Nothing moved along it.

  Soaked to the skin, beginning to shiver, he considered the options. Wherever they were being kept, the obvious direction to go was east. Since major storms in this part of the world cycled counterclockwise, the wind would be coming from somewhere between north and east, so at least he knew what direction to head. After that ... who knew?

  He was about to beckon Lobo out of the doorway when he heard a new sound, weaving in and out of the wind a distinctive, high-pitched whistle. Tombstone turned his head in time to see something rushing along the strip of road. For an instant the weather parted, giving him a clear view of a manta-shaped aircraft, with upturned winglets, lifting off the road. It bobbed, recovered crisply, and lofted out of sight into the slanting rain. There were red stars painted on the winglets.

  The bogey. The one Tomboy had been sent to the South China Sea to investigate.

  Tombstone rush
ed back to the doorway, and gasped with relief when he got out of the wind and rain. "Did you see that?" he said.

  Lobo nodded. "it must be the thing that shot down the Air Force jet."

  Tombstone nodded. "So we're not in a regular prison. They're keeping us at an air base."

  "Why would they do that?"

  "Probably in hopes of preventing an attack on the base. Insurance. That would be why they let us show our faces in the compound; to let Washington know where we are."

  Lobo nodded.

  "The good news," Tombstone said, "is that we must be close to Hong Kong. That would be the air base the Chinese would want to protect. If we can reach the city-"

  "How?"

  "Find a vehicle. Or a prisoner. Or both." She nodded.

  "Let's head toward where the bogey came from. Start looking there."

  She nodded again.

  Together, they plunged into the storm.

  1530 local (-8 GMT) USS Jefferson

  Before the chaos began, Bird Dog was in his stateroom trying to relax. He'd picked up his copy of The Art of War. One thing about Sun Tzu if you were having trouble sleeping, just read The Art of War awhile. Trying to make sense of it numbed the brain.

  At the moment, Bird Dog was plodding through the chapter on "The Nine Varieties of Ground," which was a ridicUlous pastime because he was, after all, a naval aviator. No ground around, not unless you counted the ocean floor, But only the submariners cared about that. Still, he forced himself to continue. Even if he found nothing practical for himself in The Art of War, he had to remember that for his enemies, the book was a treasure house of information.

  So. Per Sun Tzu, the nine types of real estate were Dispersive, Frontier, Key, Communicating, Focal, Serious, Difficult, Encircled, and Death. These were rated in order of the trouble they'd cause a general during battle, starting with the enemy's own homeland--nice and safe--and progressing out into "death" territory--land in which the army could be trapped with virtually no chance of escape, far less victory.

  Right now, if you wanted to stretch the metaphor, Jefferson could be said to be occupying Difficult ground "any place where the going is hard." Sun Tzu's advice for dealing with Difficult ground? "Press on."

  "Guess the navy's doing everything right, then, eh, Sun?" Bird Dog muttered, and closed the book.

  At that moment, a series of jarring vibrations shivered through his rack.

  1527 local (-8 GMT) Flanker 67

  This was not optimum, Tai thought angrily. The formations were ragged, the voices over the combat radio channel too edgy, Not tense because of the promise of combat, though. These were brave men, and eager for blood. No, the problem was the weather. The storm. No one had counted on that. No one had expected to be fighting the Americans in near-blindness.

  The PLA fighters had excellent radar, powerful enough to fry a rabbit crossing the runway; that wasn't the problem. The problem was that using radar exclusively was new to most of the pilots--certainly, using it in the middle of a storm, with visibility diminished nearly to zero, was new to them. The fact that such combat would be a first for most of the Americans, too, was of no consolation, because everyone knew the Americans trained extensively in flight simulators. And while "virtual" experience was not the equivalent of the real thing, it was better than nothing. And nothing was what the Chinese pilots were building upon.

  Damn this storm.

  No wonder the men were worried, even though they outnumbered the American fighters currently in the air. And even though there would be no American reinforcements in the immediate future, thanks to the ambush Mr. Blossom had arranged. From all reports, the carrier had taken damage. How bad was not yet known, but bad enough. There would be no help there. For the American pilots, even returning to their ship might be out of the question.

  So from the Chinese perspective, there was good news as well as bad. Not to mention the special surprise Tai suspected would be out to help the Chinese.

  Personally, Tai Ling was not worried at all. This was one battle--fought blind or not--that the Americans would never forget.

  No, correct that.

  This was a battle the Americans would never survive.

  1538 local (-8 GMT) Tomcat 306 USS Jefferson

  "Say again?" Hot Rock heard the disbelief and tension in his own voice. The same question was echoed over the air by other BARCAP pilots.

  "I say again," Came the brisk response from the E-2 Hawkeye. "Fifty Flankers inbound your location, bearing 000, ETA ten minutes."

  "Fifty Flankers," Hot Rock murmured, feeling sweat spring out along the spine of his flight suit. That was damn near a three-to-one ratio against the Vipers.

  "Vipers," the E-2 said crisply, be aware Homeplate took a hit and is red deck. Repeat, Homeplate has a red deck. There will be no backup. You are weapons free. Fire at will."

  Hot Rock felt the sweat begin to trickle. Jefferson damaged, the fighters weapons free ... it could only mean that the Chinese had struck the carrier, and effectively. How? By submarine? It seemed incredible.

  On a more immediate note, it meant that the odds facing the BARCAP pilots were not only three to one, but unlikely to improve. No help would be rushing in.

  "Better hope we don't use our go-juice too quick, youngster," Two Tone said. "There's only one Texaco in the sky--and lots of planes bound to get thirsty."

  "Here we go, Hot Rock," came over his headset from his new lead, Neanderthal. "Try to stay with me."

  Neanderthal's Tomcat banked hard right. Hot Rock followed.

  Until now they had been flying, as much as possible, in the direction of the wind. Going that way, the air was almost smooth. But come around, and life turned into a hell of buffeting and vicious vertical wind shears. Not to mention lack of visibility. The entire world was the striped, irregular gray of oily rags. And this was the outskirts of the storm. for more than a few seconds, denying the brain reliable visual reference points, and in no time you'd start to think you were on the verge of a stall, or had entered a power dive, or even that you were going backward. There was no escaping it--no one, however hot on the stick, could fly by the seat of his pants in zero visibility.

  In stead, you watched your instruments. The blips on radar, those were real. Readings from altimeter, variometer, airspeed indicator, attitude indicator--those were real. When a pilot flew instruments, he became as dependent on artificial sensors as was any RIO.

  "Picking up the bogeys now," Two Tone said. "Yep. I'd call that a shitload of Flankers."

  "Phoenixes," came over the radio.

  "Phoenix ready," Two Tone said. "Got us a nice juicy Flanker all picked out, Rocker."

  "Roger," Hot Rock said, switching the weapons selector switch to the appropriate setting. A moment later, the order came "Fire when ready."

  As with the helicopter, Hot Rock didn't allow himself to think He toggled the switch and made the Fox call. The upward bounce of the Tomcat when the missile's weight dropped away was barely noticeable in the general tumult.

  He watched the missile's progress on radar, knowing that the pilot of the targeted Chinese plane was doing the same thing. For all the Phoenix's weaknesses, Hot Rock was glad the PLA didn't have anything like the big radar-guided killer.

  "Miss," Two Tone said. "That's a miss." Meanwhile, over the headphones came whoops from a handful of more fortunate Vipers. Sounded like three or four had successfully taken out a Flanker.

  Three or four ... out of fifty.

  The Vipers hurtled northwest into the claws of the wind, intending to engage the Chinese as far as possible from Jefferson. Meanwhile the Flankers, with the wind quartering on their tails, intended to do just the opposite. Hot Rock and Two Tone began assigning missile tags to incoming blips.

  "Hang tough, amigo," Two Tone said. "Don't leave your lead for anything this time."

  "What do you mean, 'this time?'"

  "Just thinking of that helo you shot down. Some people might have questioned that if I hadn't backed your stor
y, you know? So this time stick with your lead, stay in position. Don't do anything fancy on your own. That's what I'm suggesting."

  "But I-you-"

  "Heads up, Rock. Here come the bad guys."

  1538 local (-8 GMT) USS Jefferson

  Beaman struggled into his OBA, or oxygen breathing apparatus, and mustered with the rest of his damage control party. Hosemen, investigators, and on-scene leader--they fell into their assigned positions automatically.

  "Beaman," the team leader said. "Get going. Cut around the forward end of it--see how big it is."

  Beaman nodded. As the primary investigator, his first task was to figure out where the edges of the fire were so that Damage Control Central, or DCC, could order smoke and fire boundaries set. First they would try to contain the fire, keep it from spreading, contain the smoke in the damaged area with heavy curtains hung from the hatches. Then while essential systems were being rerouted through the multiple system redundancies that existed on every Navy ship, the fire party would start nibbling at the edges, forcing flames and heat back into a smaller and smaller area until they could finally extinguish it.

  At least, that was the plan. Reality always threw some monkey wrenches into the mix.

  "YOU, Jones, get down to the first deck, see if the overhead's starting to buckle. We stop it from moving down first, people. You know why."

  Beaman nodded. He did indeed. Starting three decks below the hangar bay, the aircraft carrier was honeycombed with ammunition lockers. Sure, they were equipped with sprinklers, watertight doors, Halon systems, everything the carrier could bring to bear in the way of fire control. But three decks wasn't all that far away, not if this was a class D fire, a metal-burning conflagration. Given a little time, the fire could eat through steel deck plates like they were hot tortillas.

  "It might have missed the hangar queen," Beaman said.

  "They were moving her forward last time I saw," The hangar queen, an aircraft that was virtually impossible to ever get flying again but served as a valuable source of parts, had been spotted directly ahead of them.