“Range to target?” he asked gruffly.
“1,700 yards.”
Commander Umbris nodded. “If the world wants a war, by God we’ll give it to ‘em…” he paused, then said a single sentence, pointing his finger forward, towards the enemy.
“Fire tubes one and three!”
CAPTAIN, THE HAMPTON has engaged the enemy. French destroyer, Suffren class. They’ve found a small surface fleet about twenty miles west of our position!” said the Roosevelt’s XO, storming into the Captain’s cabin holding an onion paper facsimile hot off the printer from the Command and Control Center.
“Get CAP in the air, take us to battle stations. This is it!”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
MON DIEU! TORPEDO in the water!” shrieked the French sonar operator on board the destroyer targeted by the as yet unseen Hampton.
“Where did it come from?” asked the captain in a voice more calm than he felt.
“No contact—it just appeared—-wait, now there’s two torpedoes…active pinging.” The young Frenchman’s long thin face took on a sweaty sheen quickly. “They’ve acquired us, sir!” he said, voice cracking.
“Countermeasures! Now!” ordered the surprised French commander. “Flank speed, hard to starboard.” As the doomed ship obeyed his commands, the Frenchman began to pray, something he hadn’t done in years.
“Torpedoes inbound, they have acquired us…time to impact, 42 seconds!” called out the sonar operator. Panic flashed across the face of more than one man on the bridge.
“Battle stations! Inform the Admiral.” Klaxons scorched the air as the French ship suddenly came alive with activity.
When the bridge lights faded to be replaced by red background lights, the captain called out, “God damn it, where did they come from!?”
“Time to torpedo impact, 21 seconds!” called out the sonarman. His voice was getting higher pitched.
“There,” pointed the XO through this binoculars. “Port bow!” More than one set of eyes suddenly peered out the forward windows. The twin streaks of phosphorescent white-green gave away the location of the needles of death that raced towards their appointment with the French ship.
“Another torpedo…” the sonarman moaned.
“Where?” asked the stunned commander. Was not two enough? “Where is the target?”
“No target! They all just appeared out of nowhere. Heading towards the Anjou!”
“Let them worry about it then,” replied the commander, gripping his captain’s chair with white knuckles.
“The first two torpedoes went right through the countermeasures. Time to torpedo impact, 12 seconds…nine, eight, seven, six,” the atmosphere on the bridge was so tense, the captain swore he could taste it.
“Two…”
“One…” the young sonarman removed his headphones and closed his eyes in silent prayer.
GOT ‘IM! CHEERED Townsend, hand to his headset. “Target struck by both torpedoes! I’m getting…she’s breaking up, sir, secondary explosions…”
The room erupted with cheers and waving fists. The first blow had been struck.
Commander Umbris didn’t share in his crew’s jubilation yet, however. “Take us up to launch depth and pop up the hatches,” he ordered, bringing the cramped room to silence. “All ahead flank speed—I want us through the thermal layer as fast as possible.”
“Aye sir, launch depth at flank speed,” replied the XO. The Hampton eased up on its glide planes as the single propeller began to churn the ocean and push the massive sub from its hiding spot beneath the thermal layer of the ocean. As it passed through the area where the cold deep water met the warmer surface water, the Hampton would be briefly visible on sonar screens throughout the enemy fleet. It was a risk Commander Umbris was willing to take. He knew that once clear of the turbulent waters, his submarine’s superior engineering would bring it back under the cloak of stealth.
ABOARD THE MORTALLY wounded French destroyer, the sonarman called out, “Contact! Bearing two-seven-seven—submarine, it’s American!”
“Class?” asked the captain, wiping blood out of his eyes. The ship was on fire and listing fast. In a few minutes she would begin to capsize, he feared. His ship was doomed. But if he could fire a few anti-sub torpedoes of his own…or at least warn the fleet…
“I think…Los Angeles…”
A most lethal enemy indeed. The Los Angeles class was a little long in the tooth for the American Navy but still way too much for the French destroyer to take on with little more help than the ragtag collection of patrol boats the Spaniards called a fleet.
“Get me a firing solution…and someone inform the Admiral!”
“It’s gone, sir!” moaned the sonar operator. “It was right there, big as the Eiffel Tower…then, gone.”
“He’s crossed the thermal conversion layer…that was fast.” An explosion rocked the forward section of the dying ship, sending the captain sprawling on the badly tilting deck. He could hear the horrible shuddering sound as metal began to tear itself apart deep in the bowels of the sinking warship.
“Communications destroyed sir. We’ve lost compartments forward of section twelve,” someone called out through the smoke. Behind him, another sailor was screaming in agony.
Pounding his fist into the sharply tilting steel deck he called out in desperation, “Abandon ship! All hands, abandon ship!”
CONN, SONAR, WE just got nailed by half the French fleet!” the young sonarman exclaimed. He had just heard the pings of more than half a dozen enemy ships bounce sonar beams off the Hampton’s exposed hull.
“Sonar, Conn, very well…keep an eye on ‘em.” The Commander spoke into the intercom. “Weps, I need firing solutions on the Spanish ship,”
“Conn, Weps, solutions forming now…”
When he got the all clear sign, the Commander said, “Fire Tomahawk One.”
NEST, HAWK ONE, called out Lieutenant Commander Riggs, strapped into his F-35 and streaking across the evening sky towards the battle. Behind him, spread out in a delta-wing formation was the rest of Hawk Flight. Just lifting off the deck of the Roosevelt and still a few miles back were two other squadrons from the carrier, one of the older FA-18s and another squadron of Lightnings
“Hawk One, Nest, roger,” came the voice in Riggs’ helmet.
“I have visual of a missile heading due north. Big one.”
“Copy, Hawk One, that’s our Silent Sticks softening up Frenchie for you.”
Switching off his mic, Lt. Commander Riggs grumbled to himself, “Screw that! I want some this time.” He dropped the sun shield on his helmet and turned Hawk Flight directly into the setting sun.
JACQUE DEPONTE, CAPTAIN of the crippled French cruiser, Anjou, stared in disbelief at the remnants of his fleet. Once, they were twelve ships of the line, strong and confident. Now in mere minutes, the fleet was reduced to frightened schoolgirls running for cover.
Three Spanish destroyers were dead in the water to his starboard, one so heavily on fire it was totally obscured by smoke. The other two were listing severely, barely afloat. His mind quickly deduced the two ships would not last more than a few more minutes before slipping beneath the waves.
The Descoteaux was the first to call out abandon ship. Even before the Anjou could deploy rescue teams, more torpedoes streaked through the water. Then missiles began raining down from the sky. Tomahawks, the Yankees called them. He thanked God that they were not nuclear tipped, as they could have been. He knew full well the Americans were justified in using their most terrible munitions after the Iranians screwed up with their nuclear attack.
His own ship, the Anjou, once a jewel of the French Navy, was on fire and taking on water. Half his bridge crew was killed or lay bleeding and moaning on the shattered deck around him. All but one of the windows were smashed out, debris lay strewn about him and acrid smoke, started by an electrical fire somewhere aft of the bridge was filling his eyes and lungs.
He staggered forward towards one
of the newly created ‘windows’ on his bridge and sucked in the cool evening air. All hell had broken loose in a matter of minutes. And still no sight of the Americans.
The fleet was in total chaos. After the first torpedo struck the Anjou, the Americans, wherever they were, had apparently moved on to choicer targets. He could almost feel where the sub was that struck his ship. The cowardly submarine. Always the scorn of the real navy. And here his proud ship was crippled by one and he hadn’t even had the chance to see it.
It wasn’t until the first falling star shot out of the heavens and slammed into the top of one of the listing destroyers that Capitan DePonte realized perhaps the Americans should have been left alone. It wasn’t the first time the normally conservative capitan had questioned the odd behavior of his government, but it was the first time he had been personally wounded because of his government’s rash decisions. The thought of losing his ship because some politician pissed off the Americans made him sick to his stomach.
A bright flare erupted from the top of the twice wounded destroyer. DePonte couldn’t tell if it was the Crecy or the Aquitaine. Either way, that ship would fight no more. It seemed to jump out of the water in pain as the American missile bored straight through its smoke-stack and blew a massive hole out through the bottom of its hull. The ship was illuminated in a giant fireball that raced skyward just as the hull tore itself apart and began to disappear below the water, splitting in two.
Her back is broken, thought the Frenchman. He chuckled to himself, a dark, rueful sound. We thought America’s back to be broken…the fools. The sight of the ruined French fleet stirred ominously within DePonte’s stomach. He didn’t feel well about this war against the Americans any more. They will not like being set upon by the Old Countries, he mused. I fear we have just signed our own death warrants.
Another missile slammed into the remnants of the split and sinking destroyer, as if in insult. Pieces of the dying ship rained out of the sky. Huge plumes of water sprayed up with the concussive shockwave of the explosion. All around the crippled Anjou, missiles were raining from the sky like hailstones. “So many! How can this be?” he asked aloud, shocked by the scene unfolding around his ship.
The ocean was lit up by the gargantuan explosion of the last surviving cruiser to port. Two missiles had already hit home and still the ship struggled forward, to the east, looking for someone to kill. A third missile slammed into the ship from the starboard and superstructure literally disintegrated, spraying the water with debris and chunks of metal. The cruiser, decapitated, continued forward but began a lazy circle, belching smoke and fire from secondary explosions. Other ships began to swerve to avoid her death throes.
The first high-pitched roar of turbine engines from above announced the arrival of the American naval aviators. Capitan DePonte looked up and squinted, trying to make out the form of a streaking F-35 as it shot by not a hundred feet overhead. The noise was deafening. He followed the American pilot as he swung by a few support vessels and strafed them with a powerful machine gun. In seconds, the fighter had obliterated an unarmed supply ship. Even at this distance, DePonte could see sailors jumping off the doomed little ship into the turbulent and unforgiving waters of the western Med. The American pilot pulled his plane into a vertical climb and did a barrel roll as a victory dance.
DePonte cursed in French. The arrogance of the pilot infuriated him. Three more Lightnings roared in from the north, crisscrossing their paths, laying waste to the scattered French fleet. In desperation, DePonte grabbed the nearest undamaged pair of field glasses and searched for a Spanish ship. Were the Americans attacking the Spaniards as well or was their anger directed only at the Gauls? Bloody Spaniards…if they have backed out of the fight—-
LIEUTENANT COMMANDER RIGGS threw his Lightning into a hard right turn and surveyed the carnage. Ships exploded and fireballs mushroomed in his field of vision in all directions. Anarchy. A beautiful sight.
“That’s number three—“ observed his wingman. Riggs could imagine the smile on his partners face. “Let’s see…who’s next?”
Tracers blurred by the cockpit canopy as if they were laser beams out of a science fiction movie. “Whoever the hell just shot at us, that’s who’s next!” barked Riggs as he forced his plane to jerk and weave. It was barely enough to avoid the deadly anti-aircraft fire sprouting up from a still-defiant ship below. Riggs keyed his mic, “Hawk Flight, concentrate on that Spanish cruiser, six o’clock low, take that bastard down!”
“Hawk Four, roger that, moving to attack position,”
“Hawk Two, missile away!”
Riggs knew his plane was out of missiles so he decided to go old school. “Gonna dive bomb that fat bastard,” he mumbled. He rolled his F-35 in a gut wrenching spin, then angled straight down like an arrow.
“Fox Two!”
“Fox Three!” called out the other Hawks. Out of the corner of his eye, Riggs could see pinpoints of light streaking in from opposite directions towards the surrounded Spaniard and her sister ships. Tracers erupted from the port side automated ‘R2-D2’ ship defense mini-gun, tracking to and destroying one of the inbound missiles. The starboard unit missed its target and the missile struck home with devastating effect.
“Hawk Two, I’m hit—watch that Ack-Ack boys!”
A heartbeat later, Riggs gripped the joystick and the GAU 22/A four barreled 25mm cannon came to life with a muted roar that shook the plane. The massive shells began shredding the deck of the wounded and smoking ship hundreds of feet below. Riggs held the dive to the point where he could make out individual explosions on the ship from his cannon before jerking back on the stick hard and pulling away. The plane groaned and shuddered with the strain of leveling off with such tremendous speed, but she held together.
It was a little close for comfort, even for him. One or two small arms rounds bounced and tinked against the side of his jet. Someone on the burning, half destroyed Spanish ship was actually shooting at him with a machine gun.
“Hawk Lead, taking small arms fire from the Spanish cruiser,” he calmly reported, easing the fighter back to level flight some hundred feet off the deck. Tracers began crisscrossing his field of vision from two or three directions as other ships, still in the fight began taking shots at him. It seemed that every ship in the water began taking a bead on the bold American jet.
The plane shuddered as a shell punctured the starboard tail fin and blew a ragged football sized hole in the metal. “Hawk Lead, I’m hit!” called out Riggs as he pushed the throttle over to max, lit the afterburner and screeched straight up into the sky, much faster than the ships gunners could track. He grunted, trying to control the bucking joystick. His plane was hurt and didn’t want to move as nimble as it had just seconds before. The tracers fell harmlessly aft of the retreating Lightning.
“Hawk Lead, Hawk Three, that French carrier is trying to clear the decks. Looks like they wanna launch…” squawked over Riggs’ helmet.
Riggs banked hard to port and did a lazy circle in the smoke filled evening sky, looking for the carrier. There. She was on fire, trying to turn into the wind, leaving a huge smoke trail he assumed could be seen for miles. Maybe even by the Roosevelt, well over the horizon.
“SAM launch! Starboard side, three o’clock low,” came over his helmet, words that no aviator wants to hear in the middle of a fight.
“Any air cover yet?” asked Riggs, never taking his eyes off the massive carrier, rapidly growing bigger as the Lightning raced forward. He hit the chaff and flare launch buttons on his keyboard and pressed forward, hoping the Surface to Air missile would miss his plane.
“Two more SAMs up! Hammer Flight is only a few seconds away though…took ‘em long enough,” muttered Jonsey.
A few more missiles began climbing from the decks of smoking ships, adding their smoke trails to the tangled knot of contrails, smoke and missile trails already polluting the sky.
“I’m hit!” someone screamed. “Hawk Two—“ an explosion to starboar
d caught Riggs’ eye. He saw the remnants of Hawk Two come shooting out of the ball of fire in three large chunks streaking down in a graceful curve towards the ocean below. No parachutes.
“Nest, we just lost Hawk Two, repeat, Hawk Two is down,” he said, still looking for parachutes and fighting the grief welling up in his throat. Sidewinder was a good friend. Riggs couldn’t imagine he had time to pull the ring, but…
“Christ, there’s a SAM coming right up my ass!” someone else shouted.
“Breaking right,” called another American voice.
“Alright, Hawk Flight, we only got a couple more minutes of this…let’s make it count!” ordered Riggs with a smile as the plane swerved to the left and rolled down towards the deck, back into the roiling hellfire of AAA. He couldn’t wait to hear the bitching from the F-18 pilots. They’d be pissed at the scraps the Lightnings would be leaving.
He strafed the injured French carrier, relishing the sight of sailors diving for cover and bits of machinery exploding. Tracers of his own tore a path through the heavy metal and tarmac flight deck, effectively ruining any plans of launching fighters. Out of the corner of his eye, as he streaked by virtually unopposed, he saw a single French fighter taxing to the crippled catapult launch system, seemingly ignorant of the damage to the flight deck.
Resolving to nip the problem in the bud, he swung the wounded Lightning around in a tight circle, coming head on to the carrier. From this angle it was more difficult to see the rest of the fleet; the smoke from the carrier and her sinking support vessels virtually turned the world black. The slight wobble in his planes flight path caused by the big hole in his tail fin didn’t help. But there was the French fighter, rolling confidently up to the catapult, firelight glinting off the graceful canopy.
Alea Jacta Est: A Novel of the Fall of America (Future History of America Book 1) Page 51
