by James Rosone
Both officers let out an audible sigh. Commodore Shepherd wiped his forehead. The volume of torpedoes five submarines would have been able to shoot at them would have certainly guaranteed some hits. As it was, they still had eight torpedoes heading toward the fleet.
They waited anxiously through every second for the next several minutes. One by one, they received reports from the sonar officer on whether or not the torpedoes hit their intended targets.
“Sir, I can confirm that the torpedo launched at the Lancaster went after the decoy and blew up harmlessly,” announced Petty Officer Lee Davies.
Several seamen nearby let out an excited half-yell, half-grunt. However, the battle was far from over.
Davies had another announcement. “Sir, the Portland wasn’t so lucky. The torpedo missed the decoy and definitely connected with the ship.”
Lieutenant Nibs got on the horn to find out what their status was. He looked a bit pale when he hung up. “Commodore, they did pick up the phone, so at least they weren’t immediately sunk. However, the torpedo sheared off most of the front part of the ship, and they’re taking on a lot of water. They don’t know for sure if the engineers will be able to repair the Portland enough for them to make it.”
Petty Officer Davies spoke again. “One of the French destroyers must have been able to move their decoy into the path of one of the torpedoes that was headed toward the Charles de Gaulle. It just exploded harmlessly.”
Every second felt like an eternity at this point to Commodore Shepherd.
“Commodore, the second torpedo headed toward the Charles de Gaulle did connect with the ship,” explained Davies.
Moments later, Lieutenant Nibs announced, “That last torpedo that hit the Charles de Gaulle must have been a wave runner since it traveled right in their wake. It blew up against the stern. There’s a small fire in engineering, but so far, they seem to be stable.”
One of the radar operators suddenly waved for attention. “Sir, the Kent—it’s moving right in the path of those torpedoes!” he shouted.
“My God, he must’ve realized that there was a wave runner and now he’s trying to obscure the torpedoes’ guidance picture,” thought Shepherd. It was a very risky move, and he wasn’t sure if he’d have had the stomach for it himself.
Petty Officer Davies announced, “Sir, the Kent just took a direct hit.”
Seconds later, everyone heard an enormous blast.
The XO called down from the bridge.
“What just happened?” asked Shepherd.
“Sir, the first hit must have damaged the boiler room. As soon as that icy water hit, the entire stern was blown clean off. There’s a third of the ship missing. There is no way they’re going to make it. Let’s just pray that some of the men can make it onto the life rafts before the Kent sinks beneath the waves,” the XO explained.
“We’re going to need to organize a rescue party,” Commodore Shepherd said.
However, before any action could take place on that matter, Petty Officer Davies announced, “Sir, the second torpedo that had been headed toward the Queen Elizabeth just connected with the hull.”
“What do you see, XO?” asked Shepherd.
“This does not look good, Sir,” responded the commanding officer. “The torpedo hit the underbelly of the ship, and she’s likely taking on a lot of water. She’s already starting to keel over to one side. They’re slowing down. They must have a lot of flooding. I see fires springing up all around. My God…I hope I’m not watching while the pride of British fleet is sinking.”
A knot formed in the pit of Commodore Shepherd’s stomach. He had never anticipated that this day could ever end this way.
Over the next few minutes, he learned that the Akula had been destroyed by the Allied torpedoes and that the Italian ship had skated by without any damage. However, it didn’t remove the awful feeling of knowing that many lives had been lost and that Her Majesty’s namesake was in danger of slipping to the bottom of the ocean.
*******
Vice Admiral Mitch Lindal sighed. The fleet was four days into their operation, and already, they were experiencing a number of problems. Aside from the storm that was battering the aged ships that comprised his fleet, the Kitty Hawk was experiencing a series of engine problems that under any other situation would have meant she would have returned to port. But her aircraft—even the limited ones she was carrying—were needed for the coming operation. Two of her eight boiler rooms were experiencing problems that were affecting her propulsion systems. She was unable to maintain full speed, and while that wasn’t a problem right now, when it came time to launch their aircraft, it could become an issue.
“I wasn’t even supposed to be here,” he thought in one of his rare pessimistic moments.
After thirty-two years of military service, Vice Admiral Mitch Lindal had been five days away from starting his terminal leave and his retirement from the Navy when the war with Russia had started. His retirement had been postponed for ninety days to allow the Navy to determine how serious this new war was. Once the Bush carrier strike group had been destroyed, a second carrier sunk by the Chinese, and a third severely damaged, it had quickly become clear the US was going to need to pull several of their older carriers out of retirement to fill the gap. World War III had arrived, and it was all hands on deck to defeat the powers bent on destroying them.
Once Admiral Lindal’s retirement had been rescinded, he’d been placed in charge of creating a new carrier strike group that would defeat the Russian Navy and help end the war. In that pursuit, he was placed in charge of reactivating the USS Enterprise, which had recently been stripped of her electronics, reactor fuel rods and most of her other critical systems. An army of nearly three thousand contractors had been brought in and had worked around the clock to get the ship brought back up to speed.
In addition to getting the Enterprise reactivated and ready for war, he also had to ready John F. Kennedy, which was in a similar state. Both ships had been in the process of being made ready to be turned into floating museums, which was fortunate, given that at least they weren’t in the process of being broken down for scrap.
Getting the Kitty Hawk seaworthy was practically going to require an intervention from the Almighty. However, instead of divine intervention, Admiral Lindal has been given an army of contractors. The carrier had just started the process of being broken down for scrap when the war started. It had taken nearly ten months to get her seaworthy and ready for combat. Even in her deployment to England, she was still flooded with an army of two thousand contractors who were getting the ship’s electronics, weapons, and aviation functions ready for war. It was not until ten days prior to this deployment that the ship had received her full crew, munitions, and aircraft. Bringing these three carriers out of retirement and ready for war in essentially ten months had been nothing short of miraculous.
In addition to getting the three carriers ready for war, Admiral Lindal had also had to assemble the support ships that would be needed to escort this aged fleet of warships. After combing through the naval inactive ship maintenance facility in Philadelphia, his staff was able to identify thirteen of sixteen Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates that could be brought back up to service for this newly designated fleet. His planners had also identified two Ticonderoga-class cruisers and six amphibious transport ships. In Pearl Harbor, they’d looked at the eight amphibious assault transports and had wanted to incorporate them into their Atlantic fleet but had been told they had been slated for use in the Pacific. Admiral Lindal had only been allowed to pillage through the Atlantic reserve fleet. Rumor had it the Navy was even considering reactivating the two remaining Iowa-class battleships, purely for their sixteen-inch gun platforms.
It had been a long few months for Admiral Lindal, to say the least. He poured himself another cup of coffee and stared blankly out the window at the storm.
Captain Donna King had a similar idea. She emptied the current pot of coffee on the bridge into her mug,
and after setting the next one up to brew, she found the admiral, who was looking outside. “Remind me why we’re launching this operation now, instead of a few months from now when the ship and the fleet would be better prepared,” she said in a hushed tone only loud enough for the two of them to hear.
Admiral Lindal grunted in reply before turning to look at the newly promoted captain. Donna King had just pinned on captain when the war started. She was going to assume the role of Commander Air Group on the George H.W. Bush when it had been sunk. When the Navy had made the decision to reactivate the Enterprise, she had been Admiral Lindal’s top pick to take command. Aside from being a brilliant aviator, she had served as his aide during his obligatory Pentagon tour. He knew if anyone could light a fire under the butts of the engineers to get the ship ready for combat, it would be her.
Ever since he’d met her sixteen years ago, Admiral Lindal had taken a liking to King. As a young F/A-18 Hornet pilot, she was aggressive and tenacious, but she was also a big thinker, someone who saw the grand strategy. That singled her out as an officer who would make flag level one day. He had taken it upon himself to help mentor her and guide her through the perils of the Navy officer selection process. When he had been given the herculean task of building a new carrier strike group out of mothballed and reserve ships, he’d sat down and gone through his rolodex of officers he had personally groomed and mentored. He had orders chopped and people transferred around as he sought to build his leadership dream team. He would do his best to make sure these officers were rewarded following the war.
Smiling as he looked at Donna, he responded in a similarly hushed tone. “If we wait, we won’t be able to move until spring. Before we left port, I had a telecom with the SecDef. He told me that between the ground offensive and our amphibious assault, they believe the Russian Army may completely collapse. We could end this war within the next two or three months.”
Captain King sighed but nodded. “Did you hear about the boiler room problems on the Kitty Hawk? I’m glad we don’t have that issue to deal with,” she said, changing the topic.
“Yeah, I’ve been hearing about a host of mechanical problems from different ships throughout the fleet. I hate to admit this, but I’m glad we brought a few tugboats along. Some of the transport ships are really having a hard time keeping up. I’ve already had to detail off a couple of frigates to help guard two transports that broke down and are currently trying to get back underway.”
“Did you ever think in 2018, a carrier fleet would be traveling with several tug boats? We’re as bad as the Russians,” she said with a slight chuckle. Prior to the war, the Russian carrier was often seen traveling with a tugboat. It was notorious for breaking down and having to be pulled into port.
“The Kitty Hawk was commissioned in 1961. I served on her in the 1980s. I never imagined leading a fleet of ships that had largely been part of the Ghost fleet.”
Before they could continue their conversation, a call came through, requesting their presence in the combat information center. They both headed down to the CIC to see what was going on. When they entered the room, they saw several underwater contacts on the big board screen.
“Torpedoes in the water!” announced one of the senior petty officers who had been manning one of the operations desks.
Before anyone else could speak, Admiral Lindal demanded, “Where are they headed?”
“The torpedoes appear to be aimed at the European ships,” he replied. “We’re well outside of their range.”
“Admiral, we’re receiving a message from the New Hampshire,” the underwater LNO explained. “They say they’re moving to engage an Oscar-class sub. They said it sounded like the Oscar was preparing to fire her cruise missiles.”
“Let’s go ahead and bring the rest of the fleet to battle stations and prepare them to respond to a possible cruise missile attack,” the admiral ordered. Despite the new threat, he trusted that his people and their ships would be able to handle the evolving situation.
*******
Bear Island, Barents Sea
Admiral Feliks Gromov smiled to himself as he watched the waves crashing. The storm raging in the Barents Sea couldn’t have come at a better time if he’d planned it himself. Things were going much better than he had anticipated.
Their intelligence sources in both Britain and Norway had confirmed the departure of the Allied fleet four days ago; when they’d discovered the Allied plans for Operation Nordic Fury, his officers had scrambled to figure out how they could stop the American fleet. It was clear they were going to try and end the war before the conclusion of the year, and if the Allies were successful in landing troops at Severodvinsk, they had a good chance of succeeding.
A major high-profile defeat like that would be nearly impossible for the media to spin, and it would cause the Russian people to question how well the war really was going. In general, the average Russian citizen knew the Allies were still carrying out sporadic strategic bombings across the country, but the news from the front was still regaling them with victories, tales of pushing the Allies completely out of Ukraine, and their army driving deep into Poland and even Slovakia. An Allied invasion of the Russian mainland from the White Sea would call all of that into question.
When the war with the Americans had started, Admiral Gromov had petitioned to have upgrades to the Admiral Nakhimov rushed, and to have his own flagship, the Pyotr Velikiy, equipped with their new 3M22 Zircon anti-ship missiles. NATO had called these missiles the SS-N-33, and they were petrified of them. While the Russian Navy had not been able to use them in the war up to this point, they would be heavily used in the coming naval battle.
Admiral Gromov had marshaled his meager fleet, which consisted of the lone Russian aircraft carrier, Admiral Kuznetsov, two Kirov-class battlecruisers, his two remaining Slava-class cruisers, and the one remaining Sovremennyy-class destroyer the Allies had not sunk yet in an occupied Norwegian fjord. The Russian rocket forces had successfully shot down a few Allied satellites that were providing them with real-time intelligence over this area of the Barents Sea just for this operation. He also had three additional Udaloy-class destroyers for antisubmarine warfare support.
In all, his fleet comprised eight surface ships and four submarines—not much considering the fleet they were supposed to intercept, but what they had that the Allies didn’t was a hypersonic anti-ship missile capable of carrying a 2,500-pound warhead at speeds in excess of Mach 5. His fleet was equipped with a total of 120 of these missiles, and depending on how many of them made it through the Allied air-defense screen, his little fleet could still force the Allied fleet to turn around and head back to Britain.
Gromov’s greatest fear right now was not that his fleet would fail, but that Petrov might authorize the use of tactical nuclear weapons to destroy the Allied fleet if it came down to it. Many of the Russian military leaders were desperate to keep the war conventional, even if it meant they ultimately lost. After seeing how the American president had responded to the use of nuclear weapons by the North Koreans, there was no question as to how the US would respond to a second use of these dastardly weapons against their forces. Even in defeat, Admiral Gromov and his men would still have a home to come back to. However, if the war turned nuclear, there was no guarantee any of them or their families would survive, and that kind of victory was not worth having.
Once the Allied fleet left their British and European ports and formed up in the North Sea, the meteorologist reported that a large winter storm would descend from the North Pole and converge into a nasty storm over the Greenland Sea and then make its way down to the Norwegian and Barents Seas. During this period, it would be nearly impossible to conduct air operations, and the dense storm cloud coverage would hamper drone surveillance after the Allies lost their satellites. The loss of the satellites would only guarantee him a day, maybe two tops, before either new ones were launched or satellites already in space were redirected to cover the Allied fleet. If Gromov rushed his
fleet from Tanafjorden, where he currently had them laid up, into the opposite side of Bear Island, he just might catch the Allied fleet by surprise.
As he continued to watch the waves crash around him, his mood soured a bit. “These rollers are horrendous,” he thought. Launching an attack in this severe of a weather pattern was very risky. If the targeting officers weren’t careful, the missiles could very well fly right into a wave before they even hit an American ship.
He sighed. If they waited for calmer seas, the Allies would be able to use their Air Force and drones, and his fleet wouldn’t last an hour against the Allied airpower.
“No, we need to use this horrible storm and hope for the best,” he determined.
Turning to face his weapons officer, Admiral Gromov nodded. “Order the fleet to begin firing our missiles,” he announced.
Gromov glanced down at his watch; the submarines would begin launching their attack within the next ten minutes. If they timed things correctly, the Allied fleet would be dealing with torpedoes and missiles from the submarines when their swarm of hypersonic missiles showed up on their radar screens.
Bright flashes of light appeared on the front section of the battlecruiser as the first missiles fired out of the vertical launch system. Forty Zircon missiles packed enough punch to severely cripple a strike group—at least that was what the military developers in Moscow had told the Russian armed forces.
*******
“Vampires! Vampires! Vampires! We have inbound missiles bearing 113, one hundred and thirty kilometers, traveling .9 Mach,” shouted one of the air-defense officers aboard the USS Enterprise. The team of radar and defensive weapons personnel were picking up handsets and shouting all sorts of information as they tried to begin the critical coordination of the fleet’s defenses.
The watch commander in the CIC turned to face the admiral. “Sir, the Gates is asking permission to slave the fleet’s air-defense systems. What should I tell him?” asked Commander Lipton, holding the receiver to his shoulder while he waited for a response.
