B00DSDUWIQ EBOK (4 page)

“Can
you broadcast on that band?”

“Of
course, sir.”

“Then
warn those planes off. State that we are on a diplomatic mission to Sagami Bay.
We are not to be overflown by armed planes, and if any attempt to do so they will
be opposed.”

Nikolin
translated and broadcast the message, but the voice on the other end of the line
didn’t seem too accommodating. “He says they have orders to investigate the
downing of five American planes, and that’s what they intend to do, sir. And he
doesn’t sound impressed by our threat to oppose an overflight. He wants us to
identify ourselves.”

That
was expected, thought Karpov. Identify ourselves. Just who in God’s name are we
in this world now? Could he say he was on a mission from the Soviet government?
That may provide some thin cover for a time, until inquiries were made and it
was denied. How could he possibly explain his situation and intent to a fighter
pilot named “Iron Mike?” He might just as well try to explain it all to a dog, or
so he thought in that moment. The notion that he was bigger, better, more evolved
and definitely more powerful than the men behind those radar blips on the
ship’s screens was evident to him now.

“Tell
them this is Captain Vladimir Karpov on an independent diplomatic mission, and
that if they do not break off and alter heading within ten minutes we must
assume hostile intent.”

The
word came back a minute later. “He says they have no intention of altering course
and advises us to reduce speed and prepare to be overflown. He says boarding parties
will be dispatched from nearby ships and we can take up our diplomatic request
with the proper authorities.”

The
proper authorities, thought Karpov. As if I am answerable to these men for my presence
and actions here! Their immediate assumption is that they hold all authority,
that they are the law and rule the day. There was a brief flash of anger in his
mind, and his next words reflected his mood well enough.

“You
tell Iron Mike that he has no authority over this ship, over these waters, or anything
else in this region. We will not be boarded, nor will we be overflown by armed
aircraft. He has about five minutes to divert his heading.”

Nikolin
listened intently, turning to Karpov, his brown eyes large under this head phones
now. “He’s talking to his superiors now sir…Here he is again…” He translated as
he listened. “Captain Carp, or whoever you are, might makes right, and we have
both, as you will soon bear witness. The United States Navy is presently the
sole authority in all these waters now. You’ll give way and heave to for boarding
and inspection or be damned. If it is found that you are not an authorized
agent of an allied government, then you and your crew will be arrested, the
ship impounded, and your case heard before a properly formed military tribunal.
We will not divert.”

“The
United States Navy…” Karpov’s tone carried the obvious disdain he felt now. “They’re
all the same,” he breathed. “This one is no different than Captain Tanner was
eighty years hence. They will hound us from this moment until that volcano
erupts. This is where it all started, but not this time; not on my watch.”

Rodenko
gave the Captain a wide eyed look, but said nothing. He knew what was likely to
happen here, and feared the worse from the moment he saw those radar returns on
the incoming planes.

“Mister
Nikolin. Contact destroyer
Orlan
. Signal Air Alert One and prepare to oppose
incoming strike wave. Tell them to track and prepare to fire at any target
crossing the100 kilometer range line. They are to use their medium range S-400
system, salvos of eight until I give the order to cease fire.
Admiral Golovko
is to hold fire and observe unless directly attacked. They should be especially
vigilant for any sign of undersea activity. Once you receive confirmation of
that order from Captain Yeltsin, contact this Iron Mike again and tell him if
he moves inside the 100 kilometer range line, then he and his planes will be
presumed hostile and will be fired upon and opposed with deadly force.”

Rodenko
looked at his screen. The planes were 140 kilometers out now and moving at about
400kph. In six minutes they would cross the 100 kilometer range line. He informed
Karpov of this, and the Captain nodded. “Tell them they must break off in five
minutes or we must assume they intend to attack.”

Nikolin
translated again, and there was a long minute before he had an answer.

“What
was their response?”

“They
say we can go to hell, sir. They’re coming.”

Karpov’s
eyes narrowed. “We can go to hell, is it? Very well, gentlemen. Let’s show them
what the real estate there looks like.”

Part II

Argos
Fire

“If
you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. … You will be
alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight
to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.”

—Charles Bukowski,
Factorum

Chapter 4

“Cruise
missiles positively identified now, sir,”
said Haley on the
Argos Fire
. The radar man was at the Sampson system,
his head and hands protected by white flash proof headpiece and gloves as he
worked. “Those are SS-N-27s, subsonic and coming in at 15,000 feet. Looks like
they’re targeting
Princess Irene,
and they’re getting close. They’ll be
diving soon, sir.
”

A
good play, thought Captain MacRae.
Princess Irene
is still north of Poti
and we’re down here well to the south. I didn’t think they’d make this move, but
here it is. Some bastard has decided he hasn’t enough arrows in his quiver to
get us all, so he’s using his longest range asset to go after the closest target.

“
Iron
Duke
is firing more
Sea Ceptors,
sir!” Haley’s voice was edged with the
excitement of battle.

The
Russian Black Sea Fleet had been ready for mothballs for years, but now it came
out to fight like an old boxer with new legs. The old flagship,
Moskva
, was
renamed
Slava
and sent to Severomorsk in 2018 where its most significant
accomplishment had been towing and placing target barges for live fire
exercises. The cruiser
Kerch
was retired, leaving only two old
Krivak
class frigates that had been rusting away for years. To save face, however, the
Russians delivered three new frigates, the
Admiral Grigorovich
, the first
of its class, along with
Admiral Essen
and
Admiral Makarov.

Built
in Kaliningrad, they were laid down between 2010 and 2012 and delivered to the fleet
by 2018. Much more had been planned and promised, but never came. So the Black
Sea Fleet was in no position to do much of anything in a general war. Its best
play would have been to stand on defense, but seeing an opportunity to hurt the
West by further restricting its access to oil and gas supplies, Captain Sergei
Pomilov took his three new frigates out that day for a trial by fire, with the
two old
Krivaks
in the vanguard of his tiny fleet. The Captain didn’t
have much to shoot with on his five ships, but there were some fairly inviting
targets to his south, three fat oil tankers escorted by a pair of British
warships, and he had a few missiles that could hurt them badly. He sortied to
take a position NNE of Poti, just under 300 kilometers, approaching the maximum
range of his cruise missiles.

True
to form, he coordinated a combined air/sea operation that day, sending in all that
was left of his 43rd Independent Naval
Shturmovik
Air Assault Squadron.
They were flying SU-24s on a saturation SEAD mission to try and suppress the
enemy radars in the two British escorts. One had been identified as the frigate
Iron Duke
, and the other was simply reported as a
Daring
class
destroyer. To see British ships this close to Russian home waters was rare down
here. They held the line against the Northern Fleet in the Atlantic, but seldom
entered the Black Sea. Pomilov planned to make them pay a high price of
admission this time, and he set his sights on the nearest oil tanker, seeing it
as easy prey.

The
SU-24s came in with the element of surprise, but the British were not sleeping and
were quick into action with their newest SAM defense systems. They proved more
than capable, and the SU-24 pilots were not able to get anything through for a
hit, losing one plane for their trouble. Yet Pomilov had also let loose with a
salvo of anti-ship missiles.

The
three new frigates had eight missiles each, four speedy
Oniks
at Mach 2.5
and four of the subsonic 3M-54E Klub cruise missiles, the same P-900
“Sizzler”
as on
Kirov,
with improved range to 370 kilometers. He fired the cruise
missiles first from all three ships, a salvo of twelve missiles heading south
through the dark skies.

* * *

Captain
Ian Williams on HMS
Iron Duke
was
point man in the battle now. His ship was standing picket duty about twenty kilometers
NNE of
Princess Irene
, close enough to cover the tanker with his
Sea
Ceptors.
He was also about 300 kilometers southeast of the Russian
formation, feeling just a little lonesome as he considered the tactical situation.

He
read five ships in the Russian formation, three newer frigates, and two old
Krivaks
that were of no concern. They were ASW ships and most likely only there to form
a screen. His XO was keen to point that out as they studied the chart plot board,
ready to engage. Williams took a long draw on his pipe, filling the air around
them with the aromatic smell of
Top Black Cherry.
He seemed calm and
unruffled, in spite of the fact that they had just been in the thick of it, beating
off a SEAD strike by a gaggle of Russian SU-24s, and now they were tracking a
salvo of cruise missiles closing on their position at just under Mach 1.

“
Sea
Ceptors
engaging this salvo now, sir,” said XO Lt. Commander Colin Firth. The
missiles were a ‘soft launch’ system, piston ejected from the forward deck VLS
canisters and then turned over by gas jets before their main engine would ignite
to send them on their way.
Iron Duke
had the new ‘Quad Pack’ that housed
four missiles in each of her 32 firing tubes, giving her a considerable inventory
of 128 missiles. They had fired 32 of these already to repulse the SEAD attack
off those SU-24s, and Williams was more than pleased with the results.

Now
he watched another salvo firing, but the target had already completed its subsonic
cruise phase and was diving steeply for the deck to begin its final supersonic
run. It was missile against missile now, each about the same speed, one with
active radar seekers probing the darkness to find its prey, the other executing
a series of pre-programmed maneuvers as it settled into its sea skimming run
and rapidly accelerated towards Mach 2.5 They had to get them all as they came
in, and Williams watched as they recorded kill after kill. Yet the range was diminishing
rapidly and two of the twelve were good enough to evade the defensive salvo.
Williams saw them streak by the ship in the distance, two bright fiery tails
well off his port quarter. They were obviously bearing down on
Princess
Irene
, and they were well out of range of the ship’s close in gun systems.

“Once
again, gentlemen,” he said, “and be quick about it.”

Four
more
Sea Ceptors
were launched, accelerating rapidly in pursuit, but the
Sizzlers
were now burning full out and were reaching their maximum speed.
The
Ceptors
could not catch them, and both hit their target with a
thundering explosion. The heavy warhead blew through the outer hull and their kinetic
impact started a raging fire in the tanker’s fuel compartments. The combined
force of the two missiles put 800 kilograms of explosive power on the ship, and
the rest of the damage was done by the burning oil. It was a fire that would
not be put out by any means, and the ship was doomed. Fairchild had lost its
youngest daughter, and the bridge crew on the Russian flagship,
Admiral Gigorivich,
clenched their fists in a victory cheer. First blood in the battle was their
claim now, black oily blood spreading over the sea near the stricken tanker and
surrounding it in a halo of fire.

But
it was far from over.

* * *

Captain
Gordon MacRae got the bad news a few minutes
later and considered what to do. The damn Russians had one thing on him in this
engagement—range. Their missiles had long reach, exceeding his own anti-ship
systems by just enough to matter. That was the deadly calculus of modern war at
sea. The speed and range of a missile could make all the difference in the
engagement. If he wanted to repay the Black Sea Fleet in kind he had to get up
north with
Iron Duke
and close the range a bit.

Fairchild
had pressed a new ship-to-ship missile prototype into sea trials on the
Argos
Fire
, the GB-7, or
Gealbhan
for ‘Sparrow.’ It was faster than the
Harpoons
on the
Iron Duke
, and had range almost equivalent to their
Block 1D version at 320 kilometers, but he was too far south. The Duke could fire
back now and their Captain Williams was doing so, but the frigate only had enough
for one good punch, just eight
Harpoons
.

“Come
about to 340 degrees and ahead full,” he said grimly. “We just paid a high price
for a chance at getting at the oil quickly. Now it’s out there burning on
Princess
Irene.”

His
Executive Officer Dean had a troubled look on his face.
Iron Duke
was alone,
fighting the brave fight while
Argos Fire
was escorting the core of what
remained of the Fairchild flotilla, two larger tankers with a million barrels
each in their holds. MacRae reasoned that he could defend the tankers as long
as he kept them inside the circle of his air defense umbrella, and the ship’s
Sea
Vipers
could range out 120 kilometers.

Argos
Fire
surged ahead, her
engines quickly developing 30 knots. With the Russians still heading southeast
at 25 knots, the two sides would be closing at just over 100 kilometers per
hour. That would put his
Gealbhans
within range in just a few minutes,
and he was ready to engage.

“Wake
up the birds,” he said to Dean. “Salvo of eight.
Iron Duke
has na’ but a
handful of those
Harpoons
, and they’ll be lucky if they get even one through.”

Ten
minutes later the
Argos Fire
engaged, but Captain Pomilov was ready with
his final salvo of
Oniks
missiles as well. His three new frigates were able
to get their salvo off before they had to go defensive and switch to SAM systems.
He soon had another twelve P-800s in the air and targeted at the
Iron Duke
this time, intent on taking out a warship after his initial salvo had found and
killed its commercial target.

The
Oniks
was the missile that had eventually been merged into the
Yakhont/BraMos
project for the Indian Navy. It was a successor to the original SS-N-22
Sunburns
,
fast, furious, and with a 250kg warhead. It’s ideal flight trajectory over the 300
kilometer range was a high altitude approach followed by a rapid descent to sea
level for the final 40 kilometers. So while the eight
Harpoons
off
Iron
Duke
forged in on the deck, low and slow, the Russian response was climbing
high.

* * *

The
frigate was firing with her
Sea Ceptors
and the deadly dance was on again in the midnight black of the starlit sky.
Bright new shooting stars clawed the heavens as the missiles engaged, and all
the while the
Gealbhans
off
Argos Fire
accelerated to join the
fray.

The
Harpoons
found an old
Krivak
and two got through to break its back
that night. A third made it through to hit
Admiral Grigorovich
. Yet the
Russian missiles were fast and, in spite of a violent defense from her 30mm Mark
34 Bushmaster IIs,
Iron Duke
took a hit on her aft quarter, igniting the
helo deck area in a torrid fire.

Captain
Williams was on the bridge in command of the action, pipe in one hand, the other
steadying himself against the roll of the ship. He shunned the Captain’s chair,
preferring to stand out his watch whenever he was on the bridge. There was a
lot going on in the heat of combat, but Williams was a steady rock, with typical
British reserve and a well of calm in his gut that would not be rattled. He
felt the ship quaver with the missile hit, but a raised eyebrow was the only
outward sign of reaction.

“Took
one on our backside,” he said calmly to his XO Lt. Commander Colin Firth.”

“That
we did, sir.”

There
were two other near misses, one spoofed by ECM and chaff, the other bearing in,
right amidships.

“Mister
Simms, look to your Bushmasters,” said Williams firmly.

The
rattle of the frigate’s two automated cannons scored a lucky hit, igniting the last
missile not thirty feet shy of the frigate. The clatter of shrapnel striking
the hull was evident to them all, and a junior midshipman exhaled loudly with
obviously relief. The demonstration drew a stern eye from Captain Williams, who
quietly reached into his pocket and found his tobacco tamp.

Then
the
Gealbhans
broke through the Russian defense to get the second
Krivak
and put another missile into
Grigorovich
that would make a fiery end to that
ship’s brief career. A third found the
Essen,
striking amidships, and
the Black Sea Fleet had had enough.

* * *

Back
aboard
Argos Fire
radar man Haley turned
to report .

“The
remaining ships are executing a high speed turn, sir. They’re coming around on a
new heading of 340.”