Kirov III-Pacific Storm (Kirov Series) (31 page)

One missile came, then another and
Sakamoto, flying at the top of his strike wave with the squadrons of
Rei-sen
fighters, could see two planes down from the
first rocket, then another, then three more, one killed outright in a violent
explosion, and the remaining two B5N2s streaming smoke, but still doggedly
holding formation. He shouted an order to his fighter escorts, and the zeros
tipped their wings and roared down, right into the thin smoke trails scratched
into the sky by the first three rockets. They would surge ahead like a pack of
sleek greyhounds, willing now to take the worst of anything more that reached
for their brothers behind. Five more died when the next three rockets came, and
then a surreal calm settled over the scene as Sakamoto watched the last of the
five ride its own smoking tail into the sea. He craned his neck to see what
remained of his formation, the brave pilots steady on as they came.

He had lost seven A6M2s in all, three
B5N2 torpedo bombers and one dive bomber, eleven planes hit or lost to six
enemy rockets. They were birds on a wire. He gave the order to disperse by
shotai
and then for each group of three planes to
fly a wide pattern, well off the wingtips of their brethren.

“They
are dispersing,” said Rodenko. “The
main formation is breaking up. I can now read about forty-five contacts in
Group One, twenty-eight in Group Two to the south.”

“One more time, Mister Samsonov, salvo
of six per group. Ten second intervals.”

“Samsonov paused briefly as his light
pen reached to select his missiles. “Sir,” he said, “we have only seven S-300s
remaining.”

Karpov turned, “Of course… Three
missile salvo to each group then, and fire when ready.”

“Firing now, sir.”

The second attack was equally deadly,
but it found fewer planes. Sakamoto’s tactic had worked, and with the A6N2s
well out in front now, the fighters took the brunt of the attack, their wings
bright with machine gun fire that had no hope of hitting the missiles, the
voices of the pilots strident and wild in Sakamoto’s head set. The wide
dispersal of the strike wave meant the missile kill would fall to a one to one
ratio again. Three
Rei-sen
fighters died in
the second barrage, one for each rocket that came at them. Two others were
scored by shrapnel, but still flyable.

The Southern group off the light
carrier
Ryuho
had yet to climb the learning curve, and its planes had
stolidly closed formations again after the first rockets thinned their ranks.
When the second salvo of three missiles hit them, it took out six more planes,
four of them brave fighter pilots that had charged into the vanguard of the
attack wave and two strike planes. There were still two of six dive bombers
alive and flying, and nine of twelve torpedo bombers. On they came, soon
crossing the fifty kilometer range line.

Karpov’s
palms were sweating, though he
clasped his hands tightly together as he waited. There was now only a single
S-300 missile remaining. Steady and calm, the Captain gave another firm order.

“Switch to Klinok system, enable
infrared and optical guidance systems.” They had lost one of two fire control
radar sets for that system when Hayashi’s plane had come thundering down on the
aft battle bridge. Their forward radar could not process all the contacts they
were still facing at one time. They would use it to give the missiles their
initial heading and range to target, and then allow infrared and optical tracking
systems to take over if necessary.

There came a slight vibration, barely
perceptible, and then the comm link buzzed and Fedorov went to receive the
call. It was Admiral Volsky.

“What is happening, Fedorov?”

The young Captain quickly briefed the
Admiral.

“Very well, carry on as best you can.
I will be in engineering with Dobrynin.”

At forty kilometers the medium range
Klinok system began to fire, the last missile gauntlet to be run by the enemy
before they could get in actual visual range of their target, but they had only
sixteen remaining. Karpov sighed heavily and gave the order.

“Two salvos of eight,” he said. “Ten
second firing intervals, as before.” They still had plenty of time before the
enemy could threaten the ship with direct attack. He wanted to be sure each
missile acquired a target before a second was sent on its way, to avoid any
possibility that two missiles might expend themselves on a single plane. The
tactic worked as planned. Eight more planes would die in each oncoming group,
but five minutes after the first missile streaked away a strange silence
settled over
Kirov’s
long forward deck, the warm morning breeze slowly
driving off the last of the steamy smoke and vapor from the missile firings.
The Klinoks were gone. Samsonov’s light pen still hovered over the screen, but
he had no more missiles to select. Only the last S-300 remained.

“Helm,” said Karpov. “Ahead thirty.
Mister Fedorov, will you take charge of maneuvering the ship?”

“I will,” said Fedorov grimly.

There was a second shudder from below
decks, and this time Fedorov noticed it, worrying that the hull patch might
fail at high speed. This had been the very first time the new innovation had
been tested under actual combat conditions. Yet
Kirov
plowed ahead, her
sleek bow kicking up a white wash as the prow of the ship cut through the jade
green sea.

“Thirty Kilometers and closing fast
now,” said Rodenko.

“Ready on
Kashtan
-2 system,
Samsonov.”

“Aye, sir.” It was now up to
Kirov’s
close in defense systems.

The
Ryuho
Group to the south
had been hit very hard. All six of the dive bombers there were gone, and only
seven fighters and seven torpedo bombers remained. Sakamoto’s more experienced
pilots presented a stronger threat. Only two of his dive bombers had been hit,
and he had eleven left. There were still fourteen of the eighteen torpedo
bombers as well. But his brave fighters still dancing ahead of the strike wave,
had paid heavily. Only nine of twenty-four remained.

“I can hear them now,” said Nikolin,
his brown eyes dark beneath his head set. The shouts of one pilot to another
were evident, and though he did not know what they were saying, he could sense
the emotion, hear the iron in their voices, and he knew they called to hearten
one another, and bolster their resolve.

The
Kashtan
system still had
thirty-two close range missiles to augment its two twin Gatling gun mounts, and
then there were the four AR-710 single barreled Gatling Guns as well, and
plenty of 30mm ammunition. The weapons were computer controlled, with radar,
laser range finding and optical backup systems as well. The four single Gatling
guns could even be fired by a human crew that could
man
a control harness from a nearby position on the deck. They had forty-eight
planes to kill.

In they came, brave to a man,
unyielding. Not one pilot ever considered peeling off and turning away.
Sakamoto gathered his dive bombers into two fists of five or six planes each at
the top of the formation and he saw his torpedo bombers under Lt. Subota slowly
dropping down to begin their low altitude runs. Off to the south they could see
what was left of
Ryuho’s
strike charging in on
a well timed attack, both groups arriving within minutes of one another. It was
time. He tipped his nose down and yelled for his men to follow, and the D3As
were soon screaming down like a flock of merciless falcons swooping on their
prey.

Chapter
23

The old
Kashtan
system sat like a gray
crab at the base of the aft secondary mast that was topped with the Fregat
radar system, one on each side of the ship. Directly above it the stolid
robot-like figure of the Tin Man seemed to stand a solitary watch as the enemy
planes came in.

The arms of the gray crab were now
heavy with four barreled missile canisters above the Gatling guns, each capable
of ranging out to 10,000 meters, and Karpov wasted no time firing them. Their
smaller warheads could still generate a fragmentation sphere five meters in
diameter when the missile detonated, and so they posed another strong threat
with a high probability of interception for approaching air targets, and a
follow-on engagement of surviving targets at a close-in range with the intense
gunfire generated from the long black six-barreled Gatling guns.

The old
Kirov
had six such
systems installed, but four had been replaced with the AR-710 Gatling guns
given the new ship’s substantial SAM inventory. But now, Karpov found himself
wishing he had all six
Kashtans
back,
as they proved to be a most capable close in defense system.

Half their missiles were gone in a
flash, a barrage of eight from each unit. Then the heavy crab-like arms rotated
skyward to retract the missile tubes vertically, and a rotating canister below
decks quickly moved in the last remaining missiles. The reload was very quick,
under two seconds, and soon the missiles were ready to fire again.

The head of the crab was a rapidly
spinning fire control radar painting the sky with microwaves intent of finding
and assigning targets. After the first barrage it noted that there were still
twenty-six targets to the northeast and nine to the south. The second and final
barrage of missiles fired, sixteen in all and their lean vapor trails wound out
like thin threads in the sky seeking the planes with precision accuracy.
Kirov
did indeed seem like a great sea monster with white smoky octopus arms reaching
up into the blue skies to lash at the oncoming planes. When the
Kashtans
had expended the last of the missiles there
was a breathless hush over the scene for a moment. They looked out the forward
view panes and could see all that was left of Sakamoto’s strike wave of
fifty-five planes. Subota had six torpedo planes gliding swiftly over the deck,
and from above came the last eight dive bombers, both Sakamoto and Ema still
alive.

“I should have saved the last of the
Kashtan missiles,” Karpov breathed. “Now it’s down to the Gatling guns.”

He stepped quickly over to the view
panes, reached for his field glasses where they always hung there on a hook,
and snapped them quickly up to his eyes. Then he saw something unexpected—more
missiles streaking in from high above and vectoring in on the hurtling D3As. He
had forgotten the KA-40!

The helicopter had climbed to high
elevation over 16,000 feet, and was hovering well above the strike wave now.
The Japanese Zeros had been so intent of sacrificing themselves to the missiles
that not one of them had seen the helo, and now it fired off its load-out of
four air-to-air missiles. Two Zeros and two more of Sakamoto’s dive bombers
were hit and flamed by the helo, but it could do little more.

Sakamoto screamed in on the ship,
streaking through a thin cloud. His vision seemed to blur, and he reached for
his goggles to remove them as the ship seemed to resolve into shadow. Then he
saw it again, pulling on the stick to re-orient the angle of his attack, but
the target was wreathed in an undulating veil of cloudy mist, a glimmer of
light was winking at him then flashing out from the ship below. He was so
disoriented that he lost his concentration, and saw two other planes swoop past
him. He shook his head, trying to clear his senses. Then he heard his men
shouting in his head set:
“Where is it? I can’t see it now—off on your left,
bank left!”

He saw a stream of hot tracer rounds
zipping up from below, and knew he would be hit but, to his amazement, the
rounds seemed to pass right through his plane—one right through his canopy—yet
there was no visible damage! Then he saw the lead planes swoop and climb, their
bombs arcing down at a shadow on the sea. It must be making smoke, he thought,
seeing a third brave pilot, his bomb gone, still resolutely aiming his plane
for the enemy ship. This Shadow Dancer is trying to throw a cloak of black and
gray over itself to hide from us!

He looked again, and then again… The
ship was not there. Stupefied, he banked his plane this way and that, thinking
he had lost consciousness and drifted off course, but he could see nothing.
Then Sakamoto pulled hard on the stick, his engine straining, dive brakes
shuddering as he struggled to pull up and avoid crashing into the empty sea. He
was astounded to see three thin white streaks on the ocean below, wakes of
torpedoes that had been aimed right into the heart of the ship, but now they
crossed each other, heading off away from the scene. There was a great water
splash there where one of his dive bomber pilots, his bomb expended, had flown
his plane right into the empty sea! The torpedo bombers were still low on the
deck, and now he saw them fly past one another, banking away to avoid
colliding, and heard the pilots calling to one another:
“Where is it? Have
we sunk this demon?”
Yet no man among them had seen any bomb or torpedo hit
the ship. Their target had simply vanished!

A submarine! Thought Sakamoto. It was
the only thing that entered his mind at the moment to explain what had
happened. The ship must have been a submarine! It has dived beneath the sea!
Amazed, and yet exhilarated by the thrill and the fear of the attack, he
steadied his plane and started to climb again.