Sea of Shadows eBook - Navy Thriller.com

SEA OF SHADOWS 91
an outer pattern of larger chaff clouds, the ship could even sucker missiles
that were programmed to ignore the first targets they spotted.
A fireball blossomed in the distance, as one of the Sea Darts intercepted
and destroyed a German sea-skimmer. A few seconds later, a Sea Wolf
from the Chatham vaporized another of the German missiles.
The Phalanx Gatling guns continued to spray short bursts of 20mm
bullets into the night.
Flight Lead:
Two hundred meters above the water, Fliegen Oberleutnant Pieter
Hulbert torqued his pistol-grip control stick to the left and nudged the
rudder pedal, twisting his EF-2000S EuroStrike-Fighter into a tight turn.
Mounting G-forces mashed him back into his seat as the agile jet fighter
practically stood on its port wing. Stubby canard-style foreplanes gave the
delta-winged aircraft a vicious midair turning radius. Hulbert grunted
several times as his plane ripped through the turn, an old fighter pilot’s
trick for keeping blood pressure in the upper body when the Gs were
stacking up.
He bumped the dorsal airbrake, and a streamlined section of the
fuselage just aft of the cockpit folded open, creating a drag-stream that
caused his plane to shed speed and altitude rapidly. The maneuver saved
his life, as a Sea Wolf missile punched through the section of sky that his
aircraft had occupied a millisecond earlier. The G-forces eased off as he
rolled out of the turn into level flight less than a hundred meters above the
water.
Hulbert scanned his Head Up Display for the targeting reticule. There!
A wire-frame rectangle popped into existence on the HUD, outlining a fat
radar blip. With the touch of a button, Hulbert called up an infrared
display, superimposing the target’s IR signature over its radar image. The
IR signature was black: no significant heat sources. Not enough for a
warship, anyway. It was a false target, a chaff cloud.
He sequenced to the next radar target and immediately called up its IR
signature. An irregular oblong appeared on the HUD—gray, shot with
dapplings of white. Heat sources. Heat from engine exhaust. Heat from
ventilation systems. It was a warship. A target.
Hulbert shifted his right thumb up to the top of the control stick and
flipped up the hinged plastic cover that protected the arming selector and
fire button. He held down the arming selector, giving the missile under his
starboard wing its first look at the target. A bright circle appeared on the