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SEA OF SHADOWS 221
A hostile-submarine symbol appeared on the screen in flashing red.
“What’s the range? Can we hit that bastard with ASROC?”
Ensign Cooper keyed up. “Captain—USWE. Range to missiles’ point
of origin is fifty-five thousand yards, sir. No way we can hit it with
ASROC.”
“Damn it!” the captain shouted. “TAO, what’s the estimated time-ontop?
When are those bastards going to hit us?”
Before the TAO could answer, the captain punched the button to
jumper his comm-set into the 1-MC General Announcing Circuit. When
he keyed the mike, his voice came out of speakers all over the ship. “This
is the Captain speaking. We have three in-bound Vipers off the port bow.
All hands rig for impact. This is not a drill.”
The ship heeled over as the bridge began to maneuver to minimize the
ship’s radar cross-section.
The TAO said, “Vipers are not targeted for Towers, Captain. All three
are locked on Antietam. Estimated time-on-top is ninety seconds.”
As the words left his lips, a second set of hostile-missile symbols
popped up on the screen. Three more Exocet missiles—all bound for
Antietam.
The captain keyed his comm-set. “Weapons Control, this is the
Captain. Can we get some birds up there to help Antietam out?”
The response was a few seconds in coming. “Captain—Weapons
Control. Negative, sir. Antietam is fouling our range. As low as those
Vipers are to the water, we’d have to shoot through Antietam to get to
them.”
The Air Supervisor spoke up. “Antietam is firing, sir. Two salvos of
surface-to-air missiles, looks like six and six.”
The captain nodded.
Antietam was following shoot-shoot-look-shoot-shoot doctrine for
incoming Vipers: fire two missiles at each Viper, take a peek with radar to
see if they’ve been destroyed, and then fire two more missiles at each
Viper that survived the initial salvo.
Captain Bowie nodded at the Aegis display screen and said quietly,
“Whiley, you stubborn bastard, still playing it by the book. And look what
it’s got you.”
The battle seemed to unfold in slow motion on the big display screens.
Six friendly-missile symbols and three hostile-missile symbols vanished as
Antietam’s first salvo took out three of the incoming Vipers. Ten seconds
later, the scenario repeated itself as Antietam’s second salvo of six
destroyed the remaining three in-bound Vipers.
The Towers CIC team began to cheer.