Sea of Shadows eBook - Navy Thriller.com

314 JEFF EDWARDS
Captain Bowie keyed his mike. “Air—Captain. Backtrack the
trajectories of those Vipers! I want to know where they’re coming from.
Break. Weapons Control, stand by on guns. As soon as we get some
coordinates, I want you to pound the hell out of those missile launchers!”
“With pleasure, sir!”
The twelve new hostile-missile symbols appeared on the Aegis display
screens and began to close on the ship’s symbol at alarming speed.
“TAO—Air. We’ve got party crashers, sir. Two Bogies inbound from
the north. No modes, no codes, and no IFF.”
The TAO watched as two unknown-aircraft symbols popped up on the
tactical display. “TAO, aye. What’s their flight profile?”
“They’re coming in low and fast, sir. They’re still over land, but I
expect them to go feet-wet in about thirty seconds. In the meantime,
they’re hugging the ground.”
“They’re trying to sneak in under our radar,” the XO said. “I guess
their mamas didn’t tell them that SPY sees all the way down to the
ground.”
“Air—TAO, copy all. Break. EW—TAO, can you classify those
Bogies by their radar emitters?”
“TAO—EW, I could if they were showing me anything. So far, both of
them have been as quiet as church mice.”
“Right out of the old Soviet tactical book,” the captain said. “Low,
fast, and quiet. They won’t point their radar at us until they’re ready to
illuminate us for missile-lock.”
“They meet all the requirements for an auto-engage,” the TAO said.
“Aegis will take them out as soon as they come into missile range.”
The captain shook his head. “Negative. Prohibit auto-engage on all
Bogies.”
“But, sir,” the TAO said, “you said yourself they’re going to shoot us
as soon as they get missile-lock.”
“We can’t shoot them,” the captain said. “Not now, anyway. The
Rules of Engagement won’t let us. We can’t even technically classify
them as hostile.”
“Captain, I don’t understand,” the TAO said. “The Sirajis have already
launched two dozen missiles at us. What more do we need?”
“For one thing,” the captain said, “we don’t even know for certain that
those planes are Siraji.”
“They’re coming out of Siraji airspace, and they’re flying strike
profiles,” the TAO said.
“Not good enough,” the captain said. “We fly planes through Saudi air
space all the time, but it doesn’t make our planes Saudi. As much as I hate