A Selection from "Chapter 17: Reciprocity"
~
“Now’s where the fun begins—” Merrill wryly noted.
Briggs nodded in reply. “Looks like we’ve got vampires inbound. Look lively, chaps!” It wasn’t really needed, the men around the CIC were ready at their stations. Cleo was fully illuminated electronically. Both surface and air search radar were on. They’d just seen the four missiles left as a parting gift from Fateh. Unlike the Harpoons, these flew at higher altitudes and would glide down at a relatively shallow dive to their targets. This made for easier interception by missiles and guns, less ground clutter for radar. Most of the men in the CIC were steely-eyed professionals, and more than a few had seen some sort of limited combat experience, though none other than David and Robert had been shot at by missiles before. Despite the callout of ‘vampire, vampire, vampire’, Jeremy was rather composed, not entirely the way Robert had expected the junior man to act.
“Sir, if you don’t mind me asking, what do we do?” he asked.
“Mr. Dodd, we’ll defend ourselves. Missiles, then guns. We’ve got eight Sea Sparrow missiles, the 76mm up front, and the Goalkeeper out back. Plus the decoys. ETA—we got just under three minutes. But above all, pray. And I mean that seriously.” He could tell this didn’t entirely satisfy Jeremy. Perhaps the knowledge of what had just happened to Gallery was fresh on his mind.
“We’ve got a good chance, lad. You’ve got to see ‘em to hit ‘em, and we see ‘em.” Kipling offered. As if remembering something, the TAO turned to a crewman and sent the order to release another floating buoy decoy. It was almost time to shoot back.
“We’ll engage at around fourteen miles.”
“I thought the range on the Sparrows was more like ten or eleven?” queried Jeremy.
“You’re not wrong,” Kipling responded. “It's called leading your target. By the time our missile intercepts theirs, it’ll be just inside range. It’s an old trick of the trade. You can anticipate where a missile will be a few minutes from now; unlike aircraft, they don’t run away or maneuver." The TAO seemed rather pleased to explain the ways of the master. For whatever it was worth.
The green markers on the radar console grew ever closer; the missiles were approaching nearly at a perfect ninety-degree angle to Cleopatra. Even in the CIC, the sound of the hydraulics turning the turret on the foredeck could be felt in the hull, its magazine preparing high explosive rounds for air defense.
“Fire countermeasures,” Merrill commanded. A handful of deck launchers filled with a payload of aluminum strips were fired, filling the sky with metal confetti to confuse the radar seekers on the Shaddock missiles. On the fantail, another decoy buoy was launched over the side and rapidly inflated. At all-ahead flank, Cleo rapidly opened the distance from the floating decoy.
“Air action to port,” shouted the TAO.
“Birds ready, master-arm on,” came the reply.
“We are auto?”
“Auto, aye. We’ve got tracks.”
“Target and salvo two per missile.”
“Salvo two, aye.”
Merrill nodded; the range was closing fast. Kingsley watched the numbers on the console, anticipating precisely when he could fire for maximum range.
“Salvo away!”
“Aye, birds away,” was the reply. Immediately, the boat rocked with the sound and vibration of the launcher on the helicopter hangar roaring to life. One by one, the missiles took to flight. The Sea Sparrow was a surface-to-air modification of the venerable air-to-air missile used since the Vietnam War. It had seen many iterations, and this example was reasonably modern. The fire control radar illuminated each contact, and each missile fired, homing in on the returns from Cleo’s radar. They were generally quite good at close-range interception compared to many other shipborne missile systems. Yet the first two missiles failed to hit. The collective blood pressure in the CIC rose visibly. The third also missed its target, but the fourth hit the second Shaddock missile in line. One down.
“Three to go.” Merrill commented. As if on cue, the 76mm started thumping away. Dull vibrations pounded through the deck beneath their feet.
“Five missed… Six, it's a hit!”
That's two, he thought. Everyone else was clearly thinking the same, though none dared say it. Eyes were glued tight to consoles, itching for the next missiles to find their targets; not even the heat and sweat stirred a single eye. Every person was fully concentrated. It was in the hands of the computers, the microchips, whether or not they’d work as designed by engineers far, far away in Silicon Valley. The outcome had nothing to do now with the eye of a gunner or the windage of a fire-control officer; it was up to a computer to place a supersonic missile in the path of another in the span of fractions of a second.
“Bird seven missed.”
“CIC, Conn, we got one vampire headed aft, the decoy’s got it!”
That left one more piece of ordnance. All aboard had seen the power of these warheads and held no illusions about their chances if hit. He and his crew had blanched at the sight of the few survivors of USS Gallery, just over an hour ago.
“Eight missed too!”
A stream of 30mm shells ripped the sky apart, a buzzing burst emanating from the fantail-mounted Goalkeeper. The first shells missed, flying all around, but failing to hit their target. The Dutch-made gun adjusted and fired again, tracking the missile as well as its own fired shells, adjusting its burst until lead met aluminum. The last Shaddock exploded harmlessly less than five hundred yards to port, the concussion of the blast very much felt by all, and shrapnel peppering the waves nearby, but without causing damage.
Cleopatra was still standing.