Executive Intent

“Changing engagement mode from semiauto to auto special,” the TAO repeated. “Sir, engagement mode is set to auto special.”

The speed of the missiles had already increased to over Mach 3-the Hawkeye radar’s mechanical sweep could hardly keep up with the speed, and the Aegis system had to predict where the next return would appear based on last speed and track. At sea-skimming altitudes, the Lake Champlain ’s electronically scanned phased-array radar would only have a few seconds’ look in horizon-search mode.

In automatic-special mode, Aegis controlled almost all aspects of ship defense. It activated electronic radar jammers, dispensed decoy chaff and flares, slewed the Mk 45 five-inch gun and provided initial target azimuth to the Phalanx close-in weapon systems, steered the SPG-62 target illuminator, and finally issued firing and target-tracking commands to the cruiser’s vertical-launch SM-2 Standard antiaircraft missiles and Evolved Sea Sparrow defensive missiles.

Using data from the E-2 Hawkeye, the Lake Champlain ’s first SM-2 missile fired before its own SPY-1 radar locked onto the incoming sea-skimmers. The smoke from the vertical-launch SM-2 missile’s exhaust motor covered the entire forward section of the cruiser as it lifted off. It climbed quickly, then dove for the ocean at a steep angle to reach its computed intercept point. Another SM-2 fired from the aft vertical launcher, followed seconds later by a volley of four Sea Sparrow missiles from the forward launcher.

“Jesus!” the captain shouted. The Chinese missiles shot past Mach 4, then past Mach 5. “Sound collision! Brace for impact!”

The first Chinese missile had locked onto the Lake Champlain, switching radar frequencies in order to maintain lock. The first SM-2 missile exploded behind and above it, unable to keep up with the acceleration. The second SM-2 also exploded behind the Chinese missile, but close enough to disrupt its flight path, and it crashed and skittered across the ocean surface like a flat stone. The Sea Sparrow missiles hit next. The antiship missile’s inertia kept its disintegrating fuselage flailing toward the cruiser, close enough for the Phalanx’s radar to lock on at two miles and open fire at one mile with a cloud of twenty-millimeter shells firing at three thousand rounds per minute at the mass.

The second Chinese missile locked onto the aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush. The Lake Champlain continued to fire missiles, assisted by missile launches from the USS Monterey patrolling behind the carrier, but by now the Chinese sea-skimmer had exceeded Mach 7 and completely outran the missiles. The Bush’s last hope was its own Phalanx cannon, which opened fire at one and a quarter miles. Even the Phalanx’s high-speed Gatling gun was only able to release a total of just five rounds at the hypersonic sea-skimmer in the time it took to lock on and open fire…

…but it was enough. One tungsten shell blew through the Chinese missile’s nose cap, destroying the guidance system, and a second shell hit the air inlet, deforming it just enough to disrupt the air entering the engine, blasting the engine with superheated hypersonic air that instantly tore the missile apart. The red-hot exploding engine ignited the remaining fuel, creating a massive fireball that engulfed the entire aft section of the carrier. Although the ship didn’t suffer a direct hit, the hypersonic debris and fireball that slammed into it killed several crewmen on deck, injured dozens more, instantly destroyed several aircraft chained to the aft deck, and damaged others chained on the opposite side.

OVER THE PACIFIC OCEAN

THAT SAME TIME

He said it half aloud to himself, with a feeling of joy that bordered on childlike giddiness: “I’m back. I’m freakin’ back.”

“Are you talking to yourself again, SC?” the mission commander, or MC, on this flight, Navy Commander Scott Bream, asked, shaking his head and smiling. Bream, twenty years older than the SC, or spacecraft commander, was a twenty-year veteran of the U.S. Navy and a ten-year veteran of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, but he could still remember his first space flight as if it was yesterday-he knew exactly how excited the young spacecraft commander was.

“Damn straight, MC,” the SC, Hunter Noble, replied happily. “It’s been wayyy too long.”