SSN

    Three ships hit, three ships sunk. In other circumstances, that would have been an excellent record. In this case, however, the important thing was not how many ships had been destroyed. What mattered was the two ships that survived, with their missiles intact, to launch against Benthic Adventure.

    The remaining Hainan attack craft were in trouble. They lacked good data on the location of the American surface group, but they lacked time as well. They had no idea how long it would be before another salvo of Harpoons appeared on the horizon. Playing it safe, the two commanding officers gave the orders for the two craft to launch their missiles in the overall direction of Benthic Adventure and then turn back and head for China. They had lost more than half of their group, but their mission would still be a success if they could destroy an American naval vessel-or, even better, Benthic Adventure herself.

    Mack was notified of the latest developments in his stateroom. The communicator appeared in his doorway, a message printout in his hand.

    "Captain," the communicator said, "we just received a message from Gettysburg. They report that the Chinese task group has shot down their Seahawk. They also report that three of the Chinese craft have been destroyed, but the remaining two have managed to squeeze off four missiles in their direction. They have requested our help, sir. They ask that, if we are within range of the missile craft, we engage them while Prince-ton and Gettysburg focus on the incoming antiship missiles. If we are unable to get an exact fix on their location, Gettysburg asks us to radio back and they will launch their Tomahawks at the targets."

    The thought of a 1,000-pound Tomahawk missile warhead blowing apart a small Chinese craft brought a momentary smile to Mack's face. Then he thought of the crew on board the Seahawk and suddenly it didn't seem so amusing.

    He grabbed a pencil and paper and drafted a quick message.

    BASED ON YOUR REPORT, CHINESE FAST ATTACK CRAFT ARE BEARING 279 AND 283 FROM CHEYENNE.

    RANGE IS NOW 66,000 YARDS. WILL COMMENCE HARPOON LAUNCHING AS SOON AS PRACTICAL.

    "Send this to Gettysburg," he said, "and then have the navigator plot a course to those two Chinese ships." He didn't say anything else. He didn't have to. Cheyenne would worry about the two noisy Romeo submarines later.

    Tubes one and two were reloaded with Harpoon missiles and the intercept course to the attack craft was again verified. As soon as Cheyenne was in optimal firing position, at one hundred feet beneath the surface, the Harpoons were ejected from Cheyenne's torpedo tubes on the manual fire-control solution, and they headed toward the surface and then toward Masters 85 and 86. Once their engines ignited, there was no stopping them.

    The missiles found their targets within minutes. The data provided via Cheyenne's BSY-1 fire-control system was remarkably accurate, and even had the Chinese craft tried to evade, it would have done them no good. As it was, they were confident that with their own HY-2 missiles tracking toward the American surface group and keeping them occupied, they were out of danger.

    Their first clue that they were wrong was also their last. The two Harpoons closed quickly, impacting amidships, just below the waterline, one missile per Hainan.

    Minutes later, the sea was once again calm as the remains of the two attack craft slipped below the surface.

    "Now," said Mack calmly, "about those two Chinese submarines…"

    Tubes one and two were reloaded with Mk 48s.

    On board the American cruisers Princeton and Gettysburg, an air of tension ran through the control rooms. Their SPY-IB multifunction radars were doing exactly what they were designed to-track the incoming Chinese missiles and calculate optimal intercept locations for the cruisers' SM-2 surface-to-air missiles. The four Chinese missiles were closing in at just under the speed of sound, which left only a few minutes of reaction time.

    Less than thirty seconds after the Chinese ships had launched their four HY-2s, the fire-control systems had their data and the two Aegis cruisers began launching their SM-2 SAMs at the incoming missiles. Gettysburg was the first to fire, her fore Mk 41, sixty-one-cell launcher shooting off six missiles one after another. Six more SAMs leapt from the deck of Princeton, all twelve heading straight for the speeding Chinese HY-2s.

    Within seconds, the SPG-62 missile illuminators on board the cruisers began directing the American missiles. These illuminators, four of which were on each ship, switched guidance controls from missile to missile, providing minute flight changes so that the missiles would know exactly where to fly in order to intercept the incoming targets.

    Approximately ninety meters above the surface of the sea, thirty miles from Benthic Adventure and her escorts, the first SM-2s began to detonate around the incoming Chinese targets.