While Wardog had been up to mischief attacking a Yuktobanian port, its leader was busy being shuttled from Emmeria's southern Coast Guard headquarters to the Osean embassy. Emmeria's capital city, Gracemeria, was an hour and a half via car from the Coast Guard facility on the southern coast. Fortunately the Emmerians had been gracious enough to get somebody to drive Ash from the base to the embassy. Ash was wearing her aviator uniform, all of her kit shoved into a bag sitting in the back. She was sitting in the shotgun seat of one of the Emmerian armed forces's utility vehicles, a Toyota Hilux painted olive green. The man driving was one of the medics who had been onboard the Jayhawk that had plucked Ash out of the sea
"I gotta say, we pick up a lot of civvies who get dragged out by currents, or who fall overboard, but I've never picked up a foreign fighter pilot in wartime." Lieutenant Ryan Coolee was conversing with Ash on the trip to the embassy.
"Tell you what, it's not the first time I've had to be rescued by a helicopter." Ash admitted. "I got stuck in the Alaskan mountain ranges a few years ago. Couldn't safely get off the mountain. Park rangers had to call in an Army Blackhawk to get us out."
"No kidding?" Ryan whistled. "Injured up there or something?"
"Nah." Ash shook her head. "Avalanche took out the only trail on the mountain."
"Rough." Ryan scoffed. "Well hey, at least you'll be on your way home soon."
"Aye." Ash replied. They were driving on a highway that ran alongside a canyon. Presumably a fault line. "Coast Guard, eh? Are you a uniformed branch of the military or a civil service?"
"Oh yeah, we're military." Ryan answered. "Granted most of what the Coast Guard does is civil, but we can fight if we need to."
"Deploy much?" Ash asked.
"Mmm-hmm. My unit was attached to the Antarctic station for three months last year. Recovery in case anything went to shit." Ryan answered. "And we were down on your side of the pond in April doing medical training with your Air Force's PJs."
"Hah, nice." Ash was moderately impressed. "Osean Air Force sends Eagle and Viper squadrons out to all the IUN garrisons, but never Mudhens."
"That's the F-15E, right? The Strike Eagle?" Ryan guessed.
"Yeah." Ash answered.
"Unlucky I guess. Might just have to wait for a posting to come up in the meantime." Ryan surmised.
"Well, minus the whole war thing, I don't mind my current posting. Sunshine, beaches, the whole nine yards." Ash replied.
"Sounds cozy." Ryan guessed.
"You could say that." Ash agreed. "You could say that."
Back on the ocean, cruiser OFS Excalibur was keeping a watchful eye over the ocean as she, OFS Joshua Praiden, OFS Nicholas Barry, OFS Frank F. Woods and OFS Kestrel withdrew from their previous station heading back for Osea. After almost two weeks at the frontline, the carrier group was finally being pulled back to Saint Hewlett to resupply.
Manning his position in the CIC, Daniel Ray had a fresh mug of coffee in a holder on his workstation while he kept an eye on the various sensor outputs available to him. The escorting AEGIS ships were surrounding the Kestrel's cardinal directions. The Burkes in the carrier group were covering the south, east and west while the Excalibur was protecting the Kestrel's northern flank.
The AWACS flying from the carrier, Owl Hunter, was down to refuel. It'd be back up in twenty minutes. In the meantime, the Excalibur was running all of its radar systems to keep an eye out. According to ECM, there was a Yuktobanian A-50 well out to the west keeping an eye out after fighters had struck one of their bases. At that range, it was anyone's guess if the A-50 was picking up the ships.
One of the bulkhead doors leading into the CIC opened then swung shut.
"XO in combat!" A sailor called out. Ray looked up from his station. Commander Kyle Terran, the Excalibur's second highest ranking officer, had left his post on the bridge to observe things from the CIC.
"Good morning, Terran." Ray greeted the XO.
"Morning, Ray." Terran returned the greeting. "How's things looking down here?"
Ray took a sip of coffee. "Yukes have an AWACS far west. No idea if they can see us. Radar picture's clean, nothing but Hornets off the carrier."
"We're not out of the fire yet." Terran said. "Until we link up with the Ibis, keep everything running. SPY, fire control, the whole works."
"Yes sir." Ray understood.
"TAO, several unknowns- vampire, vampire, vampire!" A fire controlman rang alarms across the CIC. "Multiple anti-ship missiles incoming bearing 330 to 355!"
Ray's ears perked up and his blood pressure rose. "How many?"
"Counting fifty! Sixty! Seventy!"
Ray looked at a screen display of what the Excalibur's SPY radar was detecting. There was an entire wave of red to their north-north-west approaching at high speed.
"Jesus christ." Terran muttered. "That's gotta be more than a hundred missiles."
"COMMO, get on the horn to the destroyers." Ray immediately took control of the situation. "Tell them to light their radars, we've got incoming!"
"Aye sir!" The CIC's communications officer was quick to get on the radio to the other escorts.
"TAO, XO has combat." Terran took command of the CIC from Ray.
"XO has combat." Ray gave command of the situation to Terran.
"Missiles designated 0179 to 0307." The cruiser's AEGIS combat system was automatically tracking and designating targets.
"Praiden and Woods are on CEC and are ready to engage." The CIC COMMO reported.
"Calculate solution to engage incoming." Terran ordered.
"Aye sir." Ray answered. "Slave fire control radars to CEC, kill tracks 0179 to 0307 with birds."
"Tracks designated. Killing tracks 0257 to 0307 with birds."
"Fore and aft batteries released."
"Birds away!"
Topside, cells of the Mark 41 VLS system flipped open and started lobbing SAMs down range at the incoming missiles. Fifty consecutive SM-2 launches covered the Excalibur in so much smoke that it was impossible to see the deck, let alone the ocean ahead of them, from the cruiser's bridge. From the western and eastern most flanks of the carrier, the destroyers Joshua Praiden and Frank F. Woods were engaging the wave of anti ship missiles in conjunction with the Excalibur. Dozens upon dozens of smoke trails from SAM launches trailed away from the three ships and towards the threat.
"Time to target, thirty seconds." Ray tracked the progress of their ship's interceptors. The missiles approaching them were sea skimming at supersonic speeds, which more than likely meant they were the vaunted and incredibly deadly P-700 Granit, a massive hunk of a missile that had a warhead that almost weighed a ton. They were firing single shots against the approaching missiles. They'd have enough time to salvo fire anything that got through. All bets were off if anything survived the second salvo.
"Time to target, five seconds." Ray read the estimated TOT.
"Moment of truth." Terran muttered. Everyone braced in anticipation as the SAMs and anti-ship missiles merged. The radar picture became distorted as the fragmentation of a couple hundred missiles spilled out over the ocean surface. There was a five second pause before the radar picture cleaned up. Of the original one hundred missiles, thirteen had made it through the barrage and were still coming.
"Salvo fire, kill tracks 0179 to 0251 with birds." Ray gave a second fire command to eliminate the remaining P-700s.
"Batteries released."
"Birds away!"
Barely having cleared out all the smoke she had kicked up on the first salvo, the Excalibur's topside was once again covered in smoke as twenty six VLS cells popped open and fired off their payload of SM-2 missiles. Having fired close to eighty missiles in the span of a minute and a half, the Excalibur had expended virtually her entire weapons magazine of a hundred and twenty two missiles in a single engagement.
"Time to target, twenty seconds."
The tension in the CIC was palatable. If any of the P-700s got through, it was up to Phalanx to take them out before they hit the ship.
"TOT, five seconds."
The SM-2s merged with the P-700s. The radar picture became a convoluted mess. It took a few seconds for everything to clear up.
"All tracks splashed!" Another fire controlman reported. Ray let loose a breath of relief. They had survived the first salvo.
"Weaps!" Ray called out. "Status."
"Sixteen interceptors left in aft pack, sir." Somebody from the CIC's weapons section reported. They were now running dangerously low on ammo.
"COMMO." Terran ordered. "Get on the horn to the Barry, ask how many missiles they have loaded."
"Lost track 0173. Contact faded." Somebody reported from their station. 0173 had been the AWACS orbiting over the Yuktobanian mainland. Either they had left ECM range or they had gone dark by turning off their radar. Either way, not their problem anymore.
As far as capital cities went, Gracemeria didn't feel that much different from Oured. There was the medieval section of the city on the eastern bank of the river that went through the city, over which King's Bridge ran. The western more urbanized part of the city was like Oured with an actually functioning traffic network. Oured was traffic jam hell. Gracemeria was the absolute opposite. Ash and Ryan spent maybe two minutes tops waiting at traffic lights before arriving at the Osean Embassy to Emmeria. By comparison to the other embassies in the city, Osea's was considerably less modern looking, but for the purpose it served, it was good enough.
Ryan pulled up to the front gate of the embassy. The gate was staffed by a pair of Marine MPs that were presumably bored out of their skulls.
"G'day." Ryan greeted the marine that came up to the vehicle's driver door. He gave the marine his military ID. "Lieutenant Ryan Coolee, Emmerian Coast Guard. Here to drop off one of your pilots we pulled out of the drink. Somebody should have made a call a couple of hours ago."
"Checks out. Alright, pull through. Somebody will wave you down." The marine explained as the front gate opened to allow the Emmerian and the Osean passage into the compound.
"Cheers bud." Ryan drove past the gate and pulled to the left. They entered what looked like a loading dock. A handful of people, both civilian officials and Marines, were huddled around at the end of the parking lot. Ryan pulled up to them. Ash opened the shotgun side window.
"Lieutenant Coolee and Captain Paige?" One of the older looking officials asked as they pulled out.
"That would happen to be us, yes." Ryan replied. He pulled up, engaged the handbrake and turned off the engine. Ryan glanced at Ash. "This is your stop."
"Thanks, Captain Obvious." Ash muttered as she grabbed her bag and stood up for the first time since they had stepped off from the Coast Guard base.
"Just to make sure." One of the marines, a Major, addressed Ash. "Captain, what is your date of birth, place of birth, current posting and PM keys?"
"Eight March, 1984. Heierlark. 108th Fighter Squadron stationed at Sand Island. 101-498." Ash answered the questions. The officer looked at a laminated photo and then at Ash. Presumably making sure that she looked like the person in the photo that was on her ID back home.
"Alright, all good." The marine put away the photo into a dossier that he was holding. "If you've got everything you need, hop into the white Rover on the left. We're gonna take you to the airport and back home."
"Sounds good sir." Ash replied. Before stepping off, she turned to face Ryan and offered a hand. "Thank you Ryan, both for pulling me out of the ocean and then driving me from your base to here."
"All in a day's work." Ryan returned the handshake with a grin. Take care out there ma'am."
"Always."
"If you don't need me sir, I'm going to return to my base." Ryan said to the Marine major.
"Very well, thank you." The major replied. Ryan smiled, bid farewell, got in his car and left the embassy for the two hour drive back to his station down south. Ash in the meantime got into the official Osean Land Rover, dropped her bag in the back and strapped in for the ride to the airport. The marines`and the office officials were sorting out. One of the marines mounted up in the Rover.
"Today's your lucky day, ma'am." The marine spoke as he turned the ignition and pulled out of the lot. "We've actually got a couple of flag officers flying out in a couple of hours heading back to Osea. You get first class on the aircraft."
"Fun." Ash giggled a little. "Haven't flown anything but eco for a hot minute."
"Not even business? Damn." The marine joked. "About a ten minute drive, strap in."
"Riveting."