"Captain in Comms!"
Corsair gently closed the door behind him shut and drew the curtains backing that door to a close. Up until three minutes ago the captain of the OFS Hammer had been asleep.
"Direct line from Third Fleet HQ, sir." The communications officer, the COMMO, said to Corsair, handing him a thick padded headset with a microphone. Corsair nodded to the COMMO, grabbing the headset and slipping it on over his ears.
"Go for Hammer Actual." Corsair made his presence on the secure radio uplink known.
"Hammer Actual, Starlight Actual, prepare to receive tasking." A man on the other side of the radio replied. His voice was a little modulated because of the encryption and the distance from Saint Hewlett to the OFS Hammer, but Corsair still recognised the name and callsign. Starlight was the callsign for the Third Fleet command group. Starlight Actual, therefore, was COMTHIRDFLT, the boss of the boss of Corsair's boss. Corsair inferred from that knowledge that this was something serious and grabbed a nearby notepad.
"Starlight Actual, Hammer Actual, ready to receive." Corsair put pen to paper.
"Hammer, we believe ballistic missile submarine Hrimfaxi is at firing depth north-west of your position. PAVE PAWS and NAVSAT place her relative position to you at 280 for 300, tracking slowly south. Your task force is the closest asset in place to intercept her. Your tasking is to interdict and, if possible, destroy the Hrimfaxi. The area is close to the Yuktobanian mainland, you will be under both air and surface threat for this tasking. Read back tasking."
Corsair had written down this information to the letter.
"Starlight, tasking as follows. Head north-west for 300 to distract or destroy SSBN Hrimfaxi." Corsair read back the mission, boiling the tasking down to the very bare apparent details.
"Hammer, confirmed. Fair winds and following seas, Commander."
"Fair winds and following seas." Corsair returned the calling card to the admiral back at home. "Hammer Actual, out."
"Are we really going after big fish, sir?" The COMMO asked Corsair. Corsair patted him confidently on the shoulder.
"When are we not?" Corsair smirked, handing the headset back to the Lieutenant Junior Grade. "Button up, we've got work to do."
"Aye aye, sir." The COMMO took a seat at his station as Corsair left the radio room. Buttoning up his overalls, Corsair raced through hallways and up stairs to get up to the bridge at the top of the superstructure. As the battlecruiser's commanding officer - or captain in naval parlance - he had the right of way throughout much of the ship, so getting from the radio room up two decks to the bridge was a fairly quick trip.
"Captain on the bridge!" A sailor on the bridge announced his presence. Danfield, sitting in the XO's chair, turned his head to face Corsair.
"Heard from Starlight?" Danfield asked, evidently aware of the tasking they had been provided.
"Ayup." Corsair replied, donning his OFS Hammer (CBG-19) cap and hopping up into the captain's chair. He grabbed a microphone handpiece from the radio rack mounted above his head.
"Adams Actual, Hammer Actual." Corsair called for the captain of their new escort ship. After the loss of the Hood during the Bastok landings, the Hammer had been provided with a new escort, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer.
"Hammer, Adams Actual." The raspy voice of the commander of the OFS Brian Adams rang clear over the radio.
"We've received a tasking to intercept an enemy submarine believed to be three hundred klicks to our north-west. Form line on me." Corsair ordered the captain of the Adams. While technically of an equal rank to the Adams' captain, Corsair, as the commander of the larger ship in the formation, held seniority and overall command.
"Copy all, Hammer, forming up on you." The Adams' commander confirmed the receipt of Corsair's orders.
"OOD, make your course 280, all ahead full." Corsair gave a course order to the officer of the deck.
"Aye sir. Helmsman, turn heading 280, all ahead full." The OOD repeated the order.
"My heading is 280 and my speed is all ahead full, aye sir." The helmsman parroted the order from the OOD. Corsair gripped the armrests of his chair as forty five thousand tons of steel lurched over to get through the turn. Once they had gotten through the turn, he glanced down at the tactical display, finding that the Adams was changing her course to meet the Hammer's wake.
"Set Condition 1." Corsair ordered. A chief petty officer on the deck nodded and picked up a whistle and a microphone.
"General quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations. Set Condition 1 across the ship. Direction of travel is up and forward on the starboard side, down and aft on the port side, set material condition Zebra across the ship. The reason for general quarters is that we're moving into Yuktobanian coastal waters."
As the general quarters siren rang across the ship, Corsair put aside his cap and donned his flash hood. They weren't immediately about to make contact, but it paid to be prepared. Steaming ahead at thirty knots with the Adams in tow about a kilometre behind them, the Hammer pressed forward towards the reported area where the Hrimfaxi was hiding.
In spite of her main mission of conducting shore bombardment and attacking surface ships with her main gun battery and her extensive carriage of Tomahawk cruise missiles, the OFS Hammer still had a considerable number of sensors and weapons in her toolkit that were conductive to anti submarine warfare operations. Chief amongst that toolkit were the three MH-60R Seahawk helicopters embarked aboard in the cavernous hangar that took up the deck where the old Number Three turret used to be in her 1940s configuration. As the Hammer and the Adams inched towards the Hrimfaxi, Corsair ordered the three Seahawks sortied with a full load of torpedoes and sonobuoys. The Adams sortied one of her own MH-60Rs to contribute to the ASW effort.
"All Firefly callsigns are away, captain." The OOD informed Corsair.
"Very well." Corsair replied. There was a saying in the Silent Service: There are only two kinds of ships. Submarines and targets. It was a saying Corsair generally agreed with, submarines were one of the few things on the ocean that concerned him. With that said, in his eyes, anti-submarine warfare was a game of patience and wits. Patience to play the long game while waiting for the enemy to slip up, wits to be able to predict what that enemy was going to do in the first place. Corsair had patience in spades, and while his wits were up to personal interpretation, in the past he had acquitted himself well against enemy submarines.
While the Seahawks flew out to the search area, the Hammer and Adams slowed down from thirty knots down to ten knots to reduce their sound emitted into the water while lighting up their SPY-1 radars. If anything air or seaborne was within a four hundred kilometre radius of either ship, they'd see it.
One such example of an airborne target was the missile that appeared from the middle of the ocean.
"Vampire vampire vampire, ballistic track detected, bearing 301, range 101, designated Track 2311!"
Corsair grimaced. On the one hand they had found the Hrimfaxi, there wasn't landmass along that bearing for at least two hundred kilometres. On the other hand, the implications of a ballistic missile being launched from the Hrimfaxi didn't bode well for whatever the supersub was targeting, be it the two warships or the Bastok Peninsula.
"Adams is engaging with SM-3." The TAO reported. Behind them, the Adams had immediately opened fire with her loadout of SM-3 anti-ballistic missiles, looking to splash the ballistic missile before it left the boost phase. Corsair observed as the destroyer's ABMs flew up into the sky at almost hypersonic speeds.
"How long until Firefly callsigns are on point?" Corsair asked about their Seahawks.
"Two minutes, sir." The OOD reported. The Seahawks were close. Corsair pondered about his next course of action.
"OOD, Captain has the bridge." Corsair decided to take direct control of the bridge, and by extension the helm.
"Captain has the bridge, aye sir." The OOD passed off command to Corsair.
"Helm, five degree right rudder to 301, all ahead flank." Corsair ordered the helmsman, picking up a microphone. "CIC, Captain, go active on sonar, let the Hrimfaxi know we're here."
"Five degrees right rudder to 301, all ahead flank, aye sir." The helmsman carried out the navigation order, slowly coming over to the given bearing while pushing the engines to their maximum possible speed. The Hammer started churning up a wake worthy of a ship her size as her hull-mounted sonar let out eerie active pings into the ocean depths. Corsair thus far had issued two orders and he still had one more to give.
"Adams Actual, Hammer Actual." Corsair rang up the radio to the commander of the Adams."
"Go for Adams Actual."
"Maintain your current course and speed, don't follow my heading. I say again, do not follow me." Corsair ordered. "Keep doing what you're doing and watch the skies for us."
"Wilco, Hammer."
"Out here." Corsair put the ship-to-ship microphone away. He spotted Danfield glancing at him in the corner of his vision and turned his head to face his XO. "What?"
"Rushing headfirst into the single biggest ship in the Yuktobanian Navy." Danfield clicked his tongue.
"I don't hear you voicing your concerns." Corsair retorted.
Danfield laughed. "No concerns from me, sir."
"Track 2311 splashed." The TAO interrupted Corsair and Danfield's little chat.
"Two new ballistic tracks detected! Bearing 300, range 90, designated Tracks 2312 and 2313." Somebody down in the CIC called out the launch of two more ballistic missiles. "Adams is engaging!"
"Captain, Firefly Flight reports they're starting their search now." The OOD made another report.
"Vampire vampire vampire!" The TAO started yelling over the radio. "Ballistic missiles are moving in our direction!"
"Looks like we got their attention." Corsair mused. "Steady as she goes. TAO, place ERAMs into the firing pool, be ready to engage if the Adams misses."
"Putting ERAMs in the reload pool." The TAO replied. "Receiving datalink information from Firefly 2, they have a hit on the Hrimfaxi. Bearing 299, range 88, designated Track 2314."
"Inform Firefly Flight that they're clear to engage, weapons free." Corsair ordered.
"Roger. Firefly is beginning their engagement."
"Splash tracks 2312 and 2313."
"Receiving radar spikes to the west-" An operator down in CIC cut himself off. "Vampire vampire vampire, anti-ship missiles incoming from 270!"
That caught Corsair's attention. Somebody up the Yuke chain of command had noticed a battlecruiser and a destroyer near its coastline and had sortied something to scare them off.
"TAO, how many?" Corsair asked.
"Counting thirty, captain." The TAO replied. Thirty wasn't a lot of missiles, the Hammer had more than enough interceptors in her VLS banks to deal with a wave like that. What got Corsair's wheels turning was the possibility of the waves that came after that. He looked down at the tactical map to get a bearing on the situation. The Hrimfaxi was eighty kilometres out to their north-west, diving hard in response to being detected by the Seahawks. There was a red wall of thirty subsonic anti-ship missiles four hundred kilometres out to their west, anybody's guess as to where or what the launch platforms were.
"Hrimfaxi is diving." The TAO reported this information as Corsair noticed it. "Firefly Flight has begun their attack."
"OOD, order Firefly Flight to return to the ship." Corsair ordered without looking at the officer of the deck. The OOD looked at Corsair and frowned.
"Say again, sir?" The OOD asked, unsure if he had heard right.
"Order Firefly Flight to return to the ship." Corsair repeated his order in the exact tone that he had first uttered it.
"...Aye sir." The OOD sounded uncertain of the motive behind ordering the Seahawks to return to the Hammer, but nevertheless he carried the order out to the letter. As the Hrimfaxi went from a scant fifty feet to well past a thousand feet, Fireflies 1 through 3 turned away from the combat zone and started heading back for the Hammer, the latter's positioned by a thick column of smoke as she fired thirty SM-2s and SM-6s against the incoming missiles.
"Birds away, killing tracks 2314 through 2344."