Free Fourth Crisis: The Battle for Taiwan by Peter von Bleichert Page A

away the American
interceptors, while the real warheads used their aerodynamic shape to generate
lift, and used actuating chine tabs to swerve during their charge at the
American ships.
    A sprinting Standard Missile closed with an East Wind.   However, it blew across the sky and,
seemingly pushed by a gust, missed.   A
second Standard Missile passed its target and another flew into a Chinese
decoy.
    The winds purged launch smoke from around Lake Champlain ’s bridge.   Captain Ferlatto raised binoculars.   He trained them on George Washington a mile to starboard.   The supercarrier had sped up, he noticed.   Awesome nuclear power shoved her through the
sea.   The precipice of George Washington ’s bow rose like a speedboat’s
as her endless hull planed.   She was a
stampeding elephant.   Best not to get in her way , Ferlatto thought.   He reminded the helmsman to mind his course.   Another sailor slammed down a telephone.   The sound drew the captain’s attention.
    The sailor’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down in a dry
swallow.   He struggled to announce, “Sir,
all SM-3s failed to intercept.   The
admiral has ordered the group to disperse.”
    The helmsman spun Lake
Champlain ’s wheel and the cruiser heeled in, her deck plates vibrating with
increased power to the turbines.   Captain
Ferlatto returned his magnified gaze to George
Washington .   Announcing a turn with a
blast from her horns, the supercarrier’s flight deck leaned to angles not seen
since her shakedown cruise rudder trials.   The other ships of the group added to the racket as they, too, made
coordinated maneuvers.   Lake Champlain and the destroyers
scattered waywardly, and the group’s attack submarine, California , went deep and sped off into the gloom, distancing her
from a possible thermonuclear explosion at the surface.   Lake
Champlain established a course perpendicular to the other warships, her
turbines slammed to full power.   She turned
again, leaning top-heavy hard.   Captain
Ferlatto clamped down on his cigar, shaking his head with concern and
frustration.
    “Goddamn it,” Ferlatto lashed out, pounding a fist on a
panel.   He stared out again at the
immense yet vulnerable George Washington .   Networked to and controlled by Lake Champlain ’s Aegis, the destroyers Mahan and Paul Hamilton , and the frigate Rodney
M. Davis ripple fired a last ditch fusillade of Evolved Sea Sparrow
Missiles.   In the name of
self-preservation, her escorts were
shunning George Washington , leaving a naked behemoth.   The frigate bolted like a spooked horse that broke
for blue hills.   Lake Champlain turned hard again, her hulk bent and leaned as waves
smacked her long sides and washed over the gunwale.   Mahan and Paul Hamilton turned their sterns
to one another and dispersed.   The
supercarrier’s airborne aircraft went high and sped from the area.
    George Washington —her
flight deck clear of aircraft and personnel—wept.   Her fallout wash-down system pumped seawater
through hundreds of deck- and island-mounted sprayers, enveloping her in a
salty mist.   Water cascaded from her
vertical sides.   The American
supercarrier became the pot of gold at the end of an ironic rainbow, her sun-baked
steel cooled by the wash-down.   This reduced
the heat signature presented to enemy weapon’s sensors.   At the very least, her captain reasoned, the
water might suppress any fires.   Blast,
flame, and watertight doors closed, and damage control and firefighting teams
stood ready.   Overhead, consecutive sonic
booms ripped the clear blue sky.   Over
5,000 American men and women awaited their fate.
    The Chinese warheads were now hypersonic, shoving through
the troposphere.   They pierced and shoved
aside dense air, their ablative skin glowing and flaking off.   Onboard targeting systems contrasted the hot
ships against the cool sea.   The warheads
zeroed on the largest of the thermal signatures.
    “Brace.   Brace.   Brace