Lion Resurgent (55 page)

Salazar settled his Ciclone down as the entrance to San Carlos Water appeared in front of him. Through it, he could see the ships that were waiting for him. The first aircraft in had hit one of them, she was the center of a massive cloud of black smoke that was masking the ship beside her. However, over to her left was a much bigger destroyer. She was already shooting out missiles aimed at his formation. Salazar selected her as his target and angled over to make his run. He was carrying ten one thousand pound retarded bombs. With the aiming computer on his aircraft projecting their impact point on to his head-up display, his target would be doomed if he could get through to her.

Bridge Wing, HMS
Hotspur,
San Carlos Water, Falkland Islands.

“Look at them go!” Johnson almost yelled in excitement as the Argentine aircraft erupted through the gap in the hills that surrounded San Carlos Water and were met by a barrage of missiles from
Hero
and
Hotspur.
The new group was five aircraft. Three of them went down instantly as more than a dozen Seadarts picked them off. One survivor was heading down the bay towards the amphibious ships. The other had changed course and was heading straight for
Hotspur.
That meant Johnson and Tunney would get to try out their new toy.

It was an odd-looking piece of equipment; a long rectangular metal box mounted on a powered, stabilized pintle. The sighting system was crude, little more than a pair of binoculars wired to one end of the box. It looked a little like an anti-aircraft machine gun from the Second World War except for one salient fact. It had no barrel. Instead, it had a lens where the barrel should have been.

“This damned thing is no good.” Tunney’s voice was filled with woe at the expected disaster and a sense of delight that one of his tragic prophesies would soon becoming fulfilled. “Why couldn’t they have given us a machine gun instead of this thing?”

Johnson ignored him and centered the attacking aircraft in his sights. He pressed the firing button and felt a slight vibration as the Outfit DEC mounting powered up. He was aiming at the cockpit on the inbound Ciclone but he could see nothing that indicated the strange weapon was having any effect on its target. His stomach started to sink in dismay and he wondered if Tunney’s doom-laden pronouncements were going to prove correct for once.

Macchi Ciclone 4-T-189, Over San Carlos Water, Falklands Islands

The grey destroyer grew quickly in his head-up display. The white square that marked the projected impact point of his bombs raced across the water towards her hull. She was still firing missiles but they were directed at a third group of Argentine bombers that were already running the gauntlet of missile fire.
She is sacrificing herself to save the amphibious ships.
Salazar couldn’t help respect his target for her dedication but mixed in was relief that he would get his own blow in. He noted something curious though. There was what appeared to be a brilliant light on the forward bridge of the ship.

That was when the unimaginable happened. Salazar’s cockpit canopy erupted into a swirling rainbow of scintillating, blinding color. The intensity was so brilliant that he felt his eyeballs were on fire. In the midst of the torrent of colored light, his head-up display was a searing square of white light that was focussed into his eyes. Utterly blinded and completely disorientated, Salazar instinctively jerked back on the controls. He felt his Ciclone rear up and roll, then it hit the sea at over 600 miles per hour.

Bridge Wing, HMS
Hotspur,
San Carlos Water, Falkland Islands.

“Way-ho!” Johnson screamed in triumph at the spectacular sight. The Ciclone had appeared unaffected by the laser right up to the second when it had suddenly reared up. Its nose had been flung upwards until it had gone past the 90 degree climb position and actually pointed backwards, leaving the fast-moving bomber apparently flying tail-first. One of its wings had dropped as the aircraft started to stall. Then it had plowed tail-first into the sea, fragmenting as it went.

“Beginners luck,” Tunney grunted. “We’ll never do that again.”

Operations Room., HMS
Hotspur,
San Carlos Water, Falkland Islands.

“Goldfinch
is a gonner, Sir. Abandon ship order has been given. Reports from the Amphibs say that one of the logistics ships has been hit and is going down.”

“Which one?” Hargreaves was trying to watch the air plot. The Argentine aircraft were coming through in a thick stream. That meant more and more were escaping the missile fire. He was also watching
Hotspur’s
missile inventory. Her Seadart battery, already depleted by the fight against the coastal defense missiles at Stanley was now running critically low. She was firing Seawolfs at the passing bombers, hoping to get lucky. The small missile was intended as a point defense weapon and its ability to handle crossing targets was limited. She hadn’t scored with Seawolf yet, although she’d made the Argentine bombers duck and weave.

“Sir Lancelot.
She’s burning. Thank God she got the troops she was carrying ashore.” The Surface Warfare Officer was interrupted by another whooping cheer from the bridge wing. “Sounds like Fatso and Tragic are doing well. That’s their second kill up there.”

Hargreaves nodded. Nobody had had much faith in the Outfit DEC laser dazzle sight that had been put on
Hotspur
for trials. It sounded the sort of idea a mad scientist would come up with; a laser that would blind incoming pilots and cause them to lose control of their aircraft. But, if it had Tragic Tunney cheering, there had to be something to it.

“Sir,
Intrepid
and
Cleopatra
have been hit.”

Hargreaves reacted very sharply to the news.
Cleopatra
was an old air defense destroyer that had been re-rated as a frigate. Armed with Seaslugs, she wasn’t much of a contribution to the air defense effort. She was considered mostly an anti-submarine asset these days.
Intrepid
was another matter. Being one of the two amphibious warfare transport docks in the squadron made her mission-critical. “How bad?”

“Cleopatra
is finished. She’s turning turtle.
Intrepid
reports minor damage. Two one thousand-pounders hit high in her superstructure. Messy, but watertight integrity is being maintained despite being shaken up by near misses. She’ll survive.”

“What’s the raid count?”

“So far, thirty aircraft. We’ve got eighteen of them, most of the rest have been damaged. It’s a long way home for them. Make that thirty-three, another group coming through.”

These aircraft had either tried to surprise the ships anchored in the bay by flying over the hills or had seen the carnage in the flak trap at the mouth of the inlet and decided that discretion was the better part of valor. The result was that they crossed the bay high and fast. They were over the fleet before their bombs could arc down and hit the ships below. The bombs overshot and crashed into the beaches and hills beyond. How much damage they did there, Hargreaves couldn’t tell but no secondary explosions erupted in their wake. The three Ciclones got away clean, they’d done little or no damage but they’d taken none in return.
A good deal for the crews
Hargreaves thought
although what their commanders will say to them when they get back is another matter.

“Two more coming through!” The Air Warfare Officer’s voice was shaking slightly as the never-ending stream of Argentine aircraft made their runs.

Hargreaves looked back to the inlet entrance to see two more Ciclones running the gauntlet of missile fire. His electro-optical sight showed them to be slightly different from the earlier aircraft. Their fuselages were longer and their noses were differently-contoured. Hargreaves realized they were fighters; either trying to draw fire from the bombers and give them a chance to get in or pilots who felt they couldn’t leave the bombers to make the near-suicidal runs on their own. He took a quick glance at the missile counter.
Hotspur
had only sixteen Seadarts left. “Leave those two, they’re fighters.”

Gossamer was
already engaging them, she brought down one with a Seawolf shot but the two fighters were strafing her with their cannon.
They’ve got good guns,
Hargreaves thought,
Swiss-designed 25mm Oerlikons. Fast-firing and lots of punch.
The sea around
Gossamer
was boiling with the spray of fire from the fighters. One went down but the other got a long, raking burst into the ship’s bridge. As if to make good on Hargreave’s high opinion of the guns,
Gossamer
unexpectedly went dead. All her radar systems suddenly ceased to work. Beyond her, the Ciclone fighter was weaving through the fleet, firing bursts at any ships that crossed its path. Suddenly, without warning, it just exploded in mid-air. From its position, Hargreaves guessed a six inch shell from one of the cruisers had scored a direct hit.

“Message from
Gossamer,
Sir. By signal lamp. Strafing took out her main databus and electrical supply circuit. Nothing electrical on the ship works any more. They’re trying to fix it but until they do, she’d defenseless. The only weapons she has are her 35mm firing under manual control.”

Macchi Ciclone 4-S-311, Over San Carlos Water, Falklands Islands

The sky was criss-crossed by tracer fire streaming from the gray ships that sheltered in San Carlos Water. Long gray streams of smoke went straight up from the destroyers. They climbed for a hundred feet or so, then arched over to lunge at the Argentine aircraft in the center of the interlocking mesh of fire. Amidst it all were the great clouds of black, oily smoke from the ships that had been hit and the burning patches on the sea where the Ciclones had gone in. Lieutenant Manuel Devin had taken the whole scene in within a split second of rounding the point that marked the start of his bomb run. He’d also seen something else. The closest destroyer wasn’t firing or, indeed doing anything else. Behind him, his weapons systems operator had come to the same conclusion. “Mickey, the nearest ship, her radars are dead.”

Dead radars. That means no missiles from her and her guns firing in manual. It’s too good an opportunity to miss.
Devin made a slight adjustment in course and watched his continuously-computed impact point racing over the water towards the silent ship. “Give her the six belly bombs. We’ll hit another ship with the wing load.”

He assumed that his WSO had made the necessary arrangements and touched the controls slightly. The CCIP square moved towards the center of the target ship. Just as it touched the ship’s side, Devin released his first salvo of bombs. His WSO hadn’t let him down. Six five hundred kilogram bombs detached from the racks under the belly and arched down towards the destroyer. Their tail fins split open to delay their impact until the Ciclone was clear. One landed just short. Four plowed into the vertical launch system that occupied the center of the ship. One fell well beyond its target. That didn’t matter; Devin saw a massive explosion devastate the destroyer. A great cloud of white smoke billowed upwards, surrounded by great white streamers that soared upwards before arcing back down to earth.

Devin had already turned his attention to the ships in front of him. Priority targets were the fat-bellied amphibious ships but his turn to take out the destroyer had put him in a bad position to make a run at them. Only one was in a good position for an attack and it was already beached and burning. Beyond it was a big warship; a cruiser with a strangely blackened aft superstructure. Devin selected her and brought his Ciclone around to line up on her. Once again, he watched the white square of his bomb sight racing across the water. Once again, he thumbed his bomb release as he flashed over the cruiser.
Tiger Class
he thought, recognizing the twin turrets fore and aft. Then he was gone and climbing away to clear the hills at the end of the inlet.

“You got her Mickey boy.” His WSO sounded triumphant over the intercom. “At least two hits dead amidships. Two ships down with one pass, the brass will be pleased.”

And so they should be,
Devin thought
for there are few enough aircraft coming back to make their claims.

Argentine Headquarters, Teal Inlet.

“These orders do not make any kind of sense.” Colonel Ruiz Maldonado read the message flimsy again and crumpled it between his fingers. “Menendez wants us to attack the British holding Mount Kent with the cavalry regiment while sending our infantry to block the advance from San Carlos. He obviously knows nothing of the ground out here. Mount Kent is almost eight hundred meters high and it dominates all the ground for tens of kilometers around. The British knew what they were doing when they took that place, as long as it remains in their hands we can do nothing…. Yet it is rocks and outcrops without as much as a dirt track to help us get to it. Our cavalry can do nothing there. To take Mount Kent is the job for our infantry. It is only a few kilometers march for them. To hit the British columns advancing from San Carlos, that is a much longer march and a battle of maneuver at the end of it. That is the place for our cavalry.”

“Shouldn’t we consult with General Menendez?” Captain Arturo Russo was a good aide and adept at filling in the blanks for his commander. Already, he could see a potential disaster for Maldonado looming if Menendez learned that his orders had been changed. “And are the British advancing from San Carlos? The Air Force is claiming they have sunk more than a dozen ships.”

“Divide by three, Arturo, always divide by three. They claim twelve so we can assume they have sunk four. And, yes, the British will be advancing. The bombing of their ships makes it all the more necessary for them to do so. They will have lost supplies so they must finish this thing quickly. So must we. With those airborne troops holding every key point of terrain in the island, they will paralyze anything we attempt to do. We should discuss this with General Menendez, yes, I agree, but we do not have time. We must move now. I am the commander on the spot and I must conduct this battle as I see fit. Now, order the infantry regiment to advance south to Mount Kent while the cavalry regiment moves west. The infantry will assault and retake Mount Kent. The cavalry will locate and repel the advance of the British overland force.”