Alea Jacta Est: A Novel of the Fall of America (Future History of America Book 1) (38 page)

Erik
recruited some more volunteers, male and female, even some older children not
yet ready for guard work, for a Construction Team.  He envisioned using them to
shore up the defenses of the apartment complex.  He wanted towers or watch
posts or something built so that the people inside the complex could see what
was going on outside the complex before what was going on outside got
inside
. 
He wanted to beef up the main gate and make sure no one could get in
unannounced. 

After
another hour of talking and making plans and committees and teams and taking
volunteers, Erik asked everyone to once again try and think of anything that
they might do to make the complex safer.  “If you can think of something that
will allow us to store water, or find food, anything—let Alfonse or one of his
team members know.  Even if you think the idea is stupid, let us know. 
Thinking outside the box might just save our lives, people.”

Erik waited
nervously after the close of the meeting, but no one said anything about the
absence of Henry and the other families that lived with him in Building 4 as
the crowd broke up.   It had been recognized and accepted.  His decision to
exile Henry had set a precedent.  Erik wondered how dangerous a precedent he
had created.

Building 4
had been abandoned early that afternoon without any fanfare.  They totaled only
eight, but they were all gone.  Henry and his followers simply packed up and
drove out the main gate, neither stopping to say goodbye or even give a dirty
look.  Erik was surprised they had exited so smoothly, actually.  He was
worried someone would bring up the issue and make a scene at the meeting, but
no one said anything. 

Maybe no
one cares…

LIEUTENANT COMMANDER
RIGGS was back in the cockpit of his F-35, back in the sky above the Eastern
Med looking for trouble.  Someone had tried to nuke his carrier, his home away
from home.  Someone had tried to kill him and his shipmates, his friends, his
family
. 
Someone tried to knock the
Big
Stick
out of the water.  He took
something like that
very
personal.  There was a shooting war between
Israel and just about every Arab nation in the Middle East.  The Pan-Arab War,
it was being called.  America had just been dragged into the fight.

“Why is it,
we always seem to get pulled into shit like this, Jonsey?” asked Riggs, not
bothering to check his language.

“
Uh
,
we
?”

“You know,
the U.S.?  World War I, World War II, hell you could even say Korea, ‘Nam and
the Gulf Wars were thrust on us…now
this?
  We didn’t want this fight or
any others, but people seem to love picking on us.”

“
Well
,”
said Lieutenant Al Jones, trying his best to imitate the Duke.  “
Maybe
that’s just because, they like ta die.
”

Riggs
laughed.  “Damn, that was pretty good, man.”  That was Jones—Jonsey to everyone
he considered a friend.  The squadron had lost a good wingman in the form of
Hawk Three when the wounded F-35 crashed on landing after the nuke strike. 
Here it was, only fourteen or so hours later and they were on combat patrol,
the high altitude watchdog over the F-18 strike element that was screeching in
low to hit some poor dumb bastards who were sitting on targets in Egypt. 
Anything to take the pressure off Israel, besieged on all sides by pissed off
Arabs in tanks and planes.

That
sobering thought brought him back to reality.  Riggs scanned his radar screens
and checked the horizon.  It was the wee hours of the next morning to him,
though it was still ‘night’ because he hadn’t slept yet.  The mission was
proceeding as planned.  No resistance yet.  If they met any, they were prepared
to plow right on through.

“
Where
they at
?” asked Jonsey.  “
Blueprint got himself two bandits this
afternoon—you see that on the ops board?”

“Yeah. 
He’s been up twice, though.  Maybe we’ll get some tonight,” Riggs replied.  “If
these jokers get the balls to come back out and play.”

“
Hawk
Lead this is Hammer Lead, target acquired, we’re starting our run.  Give us
five more minutes
,” squawked into Riggs’ helmet.  Somewhere far below
America’s armored fist was about to obliterate a few dumbasses that didn’t know
when to leave the big dog alone.

“Copy that
Hammer, go get some!”

CAPTAIN, WE JUST got
word from the strike group, they’re starting their run, now, sir,” said the
Comm officer of the watch, in the Combat Information Center on board the U.S.S.
Theodore Roosevelt
.  The hulking carrier was steaming to the north,
making a giant loop in the extreme western Mediterranean.  Her fighter
protection circled high overhead and spread out all over Egypt this night,
bringing death with them.

The Captain
sipped his coffee and rubbed his lower back.  It had been a long day. 
Communications with the rest of the battlegroup was still scratchy at best. 
The nuclear missile had fried a lot of circuitry and made a mess out of their
nice, smooth running battlegroup.  Most of his support ships had been forced to
rely on the old World War II standard, the Morse Code light signal for
between-ships communication.  He still hadn’t been able to contact one of the
subs.

The Captain
nodded, taking another sip from his coffee.  Standard report, didn’t mean
anything except that the mission was going according to plan so far.

Another
petty officer with a large headset on suddenly jerked upright.  He touched the
side of his earpiece and frowned.  “Sir!  Zeus reporting in that there’s a
large flight of bandits inbound, coming in from the southwest.  Another large
group from the west.  Multiple contacts, fighters mostly.” 

‘Zeus’ was
the call-sign for the Northrop Grumman E-2C Hawkeye airborne early warning
aircraft flying well to the south of the
Theodore Roosevelt
.  Its
powerful dome mounted radar system extended the range of “sight” for the
Big
Stick
and allowed the carrier to have a heads up on what the enemy was
planning.  It could spot airplanes over 550 kilometers away.  Zeus worked
perfectly this time—giving the carrier plenty of warning of an impending
attack. 

“Christ,
here we go.  Sick CAP on ‘em,” the Captain said.  He turned to face his most
senior fighter jock, the man in charge of the carrier’s air wing. 

“Scramble
everything, Rick.”

ZEUS, TO HAWK
Lead
,”

“Uh oh,”
Riggs mumbled.  He keyed his mike.  “Hawk Lead, go ahead Zeus.”

“
Bandits
sighted on inbound approach, low altitude surface attack run from the west. 
They’re goin’ after mamma!”

“
Not on
my watch!”
cried out Jones.  Both men strapped on their oxygen masks. “
I
knew this was too easy
…”

“Got the
attack vectors, thanks Zeus,” said Riggs, watching the information transferred
to his plane from the E-2C appear on his computer screens.  He never ceased to
be amazed at how fast the ancient Hawkeye could send out the positional
information about the enemy to its fighters.  In seconds, the Hawk Flight knew
where the enemy was, knew they were the closest of all the American forces, and
turned to meet the latest threat to their carrier.

“
You are
clear to engage—good hunting!
”          

“Roger
that, Zeus.”  Riggs gripped the throttle and shoved it forward, causing the
powerful engine on his F-35 to roar wide open and propel the sleek interceptor
past the speed of sound.  His computer screen showed that the remaining
Lightnings were following suit, forming up on his position.  Since it was
night, there was no way for him to spot the other Hawks in the vast darkness of
the sky and ocean, save for their afterburner glow.

“Hawk Lead
to Hammer Lead,” he called out.

“
Hammer
Lead, we just finished dropping the last of our load—on our way out
.”

“Did you
get the heads up from Zeus?”

“
Roger
that, Hawk, save some for us, we’re on our way
.”  The wing commander for
the strike element knew his F-18s wouldn’t be able to fight long—they had used
most of their precious fuel carrying the heavy ground-pounding ordinance to
target.  They had just enough fuel to make it back to the
Theodore Roosevelt
,
with a little to spare.  That little to spare was going to get them in a dog
fight.  The Hornets throttled up and roared off to the north, leaving smoke and
burning, gutted buildings in their wake.

ALL WINGS REPORTING in,
sir.  The Hawks will be first on the scene—Hammer Flight successfully engaged
their target and is moving to intercept the southern bandits.  CAP is heading
for the western bandits.  We’ll have two more flights up in about five
minutes.”

“Very
well,” replied the Captain, any thoughts of sleep now banished from his mind as
he stared at the electronic displays in the CIC.  Word had been spread of the
impending attack through the battlegroup, and the destroyers and frigates were
moving into a defensive position around the all important carrier, warming up
their defensive systems and waiting.

THE LEAD EGYPTIAN pilot
thumbed the radar switch and sought a hard lock on the nearest American ship. 
He knew he was very likely going to die if he got any closer than the absolute
maximum range of his French made AM-39A Exocet missiles, so he was targeting
the first ship—looked like a small supply vessel or a destroyer.  The radar signature
was fuzzy at this distance.  He was still a hundred miles out or so, but
closing fast, skimming the deck, only about fifty feet off the surface of the
choppy ocean. 

At about 85
miles out, the warhead on the modified Exocet came to life and locked on the
American ship.  Without radioing his wingmen, he launched all four of his
missiles, shaking the frame of his Mirage 2000 fighter.  Seeing the flashes of
successful launches, he pulled up hard and brought his fighter in a large
circle, intending on getting the hell out of the combat zone.  He hadn’t
spotted any American aircraft, but was told to expect fighter coverage.  Their
absence made him more nervous than he would care to admit.

As the
French made delta-shaped fighter and his wingmen pulled away, they failed to
see the faint glow of roughly twenty inbound American missiles.  The deadly
AIM-54C Phoenix air-to-air missiles streaked across the night sky, passing the
equally deadly Exoset missiles, nearly equal in number going the opposite
direction.  Launched from over a hundred and fifteen miles away by the rapidly
gaining F-35s, the venerable Phoenix missiles tore into the Egyptian anti-ship
squadron at speeds in excess of 3,000 miles per hour.

The
Egyptian planes were wiped from the sky, almost to a plane, in less than thirty
seconds from the time of the first exploding missile.  So accurate were the
American missiles that only one Egyptian survived, his plane badly mauled by
other exploding Phoenix warheads.  Seventeen Egyptian Mirage 2000 fighters were
erased in the night sky over the Mediterranean Sea before their pilots could
react to the warnings from onboard computers of inbound missiles too close and
too fast to evade.

High above
them, the Egyptian cover squadrons saw with disbelief the decimation of their
comrades from as yet unseen or even un-detected enemies.  Of the twenty-five
planes in the cover squadrons, all of them hit afterburners and streaked
forward, seeking blood.

WE GOT ‘EM,
all but
one!”
called out Jones from his Lightning.

“Yeah but
they got their missiles away.”  Riggs had already warned the battlegroup that
inbound anti-ship missiles were launched and proceeding to target.  Hopefully
the ships defensive systems would take care of the missiles, but there were a
lot of Exosets.  Hopefully they all weren’t targeted on the
Theodore
Roosevelt
. 

At any rate
, Riggs
told himself as the F-35 blazed a trail through the high thin clouds on its way
west,
I don’t have time to worry about them.  The real  fight is about to
begin…

CHRIST, IT’S GETTING
hot down there,” said the pilot flying Zeus.  His copilot grimaced and checked
the instruments again.  A female voice behind them called out from the radio
room.

“
Teddy’s
gonna get hit…not all the missiles were taken out.”  She listened to her
headset.  “Shit…they’re abandoning one of the destroyers.  The
Lewis
is
going down.”

“Turn us
around, Stinky,” said the co-pilot with no emotion in his voice.  “We gotta
start heading back home if we’re going to make day break.  This crate don’t fly
so fast…”

“I know, I
want to keep our eyes open as long as possible for the fighters…”

“
Teddy’s
hit!  One missile…forward flight deck…
another
hit!  Wait a minute…
shit
!”

“What is
it, Mary?” asked the pilot.  “What the hell is going on?”

“We’ve lost
Comm with the
Roosevelt
.  That second missile must have hit the stack.” 
There was no other sound other than the usual whirring of fans and electronics
and the rushing of air and the roar of the propellers.  The plane’s crew was
silent.  Their home had just been attacked and they—of anyone in the
battlegroup they relied on communications more than anyone—had just been cut
out of the loop. 

“Greg,
start plotting us routes to land, I want friendly zones, times, fuel
estimates.  Mary, you give our flyboys all the info they need to shoot every
one of these fuckers out of the sky.  Try to reestablish Comm with one of the
other ships. 
Someone’s
got to be broadcasting.”

High above
the Mediterranean, the lone American plane, an old twin prop intelligence
aircraft built when her pilot’s parents were children, did a lazy circle and
began to head for home—not knowing if home was still there or not.  To the east
and west American pilots were using the information provided by the E-2C
Hawkeye to eradicate the Egyptian attackers with a vengeance. 

No warnings
were given, no attempt to scare them off. 

‘No
Quarter’ was the order. 

Every last
enemy fighter was to be chased and hunted down.