Alea Jacta Est: A Novel of the Fall of America (Future History of America Book 1) (61 page)

ABOARD THE MORTALLY
wounded French destroyer, the sonarman called out, “
Contact!
  Bearing
two-seven-seven—submarine, it’s American!”

“Class?”
asked the captain, wiping blood out of his eyes.  The ship was on fire and
listing fast.  In a few minutes she would begin to capsize, he feared.  His
ship was doomed.  But if he could fire a few anti-sub torpedoes of his own…or
at least warn the fleet…

“I think…
Los
Angeles
…”

A most
lethal enemy indeed.
  The
Los Angeles
class was a little
long in the tooth for the American Navy but still way too much for the French
destroyer to take on with little more help than the ragtag collection of patrol
boats the Spaniards called a fleet.

“Get me a
firing solution…and someone inform the Admiral!”

“It’s gone,
sir!” moaned the sonar operator.  “It was right there, big as the Eiffel
Tower…then,
gone
.”

“He’s
crossed the thermal conversion layer…that was
fast
.”  An explosion
rocked the forward section of the dying ship, sending the captain sprawling on
the badly tilting deck.  He could hear the horrible shuddering sound as metal
began to tear itself apart deep in the bowels of the sinking warship. 

“Communications
destroyed sir.  We’ve lost compartments forward of section twelve,” someone
called out through the smoke.  Behind him, another sailor was screaming in
agony. 

Pounding
his fist into the sharply tilting steel deck he called out in desperation,
“Abandon ship! 
All hands, abandon ship!
”

CONN, SONAR, WE
just got nailed by
half the French fleet!
” the young sonarman exclaimed.  He had just
heard the
pings
of more than half a dozen enemy ships bounce sonar beams
off the
Hampton’s
exposed hull.

“Sonar,
Conn, very well…keep an eye on ‘em.”  The Commander spoke into the intercom. 
“Weps, I need firing solutions on the Spanish ship,”

“
Conn,
Weps, solutions forming now
…”

When he got
the all clear sign, the Commander said, “Fire Tomahawk One.”

NEST, HAWK ONE, called
out Lieutenant Commander Riggs, strapped into his F-35 and streaking across the
evening sky towards the battle.  Behind him, spread out in a delta-wing
formation was the rest of Hawk Flight.  Just lifting off the deck of the
Roosevelt
and still a few miles back were two other squadrons from the carrier, one of
the older FA-18s and another squadron of Lightnings

“
Hawk
One, Nest, roger
,” came the voice in Riggs’ helmet.

“I have
visual of a missile heading due north.  Big one.”

“
Copy,
Hawk One, that’s our Silent Sticks softening up Frenchie for you
.”

Switching
off his mic, Lt. Commander Riggs grumbled to himself,  “Screw that!  I want
some this time.”  He dropped the sun shield on his helmet and turned Hawk
Flight directly into the setting sun. 

JACQUE DEPONTE, CAPTAIN
of the crippled French cruiser,
Anjou
, stared in disbelief at the
remnants of his fleet.  Once, they were twelve ships of the line, strong and
confident.  Now in mere minutes, the fleet was reduced to frightened
schoolgirls running for cover. 

Three
Spanish destroyers were dead in the water to his starboard, one so heavily on
fire it was totally obscured by smoke.  The other two were listing severely,
barely afloat.  His mind quickly deduced the two ships would not last more than
a few more minutes before slipping beneath the waves. 

The
Descoteaux
was the first to call out abandon ship.  Even before the
Anjou
could
deploy rescue teams, more torpedoes streaked through the water.  Then missiles
began raining down from the sky. 
Tomahawks
, the Yankees called them. 
He thanked God that they were not nuclear tipped, as they could have been.  He
knew full well the Americans were justified in using their most terrible
munitions after the Iranians screwed up with
their
nuclear attack. 

His own
ship, the
Anjou
, once a jewel of the French Navy, was on fire and taking
on water.  Half his bridge crew was killed or lay bleeding and moaning on the
shattered deck around him.  All but one of the windows were smashed out, debris
lay strewn about him and acrid smoke, started by an electrical fire somewhere aft
of the bridge was filling his eyes and lungs. 

He
staggered forward towards one of the newly created ‘windows’ on his bridge and
sucked in the cool evening air.  All hell had broken loose in a matter of
minutes.  And still no sight of the Americans.

The fleet
was in total chaos.  After the first torpedo struck the
Anjou
,
the
Americans, wherever they were, had apparently moved on to choicer targets.  He
could almost feel where the sub was that struck his ship.  The cowardly
submarine.  Always the scorn of the
real
navy.  And here his proud ship
was crippled by one and he hadn’t even had the chance to see it.

It wasn’t
until the first falling star shot out of the heavens and slammed into the top
of one of the listing destroyers that
Capitan
DePonte realized perhaps
the Americans should have been left alone.  It wasn’t the first time the
normally conservative
capitan
had questioned the odd behavior of his
government, but it
was
the first time he had been personally wounded
because of his government’s rash decisions.  The thought of losing his ship
because some politician pissed off the Americans made him sick to his stomach.

A bright
flare erupted from the top of the twice wounded destroyer.  DePonte couldn’t
tell if it was the
Crecy
or the
Aquitaine
. Either way, that ship
would fight no more.  It seemed to jump out of the water in pain as the
American missile bored straight through its smoke-stack and blew a massive hole
out through the bottom of its hull.  The ship was illuminated in a giant
fireball that raced skyward just as the hull tore itself apart and began to
disappear below the water, splitting in two.

Her back is
broken
,
thought the Frenchman.  He chuckled to himself, a dark, rueful sound. 
We
thought America’s back to be broken…the fools.
  The sight of the ruined
French fleet stirred ominously within DePonte’s stomach.  He didn’t feel well
about this war against the Americans any more. 
They will not like being set
upon by the Old Countries,
he mused. 
I fear we have just signed our own
death warrants.

Another
missile slammed into the remnants of the split and sinking destroyer, as if in
insult.  Pieces of the dying ship rained out of the sky.  Huge plumes of water
sprayed up with the concussive shockwave of the explosion.  All around the
crippled
Anjou
, missiles were raining from the sky like hailstones.  “So
many!  How can this be?” he asked aloud, shocked by the scene unfolding around
his ship.

The ocean
was lit up by the gargantuan explosion of the last surviving cruiser to port. 
Two missiles had already hit home and still the ship struggled forward, to the
east, looking for someone to kill.  A third missile slammed into the ship from
the starboard and superstructure literally disintegrated, spraying the water
with debris and chunks of metal.  The cruiser, decapitated, continued forward
but began a lazy circle, belching smoke and fire from secondary explosions. 
Other ships began to swerve to avoid her death throes.

The first
high-pitched roar of turbine engines from above announced the arrival of the
American naval aviators. 
Capitan
DePonte looked up and squinted, trying
to make out the form of a streaking F-35 as it shot by not a hundred feet
overhead.  The noise was deafening.  He followed the American pilot as he swung
by a few support vessels and strafed them with a powerful machine gun.  In
seconds, the fighter had obliterated an unarmed supply ship.  Even at this
distance, DePonte could see sailors jumping off the doomed little ship into the
turbulent and unforgiving waters of the western Med.  The American pilot pulled
his plane into a vertical climb and did a barrel roll as a victory dance. 

DePonte
cursed in French.  The arrogance of the pilot infuriated him.  Three more
Lightnings roared in from the north, crisscrossing their paths, laying waste to
the scattered French fleet.  In desperation, DePonte grabbed the nearest
undamaged pair of field glasses and searched for a Spanish ship.  Were the
Americans attacking the Spaniards as well or was their anger directed only at
the Gauls? 
Bloody Spaniards…if they have backed out of the fight—-

LIEUTENANT COMMANDER
RIGGS threw his Lightning into a hard right turn and surveyed the carnage. 
Ships exploded and fireballs mushroomed in his field of vision in all
directions.  Anarchy.  A beautiful sight.

“
That’s
number three—
“ observed his wingman.  Riggs could imagine the smile on his
partners face.  “
Let’s see…who’s next?
”

Tracers
blurred by the cockpit canopy as if they were laser beams out of a science
fiction movie.  “Whoever the hell just shot at us,
that’s
who’s next!”
barked Riggs as he forced his plane to jerk and weave.  It was barely enough to
avoid the deadly anti-aircraft fire sprouting up from a still-defiant ship
below.  Riggs keyed his mic, “Hawk Flight, concentrate on that Spanish cruiser,
six o’clock low, take that bastard down!”

“
Hawk
Four, roger that, moving to attack position,
”

“
Hawk
Two, missile away!
”

Riggs knew
his plane was out of missiles so he decided to go old school.  “Gonna dive bomb
that fat bastard,” he mumbled.  He rolled his F-35 in a gut wrenching spin,
then angled straight down like an arrow.

“
Fox
Two!”

“
Fox
Three!
” called out the other Hawks.  Out of the corner of his eye, Riggs
could see pinpoints of light streaking in from opposite directions towards the
surrounded Spaniard and her sister ships.  Tracers erupted from the port side
automated ‘R2-D2’ ship defense mini-gun, tracking to and destroying one of the
inbound missiles.  The starboard unit missed its target and the missile struck
home with devastating effect.

“
Hawk
Two, I’m hit—watch that Ack-Ack boys!
”

A heartbeat
later, Riggs gripped the joystick and the GAU 22/A four barreled 25mm cannon
came to life with a muted roar that shook the plane.  The massive shells began
shredding the deck of the wounded and smoking ship hundreds of feet below. 
Riggs held the dive to the point where he could make out individual explosions
on the ship from his cannon before jerking back on the stick hard and pulling
away.  The plane groaned and shuddered with the strain of leveling off with
such tremendous speed, but she held together. 

It was a
little close for comfort, even for him.  One or two small arms rounds bounced
and
tinked
against the side of his jet.  Someone on the burning, half
destroyed Spanish ship was actually shooting at him with a machine gun.

“Hawk Lead,
taking small arms fire from the Spanish cruiser,” he calmly reported, easing
the fighter back to level flight some hundred feet off the deck.  Tracers began
crisscrossing his field of vision from two or three directions as other ships,
still in the fight began taking shots at him.  It seemed that every ship in the
water began taking a bead on the bold American jet.

The plane
shuddered as a shell punctured the starboard tail fin and blew a ragged
football sized hole in the metal.  “Hawk Lead, I’m hit!” called out Riggs as he
pushed the throttle over to max, lit the afterburner and screeched straight up
into the sky, much faster than the ships gunners could track.  He grunted,
trying to control the bucking joystick.  His plane was hurt and didn’t want to
move as nimble as it had just seconds before.  The tracers fell harmlessly aft
of the retreating Lightning.

“
Hawk
Lead, Hawk Three, that French carrier is trying to clear the decks.  Looks like
they wanna launch
…” squawked over Riggs’ helmet.

Riggs
banked hard to port and did a lazy circle in the smoke filled evening sky,
looking for the carrier.  There.  She was on fire, trying to turn into the
wind, leaving a huge smoke trail he assumed could be seen for miles.  Maybe
even by the
Roosevelt
, well over the horizon.

“
SAM
launch!  Starboard side, three o’clock low,
” came over his helmet, words
that no aviator wants to hear in the middle of a fight.

“Any air
cover yet?” asked Riggs, never taking his eyes off the massive carrier, rapidly
growing bigger as the Lightning raced forward.  He hit the chaff and flare
launch buttons on his keyboard and pressed forward, hoping the Surface to Air
missile would miss his plane.

“
Two
more SAMs up!  Hammer Flight is only a few seconds away though…took ‘em long
enough
,” muttered Jonsey.