Chapter 112 - Wings Through the Black Squall
Turbulence violently shook the airframe as they breached thirty thousand feet above the raging ocean.
Lightning split the midnight sky in jagged white veins, illuminating massive swells forty feet high below them.
"Carrier radar has painted us," Miller called out from the cockpit, tension bleeding into every syllable.
Claire stood behind his shoulder, watching the primary heads-up display glow with multiple hostile target locks.
"Are they launching interceptors?" she asked calmly.
"Worse," Miller said, pointing at the altimeter. "They just activated the carrier’s automated Phalanx defense grid."
If they drifted within two miles of the vessel, twenty-millimeter tungsten rounds would shred them to confetti.
Claire leaned down and tapped the communications console, opening an ultra-low frequency frequency.
"Admiral Vance," Claire spoke directly into the headset. "Tell your gunners to stand down."
Static hissed through the cabin speakers for five agonizing seconds before a cultured voice answered.
"You're five minutes ahead of schedule, Commander Montgomery," Vance replied smoothly.
"Power down your CIWS turrets," Claire demanded, her knuckles whitening around her weapon's grip.
"Only when your pilot disengages his weapons systems and cuts his transponder," Vance countered.
Claire glanced at Miller, giving him a singular, decisive nod.
May you like
"Transponder dark," Miller muttered, flipping the emergency breakers. "We're completely blind now, Claire."
Out of the black rain ahead, the massive silhouette of the supercarrier emerged like an iron leviathan.
