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missile on every plane they take down.”
    “No
proximity fragmentation warheads?”
    “Not
on this particular version, sir. We have them, but not Orlan . That said,
I’ll guarantee one thing—they’ll hit what they fire at.”
    Karpov
thought about that, then decided he would also cover his undersea battle space.
“ Admiral Golovko will be out on the starboard side as an ASW picket, and
I trust Tasarov has the horse tail sonar out behind us.”
    “He
does, sir.”
    “I’ll
want a KA-40 up as well.”
    “It
will be ready in ten minutes, sir.”
    “Good. Golovko , is not configured for air defense. They have Kashtans ,
but I’ll use the frigate for some good SSM punch if we need it. That means
we’ll have to provide the air umbrella along with Orlan .”
    “Feels
a little different this time, Captain, now that we’ve got company here.”
    “It
does, but I have no idea how the officers and crew on the other two ships are responding
to this situation. We may have convinced the two Captains, but the rest of the
crew will have a lot to learn.”
    “It
took us all a good long while to come to grips with this,” said Rodenko, “and for
the life of me none of us still really know why this is happening.”
    “We
were in the wrong place at the right time,” said Karpov. “Or you can look at it
the other way around if you like to feel better about it. I say we were in exactly
the right place at a decisive time. Now we’ll see what we can do about the
situation.”
    “Well
sir, with Orlan and our own inventory, we’ll have 364 SAMs. Throw in the Kashtans on Golovko and we’re looking at over 400 missiles in the
flotilla.”
    “More
than sufficient,” Karpov nodded.
    “For
the time being, sir,” said Rodenko, with just the slightest edge of a warning in
his voice. He remembered all too well those tense moments as the ship’s SAM inventory
dwindled away to nothing. “When we made port in Vladivostok there wasn’t a
single SAM left on board, and we had exactly eleven surface action missiles
left. We would not have had even those if not for the reloads we were carrying
for live fire exercises. Our missiles are the one great advantage we have now.”
    “I’m
well aware of that,” Karpov said quickly. “So here we are back in the same old borscht.
I’ll have to conserve that missile inventory as much as possible, but realize
that the Americans will have something to say about it as well. If they get
pushy, we’ll have to respond.”
    Rodenko
nodded. “We had the KA-226 up with good long range feeds earlier, Captain. There’s
a considerable naval presence in this region at the moment.”
    “Yes…
I’ve been reading Fedorov’s book. Nikolin has also identified this force here from
radio traffic as the American TF.38.3. The history notes it is commanded by an
Admiral Sprague.”
    “I’m
reading at least six large capital ships in the core, sir, and then two large groups
in the outer screen—looks like a great many destroyers and light cruisers.”
    “I
can name them all for you, if that book holds true.”
    “And
they have planes in the air now, Captain. We have about twenty minutes to make a
decision here. The Fregat is indicating over a 100 aircraft.”
    “The
Japanese hit us with that many planes on two occasions.”
    “And
those attacks drained a considerable percentage of our SAMs, sir. Even so, we took
a near fatal hit. If that plane had struck us anywhere other than the aft citadel,
things could have been very bad.”
    Karpov
recalled those attacks, the Japanese screaming in on the ship from all compass headings,
missiles firing in selected barrages, the Gatling guns burning down the rest.
But they had to be 100% accurate. They had to get them all. If even one got
through to deliver its bomb or torpedo…
    “I
intend to warn those planes off,” he said. “They’ll probably pay no attention, but
it’s worth a try. I owe Fedorov at least that much.”
    “I
understand, sir. But if we