The Central Pacific
“READY to give it a shot, Admiral?”
Dan rubbed his face, wondering if this was worth the risk. Still, Chief Wenck seemed to think he’d pulled everything together.
The strange, nearly invisible contacts had dogged them on and off for the last year. The pips moved slowly, over a hundred thousand feet up. They only seldom registered, even on Savo’s powerful radars, which meant their cross sections were tiny. At first Dan had dismissed them as discontinuities in the atmosphere, “sprites,” lensing effects, or artifacts of poor tuning. But they’d appeared again and again, high in the upper stratosphere. Seeming at times to follow the ships below.
At last, Donnie had come up with a proposal. An experiment, to find out just what they were.
Hornet’s CIC was darkened and fully manned, but the large-screen displays had less data than Dan was used to from Savo Island. He hoped it would be enough to run a battle.… The LHA herself wouldn’t be radiating, of course. Her radars lacked the precise focus of the Aegis ships. But the chief had set this up over the last few days, as the formation slowly steamed east, then south, then east again. Poking along at twelve knots. Trailing the bait through a vast deep oceanic basin, which had, according to Rit Carpenter, “the acoustics of a gymnasium. They gotta know we’re here.”
All that time, Hornet had made smoke, from cans of waste and lube oil on the stern, and kept one screw locked. Dan hadn’t repeated the distress transmissions. That seemed too obvious. But if the pack commander had any sort of scouting screen out, sooner or later he’d pick them up.
What happened after that … well, Dan only hoped he didn’t stumble into all two dozen subs at the same time. A force like that would execute a massacre like the battle that had given his old cruiser her name.
Savo Island, north of Guadalcanal, had been a knife fight in the dark. Night-practiced Imperial Navy ships had all but wiped out a surprised, confused U.S. destroyer and cruiser force.
“Sir?” Wenck prompted him.
Dan cleared his throat. “Sure this is worth trying, Donnie?”
The chief spread his hands. “Hey.… We got enough radiating elements and phase shifters. Got the transmitting arrays and the power. It’s whether we can link the drivers, to focus it. I wrote a steering program, running it off the UYK-43 in McClung, but these ain’t microwave lasers.”
“All right. Initiate when you’re ready,” Dan muttered.
Wenck’s fingers clattered on keys, sending coordinates and elevations to the four Aegis units. Clustered as close as they dared, Savo, McClung, Kristensen, and Sejong the Great were aiming the pencil-beams of their phased arrays to intersect a hundred thousand feet up: pouring over ten megawatts into a ten-cubic-meter volume of space, twenty miles in the sky.
“Building up to peak power,” Wenck said. “We’re gonna synchronize pulses, ten hertz, then vary the PRR and see if we can set up a harmonic.”
Dan wasn’t sure what that meant, and didn’t care. He was more worried over the fact that they were deep in the danger area, yet hadn’t made a single contact, or glimpsed as much as a periscope.
Where the hell were the Chinese?
He left Wenck to his own devices, and climbed to the bridge.
Clear and sunny. The sea was flat as a tabletop, and too aching blue to look down into for long. Out on the port wing, overlooking the flight deck, he searched the horizon. Aside from Earhart and Green Bay three miles away to port, only distant specks pricked it. McClung was on his port quarter, and Kristensen far astern. He shaded his eyes into the sun-glare, and caught Savo fine on the southern horizon, a tiny, all but invisible pinpoint at over ten thousand yards.
Even pulled in close for the Wenck Experiment, the main body of the task force covered twenty miles of sea. Jung’s wing elements were even farther away. Not only did he have to worry about DF-21s, but the latest intel speculated that along with antiship missiles, Chinese submarines carried the Shkval-K, a two-hundred-knot rocket torpedo that could evade acoustic decoys and jamming. A Russian export, Shkvals were designed to burn through hull armor with rods of incendiary depleted uranium. Also, they might be carrying a small antitorpedo torpedo. These weapons, code-named “Nightshade,” might be immune to the countermeasures built into U.S. torpedoes.
On the plus side, the standard Chinese submarine torpedo, the Yu-3, had an effective range of only about eight miles.
Given that, Dan had instructed his helos to carry out attacks as soon as they had a datum, and to double the usual salvo rate of one torpedo per attack. Facing two incomers, any antitorpedo system would have to work four times as hard to identify, track, and intercept. And the farther away he could hold his adversary, the less risk to his own forces.
Of course, that strategy meant he might run out of torpedoes before he ran out of targets. And given the supply situation, he wouldn’t be getting any more.
In which case … the task force would become the target. And, given the depleted state of his self-defense ordnance, an all but helpless one.
The hunter-killar group out of Pearl was closing him from the east. Slowly, searching every cubic mile of sea as it swept forward. It was built around Makin Island, protected by three Burke-class destroyers and an older U.S. nuclear submarine. If they could join up, the united force should be capable of knocking down whatever the Chinese could throw at them.
Unless the concentration invited Zhang to expend another thermonuclear warhead. If that happened, they were doomed. The magazines of Savo Island, their only ABM-capable unit, were empty of Block 4s.
They’d buried the dead from the exit battle at sea. His deputy, four watchstanders, and sixteen ship’s company, all burned, blasted apart, decapitated, or sliced into pieces. But there wouldn’t be any need for canvas shrouds, bugle calls, and the Service for the Dead if one of Zhang’s massive thermonukes came down on them. It would cremate every ship in a fifteen-mile radius.
Shaking off dread, he stretched until vertebrae popped. Above his head, the ship’s call-sign flags snapped in the wind.
When he looked back into the pilothouse the officer of the deck, the junior officers, the enlisted watchstanders, all glanced quickly away.
He lifted his chin, blinked, and tried to look more confident than he felt.
* * *
THE thing, whatever it was, fell very slowly. Which Wenck said meant it was probably some kind of winged craft. It drifted down from altitude, painting more clearly on their screens with each thousand feet it lost. When it reached ten thousand feet, Dan tasked Kristensen to recover. The destroyer sent its helo, and a rescue diver plunged into the sea. The helo lifted, circling, but kept its video feed going. In CIC, Dan and Singhe stood watching the diver approach the floating object. One wing was crumpled, the other outspread. They were all but transparent, a gossamer film stretched over a complex frame. It looked like a giant wasp, complete with stinger. The diver paused a few feet away and took pictures before swimming closer.
He put out a glove and touched a wing gingerly.
When he was back in the helo and the thing was being winched up, Wenck and Jamail, the intel officer, were huddled in a corner discussing the imagery. Dan checked the radar picture, then strolled over. “What’d we catch, Donnie?”
“It’s a drone. Of sorts.” The chief flattened his cowlick, looking impressed. “A hybrid LTA and HTA. And some of this stuff looks like cell phone components. Cheap. Expendable.”
“In English?”
“Halfway between lighter than air and heavier than air. Those big, long wings—they’re probably filled with hydrogen. The ribs are lightweight foam. The dark elements on the back are solar cells. This central pod contains the computer, camera, and control actuators, and the antenna streams out the back, like a stinger. They’re probably linked, relaying data back.” The chief shook his head, grinning. “A network! A hundred of these up there, at a hundred thousand feet … you’d cover the whole western Pacific.”
Dan bent over the screen, where Wenck had sketched an outline diagram. “Okay, but … what the heck makes it go? I don’t see any propellers, no engine—”
“Maybe it doesn’t need it,” Jamail said. “With a combination of floating and gliding, and enough smarts to seek out air currents, it could ride the wind … like an upper-atmosphere albatross.”
“Good name,” Dan said. “Call it the Albatross, Qazi. Send these photos to Fleet. Info PaCom, CNO, and everybody else you can think of. This is how China does ocean surveillance without satellites.”
“And the radar section’s negligible,” Singhe said, next to him. “With all that plastic, all that film. We’re probably only detecting one in every ten.”
At that moment he realized, looking at the photos of the broken creature, that it had probably provided the enemy with their location, and no doubt pictures, too. Relaying exactly where his task force was, and what tempting prey limped along at its heart.
With the realization, he spun and hit the 21MC lever. “Combat, CTG. Signal all screen units: Return to Formation Golf.” The dispersed pattern he’d set up to invite their attackers in. If they’d seen Hornet’s smoke plume—
A petty officer leaned from a console. “Sir! Farncomb reports passive sonar contact. Bearing zero-six-zero, depth two-zero-zero feet, forty-two thousand yards. Permission to engage.”
“Negative,” Dan said. “Do not engage. Continue on base course. Remain covert unless individually targeted. —Qazi! Add that to the report to Fleet.”
He straightened, easing his back, then headed for his chair.
The battle had begun.
* * *
THE threat revealed itself gradually. One reason why ASW also stood for Awfully Slow Warfare. Over the first hours, the Australian submarine, submerged and running in close to total quiet, reported five distinct contacts. Dan relayed the detections to Fleet as they came in. The buoy line laid across his advance tracked them as they crept in. Dan asked Min Su Hwang, his liaison with the Koreans, to warn the admiral, but found he’d already sent Jung a heads-up on ASW chat.
Longley brought a covered tray in at noon. Dan forced himself to down half a ham-and-cheese sandwich, three sweet pickles, and some chips. His staff had taken over the left half of CIC, since Flag Plot had been wrecked. Wenck, Singhe, Danenhower, Hwang, and the intel officer, Jamail, and his J3, Ops, Enzweiler, were all within speaking distance. Sandy Graciadei was in the captain’s chair, not six feet from Dan, but their exchanges were muted by a distinct chill.
She finally spoke when the first goblins—submerged hostiles—altered course to pass north and south of the lead South Korean frigate. “Admiral. Are we going to take them?”
“Not yet, Sandy.”
“Once they’re inside our defensive perimeter—”
“Then they’re in our kill zone. I want as many there as we can suck in. Just make sure you have enough 60s on deck, armed and fueled.”
“We could use some help. P-8s?”
“They’re on the way. And there might be some Air Force help too. If we really get our backs against the wall out here.”
She frowned. “Air Force? Against submarines?”
“I know, I know. But that’s what PaCom said. They wouldn’t give any more details.”
Hornet’s skipper looked doubtful but sat back, smoothing her hair.
At 1310 a P-8 from Wake reported in. Dan asked for sweeps to the north and south. With only five out of twenty-six enemy units accounted for, he wanted advance warning of any end-arounds. He slid out of his chair and stood behind the petty officer at the eavesdropping console. “Nothing out there? No sub radars, radio transmissions?”
“Just us, and the long-range radars on Wake.”
He scratched his head. How was this pack coordinating? The Germans had used shortwave radio. TF 76 was using the just-activated MOUSE satcomm uplinks, to dozens of hastily launched microsatellites in low orbits.
Unless … unless the Albatrosses had a comm relay function as well.
He was about to ask Wenck about this when the patrol air reported multiple contacts from ten miles astern and to the south of the leading incomers. Four new datums winked up on the display, showing two distinct enemy groups now.
The ship’s ASW air coordinator had perforce become Dan’s. A short Puerto Rican, Commander Soler, held up a hand at his console. Carpenter sat beside him, headphones clamped to the old sonarman’s ears. “Two elements, Admiral, angling in from the north and the south,” Soler muttered.
“Where are they headed?” Graciadei asked.
“Looks like, right for us,” Carpenter said. Soler’s keyboard clicked, and lines of advance lit on the display. Both elements were headed past Seoul, at the center and lead of the formation. The lines crossed one mile ahead of the blue circle and cross that represented Hornet.
Graciadei asked Dan, “How far in do you intend to let them come, Admiral?”
He chewed his cheek, wondering himself. The enemy was already close enough to launch missiles. Why hadn’t they? Probably, feared his close-in air defenses too much. He couldn’t let them get inside torpedo range too. If he lost control, this battle could degenerate into a mad swirl of individual combats. In a melee, the side with more numbers usually won. He had to make the right call. Whites of their eyes? Or hold them at arm’s length?
No, he couldn’t risk a knife fight. But so far, they didn’t seem to know he had them on his displays. The passive buoys, bobbing quietly on the surface, gave the enemy no warning. They couldn’t hear the P-8, either, or detect it on radar unless they pushed a mast above the surface. Which they must know would instantly make them a target in a calm sea like this.
CIC was dead silent, except for the endless whisper of air-conditioning.
“All right,” he said, praying that his timing was right and he hadn’t overlooked anything. And that luck, plain old luck, would turn out to be on their side. “Let’s drop some bad news on these guys.”
* * *
THE first salvo, air-dropped from Hornet’s and McClung’s helos, took out two boats. Sonar reported breaking-up noises. The shrieks of rending steel, the pops of imploding compartments, slowly faded. The bottom of this abyssal basin was four miles down. Vectored in to the northern group, the P-8 parachute-dropped eight Mark 54s on Soler’s vectors, plotted at the intersections of sonobuoy bearings. Only one seemed to connect, though. Dan was disappointed, but not surprised. The Mark 54 had gotten a poor rating from DOT&E before the war. Sejong picked up the engagement via a convergence zone, though she was far to the north, and reported indications of damage on the single enemy who’d been hit. But not a sinking.
Farncomb requested permisson once more to attack. Instead Dan ordered the Australian boat to open to the north, and made sure all screen units knew where she was, to avoid blue on blue. He needed her ears more than her torpedoes.
The helicopters roved back and forth, stitching the sea with more hydrophones as the task force and the incoming pack slowly interpenetrated like colliding galaxies.
Three down, six to go. But those half dozen came on inexorably, and he couldn’t be sure they’d picked them all up. There were too many left unaccounted for.
The southern group abruptly went sinker, vanishing as completely as if they’d never been built. Carpenter called, “They bought a thermocline. Nice ’n’ handy. But they can’t hear us under there, either.” The helos clustered above where they’d vanished, then spiraled outward in expanding-search patterns. Soler recommended that the formation turn away to the north. Dan shook his head grimly. Turning away wasn’t going to win this battle.
The first torpedoes hit Green Bay, to the north of the main body, and ROKN Jeonnam, to the southeast of Savo, nearly simultaneously. Both ships began slowing. Unfortunately, the enemy boats, most likely AIP-equipped Yuan-class units, stayed unlocatable. Dan gritted his teeth and asked for damage reports.
The boats still being tracked were closing on Savo Island, southeast of Hornet and fifteen thousand yards out. Dan figured they were almost within torpedo range too. He picked up the tactical voice. “Matador, this is Barbarian, over.”
“Matador, over.” Dave Branscombe’s familiar voice.
“Heads up on two goblins bearing approximately one-two-five true, range sixteen thousand yards from you. Do you hold them active sonar? Over.”
“This is Matador. We see the datums on the shared picture, but negative contact on anything along that bearing. Over.”
This was worrisome. The cruiser’d had problems with its sonar before. Excessive self-noise, and reduced sensitivity figures.
He was pressing the Transmit button again when the ASW coordinator spoke up. “Rocket noise bearing one-two-five. Correlates with Shkval launch.” Dan let up on the button, then pressed harder. Waiting ages until the circuit beeped and synced, scrambling the transmission to any listener who didn’t hold the key.
“Cheryl, did you hear that?” he said urgently. “Shkval launch. On you. Get your ass out of there!”
* * *
FIFTEEN thousand yards distant, Cheryl Staurulakis went rigid in her chair. The shout from Sonar had swiveled every head in Combat. “Shkval in the water. Bearing one-two-zero!”
Beside her Matt Mills was typing rapidly. “Two hundred knots. Six thousand yards a minute … two minutes until impact.”
She pressed the 21MC key. “Bridge, CO: Come to flank emergency. Course three-zero-zero. Sound the collision alarm.” Even at flank the cruiser would be traveling much more slowly than the Shkval, but the rocket’s burn time was limited. Making it a stern chase just might save them. She shouted across the compartment, which was already slanting into a hard turn, “Activate Rimshot.” The collision alarm came on, a shrill dit dit dit, dit dit dit. Warning everyone to brace for shock.
According to the Tactical Analysis Group, the Russian weapon was magnetically guided. An internal generator, driven by steam tapped off the envelope of gas in which the torpedo traveled, generated a powerful field around the torpedo. Internal sensors monitored that field, alert for deformations by outside influences.
Such as large masses of steel.
Navy warships already carried degaussing equipment, to strip off their natural magnetic fields. That protected them from mines. But to fool the Shkval, something more had been needed. Activated, Rimshot’s sensors searched for approaching magnetic fields. If they detected one, they drew on the ship’s power to generate a pulse simulating a mass of iron thirteen times the size of the ship itself.
Causing, or so the Naval Research Laboratory claimed, an incoming warhead to detonate prematurely.
Unfortunately, no one had yet tested it against a live Shkval-K.
“CIC, bridge: All engines flank emergency, coming to course three-zero-zero.”
“Very well,” she snapped. “Is Rimshot on?”
“AN/UYK-98 activated,” Chief Zotcher confirmed.
“One minute,” said Mills, beside her.
“Bridge, CO: All hands aft of frame 150, lay forward of frame 150. Reset Condition Zebra behind you.” Maybe save a few lives, when the thing hit. Though with a shaped charge, and depleted uranium behind it, there might not be much left of the ship afterward. Especially if it penetrated to the after magazine, still racked with Tomahawks and Harpoons, and the fuel bunkers. Thousands of pounds of high-energy explosive and rocket fuel, plus a hundred tons of Navy Standard Distillate … it would make a spectacular fireball.
The next item on the agenda: counterattack. In its initial phase, the Shkval was a straight-runner. Only at the end of its run did it switch to internal guidance. Which meant that right now it was leaving a trail of hot gas pointing straight to their attacker. She clicked to the ASW circuit to find Winston Farmer, her antisubmarine officer, already coaching Red Hawk into a drop. Good.
“Fish one away. Fish two away,” sang the ASW console operator.
“Think of anything else?” she asked Mills. He was dead pale. The bulkheads shook as the ship strained every nerve, coming up to full power away from the incoming weapon. He shook his head wordlessly.
Then there was nothing to do but wait.
* * *
GREEN Bay reported shaft damage and heavy flooding port side. She was counterflooding to regain stability. Jeonnam was dead in the water, listing, fighting a main space fire. Unfortunately, Dan couldn’t help either ship, not right now. Finish the battle, then assist the wounded. He stared at the display. He’d hoped to clobber the incomers before they got in among the main body. But this was becoming what he’d dreaded: knives in a dark alley.
“Admiral, I’d advise pulling in the screen.”
He half-turned to glance at Amarpeet Singhe. “I’m thinking about it.”
She said, “I know that increases our exposure to nuclear attack. But right now, the closer we circle the wagons, the less opportunity they have to get in among us. Plus, sooner or later, they’re going to go to missiles.”
He nodded. “All right. Pass to screen commander: Pull in to five thousand yards.”
“And the outer one?”
“Pull them in too. Forty thousand yards, but keep them behind our beam when we’re on formation course. I don’t want them ahead of us.”
The orders went out on chat, the voice channels silent now. The reports were coming in that way too. The microsatellites, passing swiftly above in nongeosynchronous orbits, were giving him UHF data uplink and downlink again. Unfortunately, they weren’t very effective in the reconnaissance role. With the Albatross network, the enemy commander might have a better picture of this battle than he did. And if they were linked back to the mainland, this pack, and this battle, might actually be directed from Admiral Lianfeng’s headquarters in Beijing.
“Savo Island reports: Torpedo detonation close astern. Lost sonar tail. Slowing to investigate prop vibration.”
“Very well.”
“Green Bay reports fire under control. Seven casualties, two dead. Able to make five knots.”
They hadn’t reported a fire, but having it under control was good. “Make formation speed five,” he snapped to Enzweiler. “Individual ships, maneuver at will within assigned sectors. We’ll fight it out here. Keep pulling the screen in.” It was the only way he could keep his damaged units under what bubble of protection he could still provide.
“Savo Island reports multiple underwater explosions vicinity datum Goblin Juliet.”
“Very well, excellent.” Another enemy piece off the board. And if it’d been the Shkval archer, it was probably one of the newer, air-independent enemy boats. But that still left over half the attacking force still out there.
“P-8 reports bingo fuel, Winchester ordnance. Permission to return to Wake.”
“Crap … Granted.” He made a face. “Ask him if he has a relief on its way.”
“Relief inbound, one-five minutes out.”
Fifteen minutes, an eternity … “Pass to the new guy, I need sweeps close in to the main body, to the south and then to the north. Immediate drop on any detection. The only Blue submarine bears ten miles northeast of Hornet.”
Dan passed both hands over his hair. The palms came away wet, and he wiped them surreptitiously on his coveralls. He got down and stood behind Soler, watching the ASW coordinator position the helicopters as they dropped sonobuoys, dipped, conducted magnetic runs.
A crunching shock tremored the deck, which flexed upward, then snapped down, catapulting him into the air. The lights flickered. The shock whanged away through the overhead. He grabbed at the back of a chair but was still knocked off his feet. His head hit something hard on the way down. He blinked dazzle off his eyeballs, catching himself on hands and knees.
Alarms were beeping. “Torpedo hit, starboard side forward,” the 1MC announced. “Repair One provide.”
“Dropping on Goblin Hotel, range seven thousand yards, bearing one-four-zero.”
He hoisted himself to a crouch, trying desperately to reboot a scrambled brain. Regain the tactical picture … hands on his arms, helping him up … sandalwood and stale sweat … Singhe on one side, Soler on the other. “You okay, Admiral? You’re bleeding. Hit your head?”
“Just a scalp wound. Give me a tissue, somebody.”
Goblin Hotel had been part of the northern group, but that torpedo had come from the south. Meaning that its firer, and possibly others, had transited the thermocline directly underneath the inner screen, then risen on the far side to reorient and attack.
Maybe making himself a sitting duck hadn’t been such a good idea. He listened, nodding as Graciadei updated him on Hornet’s damage: a massive hole in the starboard bow, flooded compartments, reduced speed. Her words reverberated in his ears. He turned away when she stopped speaking, pressing the tissue to his temple. “Uh, ASW air, where’s that fucking P-8? We need sonobuoys and helos to the south.”
“Still ten minutes out, Admiral.”
Carpenter called, “Sir, we should maybe pull Farncomb back in, slide her under the thermo—”
“Negative. Somebody’s going to hammer him by mistake if we do. The one sure thing we know now is, if we have contact, it’s a hostile.” Unfortunately, the only ASW-capable surface unit he had to the southward was Savo, and she’d just had her most effective sensor, her sonar tail, blown off. “Captain”—Graciadei turned—“you have all our helos in the air?”
“Bringing the first ones in for hot refuel, or padding them in on McClung.”
He swung to check the display. Kristensen was pulling closer. “How are we doing on ordnance? We have to—”
“Vampire, vampire, vampire,” the ESM operator announced, voice slicing through the hubbub. “Multiple vampires, bearing three-five-four to three-five-zero. Correlates to Yingji-82 Saccade.”
There it was: the second wave. Out to the northwest. Waiting until the first was in among the inner screen before launching missiles.
Against ships already crippled, constrained in their ability to maneuver, and bunched tight.
For a moment he couldn’t breathe. Clung to the back of his command chair, supporting suddenly weak knees, as one after the other scarlet carets bloomed on the display. As the readouts winked into existence. As incoming missiles jumped ahead with each sweep of the radar.
After an agonizing couple of seconds, he saw it.
The opportunity.
The red phone in his hand. Wait for the beep. “War Drums, this is Barbarian.”
“War Drums. Over.” Jung’s voice. The left wing, twenty miles north of the main body. Nine superbly capable ASW frigates and destroyers, flagshipped by Sejong the Great and led by one of the most aggressive commanders he’d ever met.
“Sub pack southwest of you, twelve miles, just launched multiple vampires against main body. Reverse course, sweep west, close in behind them. Wipe ’em out, Min.”
“This is War Drums. Roger all. Out.”
* * *
FIVE miles distant, the Hydra on Cheryl Staurulakis’s belt beeped. “Air Control reports: Multiple vampires, incoming. Bearing spread on three-four-zero. Correlates with CSS-N-8 Saccade.”
She’d been trotting aft, intending to check out the damage, since reports were confused, but was slowed by all the dogged hatches. She reversed course and pelted back forward. She arrived puffing in Combat, and plunked down in her chair, checking that her firing key was still locked in. Beside her Mills was finishing target designations. He said from the side of his mouth, “We’re splitting them with Kristensen. They’re taking the three to the east. We’ve got the ones to the west.”
Terranova was bent over the Aegis console. “We have lock-on.” On the display, four of the quickly advancing red carets began winking bright orange halos.
Mills said, “Ready to fire, SM-2s on Vampires Alfa, Bravo, Delta, Charlie. One-round engagements. Followed by another one-round engagement on any leakers.”
“Kill ’em,” Cheryl snapped.
A distant clunk as the vent dampers toggled shut. The ventilators dropped the scale. The rush of icy air stopped, and suddenly it was much quieter in Combat.
Mills flipped up a switch cover and hit a button.
The roar rattled the bullkheads. A star ignited in the forward hatch area camera field of view. Terranova chanted, “Bird one away … two away … bird three away … bird four away. Preparing for refire from after magazine.”
On the center display bright symbols left the blue circle and cross. Cheryl pulled her mind off that and clicked on the Hydra. “Lieutenant Jiminiz? Have you got a report yet?”
“We’re still hauling in on the tail. It looks intact, but we’re not getting an output.”
“I’m more worried about the screws right now.” She pushed buttons on the 21MC and hit the lever. “Main Control, CO. Can you up the turn count on the remaining shaft? We need maneuverability bad, right now.”
“Skipper, we’re still seeing a lot of vibration. I’m not sure what’s going on down there.”
“Is this Chief McMottie? I can’t hear you very well.”
“I have an e-beedie on. Toxic gas dump here. Halon leak. Shock from the explosion popped a valve. I evacuated everybody.”
“Okay … the vibration … is it a shaft issue, or a prop issue?”
“Offhand I’d say the prop.”
“Stand fast, Chief. I’ll get you degassed as soon as we get a break here.”
“Damage Control’s working it, Skipper. No worries. Let middle management handle it.”
The ASW operator called, “Sonar reports contact … torpedo in the water! Torpedo launch, torpedo noise bearing two-five-zero. Bearing drift … rapid right.”
The ESM operator yelled from the other side of Combat, “I don’t have radar altimeters on these 802s. Trying to fox them, but I’m not getting a response.”
She lifted a finger to them both, clicked onto the command net. “Birkenstock, this is Matador. Torpedo headed your way. Out.” Clicked off without waiting for an acknowledgment. Then, to Mills, “Red Hawk is where?”
“Strafer’s bingo fuel. We need to come to recovery course.”
“Divert him to Hornet. We’re firing on this guy. Stand by on Mark 46s.”
“Not ASROC?”
“Too close range. Dump three Mark 46s and let them figure it out.” She hit the button to the bridge. “Come to two-four-zero. No, belay that. Continue right to zero-zero-zero. ASW Control, stand by to drop as we swing through two-four-zero. —Sonar, Chief Zotcher, got a firm ping on this guy?”
“No. Mushy. Drifting in and out.”
“Bearing, range?”
“Two-three-zero. Twelve thousand. Course, one-niner-zero. Increasing turn count. Hauling ass away.”
Extreme range for the Mark 46s Savo carried. But hearing the eggbeater whine of torpedoes behind him, at least he’d keep clearing the battle zone. Anyhow, the way this was going, maybe she shouldn’t worry about conserving ordnance. She breathed deep and held it, trying to slow her thinking. Her outgoing Standards had almost reached the rapidly streaking missiles, which were apparently targeted on Hornet. Savo was on the far side of the formation from her, unfortunately, making intercept time longer, but they might get there. The compartment leaned as the cruiser, increasing speed but slowly, careened into the turn. “Torpedo one away … two away … three away,” the ASW controller chanted.
Seconds ticked past as Savo steadied on her northerly course. Wilker reported he was headed to Hornet. Cheryl hit the 21MC to Main Control again, but no one answered. Had McMottie been overcome? She called DC Central. They said a party was en route with blowers to vent the gas.
“Stand by … intercept,” Terranova called.
The red carets winked out, except for one, which kept coming. Straight for them now … no, for the carrier … it seemed to be confused, switching its attention between the targets. Any second now, though, it would make up its mind. “Leaker, leaker,” Mills said tensely. “Stand by to refire.”
“Inside minimum range,” Terranova murmured. “Warhead won’t arm.”
Mills froze, fingers suspended over the keys, stare clamped to the display. The enemy missile paused, then jumped forward. Paused, jumped again.
“ESM—still no joy on jamming?”
“Can’t fox this dude,” the petty officer called. “I’ve run the program three times, but he’s not responding.”
“Hornet coming to zero-nine-zero,” the command net talker announced.
Cheryl selected the ruler tool and measured distances. Too close for Standard. Too far for Phalanx. Savo was closing the carrier, but she was just on the wrong side.
The single C-802 took a longer stride forward. “Going supersonic, into terminal run,” Terranova announced.
“Homing where?”
“Looks like … on us.”
“ESM?”
“No joy, no joy. Not responding to foxing.”
Cheryl clicked her IC selector to Weapons, trying not to think about the fate moving inexorably down its world-line toward Savo. Only one card left to play. “Sergeant, you on the line?”
“Custis here, ma’am.”
“Incoming missile bearing three-four-zero.”
“We’ve been looking. Don’t see anything—”
“You won’t. Too low. Supersonic. Slew to three-four-zero and salvo four rounds. Now!”
A rippling thud resounded from above. In the camera display, whitish-yellow smoke blew across the screen. Custis’s Stingers were on their way. Short-ranged, and with only seven-pound warheads, but the incomer was only ten feet above the wavetops. If they could knock it even slightly off course, it would plow harmlessly into the sea. Across the compartment the operator shouted, “Phalanx in automatic.” The 25mm operator was hollering, “Mount 21, mount 22, incoming missile, bearing three-four-four.”
A clamoring racket started outside, the blam blam blam of the contact-fuzed 25s underscored by the bass brrrrrrr of the CIWS, and, at intervals, the heavier wham … wham of the forward five-inch, pumping out the new hypervelocity projectiles. Her gaze welded itself to the pulsing caret of the incomer. For three long seconds the noise was continuous.
The red caret winked out. “Splash Vampire Charlie,” Terranova announced.
Cheryl sighed. “Very well. —Bridge, right hard rudder, course zero-nine-zero.” She hit the lever for DC Central. “Any word from the Engine Room?”
“About to call you, Captain. McMottie was passed out in there. We hauled him up and Dunk’s administering oxygen. She thinks he’ll be okay. Getting the blowers lined up. The watch section’s standing by to go in … wait one … they say, ready to answer all bells.”
Abruptly there seemed nothing left to do. She checked with Sonar. No detonations from that bearing, but the goblin they’d fired torpedoes on was still tracking outbound. The air controller reported Red Hawk still refueling and rearming aboard Hornet. Cheryl realized she was panting. But no one seemed to have noticed. They looked shaken too. She pushed wet hair from her face and smoothed it back into its ponytail.
* * *
IN Hornet’s CIC, the pace of battle slackened. Dan caught up on the reports. The wave of 802s from the northwest had been knocked down, but at a massive cost in ordnance. His inner-screen units were scraping the bottom of their magazines. Another attack like that, and they’d be reduced to slow targets.
His Korean wings had barely expended a round yet. But Jung was racing west. His van units had begun the hook-around, surrounding and cutting off the boats that had just launched the wave of missiles. He told Soler to refuel and rearm the HSL and get them out to help. The Koreans would swing the front doors shut, the helos would slam the back, and the slaughter would begin.
A clink at his elbow, a waft of cinnamon. “Brought’cha some joe, Admiral. And a sticky bun. Y’oughta eat something.”
He wanted to say “Not hungry,” but made himself take a bite. Drizzled with hard sauce, and still hot. Longley must have run up the ladders from the mess decks. “Uh, thanks.” He blew on the coffee and tried a sip. Twice as strong as usual, exactly what he needed just now.
Unfortunately, the cup clattered on the saucer as he set it down. Hoping no one had heard, he pushed the saucer aside and finished in quick gulps. Longley whisked the china away and vanished.
All right, recapitulate … This did seem to be a lull.… They’d beaten off two submerged groups, from the northeast and southeast. The enemy had penetrated the screen and inflicted damage, but paid a high price: five boats, by his count. He had tracks on two that seemed to be fleeing, or at least retiring, perhaps for reload. The wave to the northwest was still too far off to attack, and would shortly have their hands full with Jung’s ravenous wolves, eager to avenge Seoul and Jeonnam. He’d never gotten a firm count on how many attackers there were overall. But if Intel was right, he’d just engaged fully half the total Chinese forces in the mid-Pacific.
He told Soler to pull Farncomb back inside the main body, slip her under the thermocline, and eavesdrop for any lurkers. “But make sure all units roger up on her location, to avoid mistakes.” He asked Enzweiler for damage reports, and listened with chin in one hand as the ops officer totted up a grim butcher’s bill.
Graciadei came over. Avoiding his gaze. “Congratulations, Admiral.”
“On what, Captain?”
“On your victory.”
“Uh, thanks. I guess. Anyway, it’s ‘ours,’ not ‘mine.’ What’s your status? I asked Bart Danenhower to give your people a hand.”
She told him Commander Danenhower was in DC Central, helping coordinate the repair-team response. Hornet was speed-limited by the hole in the bow, although the compromised compartments had been sealed off and bulkheads were being shored up. “I hope to resume at least twenty knots in a couple of hours, though we’ll need dry-docking, inspection, and repair.”
Dan sucked air through bared teeth. That would mean heading to Pearl Harbor or San Diego. After the attack during their sortie from Apra, he couldn’t see PaCom risking another major combatant in the dry dock there. The Allies might still hold it, but Guam was in the battle zone now.
He was updating Fleet by covered satcomm when a stir rose over by the air control consoles. “Stand by one,” he said into the red phone. He called to Singhe, “What’s going on over there?”
Then he swiveled, and saw the answer on the displays.
A barrage had emerged from the empty sea to the southwest. Small, fast contacts marched north. The ESM operator yelled, “Vampire, vampire—multiple X-band radars.”
Dan grabbed the arms of his chair when he realized where they were headed.
Straight for his helos.
“Correlates to—German?—IDAS antiair missile,” the operator stammered.
“Break right, break right—flares, now,” the air controller spat over the circuit. “They’re coming straight up your ass.”
The CIWS on Hornet’s superstructure burst into its bass brrrr, but almost immediately cut off.”Out of range,” the controller called.
“What are they? Where’d they come from?” he shouted, mind racing.
“Farncomb reports convergence zone contacts bearing two-one-zero, twenty-eight thousand yards from formation center. Two contacts, possibly three. Stand by … possibly four contacts. Classify as Victor-class nuclear submarines.”
Not Russian Victors, of course, but Chinese Shangs … the enemy’s nuclear boats.
The first team was on the field. At last.
And their opening play was taking down his helicopters.
The chatter rose to a crescendo. “Falcon two-two-one down, in the water.”
“On the deck … incoming … Falcon leader, say again, over.”
The leading red carets met the blue of friendly helicopters. They blinked, and callouts began spinning downward. In the video from a mast-mounted camera, puffs of black smoke stippled the horizon. From them fell comets of flame.
Dan leaned in, staring at the screen as the ambush unfolded. He’d been well and truly had. Far from “taking the bait,” the enemy commander had deliberately sacrificed his slower, older diesel boats to deplete the task force’s magazines before sending in the first team. Now, with a weapon the Allies hadn’t even known he owned, he’d crippled the helicopters, the biggest advantage surface ships held over submarines. His next move would be to launch another wave of 802s, exhausting the last of the task force’s antiair ordnance. Then he would close, to finish them off with a mass torpedo attack.
Sick at heart, nails digging into the arms of his chair, Dan realized he’d been outmaneuvered from the start. Baited, switched, and sucker-punched.
Singhe, at his elbow. “Admiral? Fleet calling.”
He accepted the red phone as if in a trance. “Barbarian Actual.”
“This is Husky. Interrogative situation and intentions. Over.”
He cleared his throat with an effort. “Husky, this is Barbarian. We are being attacked from southwest by multiple Shangs. Taking heavy casualties to helicopter force. Ordnance nearly exhausted. My intention … I guess … to fight to the end.” Though really there was no choice. He couldn’t outrun the nuke boats. Their top speed submerged was faster than a damaged Hornet’s. “Uh … Over.”
A deliberation in the background, only part of which he caught. Then, “This is Husky. Clear the area to the east. Over.”
He blinked, uncomprehending. At the same moment, two contacts winked on to the eastward. The callouts identified them as friendly air, fifty thousand feet up. “What the hell are those?” he asided to Enzweiler.
“Wait one … IFF as C-5s.”
What were Air Force transports doing out here? He could use a resupply, but Galaxies took miles of runway to land. Probably just more troops on their way to Guam. His brain realized he was still squeezing the phone in a sweaty hand. “Uh, Fleet, this is Barbarian. Request you say again. I have helos down west of me. Crews in the water. Torpedo damage. What exactly are you advising me to do? Over.”
“This is an order, not an advisement. Clear your task force to the eastward at maximum possible speed. Recover aircraft still operational. Leave damaged units and casualties behind for now. P-8s will drop rafts to them. Acknowledge.”
Totally in the dark, he reluctantly rogered. He told the ops officer, “Make to all units: come to course zero-nine-zero, flank speed. Vector remaining helos to recover before they bingo. Pick up as many survivors as possible while withdrawing. Make sure War Drums rogers.”
Enzweiler looked as puzzled as Dan was. “Aye, sir. Signal’s going out. But withdraw … to where? These guys will just follow us.”
Hornet leaned into a radical turn, steel fabric creaking. Graciadei was bumping on additional RPM, five at a time. Danenhower stood beside her, looking worried. Dan licked dry lips. “I agree, but it’s not phrased like we have an option, Fred.”
“Admiral.” Singhe’s tone twisted him round in his seat. “Look. Those air contacts.”
He squinted, then frowned. The tracks of the Galaxies had bent northward. The altitude readouts on both contacts were spinning rapidly downward. Losing altitude. Their course would take them directly over the oncoming Shangs. For a moment he wanted to warn them, then realized it wasn’t necessary. The missiles the subs had just taken down his helos with were short-range. Low-altitude. More like Stingers than anything else.
“What the fuck,” Wenck muttered beside him. “What the—”
“I’m not sure either, Donnie.”
“They’re losing altitude, but coming in hot. WTF, over?”
Dan cocked his head, a light snapping on. Could they be going in for a drop? But of what? The huge cargo birds weren’t equipped with anything more dangerous than flares. They weren’t bombers.
“What the fuck,” Wenck breathed again.
Dan lifted the handset again. Waited for the sync. “Husky, Barbarian Actual, over.”
“Fleet, over. Are you clearing the area as ordered?”
“This is Barbarian. Affirmative. Interrogative: What is going on with these Air Force big birds? Over.”
A pause, a hesitation. Then, “This is Fleet. Do not log or record what’s happening behind you. Do not discuss with the crew. This is close hold within the command team. Acknowledge. Over.”
Still confused, Dan acknowledged. Then sat back rubbing his chin, frowning up at the screen. The Galaxies had completed their pass in front of the oncoming pack. Then, still low, began a clockwise sweep, as if for a second run in front of the advancing submarines.
Singhe stepped up to his chair. He caught a whiff of her perfume as her lips brushed his ear. “We’re getting a hint on one of the chat rooms,” she whispered. “It’s called ‘Spyglass.’”
He frowned. “What is?”
“Whatever they’re dropping. The word is, something hush-hush out of Silicon Valley.”
The ASW controller lifted his voice. “Farncomb reports: low-order detonation bearing two-two-zero. Hold on … there’s another.”
CIC was silent. Dan bent forward, waiting too, though he wasn’t sure for what. Someone put audio from Sonar on a speaker. Two more distant, trivial-sounding thunks echoed through the deep, reverberating like dull bells. Not nearly as dramatic as a torpedo detonation.
Aside from that, they heard nothing more.