DAN leaned back in his bridge chair as predawn bleached the eastern horizon. They’d busted balls all night, both the marines and Hornet’s crew. They hadn’t quite gotten everything ashore. But most of the heavy equipment was offloaded, the vehicles and tanks. Enough to clear the hangar and stowage areas for the helicopters.
Helicopters … The task force’s initial course would be north, to close Japan. If he maintained twenty-five knots, in thirty-two hours he’d be within range … assuming the pilots were cool with no return ticket if anything went wrong. Once they were safely aboard, he’d turn east.
His brick crackled. “Ready to execute, Admiral,” Dudley transmitted.
“All right, Jer. Let’s move ’em out.” The execute message would be sent from Flag Plot, on the 02 level. He’d be down there soon. But just now, he wanted to oversee this with the naked eye.
Messages had been flying thick and fast during the night, clarifying things a bit. The sinkings were concentrated in the immense empty bowl of ocean southwest of Midway, north of the Marshalls and Micronesia, and east of the Marianas and Guam. Premier Zhang’s, or Admiral Lianfeng’s, intent was clear. The shortest line between Hawaii and California to the western Pacific led through this central sea. Cut off, even the few allied forces currently in action would wither like tourniqueted limbs.
Given that reality, postponing Operation Mandible was the only possible response.
But sending his task force after subs signaled a sobering reality. The U.S. Navy was spread so thinly that it couldn’t both control the sea lanes and cover an amphibious landing.
On the other hand, a second ASW task force was assembling at Pearl. He and they together might be able to vise the wolf pack between them.
“Now make all preparations for getting under way,” the 1MC announced.
From the slanted-out windows of the bridge he looked down on his high-value units moored along Romeo and Sierra wharves. The ROK destroyers and frigates had cast off from their mooring buoys in the basin and steamed out one by one. From an unfamiliar harbor, darkened, radars off, but without so much as a scrape or a single radioed order. Jung ran a tight organization.… Getting under way now, the larger U.S. ships would pass the sub piers, empty except for the moored bulk of the tender—the only remaining submarine tender in the Pacific, now—and transit the northern exit, which was barely three hundred yards wide. A hard port turn would take them out of the basin into the outer harbor. They’d still be sheltered then, barriered by a jetty to the north and the peninsula to the south. The harbor security team had a sonar watch set there, to guard against any special forces swimmers, SDVs, or autonomous penetrators.
The next bottleneck was the harbor exit itself, to the west. Once past that they’d be in open sea. An ideal spot for an attacker to lurk, so he’d asked Jung to detail two of the more sonar-capable frigates to scrub the area down. He hoped this, along with McClung’s sweeping the channel out last night and drones extending persistent surveillance out a hundred miles, could get them clear without much danger.
Once out there, though, it would be an open question who would be the hunter and who the hunted.
Captain Graciadei materialized at his elbow. She was in blue coveralls, with the cowl-like flash hood pushed back. “Admiral. Good morning, and we’re ready for sea.”
Dan tapped a salute back. “Morning, Sandy. What’s the latest on that elevator?”
“Up and operating.” Accompanied by a wink. “Too bad we couldn’t get the F-35s offloaded.”
“Yeah, that was unfortunate.” A complicated game played around 0300, when Dan’s request to leave the fighters aboard had come back approved by Fleet but denied by MARFORPAC. PaCom could have resolved the issue but hadn’t responded, and Colonel Eller had been caught in the middle. The solution was a “transient electrical casualty” to the single elevator capable of moving the fighters to pier level for debark. With it out of action, Dan had had no choice but to “reluctantly” order them left aboard. The colonel was off the hook, and they had organic air cover.
“Yes, unfortunate,” she echoed, then got businesslike again. “We’ll go to general quarters shortly. Will you be here or in Flag?”
“I’ll start the transit up here.”
“Would you like flash gear, Admiral?”
“Uh, I guess so,” he said, grimacing. The hot, heavy cowl, thick gloves, and flak vest were de rigueur for bridge personnel at GQ. But scuttlebutt traveled fast. If he held himself above the rules, it gave everyone else an excuse too. “If you’ll hand me that helmet?”
* * *
OVER the next half hour they cast off, one by one, to avoid mutual interference. Kristensen left first, followed by Green Bay, then Earhart. ESM reported low-power radars. Dan had no problem with that. Commercial fishing boats used them, and so did pleasure craft. Although, from the empty piers at the marina, most of those had left for points east. He leaned on the starboard wing, glassing each ship as it passed. Each rendered honors, and he saluted back, though he wasn’t actually sure they could see him.
The officer of the deck stepped up to Graciadei. “Ma’am, ready to get under way.” He followed it with a litany: engine status, steering, radars.
The CO turned to Dan. “Admiral—”
“Copy all, Captain. Cast off when you’re ready.”
A boatswain bent to the 1MC, setting his pipe to his lips. “Under way. Shift colors.” Graciadei stood centerline as the OOD twisted Hornet away from the pier against a pinning wind. Light stanchions began to walk past them on the port side.
“Cap’n,” said a familiar voice. An acned face presented a covered dish. “Thought you’d be down in that Plot Room. So it might be cold. Bacon, eggs, coffee.”
“Thanks, Longley.” Dan took the plate more out of duty than hunger, but got down some toast and eggs before setting it on an angle iron below the window.
He joined the navigator beside the nav plot. Green Bay was exiting the outer harbor. Earhart, their loggie ship, was dead ahead, beginning her turn. A bell jangled and Hornet gathered speed. The pilothouse was silent, other than murmured commands as the OOD centered her on the narrow exit ahead. Earhart’s gray bulky profile lengthened as she turned, presenting her port side and putting on speed as she entered the outer harbor and lined up to transit the Apra entrance.
The bridge-to-bridge crackled abruptly. “Matador, this is War Drums. Suggest you search bearing two-nine-five true. Over.”
Dan stopped his hand in midgrab. Cheryl was “Matador,” Savo Island, now. His own call sign was “Barbarian.” “War Drums” was Min Jun Jung, reporting something one of his screen units had observed. But what? He crossed to the piloting radar, but it showed nothing amiss.
“This is Matador. Searching that bearing. Over.” Beth Terranova’s voice; she was one of the petty officers Dan had recommended for promotion.
Savo was five miles outside the harbor exit and slightly to the south, set to tuck in as shotgun when Hornet emerged. From there she would open the range to seventy-five miles, close by modern standards, up-axis toward the threat. The cruiser would be at general quarters with umbilicals in, ready to turn keys and engage.
He wished he was back aboard her. A ship that could strike back, not the slow, fat target USS Hornet presented at the moment.
The 21MC console lit. “Bridge, Combat: we have Savo Island going out to Guam airfield, to us, to all force units and the THAAD battery: Multiple incomers, bearing 290 to 297, correlates with intermediate-range ballistic missiles entering terminal phase descent.”
Dan jerked the binoculars to his face. Green Bay was exiting the outer harbor, but only just. Pinned between jetty and peninsula, she had zero maneuvering room. Earhart was in a slightly better position. But just at this moment Hornet, her stem just entering the three-hundred-yard-wide passage from the inner basin, had the least maneuverability of all. He gripped the binoculars more tightly, searching for something, anything, he could do … but came up with nothing.
He’d made his plan, and set his pieces on the board as effectively as he could.
Now it was the other side’s move.
As if detecting his thoughts, the VHF radio sparked to life. “Vampire, Vampire, Vampire. Multiple incomers. Two gaggles, gaggle one bearing two-eight-five, range three-seven miles, gaggle two bearing roughly two-five-five to two-six zero, twenty miles.”
Vampires were sub-launched cruise missiles.
It was a coordinated attack.
His first responsibility: Keep Higher informed. He seized the red phone and reported the incomers to Fleet. Type, numbers, and suspected targets, which were of course both the task group and the base. Fleet rogered tersely.
He signed off, resocketed the phone, and looked around, feeling helpless. Yes, he commanded the task group, but Savo, as his air warfare commander, controlled its defense. He grunted, cursing the lack of over-the-horizon reconnaissance. He’d been hoping to vanish in the vast Pacific, but the enemy had somehow known to strike precisely when the highest-value unit would be least able to defend itself. Which had to mean either better recon than the Allies possessed, or a spy ashore.
Still, he had a few cards left. McClung, Kristensen, Sejong the Great, Jung’s flagship, and Savo were all capable antiair units. They should be able to knock down most of the incomers. At least if everything worked, and until their magazines went empty … He snapped to the Air Control circuit but only heard a couple of transmissions. “This is Matador. Going hot.”
“This is Turtleship. All units, batteries released.” Then rapid, peremptory Korean as the ROKN units pulled in, interlocking defenses like a phalanx’s shields.
Graciadei pressed the key on the 21MC. “Weps, CO: RAM, Sea Whiz, batteries released.” Hornet’s weapons were relatively short-range: the rolling-airframe missiles first, then, as a last resort, the radar-guided, self-laid 20mm guns forward and aft. In terms of self-defense, that was all she had.
Dan took a last look around, then pivoted. The boatswain slammed the door open, and Dan slid down two ladders, spun, and pelted aft.
Flag Plot was manned, but not with many folks he recognized. His new staff, and there’d been no time to get to know them. The space was Spartan, with dated-looking comms except for two huge vertical displays, nearly deck to overhead, positioned to his left. Their fused picture integrated the Aegis inputs of the entire task force with geo and some intel information. The near-complete absence of weapon control or sensor consoles was disturbing. He swung up into his elevated command chair as a dark-haired lieutenant and a blond chief turned in their seats. “Admiral,” Amarpeet Singhe said.
“Amy. Donnie. What’ve we got?”
The radio remote overhead spoke in Cheryl Staurulakis’s flat tones: “All stations command net, this is Matador. Taking tracks 0001, 0002, 0003 with Standard.”
Wenck said rapidly, holding a headset to his ears, “Three incoming DF-4s or -5s. The Terror says impact point overlay dead on the central harbor.”
DF-4s and -5s were ballistic missiles. “Nuclear, Chief?”
“No way to tell, Dan.”
“Chief, you need to—”
“Sorry, I meant Admiral.” Wenck shoved a blond forelock out of his eyes. “They’re nuclear capable. What they put on there, we got no way of knowing. Oh, wait … second wave. Three more. No, four more. No, hell, five. May be others behind them.”
Dan’s heart sank. Savo had only five rounds capable of intercepting something coming in from that altitude, at that speed. He felt even less confident as Singhe added, “Following them in: two groups of high-speed skimmers. Correlates with CM-708, C-801 seeker heads.”
“Can you spoof them…”
She frowned. “Sir?”
“Shit, never mind. I keep thinking we’re aboard Savo.”
And there they were on the display, the red carets of hostile cruise missiles. Over a dozen, along two axes of attack. The ballistic warheads were only seconds out now. Lagging them, but more numerous, were the CM-708s, Tomahawk clones, and the shorter-range C-801s. He leaned in his chair as the tracks jumped forward, hesitated, jumped again. Aimed, so far as he could judge, directly for where Green Bay’s and Hornet’s screws churned green water, desperately but all too slowly thrusting them toward the open sea.
Singhe said, “More pop-ups. Another eight 801s, one minute behind the first salvo.”
He took one deep slow breath, then another, trying to ignore the cold sweat that broke over his back. Panicking wouldn’t help.
“Savo reports Standard launch,” one of the other staffers said.
Christ, he felt so damned helpless.… He sucked air, watching the blue carets of the Standard Block 4s separate from the cruiser and accelerate outward. The space leaned. A pencil rolled, dove off a table, rolled away down the deck. He glanced at the rudder-angle indicator and gyrocompass repeater. The rudder was hard left. A vibration tremored through the massive hull around them. Graciadei was pushing them through the turn. Cramming on power, trying to get them hauled around and out to sea before the warheads arrived.
The carets, jumping ahead every half second, told him they weren’t going to make it. “All hands, flash gear,” he called. Though most of the staff were already in it, sleeves rolled down, socks over pant legs, with flash hoods and gloves. They didn’t have flak jackets down here, apparently.
“We’re still in TF-wide EMCON,” Singhe reminded him.
“Thanks, Amy. Get all our radars up,” Dan snapped. “They obviously know we’re here. And pass to Savo—never mind.” He reached for the red phone. “All units Horde, this is Barbarian. EMCON lifted for entire force. Stay alert for more attacks in the ten- to twenty-mile range.” If those low gaggles were from subs, there could be yet another salvo from even closer in. The Chinese had a capsulized, shorter-range missile, not really equivalent to the U.S. Harpoon, but closer to it than anything else in the inventory.
Okay, Lenson, try to think.… This was a carefully planned attack. All three waves of missiles—ballistic, turbojet cruise, and short-range rockets—had been fired on schedule for a simultaneous TOT, time on target. Arriving too close together to shoot down, fox, chaff, spoof, or jam them all.
Thus overwhelming his defenses with a massive bludgeoning. Exactly the way that in 1942, Admiral Mikawa’s cruisers had overwhelmed Quincy, Astoria, and Vincennes—timing their attack so that torpedoes and shells arrived at the same moment—in the Battle of Savo Island.
“Barbarian, this is Vandal. I have targeting on archers.” Simultaneously with the voice report, a contact bloomed to the northwest. The red semicircle of a submarine.
Dudley called from a desk just below him, “Admiral, we want to counterfire?”
Dan studied the display. He’d positioned Sejong, Jung’s flagship, to the north, with her supporting destroyers. Savo was closest to the harbor exit, with the Burkes out to the west. “Affirmative. Move both DDGs out to the northwest. Get their helos in the air, if they’re not already. Proceed with caution. Counterfire Harpoon and get the helos out there with torpedoes as soon as firing platforms are detected. Break up their fire control solutions, at least. Pull Savo back—no, wait—better leave her free to maneuver to optimize intercept geometry.”
“Stand by for intercept, Meteor Alfa,” Wenck announced. He was hunched into headphones, intent on what Dan presumed was the Aegis coordination net. The stream of digital data over the net, computer to computer, was driving the battle now. No longer did the brawn of burly ammunition loaders and the sharp eyes of gunnery officers determine victory or defeat. Networked algorithms would fight this battle at speeds no human could match.
It was a war of microseconds, fought by millions of lines of code.
He yearned after the second-by-second updates he’d gotten on Savo. God, he hated being a spectator. Which more and more, apparently, one became as one ascended in rank. Now, the only indication of victory or defeat was when a contact winked out on the display, silently as a dying firefly
Just then, one did. “Meteor Alfa, successful intercept,” Wenck called. “Stand by for Meteor Bravo, Meteor Charlie, Meteor Delta.”
Over the next few seconds, though, Bravo and Charlie penetrated successfully. Dan pounded his seat rest, cursing. The Block 4 had tested at only a 50 percent kill rate, true. But to actually see it happening … to watch the blinking red symbols emerge from their near collisions with their blue interceptors … and arrow in, toward the blue cross-in-circle that meant Own Ship …
The command space fell silent as the leading warhead, pulsing brightly, flashed down the final miles to impact.
* * *
FIVE minutes later, the battle was half over.
Savo had taken down three out of ten ballistic missiles. Two of those remaining had been intercepted by the shorter-range endoatmospheric interceptors of the Army THAAD battery at the airfield. Of the five left, two had detonated cratering munitions across the main runway. The other three hit hangars, maintenance buildings, and fuel storage with heavy warheads. The feed from Hornet’s flight-deck cameras showed heavy, slow columns of black smoke boiling the blue air, and the black specks of helicopters airlifting the wounded out to hospitals elsewhere on the island. On the western horizon lighter smoke, mixing to a faint brownish tinge, marked the residua of high explosives, rocket boosters, and chaff mortars. A streak of fire bored toward Earhart. The ship heeled, attempting to evade, but the flying flame curved to follow. At the last second it climbed, pitched over, and plunged into her side like a dagger. Half a second later, a red-orange lily of fire and smoke bloomed.
“McClung reports hit by debris,” Dudley called.
“Damage report, ASAP,” Dan said. “How are the Koreans doing?”
“Stand by … one hit on a frigate. Set it on fire. But they report most of the missiles passed them by. Seem to be targeted on the main body.”
Hornet, Green Bay, and Earhart. The carrier was leaning into another hard turn. A drumming thud carried through the steel. Fired in clusters, the decoy mortars would present the incoming cruises with thousands of radar-confusing dipoles and infrared-bright flares.
Singhe called, “Admiral, I’m tracking these missiles passing south of us. They’re heading for … stand by … looks like, for the THAAD battery and base radar. Targeting air warning, suppressing air defenses.”
Dan and Dudley exchanged glances. “Let’s get the F-35s up.” Dan picked up the phone to the bridge. A short discussion with Graciadei ended with her telling him she’d already given that order. He said, “Good, you’re thinking ahead. Only question is, what’s the threat axis?”
“We don’t have anything from our air search … nothing from screen units.”
“Savo’s going to be keyholed, looking for more ballistic incomers.” He checked the screen. McClung was farthest out, but she’d been hit. So it was Kristensen’s ball. “Birkenstock, this is Barbarian, over.”
“Birkenstock, over.”
“Keep your eyes peeled for hostile air. Maybe from … shit, could be from any point of the compass. Can you get your helo up at angels ten? See if there’s anything coming over the horizon.” Lacking air surveillance or satellites, a helo with a decent radar at high altitude would give the best coverage he could expect. He squeegeed sweat off his forehead. Once the F-35s were up, he’d have only an hour before they bingoed. If he sent them the wrong way, the force could end up without cover in the face of a major strike.
The kind of wrong guess that had cost the Japanese four carriers at Midway.
A deep bass thrum overhead. The 20mm CIWS, firing a storm of depleted-uranium projectiles to tear apart an incoming weapon.
Kristensen rogered. Dan socketed a sweat-dampened handset and checked the large-screen fusion again. The waves of cruise missiles were passing. Yeah, continuing on to Guam, now behind and south of Hornet.
“Barbarian, this is Birkenstock, over.”
Singhe got to the handset before he did. He resisted the impulse to step in. Stay above the fray, he reminded himself. Think ahead. “Barbarian, over,” she said.
“Many bogeys headed in. Putting ’em on the net now.”
“This is Barbarian, roger—”
“Tuck his helo back under his envelope,” Dan said. “Before they pick him up—”
Wenck was typing madly at his console. The downlinked radar picture came up on the leftmost screen.
And there they were. Hard to count, but at least a dozen. Speed, six hundred knots, and hugging the wavetops. He fought astonishment. Where the fuck had they come from? Bearings and ranges would be from the helo … convert for the ship, then for the task group—
“Roger,” Singhe said into the handset. “Drop your bird below the radar horizon and backpedal him under your defensive envelope. —Flash, flash, flash! All units Horde, all units Horde. Incoming air strike, threat axis two-five-five from Fullbore. Barbarian, out.”
“Bearing and range from us, two-five-five, eighty-two miles,” Dudley put in. Dan nodded thanks, setting it up in his head as he clicked to the air control net. The missiles had come in from a different bearing. Obviously, to disguise the location of the enemy air strike. He clicked Transmit on the red phone and advised Cheryl of the incoming planes. “I know you’re our ABM shield. But you need to go to antiair mode now, and pull in to cover us.”
The intel officer called, “McClung’s ESM reports incoming strike correlates with Shenyang J-15. Fighters. Short-range. Most likely, from Liaoning and Shandong.” He turned a monitor so Dan could see. “Ski-ramp carriers.”
Dan knew them. Liaoning: bought from Ukraine, rebuilt and put into service as the first Chinese carrier; Shandong, built from scratch as the second. But no one had warned him a carrier battle group might be out here. The enemy had achieved total surprise.
From Savo Island: “We’re headed your way, but we’re already out of the ABM business, Admiral. My shot lockers are empty of Block 4s.”
Crap. The next salvo of ballistic missiles, now that the Army battery was down too, would find them all defenseless.
But they weren’t defenseless against aircraft, and the F-35s Hornet had launched were on their way too. The enemy fleet commander, whoever he was, had scored surprise. But he’d left too many minutes between his cruise strike and the arrival of his aerial punch. Just long enough for his targets to recover, take a breath, and reorient to the new threat.
Fortunately, this was one the Navy was ready for. The J-15s were coming in low, but the radars on McClung and Kristensen, out to the west, were holding a solid lock-on, with plenty of antiair missiles in their capacious magazines. Launch reports crackled over the air command net. Blue carets, U.S. weapons, began marching toward the incoming red contacts.
Dan was glad he wasn’t in one of those cockpits. The only worry he had now was blue on blue. A call to Hornet’s air boss relieved him on that score. The Lightnings were assigned and deconflicted. They would take the oncomers between the outer ranges of the Standards and that of the shorter-range point defense systems.
If the enemy got in that far … already red symbols were winking out and splash reports were coming over the air.
He tried to detach, stay on the big picture … he grabbed the red phone again. “Turtleship, Barbarian actual. Over.”
Jung answered as if waiting for the call. “Turtleship actual, over. Hello, Dan. I see you have located their carriers.”
“Hello, Min. I guess you could say that. We’re heavily engaged south of you.”
“I have the battle picture on my screens. Want me to join up?”
“Negative, we have this under control. Look, you’re already half a degree west of us. Go to flank speed with your fastest units. Leave the slow movers behind. Vector north twenty miles, then west again. With the short legs on J-15s, these guys didn’t launch from far away. And if they want any of their pilots back on deck, the carrier’s going to have to linger there. I want you to hook out and try to get behind them. Or at least, take them on the flank. I’m going to try to get localization on their main body, get you targeted on the carriers.”
“This is Turtleship. Copy all. I’ll spin up my Hyunmoos.”
Those were a long-range cruise, not too different from the old surface-attack Tomahawk. If the J-15s were short ranged, so unfortunately were his Lightnings. But if he could get Jung within two hundred miles of the enemy group, maybe he could clobber them. Get a little revenge for the columns of black smoke rising over Guam.
“Uh-oh,” Wenck said, hands clamped over earphones.
“What, Donnie?”
“ESM’s picking up datalinks for C-803s.”
This was bad news. The 803 was an antiship missile that cruised in, then accelerated to supersonic for its final dash. Combined with a wave-skimming profile, that left most close-in defense systems out in left field. “Can you fox them?”
“Savo’s trying to. But they’re coming in fast … stand by … there’s a launch report.”
The large-screen display showed the missiles coming off five fighters left after running the gauntlet of Standards and Lightnings. Each turned away after its drop. They were still outside the range of the closer-in systems. But as everyone in the space stared, gazes magnetized by the screen, the incoming symbols suddenly leaped ahead with each sweep of the digital refresh.
Three were headed directly for Hornet.
The seconds blurred as the ship heeled, and the 1MC said something that was blotted out halfway through by a howl from forward. In the flight-deck cameras brilliant flashes signaled the rolling-airframe missiles departing their tubed mounts forward of the bridge. Short-ranged but fast off the dime, they were the last line of defense before the Phalanx. The 1MC spoke again in sepulchral tones. “Missiles incoming, port side. Port side personnnel, take cover.”
A perfectly straight pillar of solid violet-white flame, perhaps three feet wide, suddenly transected Flag Plot, extending from the port bulkhead across to the starboard one.
The air turned instantly into fire. The noise was a vise squeezing his head. Sparks filled the compartment as the casual flick of a panther’s paw flung Dan from the chair and whiplashed him into the bulkhead, nearly impaling him on the corner of a vertical plot.
Dazed, deafened, he found himself on hands and knees, crawling blindly amid whirling smoke. His throat closed against a cloud of stinging, choking white that tasted of summer fireworks and burnt plastic.
For a moment he crouched, confused. Was that the E Ring ahead? The glow of fire, the drip of melting wiring? His head rang like a shell casing kicked out of a hot breech. This was the Pentagon, wasn’t it? He was crawling over bodies. Some moved, others didn’t. One lay face upward. Dudley …
He wasn’t in the Pentagon, and this wasn’t 2001. He was aboard USS Hornet, and his chief of staff lay convulsing, eyes wide but blank, the back of his skull torn away. His arm and shoulder gushed pumping blood, his coveralls were blazing, and his right arm twitched as if trying to grip something unseen. Dan crawled toward him. He had to help. Stanch the blood. But before he could reach him the pulsing spurt from his second in command’s torn shoulder weakened, then ceased.
Sound returned, accompanied by a hammering headache and the keen of sirens. He couldn’t tell if it was tinnitus or the ship’s alarms. Shouts and screaming came from the far, smoke-invisible side of the compartment. Everybody on his side seemed to be dead. He still hadn’t taken in a breath, nor did he plan to, in this superheated air and white acrid smoke. He couldn’t recall exactly who he was, but he remembered being in places like this before. If you didn’t keep your head, you were toast. If you concentrated you might survive, and maybe even help someone else get out.
A dark-mustached face bent over him, and yanked his head back to cut his throat. Dan fought him off, panicking, before he understood. Lieutenant Commander Jamail was snapping the elastic hem of an emergency escape breathing device around his neck. Dan blinked through fogged plastic as gas hissed, and inhaled a tentative breath. “Thanks,” he gasped, but Jamail had already moved on to someone else.
Clear air. He sucked it deep, panting. Then levered himself up, and squinted around.
Flag Plot was a smoking wreck. The only illumination was a smear of daylight penetrating via holes in the port bulkhead. Sailors played the cottony cone-plumes of extinguishers on smoking, burning repeaters and consoles that lay tumbled, torn apart, sparking with shorted wires, pierced by that violet-hot lance. One of the large-screen displays had been plastered into the overhead. Most gruesome, the fiery jet had passed directly above three watchstanders at their stations. Their lower torsos remained seated, cauterized bloodlessly black at pectoral level. Above that, everything else had been vaporized.
He flinched as the ship shivered beneath him. Facts slowly reassembled in a clanging skull. Air attack. J-15s. Their warheads packed a hundred pounds of semi-armor-piercing explosive. Not enough to sink you, but enough to penetrate most ships’ sides and trash several compartments in the line of their impact. Which this one apparently had, coming through the port side around frame 49, then detonating in the stateroom areas outboard of CIC and Flag Plot and the Intel spaces. Blasting fire and fragments from some kind of shaped charge into and through the control spaces.
“Missile hit aft,” the 1MC announced. “Vicinity frame 250. Repair three, provide.” So, other hits as well.
Hands helped him up. Gault, blood streaming down his cheek. And behind the marine, Rit Carpenter. The old submariner looked calm behind the plastic of his own EEBD. His lips writhed, but Dan couldn’t make out what he’d said through the gongs. He shook his head, pointed to his ears. Gault steadied him on his feet and patted him down for other wounds. Gave a tentative thumbs-up and led him toward the exit.
The conference table in the Joint Intelligence Center was a battle-dressing station now. Wounded lay sprawled about. Corpsmen were administering injections and bandaging wounds. Gault and Carpenter led him to the table and pulled the EEBD off. Dan rubbed something wet off his face. His fingers felt wooden, but there was no blood on them, just snot and tears. The medic gave him a quick once-over and aimed a penlight into his eyes. “Sir. Sir? Can you hear me?”
“Barely.”
“How many fingers?”
“Four.”
“What’s your name?”
“Lenson. Dan Lenson.”
“Admiral, you look shaken up. I’d like to administer a mild sedative, then get you to lie down.”
“I can’t. I have to go to the bridge.”
Gault and Carpenter had to argue on his behalf, but finally the corpsman relented. Gault supported him on one side, the old sonarman on the other. Dan staggered down a passageway foggy with smoke, stumbling over laid-out fire hoses, to the ladderway. He had to step over the exhaust ducting from desmoking blowers, but clambered steadily upward, helped along by Gault’s hands boosting his ass. From time to time the deck canted again, but he didn’t hear any more hits being announced.
When he reached the bridge it went silent. He glanced around, wondering if his hearing had gone out again. Then noted Graciadei in her CO’s chair. On the red phone. He lurched over to hear her saying, “That’s negative. He’s critically wounded and definitely out of action. Making me next in line. Over.”
“Captain,” Dan said. Almost enjoying how her eyes widened as they slid over to meet his. “May I have that?”
When she wordlessly passed the handset, he pressed the button and waited for the sync. Then said, as calmly as he could, “This is Admiral Lenson. Over.”
“Dan. Jim Yangerhans. You okay?”
Dan told PaCom, “Shaken up. Inhaled a little smoke. We took an 803 in Flag Plot.”
“Graciadei said you were wounded.”
“First reports are always exaggerated, Admiral.” Dan shot a glance at Hornet’s skipper. Her cheeks were flushed; she avoided his gaze. “No doubt that’s what the captain heard.”
“Well, good. If you’re sure. I know you’ve got to be busy, but is there a damage report yet?”
Something was being pressed into his hand. A clipboard, presented by Fred Enzweiler, his so-far-unimpressive operations officer. Dan cleared his throat. “Uh, damage report. Hornet, three medium-weight missile hits, seventeen dead, forty-seven wounded or incapacitated, mainly smoke and burns. One F-35 lost through engine flameout during launch. Pilot recovered. McClung hit by debris, three wounded. Green Bay, one heavy missile hit forward of the bridge, on fire, ten dead, many wounded, fires not yet under control. Earhart, two medium missile hits, on fire, two dead, six wounded, fires aft, being contained. One Ulsan-class frigate, Kyeongbuk, sunk by two heavy missile hits, crew being recovered, no KIA numbers yet. Looks like heavy damage to the base, airfield, and shipyard, but we haven’t been able to raise anyone there. Heavy expenditure of defensive ordnance. Several units report Winchester on defensive loadout.” “Winchester” was the proword for all ordnance expended. “Uh … over.”
A moment of silence. Then, “Copy all. Keep reporting to that level of detail. And try to find out if the tender’s been damaged; SubPac can’t raise them. What about the enemy? Did you lay a glove on him?”
Dan explained how they’d splashed most of the attacking fighters, and that Jung was executing a runaround to localize and attack the carriers.
The four-star seemed doubtful, but approved it. Yangerhans added, “I have four B-2s from Hickam airborne en route your estimated posit for the Liaoning-Shandong strike group. We knew they’d left port, but they surprised us this far east. If they break radar silence when Jung’s cruises hit, we’ll take them off the board with JDAMs. Can you continue mission?”
Dan thought fast. “Assuming Earhart can get her fires under control and continue loggie support, affirmative. But we still need flyout by the helo group and soonest possible resupply of defensive ordnance—SM-3, 4A, RAM, Sea Sparrow, and twenty millimeter. Total requirements to follow by message.”
“Let me know. But that wolf pack’s clobbering our resupply. Clear the route and you’ll get everything you need. Otherwise, we’re not going to have an offensive.” A moment of blank hissing ether. Then, “This is PaCom actual. Out.”
* * *
THE battle fever ebbed, leaving vacant stares, smoky passageways, and subdued voices. Dan pulled the main body in tight and set base course north at twenty-five knots. Occupying the port chair on the bridge, he monitored as the damage reports, and the KIA/WIA numbers, kept coming in.
The task force had survived. But they’d been shaken. Deaths and injuries dislocated a crew’s confidence. Especially when they’d never had a chance to punch back. And with most of the self-defense ordnance expended, if they got hit again the chances of avoiding major losses were bleak.
So … should he change his mind? Take counsel of his fears, and turn back?
No. The time for that had passed, when he’d stepped up to the plate with Yangerhans.
Someone had to clear the mid-Pacific. It looked like it was up to him, and to the other task force, out of Pearl. Somehow they had to lure a slippery, silent enemy to battle. Pincer him between them. And crush him.
Just before evening meal, Jamail came up with a report on the wolf pack. Dan perused it, head down, as the sun sank along with his spirits. The enemy order of battle included ten Song-class diesel-electric attack submarines and ten more advanced Yuan-classes with air-independent propulsion. Also, up to five nukes, types not yet known, but presumed to be Hans and Shangs. The Hans were old boats, freight-train noisy at top speed, but still dangerous. The Shangs were rated equivalent to Russian Victors, quiet, fast, and deadly. All were presumed to carry both torpedoes and missiles, but so far only torpedoes had been used on the tankers and freighters they’d been preying on.
The report’s terseness meant no one knew much more. The Chinese had played submarine development close to their vest, and whatever allied submariners were finding out about their opposite numbers now wasn’t getting passed to the rest of the fleet. How good were his opponents? How aggressive? Unanswerable questions. But in terms of mass alone, it was a huge pack, bigger than anything Nazi Germany had fielded in the Battle of the Atlantic.
Huge, yes. But compared to the millions of square miles it had to hide in, a needle in Kansas. If they had any battle sense, they’d flow around his hunter killers like water around a shark. Hiding like mice until the cat was gone. He rubbed bristly cheeks violently with both hands. How could he even localize, much less engage such a force?
Graciadei came over to stand by his chair. “Admiral.”
“Captain.”
“About that voice message—”
“Don’t worry about it, Sandy. A misunderstanding.” The words had to be said, to keep working together. But now they both knew her ambition loomed naked between them.
“Ah, yessir. Admiral, we have a temporarily locked shaft. We’ll have to slow to twenty knots for a couple of hours.”
“Battle damage?”
“Uh, not exactly. The top snipe was moving fuel from storage to service tanks. One of the guys got stuck on stupid and overfilled a service tank. The fuel ran down the penetrations to the deck below. It’s raining down out of the cableways, onto a power panel.”
“Ouch.”
“Yes, sir. Short squirt, it’s six inches deep down there. We had to gas flood the space. Meanwhile we lost power to the lube oil service pumps. We’re getting the fuel pumped out.”
Jamail fidgeted behind her. Dan crook-fingered him forward. “Something hot, Qazi?”
“Admiral, message from the Aussie boat, Farncomb.”
“Give me some good news.”
“Admiral, I can do that. They put two torpedoes into a Varyag-class ski-jump carrier headed west. Ship has slowed to steerageway. Three destroyers standing by her.”
“Outstanding!” Dan pounded the arm of his chair. The dice of war had finally rolled their way. The submarine standing east to join him had intercepted his withdrawing foe. “That’s one of the bastards who bushwhacked us. Did they by any chance include a posit report? Yes? Great! Forward that to PaCom, right now. He’s got B-2s armed to the teeth out searching for these guys.”
Graciadei brightened too. “Okay if I put that out to the crew?”
Dan nodded. As the 1MC spoke, cheers resounded from the repair parties on the hangar deck.
He leaned back, fingering his chin. Trying to grab the lizard-tail of an idea as it flicked around a corner of his mind.
The enemy carrier.
Wounded, trying to withdraw …
Focusing all their attention on it …
“Come here,” he told Jamail, and beckoned Graciadei back as well. He lowered his voice. “Just between the three of us … let me try an idea out on you.”