BATTLE STAFF ROOM, FIRST EXPEDITIONARY BOMB WING, ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, GUAM

A SHORT TIME LATER

The other staff members were already in the Battle Staff Room when Colonel Warner “Cutlass” Cuthbert entered. “Room, ten-hut,” someone in the darkness ordered.

“Take seats,” Cuthbert said immediately. “We will suspend military formalities, here and everywhere else on base until the situation is back to normal.” He looked at the others seated at the conference table. Three were in green Nomex flight suits; the rest were in desert-gray battle dress uniforms. “Looks like we might have ourselves our first real-world operation, boys and girls. Captain, please proceed.”

“Yes, sir,” Air Force Captain Alicia Spencer, the wing intelligence officer from Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, responded. She went to the head of the conference table. “Ladies and gentlemen, about ten minutes ago we received an advisory notice from Pacific Air Forces about a situation in the South China Sea. Although the wing has not been issued a warning order, Colonel Cuthbert suggested we respond as if one will be issued soon. We will receive regular updates from PACAF, but we won’t be tied into the regular Pacific Command battle network until we are issued a warning order.

“Here is what we know so far: less than an hour ago a U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon intelligence aircraft went down over the South China Sea. The reason is unknown. Despite requests to remain clear, China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy has sent helicopters into the crash area, along with their Zhenyuan aircraft carrier battle group. One U.S. carrier strike group is en route but it won’t be on station for a couple days; there is a second, but it wouldn’t be in the area for a week and a half at least. One Coast Guard cutter is nearby and will start the search-and-rescue operation shortly. A Global Hawk and a submarine are en route as well.” Spencer nodded to Cuthbert and took her seat.

“That’s about it, guys,” Cuthbert said. “PACAF says that the White House is afraid that sending bombers would escalate tensions, so we’re not going anywhere yet, but I want to be ready. So I requested that we take one BUFF, one Bone, and one Beak, load them with weapons and fuel for what we think we might use if we were alerted, and have them stand by. That’ll leave one B-52 and one B-1 unloaded and prepped. I recommended JASSMs all around, with the Bone and the BUFF carrying some Mk-62s.” The JASSM, or Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile, was a cruise missile designed to attack heavily defended targets from as far as two hundred miles, well outside most enemy defenses; the Mk-62 was a five-hundred-pound general-purpose bomb fitted with a Quickstrike fuze, turning it into a shallow-water antiship mine. “Not sure if we’ll get permission, but that was my recommendation. Thoughts?”

“The South China Sea might be too deep for Mk-62s,” said Lieutenant Colonel Bridget “Xena” Dutchman, commander of the Twentieth Expeditionary Bomb Squadron from Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, leading the flight of two B-52H Stratofortress bombers at Andersen. “Depends on where the targets are.”

“If we can’t use Mk-62s, what else do you suggest, Xena?”

“Harpoons,” Dutchman said. The AGM-84 Harpoon was a subsonic air-launched antiship missile with a five-hundred-pound high-explosive penetrating warhead; fired in the direction of enemy ships from as far as sixty miles, it would skim the surface of the ocean, detect a target with its on-board radar, and attack. The Harpoon was much older than the JASSM and had about half the high-explosive punch, but it was still a fearsome weapon against most ships. The B-52 could carry as many as twelve on underwing pylons.

“I’ll add that to the order of battle,” Cuthbert said. “Anything else?”

“The more JASSMs, the better,” said Lieutenant Colonel Juan “Picante” Oroz. Oroz commanded the B-1B Lancer bombers of the Ninth Expeditionary Bomb Squadron from Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, Texas. “Wish we had the extended-range ones though.”

“Maybe we’ll get them if this thing escalates,” Cuthbert said. He turned to the third lieutenant colonel. “Wishbone? Anything?”

“The loadout sounds good to me, sir,” said Lieutenant Colonel Franklin “Wishbone” McBride, commander of the 393rd Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. Since the American Holocaust and the destruction of many of the American bomber bases in the northern half of the country, all the surviving B-52 Stratofortress and B-2 Spirit bombers had been headquartered at Barksdale Air Force Base but frequently dispersed to other air bases, including Andersen and Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean; Wishbone commanded the two B-2A Spirit stealth bombers currently based at Andersen. “When will we find out if we’re cleared to load?”

“No idea,” Cutlass said, “but unless I miss my guess, it’ll be days and days of waiting and not knowing anything, followed by a mad hurried dash to get loaded planes in the air. That’s why I’d like to load up at least one bomber from each squadron.”

“Can’t we call it a munition-loading exercise or something and just do it, sir?” Oroz asked.

“Things are tense enough already at PACAF—I don’t want to be playing games with live ordnance,” Cutlass said. “We’ll play this by the book. I submitted a plan and I’ve got my crews on the starting blocks—let’s see if or when the brass wants to shoot the starter’s pistol.”

Cutlass again looked at the others around the conference table. Faces were somber—the gravity of the situation was starting to sink in. “Okay, guys and gals, this might be the real thing, so I want you to make sure your crews are situated properly, rested, and completely up to speed,” he said. “Like I said, if this happens, I’m betting it’s going to be a mad scramble to get planes in the air, and I don’t want any avoidable mistakes. When the call comes, let’s lean into it and hustle, but let’s do it smoothly and professionally. Get ready to do some flying.”