SAVO ISLAND had been at Condition Three, wartime cruising, for over a day now. Cheryl had spent most of it slumped bonelessly in her chair in the Citadel. Occasionally dozing, until jerked awake by some interruption, or reports, or a particularly insistent itch. Finally Mills had persuaded her to retire to her cabin for a few hours. But she’d spent most of those staring up at the overhead, arms tense, waiting for the general quarters alarm or a call on her Hydra.
God. She hated waiting. The worst part of war, or the run-up to it.
She still wasn’t sure exactly which one this was.
Maybe the whole idea of peace had been, in that great Navy acronym, OBE—overtaken by events. Maybe the world would just keep fighting from now on. Just changing the names of the enemies. God, but that was a horrible thought.
If this really was a new war, or a resumption of the old one, though, the oncoming fleet would already have been suffering a withering gauntlet of fires. From unmanned penetrator aircraft, long-range missiles, attack submarines, and Space Force hypersonics. From land-based Marine and Army batteries too.
But Fleet and PACOM had made clear that would not happen in this case. Not until the approaching Russians demonstrated hostile intent.
The United States wasn’t going to start this war. And it wasn’t going to happen by accident, either.
On the other hand, her mission was to block that fleet’s passage. To abort their landing in Dalian, and takeover of the former Russian grant there.
If they kept coming, how could she do that without initiating hostilities?
An insoluble dilemma. An impossible mission.
But she had to figure out how to accomplish it.
Somewhere in there, though, she must have managed a few minutes’ troubled shut-eye, for when she next forced her lids apart the clock had moved on. She rolled out, splashed her face and scrubbed her armpits, smeared on ointment, pulled on a fresh set of coveralls, and went down to the messdecks. They were serving breakfast, and she bolted buckwheat pancakes and a ham slice, sitting with several young enlisted women.
Then, back to Combat.
Now she sat at the command chair again, feeling levitated from the three cups of coffee she’d chugged and gravitated from the heavy flapjacks and ham. Maybe they counterbalanced each other, but she felt leaden. Even though she’d lost fifteen pounds over the course of the war. She’d gained a couple back since the armistice. But now, she guessed, I’ll be losing again. Fuck.
If only that were her biggest problem …
Chief Terranova turned to her. “Captain? Seein’ a change in their formation.”
Reluctantly, she donned the heavy VR helmet once more.
And was floating in midair, gazing down on a scribed and virtual sea. Which by now seemed more genuine than the ocean outside. A sight she hadn’t seen for days.
Tilting her head slightly, she sped forward above its monochrome blue. Until contacts loomed up over the ever-receding horizon. Warships, like her own. Only not her own. And beneath the waves, other contacts swam like sharks, their locations less well defined, the edges of their probable locations fuzzier, but there. And all headed her way, as surely as locomotives on a track.
Russians.
The Northern Task Force had filtered in via the Soya and Tartary Straits, with the Japanese reporting numerous submarine passages of the Tsugaru Strait, between Hokkaido and Honshu. Their tightly interlocked steaming formation showed that they expected attack, or were guarding against it. She hovered, counting ships, occasionally zooming in for a closer look when drone or nanosatellite video was available.
The new arrivals were in a conventional sector screen, with Peter the Great and associated logistics ships and one Priboy-class Wasp-equivalent assault carrier at the center. Intel expected the assault carrier to be equipped with the new fifth-generation fleet defense fighters, which would be augmented with land-based MiG-31s out of Vladivostok to provide air cover.
Her heart sank. Together with those submarines—the Russian Pacific Fleet numbered over twenty modern boats, most nuclear-powered or advanced air-independent conventional—the oncoming force disposed of far more striking power than she could call on.
If it came to a battle, she’d lose, and it wouldn’t take long. Her ships would be overwhelmed by hundreds of missiles striking in a coordinated mass attack. Any survivors would be finished off by torpedoes and missiles at close range, once the subs penetrated a degraded ASW barrier.
Unless she made sure of her ground, and fought for every inch of it.
Or … unless she made it perfectly clear to her opponent that she was both prepared to fight and capable of inflicting heavy damage.
In which case, Moscow might decide it really didn’t want Dalian enough to risk a full-on war with the United States.
She sighed again, and boosted the suddenly heavy-as-lead helmet off her shoulders. Now, all at once, she felt shrunken. Impotent. Dazed, with the realization she was only a tiny worm in a thousand-acre field, instead of the master of the universe. Could see only the nutshell-interior of this black-ceilinged compartment, instead of infinite space.
“I don’t like these odds, Skipper.” Noah Pardees slid into the seat beside her. The ops officer stretched flexibly as a cat, but he too looked worried. “We should have spanked these guys as soon as they started through the straits.”
“We’re not at war yet, Noah. And we can’t strike first.”
“Who says? Otherwise, we just wait to get whacked? What the hell’s PACOM thinking?”
She glanced at the geoplot, lit on the large-screen display in front of them. “Their declared destination is Vladivostok. Until they turn south from there, we’re not even sure they’re headed for China.”
Pardees rubbed his chin, looking stressed. “Oh, sure,” he said bitterly. “But by then it’ll be too late. They’ll have their targeting dataforces fused. Hit us with hypersonics, cruises … we could have two hundred missiles inbound at once. We’ll be friggin’ toast, Skipper.”
She dragged a hand through lank sweaty hair. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t know. If we had the Japanese with us, the numbers’d look better. But I agree, this isn’t a good force ratio. If anything, we might just be a tripwire.”
The ops officer grimaced. “Tripwires get trampled.”
She bobbled her head, unable to disagree, but wary of coming across as defeatist. If anyone aboard had to project stone confidence, it was the CO. Not only that, she had to convey it to her other units.
She regarded the geoplot for a bit longer, then began keyboarding.
At the front of CIC, one of the large-screen displays reversed. Lifting her fingers from the keys, propping her chin on a fist, she studied it.
This was what things looked like from the point of view of the oncoming fleet. Of Admiral Vitaly Aznavuryan, commanding what intel was now calling the Combined North Pacific Task Force, or CNPTF.
It might be worthwhile knowing more about this guy. Back to the keyboard … to call up the classified personnel summary on him.
It was sparse. A Nahkimov scholar as a teenager during Soviet times. Graduate of the Kuznetsov Naval Academy, the Moscow Higher Command School. Commanded two submarines—a submariner, then, before becoming the senior assistant to the commander, Pacific Fleet. A picture of him, obviously an official photo, in the grotesquely high-crowned combination cap the Russians had inherited from the old Soviet Bloc. It told her little, other than that he had five o’clock shadow on those pudgy cheeks.
The only personal information was based on an attaché’s chat with him. It noted that he was from Smolensk, married, with two grown children, boy and girl. He spent his free time fly-fishing and bicycling in the country, when he could. Aznavuryan also enjoyed American movies and seemed to like discussing them. She wondered about his name, which didn’t sound Russian, but there was nothing in the bio about that.
She left his picture looking back at her from her command desk screen, sighed, and contemplated the bulkhead displays again. Trying to figure out how this guy would proceed.
Okay, she thought. Let’s assume he joins up with the forces already in port in Vladivostok. At that point, they’d be pretty much centered in the widest bowl of the Sea of Japan. Then he heads south.
But as he makes southing, the coastlines of Japan and Korea will funnel his line of advance more and more narrowly.
Until Tsushima Strait.
Back in 1905, Admiral Togo Heihachiro had engaged Rozhestvensky’s fleet after it entered the strait from the southward. Here, the situation would be reversed. She, Cheryl Staurulakis, would be blocking this new threat’s advance from the north.
She got up and valved coffee into a CIMSEC-logoed mug at the mess table in Sonar, then came back and settled in again. Her stomach felt like it wasn’t doing so well with the pancakes. Or maybe it was just nerves. She sighed, pondering her options. Which seemed to be pretty fucking limited, given that she’d been ordered not to strike first.
How had Togo handled it? A few seconds on SIPRNET answered that. A simple blocking maneuver, then directing his line ahead so as to cross his oncoming opponent’s T. Obviously, not a tactic she could adopt, given modern weaponry. And since Japan and Russia had already been at war back then, it didn’t matter who had opened fire first, although apparently it’d been Togo.
She cocked her head suddenly. Uh-huh. But was there, maybe, a smarter way to position her forces? One that, maybe, the AI hadn’t considered?
To the oncoming admiral, after all, her own formation must look like a random scatter. It conveyed no intent to hold. More like a hopeless gaggle, uncoordinated and maybe even uncommanded.
It might well be the optimal setup for distributed, networked operations. But it was hardly the stuff to strike fear into an enemy.
On the other hand … if more forces were on the way to her, she had to make sure the loop was closed. That any new ships or subs on the way knew exactly where to station themselves, and that Blue air, if it was called in for a strike, couldn’t confuse her ships with Aznavuryan’s.
She called up a tactical publication. Then another, toggling through the pages rapidly.
Finally she logged to high-side nanochat. Her own call sign was Tangler; Fleet was Replay.
TANGLER: Tangler actual here. Request Replay actual.
REPLAY: Actual not available. Got a question?
TANGLER: Requested air support and liaison with possible former enemy force support. Need update and anticipated time on station please.
REPLAY: Issues being worked as per previous comms. Diplomatic efforts also under way. No update available.
She hesitated, fingers over the keyboard. Hmm. How to phrase this … Finally she typed,
TANGLER: UNODIR intend commence tactical repositioning.
She waited, bent over, surreptitiously scratching at her madly itching shins, under the coverall cuffs and above the socks. Pardees shot her a quizzical glance and she snatched the hand up quickly.
REPLAY: Roger, out.
“Ohh—kay,” she whispered.
The anonymous staff officer who’d just answered in the admiral’s name hadn’t had a problem with a repositioning of her forces. Or more likely, didn’t understand that the formation had been dictated by Sea Eagle. Carefully calculated by the AI to interlock sensor networks, weapons capabilities, fields of fire, and the other variables that would determine victory or defeat once battle was joined.
Once battle was joined.
But since she led the inferior force … wouldn’t it be better not to fight at all?
Regardless, her own lily-white butt was now covered, at least as far as her orders were concerned. She leaned back in the form-fitting chair, digging her fists into her kidneys to ease her back. Now to concoct something more intimidating.
She told Pardees, “Noah, how about asking the XO if he can spare me an hour or two.”
SOME five hours later she sat in the same chair, in the same compartment, buzzed from far too much coffee and a hastily bolted turkey-and-cheese sandwich in place of whatever meal this was supposed to be. A fresh patch of itching had broken out right in the middle of her back, exactly where she couldn’t reach it. And there was no way she was going to ask a junior officer or enlisted to scratch her back … There was no dawn or dusk, no noon or midnight, in the digital no-time of Combat. Only the uneasy anthracite seas in the images from the deck cameras told her it was night now.
The fleet dispositions on the central display were quite different now. On both sides. Evolving, in ways that would no doubt be studied in the future. At the War College, if her idea worked. At her court-martial, if it didn’t. She and Mills and Pardees had worked this out together, gamed it a bit, with the limited resources available onboard.
But she was in tactical command. If it all went south, this would be on her.
Aznavuryan’s force had been joined by four additional destroyers and possibly two more submarines out of Vladivostok. This brought his fleet total to more than double that of her own. But like an atom absorbing extra electrons, he’d simply reduced the size of his concentric sectors, densifying his screen.
If “densifying” was a word … Anyhow, back in the VR helmet, she hovered above her own dispositions. The coast of Korea lay to the left, as it narrowed toward the strait, with Pusan the closest city. She’d managed to contact an ROKN ship moored there, which was beaming its fire control radar out to sea, presenting a threat that should keep the approaching Russians well offshore. Japan lay to her right hand, and she’d requested a shore battery of antiship missiles to carry out a drill that night, adding to the threatening emissions and, again, tending to nudge any approaching force to the midline of the strait.
Just behind her lay the slug shape of Tsushima Island itself, dividing the passage into western and eastern lanes. But as Aznavuryan closed from the north, whichever channel he decided to take, he was limited to a forty-mile-wide approach lane. Which the threats from both sides would tend to make him stick to.
Her own disposition was different as well.
Instead of a loosely knitted, nearly random scatter, her units were on their way to new stations. Once in position, they’d be lined up along the approaches the oncoming fleet would have to negotiate to pass.
She’d left the forty nautical miles in the center wide open. An invitation. Or, maybe more accurately, a set of open jaws.
To either side, she’d arranged her teeth. Frigates, destroyers, and Savo Island. They formed a gauntlet, with recon drones, attack UAVs, and manned fighters flying CAPs above them. She’d pulled her submarines, too, in toward her surface units. The Russians probably had less insight into their locations, lacking the inputs from the Allied land-based sonar networks that Cheryl could access. But just to be sure, she’d pulled them out of the center of the channel as well.
There would be no such thing as surprise this time. Sonar aside, the Russians had just as good targeting information, from their radars and satellites and long-range drones, as she did. The battlespace was known. The chess pieces were out in the open.
Chief Terranova stood beside her, arms crossed, her too-young-looking face engraved with the first frown lines Cheryl had ever seen on her as she scrutinized the lineup. “You’re givin’ away a lot of tactical advantage, here,” she observed. “Skipper.”
“Only if it comes to a battle, Chief.” She didn’t have to explain herself, but doing so was part of training the next generation. “The AI positioned us optimally for a meeting engagement. I’ve repositioned us for a different reason. A more … psychological impact. How about you? Look at our dispositions, pretend you’re the enemy commander. What do you see?”
“Well, I gotta say, it looks to me like a fuckin’ trap,” the Terror said. She rubbed her arms, still looking doubtful. “Ma’am.”
“And you don’t stick your nose in a trap. Do you?”
“I don’t know, ma’am,” she said. “I guess if they order the guy to, he will.”
She nodded grimly. Yeah. If Aznavuryan had orders to bull through regardless of casualties, he could stand off and plaster her with missiles, then roll up their lines from the north, on both sides of the lanes. The Tsushima Strait would smoke once again with the wrecks of burning ships. But not Russian ones, this time. American.
She stared at the displays, wishing she could hand this job to someone else. But there didn’t seem to be anyone else around. And she still wasn’t hearing anything constructive from Higher.
She shivered and rubbed her crossed arms, the same way Terranova had.
Waiting. Always the toughest part of war.
What a fool she’d been, to think for even a moment that it was over.
SOMEONE was shaking her. She popped upright in the command chair, gasping, nearly choking.
“Captain? Fleet’s on the horn for you.” Matt Mills, looking pale, holding out the red phone. His grimace and upward-cast eyes conveyed the message: And they don’t sound happy.
“This is Tangler actual,” Cheryl said, trying to push herself upright in the chair. Why was her hand so greasy? Oh yeah. The fucking ointment.
“This is Replay actual. What in the hell is going on up there, Captain?”
No one could sound quite as irate as a pissed-off admiral. “Uh, sir, current status. Russian Northern Fleet is proceeding toward Tsushima Strait. Speed two zero knots. Formation course—”
“I know that. I have that on the screen! But your formation doesn’t match the order from PACOM.”
“Sir, I have tactical command. And I requested permission to reorient. At approximately … five hours ago, on nanochat. Your staff watch officer—”
“My SWO is not me. Those stations were generated to maximize your combat power. You don’t have tactical command in order to make off-the-cuff decisions! Not with my task group. Why are you weakening it?”
“Sir, based on my reading of the—”
“I hope you haven’t really fucked up, Captain. I sincerely hope you haven’t really fucked everyone out there.”
She swallowed. “Sir, we can return to the generated formation. Are those your formal orders?”
“Not according to the SOA I’m seeing. CNPTF is going to be in weapons range in about two hours.” The distant voice shaded from anger toward sadness. “Now I have to decide if we initiate hostilities. Because I don’t see any other way you can prevail. Do you understand now? You’re forcing me to start another war. When we just got finished with the last one.”
She swallowed again. “Sir, I don’t think … I don’t think we should give up on this just yet. I’m just not sure combat efficiency is the only thing we should—”
The voice on the other end turned steely. “You’ve committed us, Staurulakis. Now we’re going to have to live with what happens. The reason we didn’t send you more forces is so we don’t lose more than we can afford. And from what I’ve seen, that was the right decision. Your career just ended, Captain. You can count on that. Fleet, out.”
She resocketed the phone, trying to catch her breath. Her career? She was an O-6. She’d never expected to go even this high. Getting through the war had been her only real goal. Getting through it, and being with Eddie again.
Which was never going to happen now. He lay somewhere under the East China Sea, tangled in the wreckage of his fighter, his bones probably picked clean …
“Skippa?” Terranova’s Jersey-accented whisper. “Y’okay?”
She shook herself back to CIC. Where watchstanders at consoles were stealing glances at her. Evaluating her reaction … She straightened in her chair. “Nothing major,” she said coolly. “Let’s finish this … Get Arkansas, Idaho, and John Warner to ping active.” The three submarines now lay to the north of the oncoming Russians; behind them. Utah was still playing backstop south of the strait. “I want both our Orcas going active too.”
“To ping?” Mills said, looking doubtful. “That gives away their position. You really want to do that, Captain?”
She nodded firmly. To ratchet up the pressure. “Yes. Do it now, XO.”
After a slight hesitation, as if to allow her a chance to rethink, he began keyboarding.
She stared at the displays, fighting fear. Then remembered. In the Sea of Okhotsk, she’d actually talked to the Russian commander. Colonel-General Sharkov then. Sharkov had warned her not to intercept the Chinese missiles over Russian soil. But she had. Without really any blowback.
Unless this oncoming fleet was part of the retribution for that move …
She stared up at the screen, gnawing her lip.
Fucking … waiting.
TWO hours later she slumped in the chair. Not asleep; she was too agonized, too jittery, too fucking tense even to close her eyes. Not for the first time, she wondered how her previous CO had managed to keep his cool. Lenson had taken them into some tight corners. Places it didn’t look like the old Savo would ever get out of. But he’d never looked like he felt a moment’s fear or an instant’s uncertainty.
Or perhaps he had, and just not shown it? She smiled wryly, wondering where he was now. Last she’d heard, he’d been pulled back Stateside for some kind of trial. Then she dismissed worrying about him. He could take care of himself.
The five-thousand-some men and women in her task group … she had to worry about them now.
She twisted violently, trying to scratch her back against the chair, but the soft padding was no help. The fucking rash itched like some malevolent Martian virus, eating her from the skin in.
Mills glanced at her. “We doing okay, Skipper?” he muttered.
“It’s just this … fucking … itch.”
“Yeah, I can see it bothers you.” He hesitated, making sure no one had eyes on them. Then reached over.
She relaxed back into the scoring of his fingernails. It was close to orgasmic as relief flooded over her. But as soon as he took his hand away it started again. “Fuck,” she muttered.
Her nanochat pinged. “Incoming from Fleet,” AALIS said in her earbuds.
REPLAY: Replay to Tangler actual.
TANGLER: Tangler actual here.
REPLAY: Orders follow. Withdraw all units surface and subsurface plus reconnaissance assets to southward via Tsushima Strait. Proceed to Shanghai Harbor for humanitarian relief duty, passing to south of Jeju Island. Prepare helicopter assets for transfer ashore. Prepare to tie into shore systems for electrical power generation. Detach USS Montesano to escort relief shipping from Nagasaki. Furnish course points ASAP. Confirm.
She stared, disbelieving, at the words. Higher was backing down. “Oh, this is not good,” she muttered.
Beside her, Mills stiffened. She thought at first he was reacting to the message. Then, cutting her eyes toward him, she caught that he was staring up at the large-screen display.
On it, a single contact, already far in advance of the oncoming formation, had suddenly detached itself. It hurtled forward, directly at the center of the strait. She lifted her head, frowning, as he toggled to zoom in on the contact.
“Track 0145 inbound,” Terranova called. “Identify as Ohkotnik.”
Cheryl forgot about the withdrawal order. Okhotniks were heavy, persistent fixed-wing drones. They were stealth optimized, but Savo’s finely tuned radar had picked them up. The same UAVs had shadowed her in the Sea of Okhotsk. The Russians had used them then mainly for reconnaissance, but they could carry weapons as well.
At her coordination console, Terranova clicked busily. The rightmost display came up with video from one of the massive reflecting telescopes Savo’s lasers doubled as. Two objects were slung beneath the inbound contact’s wings, but she couldn’t make out what they were.
“AALIS pattern identifies as Sukhoi S-80 Okhotnik-B, probably carrying dual Zircons,” one of the watchstanders called. “Mach 8 antiship missile. Radar and passive IR guidance. Seaskim capability. Heavy conventional penetrating warhead.”
The noise level in CIC bumped up. She ignored it, focusing on the blinking yellow tracer which indicated the drone’s line of advance. If it stayed on the same course, Its closest point of approach would be less than five miles east of Savo, and much closer to Dixie Kiefer.
“That’s an overt threat, per the rules of engagement,” Mills said.
“I concur,” she said. “Desig track 0145 hostile, stand by to take with laser.” She flicked up the cover over the red switch in front of her.
Another line scrolled up on her command desk computer.
REPLAY: Confirm receipt. From highest levels: US is not committed to defending Chinese territorial integrity. Not at cost of new war.
“From highest levels.” So the order to retreat was from the national command authority, SecDef or the president. Not from PACOM or the Joint Chiefs.
Not that it made any difference to her. Not now.
“Locked on,” said Terranova. “Designating to forward laser.”
Cheryl hesitated for the merest fraction of a second. Not committed. Withdraw.
Those were her orders.
But they were under overt attack. If she allowed the drone to close, and if those objects it carried were really hypersonic missiles, there would be too little time to respond.
And Americans would die. On this ship, or another one under her command.
No matter what happened next, she had the right of self-defense.
She muttered, “Laser released,” and hit the Weapons Release switch.
The console operator must have been tracking the Okhotnik already, because the video didn’t blink or waver even as the white-hot spot ignited on the incoming drone’s wing root. At the same moment, the overhead lights in Combat dimmed as the laser soaked up power from the generators and capacitor banks.
The spot dwelled there for nearly a second, juddering only very slightly.
A dainty, twisting wisp of whitish vapor, or smoke, began to trail the drone.
She tensed in her chair, gripping the armrests.
One of the drone’s burdens had dropped free. Intentionally released, or burned off, she couldn’t tell.
In the video, the elongated object, drop tank, missile, or electronics pod, rode below the parent drone for an instant or two, bobbling slightly in the airflow, before dropping farther. Gaining separation.
She stared up at the display. Don’t, she thought desperately. Don’t—
With a sudden flash, a flame appeared at the rear of the object. The missile accelerated out of the frame almost instantly, gaining velocity with the enormous impulse of a huge solid-fuel booster.
Above it, the drone’s wing buckled and crumpled. The aircraft lurched sideways. The burning spot followed it, remorseless, but flicking off the airframe now to dwell directly on the nose of the second missile. It was still on its pylon under the undamaged wing as the drone began oscillating, losing control, starting a spin.
“Forward laser overheat warning. Need to unmask rainguns, need to unmask aft,” the weapons controller said urgently over the circuit.
“Hard left rudder,” Cheryl snapped, understanding instantly. “Steady two niner zero.”
The Okhotnik disappeared in a soundless blast, a flash of white light succeeded instantly by black smoke out of which pieces tumbled. Then the video winked black, at the same instant the controller said, “Forward laser, overheat indication, automatic shutdown. Commencing LNX dump for chilldown.”
“Aft mount, take the missile,” Cheryl said into her throat mike. “Take the fucking missile! Now!” Her other defensive weapons, RAM and evolved Sparrow, were too slow to stop a Zircon. It would rip through her defenses like a cleaver through cream cheese. Even the railgun would be useless unless it connected with the first shot. The ramjet-propelled weapon was just too fast.
Only photons were speedier. But her forward laser was offline now, until a liquid nitrogen dump could cool it down. And both lasers tended to overheat and shut down far too often. The system worked, but it wasn’t robust.
She’d just have to push the after one until it broke too, and hope that would be good enough.
Chief Terranova toggled the display to remote video from one of their own recon drones. It wasn’t as sharp as before, but Cheryl could make out the Okhotnik still corkscrewing down toward the sea far below. Pieces kept falling off it and fluttering away, and it bled a stain of brown smoke as if the sky were rusting. She couldn’t see the incoming Zircon at all. The video slanted left, searching for it, but caught only a single canted freeze-frame glimpse of a blanched smoke-trail, low over the wavetops. Headed her way.
A low ping diverted her attention from the video.
REPLAY: Confirm receipt.
Without conscious input, outside her knowledge until she saw it on the screen, her fingers and some subroutine in her brain typed,
TANGLER: Under attack engaged archer zircon incoming.
The laser controller: “After mount locked on. Dwelling … target destroyed. Warhead detonation. Range, eight thousand yards.”
“Fuck,” Mills breathed, beside her. His voice shook. “That was just too goddamned close.”
She stifled a hiccup, and clicked to the weapons control circuit. “This is the CO. Barrel temperature, aft laser? Status, forward laser?”
“Lima Two, temp high but operational.”
“Lima One, still down. Chilling.”
Video came back up, this time from a flight deck camera. A monstrous bloom on the jagged wave-horizon. Frighteningly near. Fragment-splashes boiled the blue-gray sea beneath it. Beam on to those seas, Savo was picking up the roll, big as she was.
The compartment tilted around her. Cheryl eased a breath out, suddenly feeling sick to her stomach, hiccuping again. Wondering now if she should have been running this from within her VR helmet. She’d have better access, better overall picture … but right now she just didn’t have the ten to twelve seconds it would take to plug in, settle it on her shoulders, and orient herself. “Status, foward laser,” she snapped into her throat mike again. “Keep me updated, I don’t—hic—want to have to keep asking!”
“Still emergency cooling, Captain.”
“Cool it fast, we need it back.” She took a deep slow breath. Sometimes that stopped the hiccups.
Mills said, “Did they intend to fire that missile?”
She blinked at him. Said, without letting go of her held breath, “What do you mean?”
“We hit it with the laser. Started burning it. Then it dropped the missile, and the booster ignited. I’m saying, maybe nobody actually sent it a fire signal. As such.”
She frowned. “XO? You agreed, overt threat. Before it ever fired.”
“Yeah. I did. But I just—”
Ping.
REPLAY: Overhead assets report explosions roughly your position. Status.
“Screw that, I don’t have time to update them,” she growled. “Let’s slow to … no, that’ll make this roll worse. And degrade our tracking. We need to stay beam to.” She didn’t need to add, to protect the ships behind them, who didn’t have lasers.
“Two more drones leaving main formation,” the surface warfare coordinator said in her earbuds.
“This isn’t good,” Mills said.
Too many voices were trying to talk at once, fouling the command circuit. She pushed a button, and pressed the lever on the ancient 21MC box in front of her. “Comm, CO. Do we have a deconfliction frequency with the Russians?”
A second’s delay, then a surprised voice. “Captain? Uh, no. No, we don’t. But … we have international distress up. HF common single sideband. They should be monitoring that.”
“Get them on the horn and patch me in. Ask for their task force actual. Ask for”—she hesitated, not knowing what the Russians actually called their task force—“ask for the admiral. For Vitaly Aznavuryan. Say, the American commander asks for Vitaly Aznavuryan.”
She twisted in her chair to face the ops officer. “Noah, you were comm-oh. Who do we have who speaks Russian?”
“Petty Officer Golubuvs speaks Russian.”
“Right, the electrician. Get him to—no. Get him up here, please.”
On the displays, the lead units of the Russian force were tracking on converging courses. As if they planned to approach her funnel in a more compact body. Well, that made sense. Interlocking their fields of fire. Concentrating their forces in one solid punch-through, like the liquid metal jet fired by a shaped-charge warhead. A jet that would penetrate many feet of hardened steel.
Like the warheads the Zircons aboard those rapidly approaching Okhotniks carried.
Terranova called, “Aircraft launching from Priboy.”
The Wasp-equivalent assault carrier. Each STOVL fighter could carry from two to four antiship missiles. And those still-only-vaguely-localized submarines on her left flank would carry dozens more.
“He’s launching an attack,” Mills said. “They’ll use those UAVs to kick open the door, then push the strike train through the breach.”
“Might just be defensive CAP.” She frowned. Carrier air patrols, to protect the formation in case of enemy attack.
“If it’s a strike, each of those planes has two to four antiship missiles. Maybe not all Zircons, but threats. And we still don’t have firm datums on those subs, on our left flank.”
She studied the displays, mind racing as fast as she’d ever thought. No sleepiness now. Even the hiccups had stopped.
Well, the fucking waiting was over anyway. Hours doing nothing. Now death was streaking at them. Regardless of its formation, her force was going to take hits. They would already be at general quarters, but she put the order out on TG chat.
Enemy strike imminent. Condition One air, surface, ASW. Acknowledge.
Ping.
HUSKY: Interrogative.
Husky was IndoPac, Honolulu. Bypassing Fleet to ask her, essentially, what the fuck was going down. “God damn it,” she muttered, suddenly so enraged her hands shook. Could they not see what was happening? Could they not let her deal with it, without interrupting every sixty seconds? She seized the keyboard.
TANGLER: Under attack. Preparing to receive missile and a/c strike. Request air support. Request missile support. ASAP.
Beside her Mills was talking urgently into the IC phone at the same time he was typing. Cheryl snapped to the Weps Control circuit. “I’m not hearing a status on that forward laser.”
“Forward laser still in overheat shutdown.”
“Crap … Stand by on railguns. Slow to ten knots.” They’d roll like a pregnant pig, but she had to make electrical power available. Reroute it from propulsion to recharge the massive capacitor banks. The lasers sucked electrical power by the megawatt. The railguns propelled terminally guided slugs, but they too would deplete her banks, and their rate of fire wasn’t that great. Ten rounds a minute, less if the lasers were drawing power at the same time. “Stand by on RAM and decoys. Nulka to automatic. XO, did we get a roger from every formation unit? EW, you on the line?”
Mills: “All units rogered up.”
The electronic warfare petty officer: “Standing by, Captain.”
A husky, smooth-faced, butter-haired petty officer edged around into her field of vision. “You called for me, Captain?”
“Pavel. Yeah. Hold on a minute, may need you to translate.” She hit the 21MC again. “Comm, CO: is my circuit to Aznavuryan up yet?”
“We have a staffer on the line, Skipper. Asked him to patch in the admiral. Not sure if he will. Or can.”
She gnawed her lower lip, trying not to look concerned, but sweating under the coveralls. If her opponent didn’t want to talk, that meant her whole strategy had been so much hopeful bullshit. And they were all toast. Not to put too fine a point on it.
Yeah, they’d be avenged. The US was still mobilized for war, and overall the Pacific Fleet and air forces already in theater dwarfed anything the Russians could bring to bear.
But that wouldn’t mean much to scorched, swollen corpses bobbing in the Sea of Japan.
The 21MC clicked on. “Putting you on terminal 2, CO. Staffer says the admiral will be there in a minute. Remember, this is open frequency.”
“Got it. Put it on speaker. We may need to translate.” She pushed the button to activate the handset and tucked it under her chin. Above their heads, a hidden speaker crackled and hissed. A live circuit. Distant, muffled voices.
Finally a single one, louder, hoarse. A smoker’s rasp. “This is Admiral Aznavuryan.”
“Uh, this is Commodore Staurulakis.” Not an official rank, but commonly used for a squadron or task group commander. “Welcome to the Sea of Japan, Admiral.”
More muffled voices. Then, “Commodore. You have shot down unarmed reconnaissance drone. This is act of war.”
“Your armed drone was approaching with hostile intent. A violation of the Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea.” She hesitated, unsure just how to play this. Maybe, conciliatory at first? “However, if it will help, I apologize.”
“Apology not enough.” Angry-sounding Russian followed, which Golubuvs translated as “You will provide my force safe passage through strait.”
Okay, being nice wasn’t going to work. She exchanged glances with Mills, and regripped the handset, which was growing slick with hydrocortisone ointment and sweat. “My orders do not permit that, Admiral.”
“I am transiting the strait. If you fire again, I will destroy you.”
She took a deep breath, making sure that when she responded her voice was as firm as she could make it. With even a hint of glee. “Do you really want to? I have eight submarines behind me, if you manage to make it through. Three carriers on their way to back me up. America’s already mobilized, Admiral. Locked and loaded for another war, if you want one. So … make my day. I hope you feel lucky, punk.”
Golubuvs gaped. At her console, Terranova snorted, a sound that came out as if she were choking. Mills looked shocked. Disbelieving.
But Cheryl felt pretty sure anyone who liked American movies would get the reference. And apparently her Russian counterpart did, because for a full eight seconds there was just hissing silence on the line.
“I accept apology,” the hoarse voice said at last. “But we must pass. I have orders too.”
“I suggest you see if they can be changed, then.” She grinned at Mills, but the exec didn’t look amused. At all. She scribbled on a Post-it and pushed it to him. To all units. Initiate lock-on with all available fire control radars.
Another few seconds of empty air. Sweat trickled under her arms. The compartment reeled around her, and she checked the clinometer. A ten-degree roll. The lasers could cope with that. She scribbled again. Stand by to take incoming drones.
“Maybe we won’t have to,” Mills muttered, laying a hand over hers. Then, as if remembering himself, quickly removed it. Sorry, he mouthed. And nodded toward the displays.
She lifted her gaze, to see the two Okhotniks that had been approaching shifting gradually to split left and right. Skating across the front of her own formation.
Aznavuryan, on the circuit. Sounding angry. “I am requesting orders.”
She adjusted her grip on the gray plastic handset. It nearly shot out of her hand, it was so greasy. She grabbed for it, but kept her tone icy cool. “I understand, Admiral. I will stand by for your decision.” To Mills, letting up on the Transmit button, she added, “You’re on nanochat to Fleet, right? Ask where that fucking air is. Don’t we have fighters back in Okinawa yet?” She’d stalled the Russian advance, but they could resume it in mere minutes. She needed backup, now. Reinforcements. Something that would show up on her adversary’s radar.
The surface warfare coordinator spoke in her earbud. “Captain, lead ships on the oncoming formation’s screens have slowed. Steering various courses … appear to be zigzagging within their sectors.”
“Very well.”
Four contacts suddenly popped on the display. To the west, over Pusan, South Korea. Their readouts spun as they gained altitude. She hooked them and queried. EEFI information appeared beside the readouts.
“ROK Air Force,” Mills said. “T-50s, out of Gimhae.”
“That’s got to be about all they have left.” Cheryl wondered why they even had those. “Didn’t they lose most of their planes when the North occupied them?”
The air warfare coordinator again. “A few escaped to Japan.”
Cheryl hissed in through her front teeth as the readouts spun upward. The new air contacts contracted into a diamond formation, so tight that from sweep to sweep the radar occasionally registered them as a single blip. They accelerated, still maintaining that incredible closeness. She muttered, “What the…”
The FAWC said, “T-50s … jet trainers … I’m thinking this might be their national aerobatics team.”
“Aerobatics?” She rubbed her face, incredulous. A stunt team?
More contacts winked on, this time populating above western Kyushu. “F-15Js,” the AWC said. “Counting two, three, four … six.”
Maybe Fleet and PACOM hadn’t been as unconcerned as she’d thought. She steadied her voice. “We might have a chance, folks. I don’t know about the aerobatics team, but Aznavuryan might not know that’s what they are. And if the Japanese back us up, or even look like they might be about to, this could be a different ball game.”
THE next twenty minutes stretched out interminably. She rested her forehead on the tips of her fingers, elbows planted on the desk. Closing her eyes, and counting slow breaths. In. Out. Sensing the intermittent trembling of her muscles. The sigh of air in and out of her nasal passages. Fortunately the hiccups stayed gone. Scared out of her, no doubt.
Suddenly she yearned to live through this. To bring them all through. Everyone aboard, and the rest of the task force. No one needed to die for Dalian. Moscow was just scavenging for whatever they could snatch, as long as nobody else was watching. Gambling human lives for a little more land.
Well, the world was watching now.
The T-50s closed the range rapidly, maintaining the same diamond, so tightly packed they consistently registered as a single return, even to Savo’s highly discriminating radars.
The F-15Js proceeded west at a more leisurely pace. They settled into racetracks near the outer edge of Japan’s Self-Defense Identification Zone, just south of Tsushima Island.
The Korean jets crossed the strait, still holding that tight formation, as if they were entertaining a crowd at an air show. They executed a slow 180 and hurtled back, passing south of Cheryl’s rearmost elements. She made sure Air Control deconflicted them. This wasn’t the time for any blue-on-blue casualties.
The Russians, Okhotniks and strike fighters, crossed and recrossed her front, just out of Standard range, though her Alliances could have reached them. Each time they altered course she tensed, staring up at the displays. Would they come out of their turns headed for the task group? But no; they stayed distant. A threatening display, but not yet quite an attack.
Her command desk screen blinked.
REPLAY: USAF scrambling Taiwan for your support. F-35s + Valkyrie UAVs + tanker support.
TANGLER: Good news. ETA?
REPLAY: Launch approx 8 minutes ETA to follow.
“Outstanding,” she murmured to Mills. “They haven’t forgotten us.”
“They were probably just stood down, after the armistice,” the XO said. “Took them some time to get back on line. But, yeah. Some fighters out front, that’ll make ’em think twice. Maybe not even bother to try.”
She was allowing herself a tentative smile when Terranova called from her console, “Skipper! You need to see this. Putting it on the left LSD.”
The picture came up, expanded so far to the north that the strait and the tip of the Korean Peninsula were not even visible. She looked down on Okhotsk and Kamchatka. Above them, air contacts were blinking into existence. Rising from distant airfields. Eight. Ten. Twelve. More.
“Bombers,” Mills said, and his tone was flat. Dull. Dead, almost.
She snarled, “I don’t need you to tell me that, XO!”
“Sorry, Captain—”
“No, I’m sorry.” She took another deep breath. In the last minutes of their lives, she didn’t need to be biting pieces off her own people.
They weren’t the ones at fault. The diplomats and higher-ups had failed, again, and it was the sailors at sea who would pay. “We’ll take whoever crosses the ROE line first. Then expend our Alliances on the bombers as they come into range. Fight as long as we can, try to cover the rest of the force’s retreat. That’s all we can do.”
Her exec’s handsome features hardened. “Hold and die?”
“I’m afraid so, Matt.”
Her desk pinged again.
REPLAY: Russian Federation Defense Ministry announces major strategic maneuver exercise “Vostok.” Combined arms groups including elements Eastern Fleet will engage in simulated air strikes and air defense. Goal of exercise: improving command and control of joint military operations across multiple services in the eastern theater of operations. Coordinating operations between Pacific air forces and the Pacific Fleet. Exercise will take place in the northern areas of the Sea of Japan, Sea of Okhotsk, and northern Pacific.
She stared at the words, trying to reorganize them into sense. Beside her Mills was shaking his head. “What the heck—”
REPLAY: CJCS informs IndoPacom that negotiations for mutual withdrawal of US and Russian forces from Sea of Japan are concluded. Tangler will withdraw south of Tsushima Island and resume play Exercise Trident Junction in area bounded by sepcor until further orders. Acknowledge.
Fingers trembling, she typed,
TANGLER: Acknowledged. Wilco. Tangler out.
“We’re both pulling back?” Mills sounded shaky too.
“Both retreating, saving face,” she said. “Pretending we were both just carrying out exercises.”
She closed her eyes and scratched under her arms, for once totally without inhibition. Yeah, it was good news. Great news. But she’d been so whiplashed over the last few minutes, with panic, fear, relief, rage, resignation, relief again, that her body felt like it didn’t know how to respond, or what to feel.
On the display, the lines of advance of the oncoming units were altering. Clicking around clockwise. The opposing units were turning away together. The UAVs, too, were heading for the barn. Turning back, for their launch platforms.
She sagged in her chair, and even though her skin felt like a full-body rash was breaking out, and she was wet through with sweat, and stank from nearly a day stuck in the chair, she closed her eyes and heaved a silent thanks.
Then remembered: it wasn’t just she who needed to be reassured. She hoisted herself out of the chair’s too-soft embrace, steadied her knees, and stood. Turned to face the rows of consoles, the expectant, frightened faces, and mustered a smile.
She spread her arms, palms up. “It’s over,” she told them all. “Both sides are backing down. We’re headed south. Probably to Shanghai for humanitarian ops. Keep an eye on things. But it looks, thank God, like we’re out of the woods.”
Her desk pinged again, and she cringed, gut cramping, and whipped her head back to the displays. But the Russians were still in their turns. Still heading north. So what now? She bent quickly to the screen. No, she thought. Don’t let the wheels come off this now. I can’t go through it all again.
HUSKY: Personal confidential for Tangler actual.
Confidential? Everything on high-side nanochat was TS compartmented. What could be personal and confidential? She typed shakily, dreading the worst. Her mom? Maybe her dad? But they wouldn’t notify her this way about a death in the family.
Filled with dread, she keyed in a terse response.
TANGLER: Actual here.
HUSKY: Muster list of personnel to be repatriated in POW exchange received from Beijing includes one Edward L. Staurulakis LCDR USN previously listed as missing in action, presumed KIA. Further status unclear. More to follow after formal exchange takes place but thought you would like to know soonest. Compassionate leave available if desired. Congratulations, Justin Yangerhans, Admiral USN.
Mills was patting her back. Telling the others, since he’d apparently read it over her shoulder. In seconds, Terranova was excitedly relaying the surprise development to the other enlisted.
Someone started clapping. Then they all jumped from their seats, applauding, cheering, shouting. Congratulating her.
She smiled uncertainly, blinking back tears and trying to hold it together. Nodding and smiling wordlessly. Shaking the outstretched hands as she walked among the stations.
The applause wasn’t just for her husband, or for her. It was for themselves. That they would live through this war, and go home. See those they loved again.
The clapping went on and on, as if no one wanted ever to stop. She reached the far end of the compartment and turned to face them, to applaud them. Her crew, and all the crews. The new Savo. The old Savo. The ships and planes that had gone down, the men and women who’d burned and drowned in a war that never should have happened.
But who’d done their duty, to the end.
She clapped until her palms stung, tears hot on her cheeks, but not caring anymore. Not wanting to stop either, not wanting to stop ever, grinning now. Unable to fully join in their glee, but unwilling to dampen it either. They deserved it. They’d all come through, and won.
As to what came next … well, she’d think about that tomorrow.