by Andrew Watts
Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning
“Directed Energy System is synced to phased-array radar network, Admiral. All air tracks are targeted.”
A few kilometers away, on both of the Jiaolong-class ships, the towers were being put to work. Thermonuclear reactors fed an enormous supply of energy into the system. The entire Chinese fleet of air defense radars was searching for the smallest air contact and feeding in that data to the Jiaolong-class ships. That was supplementary information, however. Within each tower, billions of micrometer-size antennae had been created by using carbon nanotubes. The towers were a new type of phased-array radar, able to overcome the plasma breakdown in the atmosphere that had hindered previous generations of directed-energy weapons.
Each incoming American missile was detected, tracked, and targeted within a fraction of a second. The towers directed lightning-quick pulses of concentrated energy at each of the incoming missiles.
One after the another, the inbound missiles came under attack, their onboard computers and guidance systems fried. There were a few explosions as some of the energy bursts triggered warhead detonations. But in most cases, the inbound missiles, now lobotomized, just continued on overhead, passing by their targets. Eventually the missiles ran out of fuel and fell harmlessly into the ocean.
The Chinese air defense team had already seen how well the directed-energy system worked when the US fighter-bomber aircraft had attempted to locate and attack the fleet earlier in the battle. But those aircraft were much larger and easier to detect. Enemy missiles were tiny. No one had known with certainty whether it would work. The destruction of the air-launched missiles gave them confidence. Now they were overjoyed.
“We are invincible, Admiral.”
Admiral Song cast the officer who had uttered such nonsense a disapproving glance. “We have a momentary advantage, that is all. We had best use it. Send in the next slew of antiship missiles.”
“Shall we launch our fighters, sir?”
It was the same young officer who had just claimed they were invincible. The admiral would need to remember to reassign that one. “No. We must continue launching our cruise missiles until the American ships have depleted their air defense capability. Only then will we launch our fighters.”
USS Farragut
Another alarm sounded throughout the combat information center as more Chinese missiles were detected by the SPY radar.
Victoria watched in horror as the ship’s number of surface-to-air missiles began dwindling.
She heard someone whisper, “What do we do when we run out of SM-2s?”
No one answered.
The blue friendly air tracks headed towards the red inbound missile tracks on the display screen at the front of the space. Just as before, the numbers were close to evenly matched. A few missiles got through, and the roar of rocket engines thundered outside the ship as more defensive missiles fired out of the Mk-41 vertical launch system.
Another Klaxon alarm sounded throughout the ship, and Victoria again heard the giant WHHRRRRT of the CWIS Gatling gun. The familiar noises of air defense. But this time, there was a new sound—a shaking boom that rattled her teeth—and then the room went dark.
They had been hit.
She was in pitch blackness. The white noise of computers and radios had gone silent, and now she heard the sickening sounds of secondary explosions somewhere in the distance. The air had a stale metallic taste, and she could hear cursing as someone tripped and fell to the floor in the darkness.
Victoria found herself holding on to the chart table next to her, feeling a slight panic as the floor moved underneath her. A wave? Or had they been hit that badly that they were already listing?
People regained their awareness and began shouting. Someone opened the hatch in the aft of the space. A faint ray of daylight flooded into the compartment, giving them the gift of sight, and then the door shut again, plunging them back into darkness. It was only temporary, however, as a dim yellowish light came on around the edges of the compartment. Backup electric power had kicked on. The computer screens fluttered to life as systems began to reboot.
The 1MC let out a loud series of bells followed by, “Fire, fire, fire…fire in engineering…” A description of the spaces and then, “Flooding, flooding, flooding…” and more announcements.
Bodies leapt into action throughout the USS Farragut. The men and women on the ship formed into preordained damage control parties. Years of training forcing them to overcome the fear of fire, drowning, darkness, and death. Sailors who might normally be cooks or helmsmen or sonar experts or rescue swimmers were now aligned to the same mission: save the ship.
Victoria departed the space and headed up to the bridge. On the bridge wing, she could see thick black plumes of smoke rising up from two of their ships in company. From the USS Michael Monsoor, more defensive missiles shot up from its vertical launch system, their white trails of smoke arcing off towards a distant threat.
“Captain on the bridge!”
The captain climbed up out of the ladder, standing in the center of the large space. The officer of the deck briefed him on the ongoing damage control team’s progress.
“Where’s CHENG?”
“Sir…I just got off the phone with AUXO. He said the CHENG was killed. We’re still conducting an assessment of the damage.”
Commander Boyle gritted his teeth. “Understood.”
The operations officer appeared, climbing up the ladder and onto the bridge. “Captain, Seventh Fleet is directing us to move east, out of range of the Chinese warships. They want us to make best speed, sir.”
“Did they give a destination?”
“Not yet, sir. They just said proceed east at best speed. Maintain safe separation from Chinese fleet.”
“Son of a bitch.” The captain shook his head. “OOD, who’s in engineering now, AUXO?”
“Yes, sir.”
The captain picked up one of the phones and dialed a four-digit number. After a brief conversation, he hung up the phone and turned back to the bridge team.
“Make speed sixteen knots. Contact Michael Monsoor and let them know that’s the best we can do.”
“Sir, the lookout says they can see survivors in the water.”
Commander Boyle cursed again. Then his eyes met Victoria’s. “Airboss, bring your helicopter out and try to rescue as many people as you can. We need to keep moving east. I don’t know how many more missile volleys we can sustain.”
Victoria nodded vigorously. “Yes, sir.”
She raced down the ladder and headed to officer’s country, telling her pilots the plan. Then she headed to the hangar, where the maintenance senior chief listened intently. Like Victoria, Senior was relieved to have something to do.
As they traversed the helicopter onto the flight deck, Victoria was on the phone with the tactical action officer in combat, getting a rough position of the sinking ships. When she hung up, she saw that several of her men were standing on the starboard side of the ship, craning their necks around the outer hull so that they could see something forward.
At first she thought they were looking at more incoming missiles, or perhaps men in the water. But as her curiosity got the better of her, she looked too. There was an eight-by-ten-foot hole in the steel hull, about thirty meters forward of the hangar and only about ten feet above the waterline.
“Alright, gentlemen, that’s enough.”
“Are we gonna sink, Boss?”
“No. Now let’s get the blades extended, quick. We have shipmates in the water, and they might not be there for much longer.”
She didn’t bother voicing another reason that she wanted to take off quickly: she wanted to get airborne before another missile arrived. It wasn’t that she wanted to save herself. In an odd way, she felt guilty for reducing her risk. But she also felt protective of her aircraft. She didn’t want anything to happen to it.
Fifteen minutes later, Victoria was flying search and rescue, picking up sailors from the sunken l
ittoral combat ship and ferrying them back to her own. She was airborne when the next wave of missiles came.
“Cutlass, ASTAC, remain clear of Mom for next twenty mikes.” The kid sounded sick with fear.
Victoria looked at her fuel. “Roger, ASTAC.”
From her cockpit, Victoria and a cabin filled with rescued sailors watched as explosions and tracers filled the sky. Some of the ships emitted huge clouds of chaff, metallic confetti twinkling in the sky. Another ship in company —a destroyer this time—took a fatal set of missile hits. A giant white geyser of water erupting from its center. The explosions were so severe that the destroyer went under in less than a minute. Victoria would later learn that that ship had expended all of its surface-to-air missiles, and its CWIS had malfunctioned.
The rest of the day was a nightmare of nonstop search-and-rescues, missile attacks, and heading east. The surface action group was getting picked apart like a school of fish surrounded by sharks. Every once in a while, another ship would get taken under, and there was nothing the others could do.
Twelve hours later, they were almost two hundred miles to the east, and the attacks had finally subsided. Victoria had handed off SAR duties to crews out of Guam, now that they were in range of the base there.
She landed her helicopter and shut down. When the engine wash was complete and the postflight duties were over, she ate in silence on the rolling flight deck. All of the ship’s lights had been turned off to avoid visual detection. The stars above were putting on a show. Victoria was drunk with fatigue from flying so long. She ate a dinner of dry cereal and water, hugging her knees, her ass sore from the rough nonskid deck.
Victoria thought about the implications of that day’s battle, and their ship’s course. They were retreating. The Chinese would soon attack Guam. The Chinese had a superior fleet. The American attacks hadn’t been effective. Why? She didn’t know. All she knew was that they had—inexplicably—lost.
She had seen too much death and destruction today. Now she just wanted comfort. Her family. Her father. The war’s end.
As she looked up at the stars, her eyes twitching with tiredness, she thought of her childhood. Of the summers in Annapolis when her father had taught her and her brothers how to use a telescope. That had been the beginning of her love for astronomy and science and technology.
She wondered if her father was looking up at these same stars now. She hoped to God he was okay, and that she would someday be able to share this view with her brothers and him again.
23
Eglin AFB
Florida
Day 18
David knocked on the door to General Schwartz’s office and cracked it open. Susan was sitting on the chair opposite the general’s desk. General Schwartz waved him in. He was on a landline phone and held up his pointer finger to signify that the call was almost finished. The door clicked shut behind David as he entered the room. Susan pointed to the chair next to her and David sat. After a moment, General Schwartz hung up the phone.
David said, “You wanted to see me?”
“We did,” said Susan.
They were both staring at him with funny looks on their faces.
Susan said, “David, how familiar are you with the Double-Cross System that MI5 used during World War Two?”
David searched his memory. “The Germans had spies inside of England during the war. The Brits caught them and tried to turn them into double agents or something. Right?”
Susan tilted her head from side to side. “Eh. Sort of. It was a bit more complex than that.”
General Schwartz said, “Let’s get on with it. We have a busy morning, Susan.”
Susan said, “David, the United States has identified a large number of suspected Chinese spies operating in our homeland.”
“Okay.”
“Almost all of them are being sent here.”
David was taken aback. “Where? Eglin?”
Susan nodded.
“Why?”
“I told you the responsibilities of the SILVERSMITH program would shift. We’ve converted several old hangars on the other side of the base into temporary prisons and interrogation centers. Most of our top interrogation teams are already here, as well as our linguists and support personnel.”
“So, what, are you in charge of the interrogations now, too?”
“No, no. That would be too much. But I work closely with the interrogation teams. One of my new responsibilities is managing the information that comes out of these interrogations.”
“Why?”
General Schwartz said, “Because we want to control what information they’re sending back to China.”
David said, “Excuse me? What do you mean? How could they still be sending anything back if we’ve arrested them?”
Susan glanced at him. “Read up on the Double-Cross System, David. It’s not in our best interests to just have them stop. That’s the essence of the whole game. Once we identify someone as a legitimate Chinese spy, we want two things. One, we want to know everything they know, and two, we want them to keep providing information to their Chinese handlers via radio transmission, dead drops, and more. We’re managing over sixty separate networks now.”
David began to see. “You want to spread false information.” He shook his head. “But wait. Don’t the Chinese suspect that their spies have been compromised?”
“Of course they do. And we suspect that many of our intelligence streams from HUMINT sources in China are also compromised. Proper deception is an art form. We feed them some truths, some half-truths, and some outright lies. But the whoppers, we save for when it really counts.”
David stared at her, amazed. “Why are you telling me this?”
“You’re being brought in on the operation, David. General Schwartz and I discussed it. You’re bright and at the heart of much of our planning. My belief is that organizations are best served when the cadre of planners and decision makers are all well aware of current and future operations. This allows them to realize the impact of their choices.”
“I’m surprised to hear you say that, considering you’re a CIA officer.”
She smiled. “Don’t get me wrong. I still value the importance of secrets. I just think it’s damaging to keep secrets from the people who should know them.”
David nodded. “Okay. What do I need to do?”
“We’ll take you over to the other side of the base later today. You can see for yourself what we’ve got going on. You’ll have full access if you need it. The three of us will meet once per day to go over new information and how it might impact other recommendations SILVERSMITH is making up the chain of command.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
General Schwartz leaned forward. “David, how’s the progress with the Jiaolong-class ships?”
David had been placed in charge of a team of scientists and engineers looking for ways to defeat the new Chinese technology. There were two groups, one focused on the antisubmarine warfare threat, the other on the air-defense problem. David wasn’t nearly as well versed in the details as the experts he had brought in, but his work at In-Q-Tel had made him somewhat of a jack-of-all-trades on future technologies and their military applications, so he at least knew enough to comprehend what the scientists and engineers came up with and could translate it to the decision makers, like General Schwartz and his bosses.
“Sir, we have a few ideas. But they could take a long time to test.”
The general shook his head. “Time isn’t available. The Chinese fleet at Guam is already resupplying. Our intelligence reports that they want to take Hawaii next.”
“How long will it take them to get there?”
“We need to be prepared for an attack on Hawaii within two weeks’ time. That’s what the Office of Naval Intelligence is telling us. We need to make a recommendation to Pentagon leadership by tomorrow.”
David swore.
Susan said, “David, I know it seems impossible. Just get us whatever you hav
e.”
David met with his technical experts later that afternoon. The same three men that had been at Raven Rock had relocated to Eglin, and they had each recommended several other leaders in their respective fields. Security was tight. Some of those individuals were denied access based on past actions and political views that might be seen as sympathetic to China. Others couldn’t be located, which was a legitimate problem in a nation that was still facing food and water shortages from an EMP attack. Nevertheless, the group of a dozen men and women that David did have access to were top-notch.
David addressed them in one of the secure conference rooms. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve got food and coffee coming. We’ll be pulling an all-nighter. We’ll need to get a recommendation on General Schwartz’s desk by tomorrow morning.”
“Regarding what?”
“We expect the Chinese to attack Hawaii just like they did Guam. We need to find a way to defeat the Jiaolong technology.”
“What’s the timing?”
David told them, and they provided him with the expected response. “Calm down, please. Trust me, I feel the same way. But we’ve got to come up with something. We cannot cede the Pacific.”
“Aren’t there conventional ways of fighting the Chinese Navy?”
Someone said, “You read the papers, right? You see what happened in Guam? We’re in a new arms race. He wouldn’t be holding this meeting if there was another way.”
David sighed. “I’m afraid he’s right.”
And with that, the group set to work, brainstorming new ideas and rehashing ones that had already been proposed in previous meetings. Until today, no one had given them a timetable.
In his mind, David was realistic. He knew that this was a near-impossible task. But he also knew that wars were the catalysts for technological breakthroughs.
Six hours later, they had gone over countless ideas, but each one had been poked full of holes by the group.
Someone had proposed copying the Chinese version of the directed-energy weapons. “We’re years behind them, by the sound of it. Nothing but a blueprint would be ready in time.”