Island Warriors c-18

by Keith Douglass

  Cheyenne Mountain

  U.S. Space Command Center

  0100 local (GMT –7)

  The AWACS had been on station for three hours when all hell started to break loose. It began with the most unobtrusive of the intelligence assets. A satellite relaying real time imagery to Space Command sent down a data packet that shattered the quiet static buzzing across an Air Force major’s console, jolting the officer out of his quiet reflections on his possibilities of getting promoted.

  The Air Force major bolted upright in his seat, staring aghast at his screen. The heat bloom on his screen was unmistakable. All around him, the information was being echoed on the other consoles, and the duty officer, an Army general, turned pale. There was no doubt that this was real — the question was, where it was headed.

  “Space Command, this is USNS Observation Island. Be advised that we hold inbound antiship missiles along with probable missiles on long-range ballistic profile. Estimate TOT in approximately one hundred and sixty seconds.” The voice from the ship was calm, if a bit tight.

  The Army general grabbed his microphone. “USNS Observation Island, this is Space Command. Expect fighter support overhead immediately.”

  With that, the major began praying. Onboard Observation Island, they would be counting down the moments they had left to live.

  USNS Observation Island

  1105 local (GMT +8)

  Waterson held two contacts, both of them definitely not artifacts or mistakes. It looked like a scenario straight out of training, with one missile headed for the AWACS overhead, the other one bound for yours truly.

  Waterson glanced across at Vail, and wondered if the youngster knew just how serious the situation was. He had to — they had all talked about this possible scenario too many times for him not to get it. Yet the younger man sat quietly at his console, staring at the data, staring but apparently not seeing it.

  “Bill — you okay?”

  Vail nodded. “How long you think we have?”

  Waterson shrugged. “Not long. Is there anything — I mean, do you…?” He fell silent, knowing there was really nothing you could say at a time like this.

  Vail shook his head. “They’ll call away general quarters any time now. Those damage control teams — they’ll handle it. I know they will.”

  Denial — it’s one way to cope. Waterson couldn’t bring himself to tell Vail just how unlikely it was that the ship could do anything at all to save itself.

  So they sat, each lost in his own thoughts, each talking to his own God, as they waited for the end of their world.

  USS United States

  JIC

  1106 local (GMT +8)

  Lab Rat was just signing off a watch schedule when the red light on the side of his phone flashed and a buzzer went off. He grabbed for the handset and simultaneously, he punched the button to speak to TAO, and snapped out a quick, “Standby — urgent.” Whatever was coming in was higher than flash precedence, and that meant only one thing — missiles inbound.

  The voice coming to him from Cheyenne Mountain was cold and professional, not from lack of concern but because emotion was something they did not have time for. “Launch confirmation, Gungzho Facility. Number two, time on top six minutes. Request you launch fighter support and SAR assets in support of USNS Observation Island.”

  As the voice spelled out the launch details, Lab Rat was echoing them to the TAO. As soon as the first words were out of his mouth, he heard general quarters sounding. “United States, out,” he snapped, as he started to replace the classified phone. As he was hanging it up, he heard, “Good luck, United States. Give ’em hell.”

  TFCC

  1107 local (GMT +8)

  Coyote stared at the screen as the missile symbols popped into being. In the background, he could hear the tense voice of the AWACS operator reeling off the details. “Home plate, picture. Missiles inbound, origin Gungzho station, number two.” The information was immediately relayed to every station listening, including all the fighters.

  “Orders, Admiral?” the TFCC TAO asked.

  “Execute OPORD Ten,” Coyote said, fighting for calm in his voice. “And get every spare SAR asset we can get headed for Observation Island.”

  Everything was in place now, the cruiser alerted, the fighters already forewarned. It was just a matter of everyone doing his job the way he’d trained, the way they’d planned.

  USS Lake Champlain

  1109 local (GMT +8)

  Over the last three days, Norfolk had been alternating time in combat with his XO, each catching a few hours of sleep at a time. The watch section crews rotated more regularly, each of the three sections standing their normal four-hour watch, but general quarters had more than once interrupted their sleep as well. As a consequence, they were all starting to wear down, tempers growing short, and the effects of the pressure starting to show.

  Oh, each one did his best not to show it, but there was the ever-present thought that every detail was critical, that anything they missed could kill them. When the call came from the carrier, arriving just as Space Command reached him via Navy Red, it was almost a relief to see the missile symbols pop into being. A relief, yet coupled with gut-wrenching terror. This was no drill, this was no simulation — it was the real thing, and if anyone screwed up, the crew of the cruiser as well as the aircraft carrier was done for.

  The Aegis system was operating in semi-auto, and quickly identified the missile symbols as hostile targets. It assigned missile launch cells to each one, and paused on the verge of hurtling its weapons into the air. Both firing keys were already turned, to save those precious few seconds that might spell the difference between life and death.

  The TAO’s computer beeped incessantly, demanding action. With a quick glance at Norfolk, and a nod from him, the TAO acknowledged and authorized the firing. Seconds, only seconds — but was that fast enough? The ballistic missiles would launch, gain altitude, and cruise just outside the atmosphere before starting their final plunge back to their targets. The angle as they approached the cruiser would be particularly difficult, nose down, with no chance for a broader radar profile or larger target.

  The Aegis radar system was capable of identifying a sparrow in flight. No, detection wouldn’t be the problem — it was almost down to the vagaries of the wind, any slight stuttering in the solid fuel propellant driving the missile, or a glitch in programming or mechanical error.

  The deck under his feet rumbled slightly, and he kept his gaze fixed on the camera focused on the forward deck. Missile hatches popped open, and a solid white antiair missile rose up from out of its cell, spouting fire from its tail. It seemed to go slowly at first, almost hanging in the air, and made an awkward turn as it picked up speed. But within a few seconds of being airborne, the sheer raw power of its rocket motor overcame the forces of drag and gravity, and the missile steadied in flight and shot off to its target. It was visible for perhaps ten seconds, then lost in the clear blue sky.

  As the first missile cleared the deck area, another one repeated the maneuver. Then there was a longer pause while the Aegis system tracked its own weapons, calculated the probability of kill, then decided whether another salvo was necessary.

  It was. The TAO once again acknowledged the computer’s recommendation, and the entire sequence of events was repeated.

  During the launch, there was not a single sound in combat other than the standard reports made for a missile launch. Norfolk, who had one ear of his headset jacked into the weapons coordinator circuit, felt a rush of pride at their professionalism. Exhausted, ragged, at the edge of their capabilities, the crew rose to every challenge with superb professionalism.

  The missile symbols, both hostile and friendly, were clearly identifiable. Norfolk studied the geometries for a moment. “Come left a bit, ten degrees,” he ordered. That would put the ship bow on to the incoming missile, and thus present a smaller target. It would also clear the forward CIWS stations which might have a shot at taking
out the missile if the standard missiles missed it.

  “Sea skimmers!” one of the operations specialists shouted as he watched. “Captain, they’ve gone low!”

  And as Norfolk watched the screen, the new missile contacts disappeared, indicating they were now flying just feet above the surface of the water. Where the hell was the AWACS picture, and why wasn’t it showing them?

  AWACS One

  1209 local (GMT +9)

  Woods watched in horror as the spiky missile symbols popped up on his screen. Just pixels arranged in a particular pattern, just glowing phosphors on an otherwise clear screen. Innocuous enough, if you didn’t know what they meant to a thin-shelled aircraft.

  The massive aircraft twisted in the air around him, the maneuvers more violent than he’d ever felt in an aircraft this size. It was as though the pilot was trying to conduct aerobatics in a nimble jet fighter instead of manhandling a 747 in the air. The deck dropped down hard under his feet as the aircraft dove, leaving Woods straining against his seatbelt. The aircraft went hard over to the right, standing virtually on wingtip as it desperately tried to shed altitude.

  “He’s got us! Come on, come on!” the other man shouted, his fear and panic instantly communicating itself to the rest of the flight crew. One part of Woods’s mind, the part that wasn’t devoted to coldly analyzing the situation, registered disapproval at the man’s cowardice. He wasn’t making it any easier for the rest of the crew.

  Chaff and flares spewed out of the undercarriage, immediately creating a blanket of fire and radar reflecting strips of metal. The pilot twisted the aircraft again into an impossibly tight turn, straining to get the cloud of countermeasures between his aircraft and the incoming missiles. In the cockpit, the altimeter unwound at an alarming rate as the G-meter registered forces that the aircraft had never been intended to take.

  Woods’s weight increased suddenly as the floor of the compartment came hurtling up toward him. They pulled out of the steep dive only a few hundred feet above the wave tops, and the pilot immediately began a slower descent until they were virtually skimming the water like a massive hovercraft.

  Chaff and flares weren’t the only weapons of self-defense the aircraft possessed. Deep within its electronics, it possessed certain highly specialized circuits that were coupled to a small radar independent antenna. The circuits analyzed the incoming radar transmissions from the missile seeker head, made a few minor calculations, and then began transmitting a signal intended to mimic a radar return on the same frequency. In principle, the AWACS transmissions would spoof the missile into thinking that the aircraft was not where it was, fifteen feet to the left of where it actually was.

  On his screen, Woods saw one missile veer suddenly to the left, increasing its altitude and climbing away from the aircraft. It streaked off into the distance, happily pursuing the illusion of the countermeasures cloud, and then finally detonated, briefly fuzzing his screen in that sector before the gain control circuitry kicked in.

  One down, one to go.

  The second missile was not nearly as gullible as its littermate. It blasted past the chaff and the flares, the tone of its seeker head a steady ping at the electronic warfare console and headed straight for the AWACS. At a range of five hundred yards, it turned slightly away, and Waterson had a moment of hope. Its new heading put it directly on course for the sun. Perhaps the heatseeker in its nose had decided that that brilliant heat source was the desired target, a problem many early generation heatseekers had had. Later generation U.S. missiles had discriminators that could distinguish between the sun and the exhaust from a jet engine, but it was possible they were using older models, wasn’t it? In fact, it was more than possible — it was an absolute guarantee, it had to be. Woods knew a moment of hope, then blackness came crashing down on him as the missile immediately made a course correction and bore directly in on them.

  The next four seconds of Woods’s life were the longest he had ever known. Time stopped, seconds advancing at the speed of hours, the moments of life defined by a glowing green line on his screen that connected his aircraft with the missile. Figures immediately above and below the line read out the decreasing distance, clicking over at an incredible rate.

  Every man and woman on the AWACS was so high on adrenaline, so completely stoked by the body’s countermeasure to fear and panic, that the sudden flash of light and heat seemed like just one more problem to cope with. Each one had a momentary flash of: I’m going to die. Now, here. No more. It resounded on a deep emotional level, plucking at something more fundamental than any emotion they’d ever experienced. But the adrenaline surge kept it from mattering.

  The shards of metal from the disintegrating engine penetrated the fuselage, passed through the crew compartment and left shattered flesh and bone in their wakes. Within seconds, the fuselage was no longer recognizable. Nor were the men and women who had inhabited it.

  USNS Observation Island

  1110 local (GMT +8)

  “They’re gone,” Waterson said. In cold, clinical detail, the death of the AWACS and her crew had played out on the screen before him. The sensitive radar had lost track of the missiles as they descended in pursuit of the doomed aircraft, but the abrupt termination of the AWACS data feed and the small blur of static as parts of the wreckage were lofted back into the air at a high enough altitude for the radar to detect spelled out the details.

  “We gotta do something,” Vail said, his voice rising hysterically. He started unstrapping himself from his seat. “Get to the deck, launch the boats. We have time, we have time now!”

  The retired master sergeant laid one hand on his compadre’s shoulder. “We don’t have time.”

  “But we—”

  His friend’s objection was terminated by the abrupt implosion of the side of the ship. The frags killed him immediately, but Waterson had time to watch the water pouring in, see the dark and hungry sea reaching for him before he died.

  Viking 708

  Overhead USNS Observation Island

  1145 local (GMT +8)

  Watching from above, it was like watching a turkey shoot. The massive ship made one futile attempt to maneuver and present a smaller aspect to the incoming missile, but it was more a demonstration of guts than of tactical superiority. The ship never stood a chance.

  The missile impacted the hull just above the waterline, and for the merest second it looked like it might have been a dud. But it was designed to penetrate into the ship before detonating, thus ensuring much more damage.

  Seconds after it pierced the hull, the steel after deck lifted slightly, a movement so unexpected as to be virtually unrecognizable. Then it lifted again, and large sections of it peeled back from the hull, leaving a fiery interior exposed. The flames spread quickly until fire was gouting out of every orifice of the ship.

  Along the forward deck, the survivors swarmed around the self-deploying life boats, chopping through the restraining straps. Those with the presence of mind to do so simply triggered the deployment mechanism and the life rafts fell into the sea. The inflation devices triggered automatically when salt water hit them, and within seconds brilliant international orange inflatables were dotted around the ocean below the S-3. People plunged over the sides, making barely perceptible splashes in the water as they entered it, then struggled to paddle over to the nearest rafts. They faced large swells capped with whitecaps, and the wind was catching the life rafts and driving them away from the survivors. Those that did catch a life raft wielded the small paddles to try to return and help their ship mates, but more than one drowned before they could return to help them.

  USS Jefferson

  TFCC

  1158 local (GMT +8)

  As the reports from the Viking overhead the flaming wreckage of the Observation Island began coming in, a hush descended over the compartment. There was an occasional muttered curse as it became clear that few could have survived the attack, and in the background, the radio chattered as the air boss lofted every r
escue helo he had into the air, sending most of them to the Observation Island and vectoring a few to the last known location of the AWACS.

  Coyote cupped his face in his hands for a few moments. No one spoke to him. He needed no suggestions from his staff, no tentative outlines of a plan of action. It was to make the call in moments just like this that he had been placed in command of the battle group, and everyone instinctively knew that their advice and comments were neither required nor desired.

  Finally, as the last of the helos lifted off the deck, Coyote looked up. His eyes were dark with unfathomable rage. There was no trace of anguish or sorrow on his face.

  “They’re going to pay for this,” he said, his voice flat and cold. “And pay hard.”

  SIXTEEN

  United Nations

  New York

  Saturday, September 21

  2000 local (GMT –5)

  Wexler was working late. She had just finished going over the first response to China’s petition to ban nuclear powered ships from territorial waters, addressing each ridiculous point as though it merited serious consideration, when the CNN headlines anchor said, “This just in.” The secure, encrypted telephone line on her desk rang just as a map of Taiwan and China flashed up on the screen.

  Wexler’s head snapped up. Pamela Drake was neatly framed by the television screen. She was clearly made for this sort of work, and knew it. Large, intense green eyes seem to burn through the screen, framed by dark hair cut to chin level. Only the slightest touch of gray showed at the temples, and Wexler suspected that that would be soon eliminated.

  “We have just learned,” Drake began, her voice grave, “that China has been forced to respond to a U.S. incursion into her territorial waters’ airspace. Earlier today, an AWACS aircraft operating out of Japan ignored warnings of a Chinese naval exercise in progress and approached the ships maintaining, according to our sources, an ‘aggressive posture.’ The AWACS was accompanied by a surface vessel, the USNS Observation Island, a reconnaisance and intelligence platform. When the AWACS refused to turn back, Chinese aircraft fired upon her and the accompanying spy ship. The fate of the air crew and the crew of the ship is not known. Chinese forces are reporting no casualties.”