by David Poyer
For a moment doubt gnawed. Maybe Custer was right. He wasn’t right for the job. He’d screwed up before. Maybe he would again, and sailors and marines would die, the Allies topple in defeat.
He sucked a breath. No. He had the experience, the staff, the plan, and the forces. He had enough fuel now. Over a million barrels of burnable light crude in reserve south of Woody Island. He could have used more ordnance, but the delay had let several more shipments arrive, rushed out of the new factories in the Midwest. He should have enough, if his commanders showed restraint. As he’d advised them, in a face-to-face VTC the night before.
So there was nothing really to do now but wait. Wait, and obsess, and worry.
Oh yeah. He felt up to that.
* * *
A few hours later the first air strikes returned. They touched down above him, a faint thunder and roar as they went to afterburner hitting the flight deck, in case they missed the wires. Strike UAVs, mainly, but accompanied by networked fighters to control them over their targets.
But he was no longer there.
He floated above the battlespace, consciousness magnified a thousandfold in the virtual reality helmet. Another avatar hovered near: Lieutenant Tomlin. His young WTI had spent the hiatus digging into the preexisting plan, ideating new tactics based on the way the Chinese had maneuvered in previous battles, and running them against a Red Cell back at the Naval War College.
Hovering together, they gazed out over a flat sea far below. A smooth, featureless blue, without waves, currents, or winds. A digital simulacrum that he couldn’t risk accepting as reality. Other figures hovered at various altitudes. His commanders, his COs. Latitude and longitude lines scored the surface, but he could see all the way down to the sea floor far below. In the distance, radar and laser beams flickered in all shades of the spectrum.
He visualized forward and his avatar glided north, toward the battle. Here the air seethed with purple, green, red, blue. Fighters and UAVs wheeled and engaged in silence. Missile symbols crossed trails in a complex and deadly knitting and purling.
Sea Eagle, the tactical AI, whispered to him, feeding him information and advice. Most of which he let pass without comment. His air and screen and antisubmarine commanders would react to individual threats. He wanted to stay above the battle, sensing its rhythm, alert for the unexpected. Of course, if the enemy really pissed in their Cheerios, he’d have to get involved then. To retrieve the battle. And if he couldn’t, to pull back.
He didn’t want to think about that, about retreating, but it was his duty. Unlike Jung, he had a withdrawal plan, and had directed Tomlin to game it out with the AI as his opponent. A couple of times it had gotten ugly. But they’d ironed out the glitches: exit lanes, conflicting fires, crossed routes of retreat. He was fairly sure now that at least into D plus Two he could pull everybody back in a combat reembarkation. It would be as confused and tragic and brutal as Dunkirk, but he should be able to extract most of the landing force. If things went to shit after Plus Two the reserves would have to insert and hold the line while the first waves were withdrawn. And it would be the ground commander’s responsibility then, since once the force was established ashore command transferred to him.
To General Isnanta. In the virtual reality, the Indonesian marine floated miles distant, above the shore, looking down.
Dan was about to “call out” to him when the tactical AI spoke again. “Final data on losses, first strikes: loss rate twenty-two point three percent,” it intoned in his headset. “Additional damaged to the point of mission kill, nine point three percent. Further breakdown available on request.”
Dan exhaled, gut cramping. That emotionless voice carried no hint of the gravity of what it conveyed. A twenty-plus-percent-loss rate was catastrophic. It put the whole operation in doubt. “Uh, Sea Eagle, check and confirm.”
“Data … checked and confirmed. Update: damaged, nine point seven percent.”
The numbers were trending in the wrong direction. Up on the deck, and aboard the three other supercarriers and five assault carriers supporting the invasion, those planes and UAVs that had survived were refueling. Rearming. Unlike the great battles of 1944 and 1945, the landings of this war weren’t supported by lines of battleships belching smoke and projectiles. Without air support, the ground troops would be mowed down.
And judging by the numbers so far, the enemy were more than ready to meet this assault.
Tomlin turned his head. “Admiral. Those figures are three times the estimated loss rates.”
“I realize that, Lieutenant. What I could use is some explanation why.”
“Advanced antiaircraft missiles. Hypersonic. Extended range.”
“Russian-supplied.”
“Yes sir,” Tomlin said.
The statement hung between them. Dan wanted to rub his face, but found his hands stopped by the smooth outer shell of the helmet. Moscow had sworn piously to stay neutral in this war. But at every opportunity to turn a profit, they’d undercut the Allies. Sold advanced weapons to Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, and China. Jacked up the price on natural gas to Europe, since Mideastern supplies were cut off. Suborned and funded protofascist elements in the Baltic states, Ukraine, Poland, Finland, Germany, and the US. An extension of what they’d been doing even before the war, in what hardly anyone called “peace” any longer.
It was the world Orwell had envisioned. A Hobbesian war of all against all, where one nation’s loss could only be another’s gain.
But maybe it had always and only been that way. Maybe the dreams of world peace, world government, were only that. Dreams.
He shook his head angrily. Keep your mind in the game, Lenson. No philosophical excursions today. “We’re moving in,” he said, and toggled to the brain-to-text function of the helmet. He thought each word distinctly, hard, and watched them appear as a running banner beneath his video. ALL CARRIERS, SCREEN UNITS, AND ASSAULT SUPPORT MOVE FORWARD FROM ASSIGNED POSITIONS. He thought Send and snapped to the AI, “Implement two-hour hold on H hour.”
“H-hour delayed to 0730. Notifying all units.”
In the distance General Isnanta turned his head in Dan’s direction. Dan waited for an objection, but the distant figure only stared, arms crossed. Waiting.
The WTI said, “Sir, that will expose the carriers.”
“Got to sustain our sortie rate, Lieutenant. With fewer aircraft, the only way to do that is to shorten the range.”
“But they might have ballistics left. Or hypersonics. If we lose a carrier—”
“They’re built to take it,” Dan said between gritted teeth.
He didn’t like it either. But for this whole war, JCS had held the carriers back. East of Hawaii the first year, for fear of ballistic and submarine attack. Outside the second island chain the second year, except for one raid on the base complex at Ningbo. Husbanding them, like a retiree afraid of losing his investments. The one positive outcome was that their aviators had acted as training cadres, using the years of risk aversion to generate nine new air wings. Meanwhile, the small boys—submarines, destroyers, frigates, cruisers, plus a few jeep carriers, merchantmen hastily converted with flight decks—had taken the battle to a dangerous enemy.
The bottom line: It was time the supercarriers finally ventured in harm’s way. He said grimly, “Get me numbers. How close do we have to approach to generate the same target-effects rate as originally planned.”
“You’ll need to close main body to within a hundred and twenty miles.” The cool voice of the AI, which had apparently interpreted that question as directed to it.
Up, Dan thought, and rose thousands of feet, smoothly, dizzily, as the sea rolled out a slaty digitized blue beneath him. The battle drew closer. A flickering maelstrom of tinted light, silent but crackling with energy. Coruscating veils of electromagnetic radiation pulsed and wove. Lasers drew pencil-lines. Contacts flickered like dying fireflies, then went dark.
“Second support strike, loss rate thirteen percent,�
� the AI said.
Less, but still far too heavy. But the enemy, too, must be running out of ordnance. Each successful Allied sortie degraded his defenses. A close-run thing, his memory retrieved. Wellington, at Waterloo. Hard pounding this, gentlemen.
Let’s see who will pound longest.
“Keep moving in,” he told the AI. “Flank speed consistent with launch and recovery courses. Release holdbacks on ammo expenditures. Empty the magazines. Retain close-in self-defense only. Ditto with the screening units.”
“Sir, I don’t advise that. You were telling them last night to conserve. We need to guard against—”
“Not now, Lieutenant.”
Tomlin vanished, meaning he’d taken off his helmet. Gone off the matrix. Dan rose higher, until mainland China pushed up behind Hainan. He zoomed in, searching for evidence of reinforcements, for new formations of fighters and attack aircraft arriving to back up the defenders. But only an occasional meteor trail showed units being brought forward. The enemy was fighting, but not reinforcing.
Which meant there were no more reinforcements available.
He just had to keep pounding, then. Until his own magazines were empty, his own aircraft expended, his own forces exhausted. At which point, if his adversary’s will remained unbroken, he would counterattack. Dan would lose the battle, and probably the carriers as well.
Hard pounding, gentlemen.
* * *
ONE hour later they were forty miles closer.
And the losses were climbing again.
Twenty more fighters down at sea, failed to return, or damaged and wrecked on landing. Five more ships hit. Missiles, mines, and a submarine attack on the eastern flank. Two US screen destroyers, two Tarantul-class corvettes, and one of the Vietnamese landing ships, HQ-512, were falling out of formation. The task force was leaving them behind as it ground forward. Dan denied permission for other units to stand by for assistance. Steeled himself against pity, and pressed forward.
Tomlin had returned, with Captain Skinner behind him. Dan lifted his helmet off to confront them face-to-face. “Before you say anything: We’re not turning back,” he told them.
The tactics lieutenant glanced to the carrier’s skipper. Skinner looked wrung out, pale, sleepless. He said, “I’ve lost a quarter of my air wing, Admiral.”
“Admiral, we planned for this,” the WTI pleaded. “If losses got too heavy, we could abort.”
For a second Dan contemplated it. Was he hurtling to disaster? Miscalculating, as Lee had at Gettysburg? Squandering lives in a battle already lost?
The ground forces weren’t even ashore yet, and the task force’s magazines were nearly empty. Billions of dollars’ worth of aircraft were gone. Hundreds of lives. Was he wasting them? What was he after, anyway? Glory?
No. He didn’t value that.
Victory?
He doubted it was still possible, between adversaries that could destroy each other’s homeland in hours. At least, not in the sense warriors had always understood triumph and defeat.
Then what?
It all came down to pressing on.
This was the moment he’d trained all his life for. The courage to stay the course, when disaster and defeat looked you in the face.
“Hard pounding this, gentlemen,” he muttered.
“Sir?” Skinner frowned.
“End of discussion, guys. We keep pounding.” He cut them off by settling the VR helmet back onto his shoulders.
And the vast world within bloomed with fire and light.
* * *
HE toggled to high-side chat and relayed a brief report to PACOM. Enzweiler was sending updates back every half hour too. And the headquarters in Honolulu, and no doubt the Tank and Sit Room in Washington were getting much the same data he was seeing as task force commander. But for the moment, they were staying off the channels and off his back.
He appreciated the forbearance. The Navy had always trusted its commanders, far more so than the other services. Had trusted in their leadership, skill, and integrity.
With that, though, went complete accountability. Unlike so many other institutions, its leaders did not believe in protecting its own. The sea service was remorseless in punishing errors in judgment.
If he guessed wrong today, it would probably be better if he never came home.
He was discussing the defensive missile drawdown rate with his screen commander when buzzers sounded and alarms flashed. The cueing came from the microsatellites. Missiles in boost phase. Probably the carrier killers China had vaunted before the war … and used once before, to destroy the Roosevelt battle group. He toggled to his exterior cameras, to make sure his staff picked it up.
“CSS-5 launch cueing detected. Source, MICE. Confirmed by OTH radar Woody Island,” Sea Eagle told him. A moment later, “Launch area confirmed. Vectoring Global Hawk overhead reconnaissance. Recommend strike as soon as possible, before refire.”
Dan turned to Tomlin. “Lieutenant. Monocacy and Jack Lucas will take the missiles. Can you handle the launchers?”
Tomlin looked taken aback, but nodded. “Yes, sir.” He gestured in the air, and four F-22s peeled off from above Hainan and headed inland. Their callouts spun as they went to afterburner and accelerated.
“Do we have an AOU yet?” Dan asked the AI.
“Still in boost phase. Lucas has cueing, seeking track.”
Dan contemplated this. He had several seconds while the missiles climbed, but not much margin after that. The question was, where were they getting their targeting, and how accurate was it. The D-26 had a maneuvering capability, allowing the terminal body to correct for a limited error in the initial aim point during its hypersonic descent. Roosevelt and the other supercarriers could move off a bull’s-eye at thirty-plus knots, but they still advertised their locations with a monstrously large and unmaskable radar signature, both to operate aircraft and guard against incoming strikes. Both prewar studies and wartime experience had confirmed that the terminal body came in too fast for a warship to rely on repositioning.
“Barbarian, this is Democracy. Initiating Doppelganger.” Skinner, reporting that the unmanned Hunters accompanying the carrier were activating as decoys. They had Nulka rockets too, plus dedicated drones that radiated on the carrier’s frequencies, but the drones were untested against actual Chinese homers.
His air warfare commander: “Barbarian, Lifeline: Lucas reports lock-on, Meteors One through Three.”
Dan said, “All screen units, stand by to squawk flattop.—Eagle, do we have a PI yet? Where are they getting their targeting? I need answers. ASAP.”
He zoomed out, backpedaling away from the sputter of battle ahead. Picking up, far above, the curving tracks of the incoming missiles. They pulsated a bright orange. Hitting pitchover. Beginning the long arc that would burn them over home plate at more than fifteen thousand miles an hour.
Half a megaton. Even with a near miss, the blast overpressure would mission-kill a Ford-class supercarrier at a mile and a half. He toggled to the Air Control circuit, then the cameras on the island. Helicopters and drones were vaulting aloft. The port catapult slung a refueling UAV into the air. Skinner was getting everything up he could, and striking everything else below into the hangar deck.
Dan toggled to brain-to-text. He thought each word separately onto the chyron beneath his video. CONFIRM DECOYS CONFIRM READY TO TAKE DF26 CLOSE ABOARD. He thought it to the other carriers and the screen commander, and squeezed his eyes shut. SEND.
Then waited, as the orange trails curved over, foreshortening. Aimed at him, and those around him. He forced a slow breath. Then another, trying to calm his racing heart.
Then realized his heart wasn’t racing.
He felt cold. Detached.
Above the battle, even as his disembodied body floated above the sea, watching death approach.
“Sea Eagle? Barbarian,” he said.
The AI: “Listening, Admiral.”
“If I go off-line, continue the oper
ation.” The AI was distributed. Processing simultaneously on hundreds of computers. Dan and all the steel around him could be vaporized in a direct hit, gasify in the thermonuclear fireball, but the artificial mind would carry on. “Don’t step back. Don’t call it off. If we backtrack, we can’t win this war.”
“You’re asking for a promise we can’t make, Admiral.”
“I’m giving you a strategic order. Acknowledge and execute.” He cut it off when it tried to speak again.
There was no time left to argue. Only to make a final peace with whatever governed. Fate. Mars. The God of Battles. The Lord of Hosts.
Rising as the sky blackened toward space, he contemplated for one last time the immense armada that still, in the face of grievous losses, clanked steadily forward toward its fated goal. The ragged lines of ships sprawled across the face of the sea. Two hundred miles from the easternmost screen units to the outlying hunters on the west, nearly in sight of the Vietnamese coast. Stragglers and damaged units lay motionless behind them. He couldn’t spare escorts or help. Smearing a trail of wreckage, death, and wounding as he crawled ahead.
Leaving the dead like a million bloody rugs … The coast was surfacing over the horizon as slowly as the rising moon. A multicolored glow like blasted and burning rainbows glimmered and flashed ahead. Gaps marred the screen where ships had been torn apart, topsides smashed, backs broken, on fire, sinking. Borgnine. Norton Girault. Warramunga. Lý Thái Tô. Yos Sudarso.
Just as he’d drilled them, the screen units were widening their sectors to cover the gaps. But each missing destroyer or frigate meant less security for the transports, carriers, and replenishment ships. He could toggle to loss numbers on aircraft, remaining ordnance, sortie rates, but he didn’t. There was no point now. He’d committed everything he had.
But the enemy was striking back hard, and not just with missiles. If Intel was right, he was sacrificing his last reserves too. Untrained pilots in ancient MiGs. The last submarines, old diesel boats, short-ranged, breakdown-prone, hastily pressed back into service.