Humble Beginnings

by KA Hopkins

  Mother offered, “I found a small vacation town a short drive from Fort Meade, Maryland.”

  The first part of the plan had Guide send a false encrypted email message into the NSA secure email network, proposing a face-to-face meeting with the top 200 senior NSA managers and directors to discuss the next phase of increased worldwide electronic surveillance.

  During the weeks prior to the planned meeting, Guide submitted false orders, directing B52 strategic bombers out of Minot AFB, North Dakota and Barksdale AFB, Louisiana to fly to China as a show of force. We leaked the flights to the main stream media who, without confirming the back story with government officials, had their “rentable” experts continuously discuss how great it was for the present administration to finally show China that the USA still had plenty of bite to match her bark. No one in the administration could figure out where the flight orders originated from. In reality, they didn’t look very hard as the media supported the flights, which in turn convinced politicians that a show of force was a great idea. No one in the mainstream media provided much of a critical counter commentary, that it might have been a really bad idea with severe consequences to have sixty year old bombers flying about with live nuclear weapons. The voting public was convinced by the media that tweaking the nose of the red dragon was a great idea. Due to the apparent popularity of this flexing of military might, the President took full credit for it.

  As hoped, the greed of large bonus cheques guaranteed a large turnout of NSA employees. Everyone we targeted showed up. Causing the accident required Guide to orchestrate the air-to-air refueling to take place directly above the vacation town, on a moonless night. The lack of moonlight made picking up the horizon and the tanker position lights difficult, so when Guide flipped the autopilot on, it broke the bomber pilots’ concentration. In trying to disengage the autopilot, the pilots were distracted just enough that the bomber approached the tanker a couple of knots too fast. The boom operator did not catch the subtle incorrect refueling position and was unable to retract the refueling boom in time. The refueling nozzle tip went through the wing of the bomber, just outboard of the fuselage/wing faring, damaging the main spar, causing the starboard wing to fold and break off at the wing root, hitting the tanker tail. Amidst the resulting confusion, Guide used the emergency jettison procedure to eject the nuclear bombs out of the bomb bay, allowing four, seventy kilo ton nuclear weapons to freefall from 25,000 feet.

  Nuclear weapons specially designed to be dropped by aircraft have a number of Enhanced Nuclear Detonation Safety (ENDS) features, to prevent accidental detonation - Guide figured out how to circumvent these.

  The primary safeties on nuclear weapons can be broken down into strong links which are mechanical in nature to prevent all stray electrical paths to the explosives chain, Permissive Action Link (a twelve digit arming code) and Aircraft Monitoring and Control (AMAC), the arming panel on the aircraft. Defeating the software authentication codes of the warhead is impossible for an outsider, but a piece of cake if you know where the top secret alpha numeric codes are stored.

  Circumventing the strong link physical safeties required the correct arming sequence, again not difficult if you know where an electronic copy of the user manual is stored. The manual outlined the order needed: a bomb shackle release, the barometric change of the bomb being dropped from altitude and a parachute opening. The AMAC system was not used on this aircraft model; it had not been upgraded due to budget restraints.

  With all of the physical safeties defeated and the correct detonation code entered, the selected bomb of the four in freefall performed as designed. At roughly 1900 feet above ground, the bomb detonated. For several seconds, a fireball hotter than the surface of the sun touched the Earth and rose to 30,000 feet. It could be seen with the naked eye from one hundred miles away. The fireball turned the small town center into nothing but rubble, a half mile in diameter, with the blast wave knocking down buildings up to three miles away. Nothing survived within the blast radius, not a human, animal or insect. Over 1000 people were killed, missing or injured in the initial explosion; several thousand more would become sick due to radiation poisoning carried by the prevailing winds.

  Having recreated a similar accident scenario from the 1960s, the US government had no reason not to believe that this was just another accident. Truth is, thousands of nuclear weapon handling accidents had occurred over the years; in a few cases the explosives detonated but the bomb fizzled and failed to go critical, as was the case in the 1968 Thule Air Base B52 bomber crash caused by an in-flight fire. With all of the evidence pointing to a tragic accident - not a deliberate planned act - the President blamed the military and forced them to take full responsibility.

  In the weeks following the accident, the investigation teams found numerous deficiencies in the safety standards. No complex system can withstand that much political scrutiny; heads rolled, and senior officers were court-martialed due to the public demand for someone to be held accountable. Best of all, some of those removed were alien collaborators.

  Control of the NSA was no longer in the hands of the aliens, with Guide monitoring all NSA emails and network traffic; we hoped to keep them out for the foreseeable future. It was a big win for us, showing how a small team of highly dedicated individuals can make a big difference against a vastly superior force. We had passed the point of no return.

  Chapter 24 - Making Earth a safer place

  Of all the nuclear threats to the modern world, none are more deadly than the ballistic missile submarines of the five super powers (no insult to Israel, India, Pakistan or North Korea who are rumored to also have nuclear weapons.) While there are less than forty active ballistic missile submarines worldwide, the more than 500 missiles they carry with their Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs) have nearly 3000 nuclear warheads - more than enough to destroy every country on the planet many times over. The submarines are silent and autonomous, fully capable of launching without National command authority during an enemy first strike. We needed to disable these independent players, on the off chance that a ballistic missile submarine captain might misinterpret our attacks as first strikes on his homeland and take the initiative to launch.

  The tricky part was how to disable these submarines without causing an environmental nightmare in the oceans. Due to their multi-billion dollar price tags, few nations can afford ballistic missile submarines, so there were not that many to find and destroy. Still, we had to find a way to safely disable nearly forty, USA - Ohio, United Kingdom - Vanguard, French - Le Triomphant, Russian - Borei, Typhoon, Delta III & IV and Chinese - Type 092 and 094 class ballistic missile submarines. To add to the challenge, simultaneous attacks were required worldwide, as at any one time, half to two thirds of the fleets are at sea, with the remainder in dry dock maintenance or tied up in home port.

  Omni provided the types, sizes, capabilities and weaknesses of the superpower submarines, which was helpful information but of limited use. Omni, although a technological masterpiece, capable of storing an amazing amount of data, had limited reasoning ability. I needed to work out the answer on my own and I was fresh out of ideas.

  “Mother, do you have any ideas on attacking numerous ballistic missile submarines hidden all over the world’s oceans?” Before Mother could respond, Marc jumped in. “Did you even try to work this out on your own?”

  “Nope, not even a little bit,” I said. I heard him mutter “dumbass.”

  Marc asked, “What’s the number one factor a ballistic missile submarine depends upon for its defense? I’ll give you a hint - it’s their ability to hide. Remove that ability and they are pretty much useless as a nuclear deterrent.”

  A scan through the list of weaknesses provided by Omni revealed that the weakest part of any submarine is the propeller. Each propeller is custom built and the shapes are highly classified - this made them rare and hard to replace. Damaging the propeller at sea, while under load, will disable the sub immediately, forcing it to surface. T
he unbalanced propeller, in a matter of seconds, will severely stress the drive train and more than likely bend the drive shaft, resulting in months of dry dock time. Even a stationary submarine, hit while in port, will require weeks of dry dock time to replace its propeller, assuming replacements are available. Either way, ballistic missile submarines confined to port are not much of a deterrent. We had their Achilles heel.

  The easiest way to damage the propeller was to attach explosives to one or more of the seven blades. Preventive security measures at all submarine bases consist of fences, radio/cell phone jammers, land/water armed patrols, nets, sonar and mines, all designed to stop a human frogman or something as large as a dolphin - but a smaller object, say a fifteen to twenty pound mechanical fish carrying a ten pound C4 charge, could sneak in undetected.

  For the submarines at sea, Mother suggested a remote autonomous vehicle (RAV), used for space reconnaissance missions. Without modifications, the RAV could withstand water pressures down to 1500 feet; since only a single charge could be carried, we decided 150 pounds of C4 should do the trick. We directed Mother to start production on thirty copies of the RAV, more than enough to track all the subs at sea. Finding their locations was the next trick. For this we would use Earth satellites, such as Geosat, ERS-1 and dozens of similar ones.

  For many years, mapping of the ocean bottom was done through sonar on ships. In the 1970s it was discovered that satellite altimetry could map the ocean floor from space. It works on the principle of ocean-floor geographic variances cause bumps and troughs on the ocean surface, due to the minute variations in the Earth’s gravitational field. The variations cannot be detected by the naked eye, but can be measured by very accurate satellite radars, that have a minimum vertical resolution of one inch. With a vertical resolution of 0.04in - or twenty-five times the normal mapping resolution - the Bernoulli Hump (the disturbance caused by the wake of a submarine) is detectable. From the size of the wake, you can determine the size of the submarine, its class and ultimately which nation it belongs to. The plan was to use digitally enhanced overlapping radar altimeter telemetry to find every deployed ballistic missile submarine at sea and disable them.

  Maritime satellites operate in a low Earth orbit, circling the Earth roughly fourteen times a day, with a spot resolution diameter of six to ten miles, moving at three miles per second. A single satellite can map the entire Earth’s surface in one-and-a-half years. Due to the one inch radar resolution and the slow mapping coverage, a single satellite is not very useful for finding submersed submarines. Furthermore, in the off chance that a satellite randomly picks up a submarine near the surface, where the submarine’s pressure wave would cause a detectable displacement, the submarine patrol routes are created to cross the satellite tracks at a ninety degree angle whenever possible.

  Guide hacked the downlinks of nearly a hundred weather, ocean radar and spy satellites, picking ones with orbital inclinations from the equator to the poles. The different orbital inclinations provided enough satellite track variation so that every kilometer of the Earth’s oceans were covered. Guide used Mother’s massive processing ability to overlap and combine all available radar images, which enhanced the resolution from one inch to 0.04in and formed a virtual grid system of fifty by fifty miles over the entire Earth. By using a large virtual grid and many satellites, the mapping refresh period changed from years to hours.

  Submarines cruising at twenty to twenty-five knots would cross one or more of the virtual grid lines every couple of hours. By tracking all of the crossing points, direction and speed could be calculated. Once direction and speed are confirmed, we could pin down the submarine to a single 2500 square mile box. Mother would fly over the area at high speed, using blue-green pulsed laser to detect changes in water temperature caused by the submarine’s wake, to pin point the exact location. Mother would then drop the modified RAV, which used a similar drive system to the scout ship. Without any propeller noise to alert the sub crew, the RAV could silently shadow the submarine. After six weeks every ballistic missile submarine on patrol in the world, had a 150 pound C4 undetectable RAV “shadow.”

  For ballistic missile submarines in home port, Mother created a mechanical fish I nicknamed Wally - because of its one hundred percent dedication to the task, just like the movie character. Once programmed with a target and released within fifty miles of it, these mechanical fish would find a way into the submarine pen, any way possible, and remain there undetected for weeks.

  Each Wally weighed twenty pounds with a ten pound C4 charge, could swim at 20 mph, jump up to ten feet out of the water, cross several miles of land using a gait similar to a snake, and had sufficient power for up to four weeks of continuous operations. We had our QRF teams travel to each of the super power ballistic missile submarine bases and released seven Wallys for each submarine in port, ensuring each propeller blade would sustain damage. The mechanical fish easily circumvented the defensive measures designed for larger threats; once inside the submarine pens they swam around staying out of sight, waiting for the attack signal. Seven Wallys for each submarine was overkill, as one damaged blade was enough to make the submarine sound like a rock concert going through the water, but I wanted the props to be damaged beyond any possible repair.

  Mother checked the status reports from the Wallys and the RAVs. “All devices have reported nominal and on station.”

  I looked at Marc and he shrugged his shoulders, “Don’t look at me with those puppy dog eyes, once we nuked NSA there was no going back.”

  I said to Mother, “On my mark, execute. Three, two, one, mark.”

  Chapter 25 - Big Lou

  Captain Charles “Chuck” Roper was on his last patrol as commander of the SSBN Louisiana, a USN Ohio class ballistic missile submarine commonly called a “boomer.” She was the last in her class, commissioned in 1997. Big Lou carried twenty-four Trident II D5 Sub Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBM) with twelve Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles (MIRV). Each MIRV was twenty to thirty times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. At his fingertips, the Captain had enough nuclear firepower to lay waste to 300 medium to large size cities. The Ohio was the most destructive class of warship in the world.

  Big Lou had served her country with distinction for nearly thirty years. Created during the height of the cold war, she and her fellow SSBN Ohio class ballistic missile submarines presented a first and second strike capability against Russia and China as part of the Mutual Assurance Destruction (MAD) doctrine, which guaranteed an outcome so unthinkable that no one would dare use it. The whole premise of MAD was ensuring neither side won; each side possessed sufficient nuclear destructive capability to wipe out all life on Earth many times over. You can argue all you want about the merits or weaknesses of the doctrine - in the end it poured trillions of dollars into research, development and fielding of weapons that were never used. The whole MAD doctrine was expensive peace, but still considerably cheaper than World War III.

  After twenty-four years in the Navy, with half of that deployed onboard subs, Captain Roper was more than ready to let someone else take over protecting the free world. Make no bones about it, he was proud of his service to his country, his boat, and his crew (in that order) and seldom engaged in the senior officer wardroom bullshit sessions on how the new navy chickenshit regulations didn’t match the values and traditions of the old navy. New navy, old navy - he believed the arguments were pointless and trained his crew to his interpretation of naval regulations, ensuring they were the best of the best. The boat and crew were as operationally ready as any time in her thirty year history. Not that there was much of a foreign enemy threat of late - the Russian SSBN fleet for the most part, only put three of their ten subs on patrol and the Chinese were lucky to get two of their six on patrol.

  Even then their boats seldom made it through an entire cruise without having to return to port for repairs. It was hard to keep his crew motivated to meet the high standards demanded,
given the lack of a credible threat for the past fifteen years. But until Big Lou was tied up in home port and was officially handed over to her next captain in two weeks, there were more drills to run.

  Captain Roper walked into the control room and commanded the officer of the watch: “Report!”

  “No subsurface, surface or air contacts, threat board is clear, latest intelligence threat assessment from COMSUBPAC reports no enemy threats of any kind. Deep water under the keel, we are at 800 feet, twenty knots, bearing 072 magnetic. Current position is latitude 21 degrees 35 minutes 52 seconds North, Longitude 169 degrees 59 minutes 15 seconds East. Next course turn in twenty minutes, all systems report nominal. In short, Captain, we are good to go, completely alone in the middle of the Pacific.”

  Captain Roper laughed at the non-standard comment tacked to the end of the status report; it was a true indication of the trust he and his officers shared in their working relationship.

  “Everything nominal, that works for me, carry…”

  Before he could complete his sentence the RAV shadowing his boat detonated 150 pounds of C4 next to the propeller hub. The explosion of the C4 deafened everyone on board, causing the hull to ring like a bell. Everything not securely bolted down bounced off walls, floors and ceilings. Numerous crew members not secured at their duty action stations suffered broken bones. Of the fifteen officers and one hundred forty crew onboard, half were injured.

  On top of the hull ringing, Captain Roper could hear and feel, through the deck plates, the propulsion steam turbines over-rev past the optimum propeller cruise design speed of 280 rpm, as the explosion caused a massive air bubble to surround the propeller. The air bubble reduced the propeller load from that required to push 18,750 tons at twenty knots, to nothing. Unloaded, the propeller was free to over-speed well past its design limit before the prop rev limiter could engage. What was left of the propeller blades, not damaged in the initial blast bit into the water as the explosive air bubble collapsed upon itself. The sudden increase in load caused the over-revved propeller to come to an abrupt halt.