by Peter Nealen
“That is going to complicate matters.” Vetter didn’t sound bothered, though. “We don’t want to get into a position where we might end up exchanging fire with the US Navy. Not that we’re afraid of them so much as they are our countrymen, no matter how much the Navy’s been eroded over the last couple decades, or the fact that their commanders’ orders will not allow them to cooperate with us.” He scratched his chin. “In fact, I’d be willing to bet they’re under standing orders to move against anyone doing exactly what we’re out here to do. If only to try to keep things calm between DC and Beijing.”
“She’s right, though. If the reports we got from the inside about the damage that LNG tanker did are accurate, the Navy’s not in any shape to fight a shooting war in the South Pacific.” Laki stood next to the TV, his huge arms crossed over his chest, glaring at the screen.
“Then it’s a good thing we didn’t plan on the Navy helping us out the way the Army has in Europe.” Vetter still wasn’t overly perturbed. He looked over at Habu. “If the Chinese think they’ve got the Philippine government buffaloed, and are moving more ships toward Palawan, now might be the time to suggest they be a little more cautious…”
Chapter 15
The sky was a clear, spotless blue. The water, unfortunately, was somewhat less so. Constant Chinese sewage dumping in the South China Sea had taken its toll. Even Second Thomas Shoal, which had only been in Chinese hands for a little over a month, was seeing the pollution, with the consequent algae blooms turning the water green. Hank was glad they weren’t planning on a dive insert.
He was standing in the Jacqueline Q’s boathouse, along with Chan, Smythe, a Philippine Marine captain named Yadao, and Yadao’s platoon sergeant, a short, wiry, hard-eyed man named Villamor. Neither of the marines were in uniform. This was one of those kinds of operations. Both men were wearing loose-fitting civilian clothing, underneath which they could easily conceal low-profile chest rigs.
All of them were watching the activity around Second Thomas Shoal, just over eight nautical miles distant. The Chinese hadn’t come out to investigate the Jacqueline Q yet, but that was largely because a couple other vessels in the Triarii raider flotilla were holding their attention.
One was another fishing trawler, this one without an infantry section aboard. In fact, most of the crew really were fishermen, complete with a contract with the Philippine government allowing them to fish in Philippine waters. That two of them were also technicians for the carefully-concealed weaponry aboard the vessel was only an added bonus.
The second was a modified container ship. Not one of the heavily modified, disguised helicopter carriers, but rather more of an arsenal ship, with dozens of the containers on her deck concealing launch cells for missiles, drones, and torpedoes. None of those weapons were top-of-the-line, or especially high-tech, but they’d do the trick. Testing them had been difficult, given the universal surveillance all over the world, but careful use of weather and satellite angles had given the Triarii and their support network a few openings for weapons testing in the Gulf of Mexico, before the fleet had left.
While the smaller Bill Collector appeared to be far more agile, and more likely to be the escort for the bigger AS Rosalinda, in point of fact, the converted container ship was there to protect the fishing trawler.
Hank watched the Chinese vessels and the construction on the shoal through powerful binoculars. Yadao was doing the same next to him, though the other man kept looking at his watch.
“Give it time.” Hank had just seen Yadao look for about the tenth time in the last fifteen minutes. The other man suddenly grinned sheepishly.
“I know. But I wish we were more on the offensive. Then this would be on our timeline.” Yadao clearly was much more used to hunting Abu Sayyaf and IS on the bigger islands.
“It is on our timeline, Captain,” Hank reminded him. “This is guerrilla warfare. It’s a patient man’s game.” He wasn’t watching either the Bill Collector or the Rosalinda. He was watching the Chinese ships.
The Xuchang and Kunming had moved in closer to Palawan over the last thirty-six hours, officially as part of the so-called “counter-piracy” operations that the PLAN was now using to justify their power play on the island. That left only the Chinese Coast Guard cutter to guard the merchantmen, construction support vessels, and the gaggle of fishing trawlers on Second Thomas Shoal. The other two Type 052 destroyers were still off to the northwest, on the other side of Subi Reef. At least, that was where they were supposed to be.
The drones were keeping an eye out for them. If they decided to intervene, as things stood now, the Triarii might have to scatter.
Hank hoped—and he knew that Vetter was on the same page—that they could do this carefully and subtly enough that the Chinese wouldn’t even know what had happened until all was said and done.
In many ways, it was a very Chinese way of making war. Hank had—on Wallace’s recommendation—brought an extensive reading list on this voyage, to study the enemy’s way of war. The main thing he’d taken away from the large stack of books, especially the Seven Military Classics of Ancient China and Unrestricted Warfare, was that the Chinese liked to maneuver their opponents into a disadvantageous position before they struck. They’d certainly done it with the US. And with everyone else they’d put under their thumb over the decades before, from Latin America to Africa. And part of how they’d done it was by approaching things that the West didn’t normally think of as “warfare” as acts of war.
All without admitting it, of course.
What the Triarii and their Philippine allies were doing here was a little more in the sphere of open warfare. But they were also turning the Chinese’ use of fishing vessels and other ostensibly commercial platforms as guerrilla warfare weapons against them, as well.
The Chinese Coast Guard mega-cutter—which was bigger than a Ticonderoga-class cruiser—was moving out to the southern point of the shoal as the Bill Collector got closer and closer, still apparently fishing. The Jacqueline Q was too far away to pick up the warnings over the mega-cutter’s loudspeakers, but Hank suspected that they were almost identical to the warnings that they’d gotten the last time they’d done a close pass by the occupied reef. “Attention! You are entering Chinese territorial waters! Please turn around immediately! I repeat, please turn around immediately!” The fact that the Philippines’ claim to Second Thomas Shoal had been internationally recognized for decades didn’t matter to the ChiComs.
The Bill Collector continued blithely on its way, on course to move along the west coast of the shoal. The Triarii aboard might be fishermen by trade, some having never served in the military, but they had balls. Especially since Hank knew that every man aboard was well aware that that cutter was armed with two 76mm guns, two 30mm cannon, and two anti-aircraft machineguns, probably at least 12.7mm QJZ-89s. Any one of those weapons would easily turn the Bill Collector into a smoking ruin. She had no armor to speak of. Her only defenses were the high-tech weapons concealed in her hull, two defensive MAG-58s, and her otherwise inoffensive appearance.
Not that any of the Triarii in the South China Sea at that point were under any illusions that the Communist Chinese would let an inoffensive appearance deter them from sending a ship to the bottom.
They’d probably make themselves out as the victims afterward, too.
The cutter was now interposing itself between the Bill Collector and the shoal. On the drone feed, Hank could see those 76mms turning toward the Bill Collector.
“Come on, don’t wait too long.” He only realized when Yadao glanced over at him that he’d said it out loud. That wasn’t something he usually did, but he felt for those guys out there. They were entirely dependent on the Rosalinda to cover them. They had the capability—theoretically—to severely debilitate the mega-cutter with the weapons they did have aboard. But if they waited too long, either through doubt that it would work—and there was doubt; the systems aboard hadn’t had nearly enough testing in Hank’s estimati
on—or through simply hoping for the perfect shot, they’d probably either get boarded or fired upon before they could engage.
“They’re about two thousand yards and closing.” Chan was watching the drone feed. There was more data there than either Hank or Yadao could see through their binoculars. But there was just something about watching the events with his own eyes that appealed more to Hank. “Come on, Cash.” Clearly, Chan was feeling it as much as Hank was.
There were about thirty Triarii raiders, of various types, slowly converging on Second Thomas Shoal. The Jacqueline Q, the Scarlet Queen, and the Prosperity were all carrying Philippine marines in mufti. They only had two targets, but they’d prepared for at least one ship not to make it to the objective, either due to mechanical failure or hostile Chinese action.
All three were converted fishing trawlers, armed with disappearing 30mm cannon, smoke dispensers, drones, and at least one section of Triarii infantry. The Jacqueline Q was by far the biggest. None of them could take that cutter in a stand-up fight, though.
Which was why a stand-up fight wasn’t in the cards.
Still, timing was going to be everything. And the mega-cutter wasn’t alone anymore. Half a dozen green-hulled fishing trawlers had started to close in on the Bill Collector, with armed men gathering at their rails. The People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia was about to go to work.
In response, while it wasn’t obvious from sea level, the Rosalinda was opening several of her launch cells and opening the firing ports for her own guns.
“Initiating.” The one-word transmission crackled over the radio from the Bill Collector.
“That’s our cue.” Hank looked over at Smythe, but the captain didn’t need the prompting. He was already starting the Jacqueline Q moving toward the shoal. They would have a narrow window to make this work.
“Jammers are up,” Chan announced. “Drone feed just went all fuzzy.” He looked up and out the windscreen at the front of the bridge. “I just hope we got the right freq range.”
“You and everybody else out here today.” Hank wanted to head below and get ready with the rest of his section for the next phase. But they were already jocked up, they’d been over the plan and done walk-through, talk-throughs so many times they could have done it in their sleep. There were no more preparations to make. Everything that could have been done prior had been done.
They just had to wait a little bit longer. And he may as well watch the opening phases play out. They might well have bearing on what the Triarii infantry did on target.
As the full-spectrum jamming started, several disguised emitters on the Bill Collector’s boathouse started to pulse infrasonic waves at just under 100 Hz at the mega-cutter. How many emitters had been needed, at what power level, to affect the entire ship had been the cause of a great deal of debate Stateside, when the raiders had been designed. They could only hope that they’d gotten the math right.
At first, there was nothing to see. Infrasonic weapons aren’t flashy, and they don’t create any immediately observable effect. But they can get through a lot of material, including buildings and vehicles, which made them potentially effective for at least temporarily incapacitating a ship’s crew. At that frequency, the resonance could cause pain, blurred vision, fatigue, bowel spasms, and respiratory distress.
If enough of the mega-cutter’s crew suffered those symptoms, they might paralyze the ship, at least for a little while.
The cutter had turned to parallel the Bill Collector’s course, and at first there was no sign that anything had happened. Hank started to feel a tightness in his chest as his adrenaline started to pump. Had it worked? Or was the entire plan doomed to failure because some egghead had oversold the weapons?
Then the cutter started to veer to starboard. It wasn’t by much, but after a few moments, it became apparent that the ship wasn’t under full control. She was drifting.
Smythe saw it too. He increased the Jacqueline Q’s throttle to full. It would still take most of an hour to reach their target. The tyranny of distance at sea made itself felt again.
As for the missile and torpedo boats, also disguised as fishing boats and other commercial vessels, currently closing in on the momentarily disabled Chinese cutter, they would be in range far more quickly.
Chapter 16
About a dozen of the converging vessels were equipped with missiles and drones, but those were intended for use only as a last resort. This operation was delicate, at best. While the objective was to clear the Chinese off and retake Second Thomas Shoal for the Philippines, it had to be done in such a way that exactly what had happened was unclear to anyone analyzing the events after the fact. That meant that open missile launches and drone strikes were off the table, at least at first.
Subsurface warfare, however, was another matter.
Most purpose-built torpedo boats have the torpedo tubes mounted on the deck. That had created a problem when the Triarii had been planning this offensive, since every one of the raiders had to appear to be a harmless civilian craft. That meant that they couldn’t have visible torpedo tubes or missile cells on deck. For the torpedo boats, they had therefore installed the tubes on the outside of the hull, below the water line. It affected the boats’ handling somewhat, and reloading was difficult, but it kept their true purpose disguised from outside observers.
That went against the Laws of War, of course, but the Chinese had already demonstrated their complete disregard for said laws, so as far as Colonel Santiago was concerned, that meant the gloves were off.
Hank wasn’t sure where that was going to lead. So far, the Triarii—to the best of his knowledge—had avoided the temptation to take the war to the enemy with all the savagery that their enemies had already displayed, especially in places like Mexico and the Southwest. He knew that it was only a matter of time, though. Colonel Santiago had a pretty ironclad set of rules of engagement and comportment for the Triarii, but the more dispersed their operations became—and the nastier their enemies played the game—the more likely somebody was going to step over that line.
At this point, it was only a matter of disguised warships. But the follow-up might get dicey. After all, more than one Triarii commander had already uttered the time-honored joke that, “It still counts as a stealth mission if there are no survivors.”
Hank put the worries aside. He’d worked with most of the Triarii commanders involved, at least during the train-up before they had departed the Gulf of Mexico. They were pros. The likelihood that they’d run into the sort of atrocity that would provoke any of them to go off the reservation out here on the shoals and islands of the Spratlys seemed pretty slim.
On the surface, everything seemed weirdly calm. The Bill Collector continued blithely on its way, even as the Chinese mega-cutter drifted, enough of its crew feeling the effects of the infrasonics that they were unable to keep the ship on course, let alone effectively try to engage the trawler. It wasn’t drifting toward the shoal at the moment, but instead was wallowing out to sea.
There had been debates as to whether to try to board the massive cutter or just sink it. Eventually, it had been decided that sinking it would be less trouble. The Triarii fleet was still relatively small, and pretty dispersed. To concentrate enough forces to take on every target ship on Second Thomas Shoal risked giving the game away too soon.
Now that the cutter was drifting off to sea, while her supporting maritime militia trawlers closing in—still apparently unsure what to do—a seagoing tug was moving toward the cutter’s course. The tug wasn’t one of the attack vessels. Not technically.
It was the trojan horse.
The cutter was slowing as the Bill Collector continued the invisible attack. One or more of the Chinese coast guard officers must have realized what was going on, or simply that the longer they kept going full speed ahead, the more likely something was going to go wrong. But it was already too late.
The tug wasn’t manned. That had taken a lot of money, time, and effort, but th
e tech geeks had managed to put in a relatively simple and easy to manipulate autopilot program. Considering the fact that the tug wouldn’t be expected to do any serious maneuvering, that hadn’t been as difficult as trying to create a truly autonomous drone, but it had still presented some significant challenges, since few ships were completely computer controlled, even now.
The tug chugged along, right across the cutter’s course, and the big, cruiser-sized ship plowed right into it.
A few seconds later, the two dozen torpedoes, launched by almost as many disguised ships moving along the sea lane between Second Thomas Shoal and Mischief Reef, came screaming in from multiple points of the compass.
Those torpedoes were far from the sophisticated Mk 48 or Mk 50 torpedoes the Navy carried. Designed and built privately in quiet, unassuming facilities on the Gulf Coast of Texas, they were a lot closer to the much older Mark 18 electric torpedo used by American submarines in the latter half of the Second World War, albeit with quite a few modern but inexpensive improvements to avoid the problems that had plagued the Mark 18s in the early ‘40s. They were much cheaper and simpler than the modern torpedoes, which made their deployment en masse much easier.