by David Poyer
Shaking off dread, he stretched until vertebrae popped. Above his head, the ship’s call-sign flags snapped in the wind.
When he looked back into the pilothouse the officer of the deck, the junior officers, the enlisted watchstanders, all glanced quickly away.
He lifted his chin, blinked, and tried to look more confident than he felt.
* * *
THE thing, whatever it was, fell very slowly. Which Wenck said meant it was probably some kind of winged craft. It drifted down from altitude, painting more clearly on their screens with each thousand feet it lost. When it reached ten thousand feet, Dan tasked Kristensen to recover. The destroyer sent its helo, and a rescue diver plunged into the sea. The helo lifted, circling, but kept its video feed going. In CIC, Dan and Singhe stood watching the diver approach the floating object. One wing was crumpled, the other outspread. They were all but transparent, a gossamer film stretched over a complex frame. It looked like a giant wasp, complete with stinger. The diver paused a few feet away and took pictures before swimming closer.
He put out a glove and touched a wing gingerly.
When he was back in the helo and the thing was being winched up, Wenck and Jamail, the intel officer, were huddled in a corner discussing the imagery. Dan checked the radar picture, then strolled over. “What’d we catch, Donnie?”
“It’s a drone. Of sorts.” The chief flattened his cowlick, looking impressed. “A hybrid LTA and HTA. And some of this stuff looks like cell phone components. Cheap. Expendable.”
“In English?”
“Halfway between lighter than air and heavier than air. Those big, long wings—they’re probably filled with hydrogen. The ribs are lightweight foam. The dark elements on the back are solar cells. This central pod contains the computer, camera, and control actuators, and the antenna streams out the back, like a stinger. They’re probably linked, relaying data back.” The chief shook his head, grinning. “A network! A hundred of these up there, at a hundred thousand feet … you’d cover the whole western Pacific.”
Dan bent over the screen, where Wenck had sketched an outline diagram. “Okay, but … what the heck makes it go? I don’t see any propellers, no engine—”
“Maybe it doesn’t need it,” Jamail said. “With a combination of floating and gliding, and enough smarts to seek out air currents, it could ride the wind … like an upper-atmosphere albatross.”
“Good name,” Dan said. “Call it the Albatross, Qazi. Send these photos to Fleet. Info PaCom, CNO, and everybody else you can think of. This is how China does ocean surveillance without satellites.”
“And the radar section’s negligible,” Singhe said, next to him. “With all that plastic, all that film. We’re probably only detecting one in every ten.”
At that moment he realized, looking at the photos of the broken creature, that it had probably provided the enemy with their location, and no doubt pictures, too. Relaying exactly where his task force was, and what tempting prey limped along at its heart.
With the realization, he spun and hit the 21MC lever. “Combat, CTG. Signal all screen units: Return to Formation Golf.” The dispersed pattern he’d set up to invite their attackers in. If they’d seen Hornet’s smoke plume—
A petty officer leaned from a console. “Sir! Farncomb reports passive sonar contact. Bearing zero-six-zero, depth two-zero-zero feet, forty-two thousand yards. Permission to engage.”
“Negative,” Dan said. “Do not engage. Continue on base course. Remain covert unless individually targeted. —Qazi! Add that to the report to Fleet.”
He straightened, easing his back, then headed for his chair.
The battle had begun.
* * *
THE threat revealed itself gradually. One reason why ASW also stood for Awfully Slow Warfare. Over the first hours, the Australian submarine, submerged and running in close to total quiet, reported five distinct contacts. Dan relayed the detections to Fleet as they came in. The buoy line laid across his advance tracked them as they crept in. Dan asked Min Su Hwang, his liaison with the Koreans, to warn the admiral, but found he’d already sent Jung a heads-up on ASW chat.
Longley brought a covered tray in at noon. Dan forced himself to down half a ham-and-cheese sandwich, three sweet pickles, and some chips. His staff had taken over the left half of CIC, since Flag Plot had been wrecked. Wenck, Singhe, Danenhower, Hwang, and the intel officer, Jamail, and his J3, Ops, Enzweiler, were all within speaking distance. Sandy Graciadei was in the captain’s chair, not six feet from Dan, but their exchanges were muted by a distinct chill.
She finally spoke when the first goblins—submerged hostiles—altered course to pass north and south of the lead South Korean frigate. “Admiral. Are we going to take them?”
“Not yet, Sandy.”
“Once they’re inside our defensive perimeter—”
“Then they’re in our kill zone. I want as many there as we can suck in. Just make sure you have enough 60s on deck, armed and fueled.”
“We could use some help. P-8s?”
“They’re on the way. And there might be some Air Force help too. If we really get our backs against the wall out here.”
She frowned. “Air Force? Against submarines?”
“I know, I know. But that’s what PaCom said. They wouldn’t give any more details.”
Hornet’s skipper looked doubtful but sat back, smoothing her hair.
At 1310 a P-8 from Wake reported in. Dan asked for sweeps to the north and south. With only five out of twenty-six enemy units accounted for, he wanted advance warning of any end-arounds. He slid out of his chair and stood behind the petty officer at the eavesdropping console. “Nothing out there? No sub radars, radio transmissions?”
“Just us, and the long-range radars on Wake.”
He scratched his head. How was this pack coordinating? The Germans had used shortwave radio. TF 76 was using the just-activated MOUSE satcomm uplinks, to dozens of hastily launched microsatellites in low orbits.
Unless … unless the Albatrosses had a comm relay function as well.
He was about to ask Wenck about this when the patrol air reported multiple contacts from ten miles astern and to the south of the leading incomers. Four new datums winked up on the display, showing two distinct enemy groups now.
The ship’s ASW air coordinator had perforce become Dan’s. A short Puerto Rican, Commander Soler, held up a hand at his console. Carpenter sat beside him, headphones clamped to the old sonarman’s ears. “Two elements, Admiral, angling in from the north and the south,” Soler muttered.
“Where are they headed?” Graciadei asked.
“Looks like, right for us,” Carpenter said. Soler’s keyboard clicked, and lines of advance lit on the display. Both elements were headed past Seoul, at the center and lead of the formation. The lines crossed one mile ahead of the blue circle and cross that represented Hornet.
Graciadei asked Dan, “How far in do you intend to let them come, Admiral?”
He chewed his cheek, wondering himself. The enemy was already close enough to launch missiles. Why hadn’t they? Probably, feared his close-in air defenses too much. He couldn’t let them get inside torpedo range too. If he lost control, this battle could degenerate into a mad swirl of individual combats. In a melee, the side with more numbers usually won. He had to make the right call. Whites of their eyes? Or hold them at arm’s length?
No, he couldn’t risk a knife fight. But so far, they didn’t seem to know he had them on his displays. The passive buoys, bobbing quietly on the surface, gave the enemy no warning. They couldn’t hear the P-8, either, or detect it on radar unless they pushed a mast above the surface. Which they must know would instantly make them a target in a calm sea like this.
CIC was dead silent, except for the endless whisper of air-conditioning.
“All right,” he said, praying that his timing was right and he hadn’t overlooked anything. And that luck, plain old luck, would turn out to be on their side. “Let’s dro
p some bad news on these guys.”
* * *
THE first salvo, air-dropped from Hornet’s and McClung’s helos, took out two boats. Sonar reported breaking-up noises. The shrieks of rending steel, the pops of imploding compartments, slowly faded. The bottom of this abyssal basin was four miles down. Vectored in to the northern group, the P-8 parachute-dropped eight Mark 54s on Soler’s vectors, plotted at the intersections of sonobuoy bearings. Only one seemed to connect, though. Dan was disappointed, but not surprised. The Mark 54 had gotten a poor rating from DOT&E before the war. Sejong picked up the engagement via a convergence zone, though she was far to the north, and reported indications of damage on the single enemy who’d been hit. But not a sinking.
Farncomb requested permisson once more to attack. Instead Dan ordered the Australian boat to open to the north, and made sure all screen units knew where she was, to avoid blue on blue. He needed her ears more than her torpedoes.
The helicopters roved back and forth, stitching the sea with more hydrophones as the task force and the incoming pack slowly interpenetrated like colliding galaxies.
Three down, six to go. But those half dozen came on inexorably, and he couldn’t be sure they’d picked them all up. There were too many left unaccounted for.
The southern group abruptly went sinker, vanishing as completely as if they’d never been built. Carpenter called, “They bought a thermocline. Nice ’n’ handy. But they can’t hear us under there, either.” The helos clustered above where they’d vanished, then spiraled outward in expanding-search patterns. Soler recommended that the formation turn away to the north. Dan shook his head grimly. Turning away wasn’t going to win this battle.
The first torpedoes hit Green Bay, to the north of the main body, and ROKN Jeonnam, to the southeast of Savo, nearly simultaneously. Both ships began slowing. Unfortunately, the enemy boats, most likely AIP-equipped Yuan-class units, stayed unlocatable. Dan gritted his teeth and asked for damage reports.
The boats still being tracked were closing on Savo Island, southeast of Hornet and fifteen thousand yards out. Dan figured they were almost within torpedo range too. He picked up the tactical voice. “Matador, this is Barbarian, over.”
“Matador, over.” Dave Branscombe’s familiar voice.
“Heads up on two goblins bearing approximately one-two-five true, range sixteen thousand yards from you. Do you hold them active sonar? Over.”
“This is Matador. We see the datums on the shared picture, but negative contact on anything along that bearing. Over.”
This was worrisome. The cruiser’d had problems with its sonar before. Excessive self-noise, and reduced sensitivity figures.
He was pressing the Transmit button again when the ASW coordinator spoke up. “Rocket noise bearing one-two-five. Correlates with Shkval launch.” Dan let up on the button, then pressed harder. Waiting ages until the circuit beeped and synced, scrambling the transmission to any listener who didn’t hold the key.
“Cheryl, did you hear that?” he said urgently. “Shkval launch. On you. Get your ass out of there!”
* * *
FIFTEEN thousand yards distant, Cheryl Staurulakis went rigid in her chair. The shout from Sonar had swiveled every head in Combat. “Shkval in the water. Bearing one-two-zero!”
Beside her Matt Mills was typing rapidly. “Two hundred knots. Six thousand yards a minute … two minutes until impact.”
She pressed the 21MC key. “Bridge, CO: Come to flank emergency. Course three-zero-zero. Sound the collision alarm.” Even at flank the cruiser would be traveling much more slowly than the Shkval, but the rocket’s burn time was limited. Making it a stern chase just might save them. She shouted across the compartment, which was already slanting into a hard turn, “Activate Rimshot.” The collision alarm came on, a shrill dit dit dit, dit dit dit. Warning everyone to brace for shock.
According to the Tactical Analysis Group, the Russian weapon was magnetically guided. An internal generator, driven by steam tapped off the envelope of gas in which the torpedo traveled, generated a powerful field around the torpedo. Internal sensors monitored that field, alert for deformations by outside influences.
Such as large masses of steel.
Navy warships already carried degaussing equipment, to strip off their natural magnetic fields. That protected them from mines. But to fool the Shkval, something more had been needed. Activated, Rimshot’s sensors searched for approaching magnetic fields. If they detected one, they drew on the ship’s power to generate a pulse simulating a mass of iron thirteen times the size of the ship itself.
Causing, or so the Naval Research Laboratory claimed, an incoming warhead to detonate prematurely.
Unfortunately, no one had yet tested it against a live Shkval-K.
“CIC, bridge: All engines flank emergency, coming to course three-zero-zero.”
“Very well,” she snapped. “Is Rimshot on?”
“AN/UYK-98 activated,” Chief Zotcher confirmed.
“One minute,” said Mills, beside her.
“Bridge, CO: All hands aft of frame 150, lay forward of frame 150. Reset Condition Zebra behind you.” Maybe save a few lives, when the thing hit. Though with a shaped charge, and depleted uranium behind it, there might not be much left of the ship afterward. Especially if it penetrated to the after magazine, still racked with Tomahawks and Harpoons, and the fuel bunkers. Thousands of pounds of high-energy explosive and rocket fuel, plus a hundred tons of Navy Standard Distillate … it would make a spectacular fireball.
The next item on the agenda: counterattack. In its initial phase, the Shkval was a straight-runner. Only at the end of its run did it switch to internal guidance. Which meant that right now it was leaving a trail of hot gas pointing straight to their attacker. She clicked to the ASW circuit to find Winston Farmer, her antisubmarine officer, already coaching Red Hawk into a drop. Good.
“Fish one away. Fish two away,” sang the ASW console operator.
“Think of anything else?” she asked Mills. He was dead pale. The bulkheads shook as the ship strained every nerve, coming up to full power away from the incoming weapon. He shook his head wordlessly.
Then there was nothing to do but wait.
* * *
GREEN Bay reported shaft damage and heavy flooding port side. She was counterflooding to regain stability. Jeonnam was dead in the water, listing, fighting a main space fire. Unfortunately, Dan couldn’t help either ship, not right now. Finish the battle, then assist the wounded. He stared at the display. He’d hoped to clobber the incomers before they got in among the main body. But this was becoming what he’d dreaded: knives in a dark alley.
“Admiral, I’d advise pulling in the screen.”
He half-turned to glance at Amarpeet Singhe. “I’m thinking about it.”
She said, “I know that increases our exposure to nuclear attack. But right now, the closer we circle the wagons, the less opportunity they have to get in among us. Plus, sooner or later, they’re going to go to missiles.”
He nodded. “All right. Pass to screen commander: Pull in to five thousand yards.”
“And the outer one?”
“Pull them in too. Forty thousand yards, but keep them behind our beam when we’re on formation course. I don’t want them ahead of us.”
The orders went out on chat, the voice channels silent now. The reports were coming in that way too. The microsatellites, passing swiftly above in nongeosynchronous orbits, were giving him UHF data uplink and downlink again. Unfortunately, they weren’t very effective in the reconnaissance role. With the Albatross network, the enemy commander might have a better picture of this battle than he did. And if they were linked back to the mainland, this pack, and this battle, might actually be directed from Admiral Lianfeng’s headquarters in Beijing.
“Savo Island reports: Torpedo detonation close astern. Lost sonar tail. Slowing to investigate prop vibration.”
“Very well.”
“Green Bay reports fire under co
ntrol. Seven casualties, two dead. Able to make five knots.”
They hadn’t reported a fire, but having it under control was good. “Make formation speed five,” he snapped to Enzweiler. “Individual ships, maneuver at will within assigned sectors. We’ll fight it out here. Keep pulling the screen in.” It was the only way he could keep his damaged units under what bubble of protection he could still provide.
“Savo Island reports multiple underwater explosions vicinity datum Goblin Juliet.”
“Very well, excellent.” Another enemy piece off the board. And if it’d been the Shkval archer, it was probably one of the newer, air-independent enemy boats. But that still left over half the attacking force still out there.
“P-8 reports bingo fuel, Winchester ordnance. Permission to return to Wake.”
“Crap … Granted.” He made a face. “Ask him if he has a relief on its way.”
“Relief inbound, one-five minutes out.”
Fifteen minutes, an eternity … “Pass to the new guy, I need sweeps close in to the main body, to the south and then to the north. Immediate drop on any detection. The only Blue submarine bears ten miles northeast of Hornet.”
Dan passed both hands over his hair. The palms came away wet, and he wiped them surreptitiously on his coveralls. He got down and stood behind Soler, watching the ASW coordinator position the helicopters as they dropped sonobuoys, dipped, conducted magnetic runs.
A crunching shock tremored the deck, which flexed upward, then snapped down, catapulting him into the air. The lights flickered. The shock whanged away through the overhead. He grabbed at the back of a chair but was still knocked off his feet. His head hit something hard on the way down. He blinked dazzle off his eyeballs, catching himself on hands and knees.
Alarms were beeping. “Torpedo hit, starboard side forward,” the 1MC announced. “Repair One provide.”
“Dropping on Goblin Hotel, range seven thousand yards, bearing one-four-zero.”
He hoisted himself to a crouch, trying desperately to reboot a scrambled brain. Regain the tactical picture … hands on his arms, helping him up … sandalwood and stale sweat … Singhe on one side, Soler on the other. “You okay, Admiral? You’re bleeding. Hit your head?”