by David Poyer
He slid down in his chair and put his head back. Closed his eyes. Just for a second …
* * *
A hand on his arm brought him snorting out of a doze. Staurulakis. “Something’s developing over Okinawa. Also, air activity over Taiwan.”
“Fuck … we stayed too long.”
“What’s that, Admiral?”
“Nothing.” He blinked grit from his eyes, checking displays as he sucked down the dregs of the coffee. Ugh, glacier cold. How long had he been out?
Yeah, there it was. Air strikes forming up over the ex–U.S. Air Force base at Kadena. He keyed to the callouts, and got J-8s and J-7s.
“Older fighters,” Mills said from the TAO seat, squinting at his screen. “Upgraded to land attack, but older airframes. Sending in the second team?”
“Probably, after we took their strip alert out. We gave them time to recover, and patch up the airfield.”
More contacts were blinking into existence over Taiwan. Dan keyed to those callouts, and got a surprise. “These guys out of Taipei—”
“Sukhoi-35s,” Staurulakis murmured.
Mills gasped. “You’re shitting me,” he managed at last.
“That’s the ID. Su-35s.”
“Russians?”
“Sold to the Chinese. The latest and greatest.” Her keyboard rattled; she peered at the screen. “Can carry the Kh-31 antiship missile, or the Chinese version, the YJ-91. Mach 3. Hundred-kilo warhead. Passive antiradar seekers. If they hit the carriers with those—”
“Get this out to Fleet and PaCom.” Dan hunched over his keyboard, alternately eyeing displays and typing. Repositioning Kristensen and McClung, placing them across the line of attack from Okinawa.
Through a haze of fatigue, the heart-squeeze of dream, a cold logic was focusing his brain.
The blitz on the Okinawa fields had shut them down long enough for him to thread the needle in, but now they were reactivating. Yet the Sukhois were even more threatening. If they were carrying antiradiation missiles, he had a dire choice. Either shut down his radars, go blind, or invite the passive seekers to home on the thousands of kilowatts the SPY-1s on his major units were broadcasting.
Or was he the target? Wasn’t it more likely USS Ronald Reagan and her escorts, closing from the east, were the bull’s-eyes these strikes were generating for?
The search-and-rescue controller said over the command circuit, “Red Hawk inbound. Pilot on board. Fifteen minutes to bingo fuel. Wants to know if we’re coming to recovery course.”
Dan traded glances with Staurulakis. Put Strafer between the carrier and the threat? A useless sacrifice. Chaff and flares weren’t going to fool anything this advanced. If only Zembiec had gotten the lasers they’d promised for so long … “Pull him back,” he muttered. “Hot refuel on whoever’s got a clear deck to the south.” He snapped off, to the weapons control circuit.
Forty contacts were closing from Okinawa. And they were nearer; even at a lower speed, they’d hit the task force first. Only five from the southwest, from Taiwan, but faster and far better armed. He decided to let Sejong and the two other Korean destroyers take on the larger attack, with Hampton Roads and Savo Island plucking down some of the leaders at long range. With any luck, they might get the rest to drop early and back away. And maybe the carriers could vector some fighters out, cut down their numbers before they arrived. He typed fast.
BARBARIAN: All units Horde, FLASH FLASH ALERT incoming air strikes de Taiwan, Okinawa.
He toggled direct to Encapsulate, the carrier group leader on Truman.
BARBARIAN: Request permission retire as previously planned.
Seconds ticked past. This was taking way too fucking long. The closer he could get 76 to the carriers, the more cover they’d have. And the more effective antimissile coverage he could give them. Concentrate your forces … Instead, they’d strung them out for three hundred miles, pinched in the middle by an island chain with still-active enemy airfields. He clicked to the SAR circuit again. “We got any more pilots in the drink out here?”
“That’s a negative, Admiral. The others, no chute seen, no response to radio queries on the SAR frequency.”
Staurulakis was looking at him expectantly. He glanced around. Min Su Hwang, eyebrows lifted. Enzweiler, bland face gone pale. The rest were still focused on their consoles.
Back to the command net. He cleared his throat and typed.
BARBARIAN: All units Horde: Immediate execute: Course 100. Speed 30. Maintain formation.
The new course would take him out of the op area and close the enemy’s main targets, the carriers. The red carets jumped forward. “Range on those KH-31s,” Dan rasped to Mills.
ENCAPSULATE: Disregaard previous message. Immediately execute: course 0 nine zero. All unit reply.
“What the fuck,” Stauruakis breathed. She pushed back from the desk. “That takes us back toward Shanghai—”
Dan read it again. “This doesn’t sound like Encapsulate.”
“Or a native English speaker.” Hwang bent over him; the Korean liaison put his finger on the screen. “You’ve got a misspelling. And a misuse of the plural. Is that channel secure?”
Dan typed,
BARBARIAN: Interrogative last from Encapsulate. Suspect penetration of high-side chat.
More lines popped up the moment he hit Enter:
ENCAPSULATE: Disregeard slander from Barbarian. This is admiral. Obey what I say. Course 0 ninety.
ENCAPSULATE: This comm channel compromised. Go to satcomm navy red for voice orders.
ENCAPSULATE: Disregarde other order. Encapsulate orders false. Continue regard this net. Course 0 ninety immediately execute. All will comply.
Commander Jamail stood at his elbow, notebook screen tilted toward Dan. “Launch range on KH-31, from the intel: seventy nautical miles.”
Dan rulered on his own terminal, and got a little over a hundred miles to the slower northern gaggle. Aegis was tracking the leaders, bogeys Papa through Tango. The system had designated them to Hampton Roads and McClung. Dan clicked to the control circuit and asked for Kristensen vice the other cruiser. “We have to maintain ABM mode. Keep scanning for ballistics,” he explained to Cheryl, who flicked her gaze his way and lifted her shoulders a millimeter.
He plucked the red phone off its socket, hoping whoever had hacked the fleet’s satellite-downlinked secret chat hadn’t gotten to their voice comms as well. The circuit beeped and synced, and he put the new course out. His units answered, but the voice (not Jung’s) answering from Sejong the Great sounded doubtful. Dan handed Hwang the handset and asked the liaison to explain it in Korean.
He still didn’t hear any clearance from Strike for his turnaround. But they weren’t objecting, either.
Wenck, from radar control: “Range to strike Alfa: eighty miles. To strike Bravo: two hundred thirty.”
Lenson snapped, “We got it, Donnie. No need for voice announcements.”
“Sorry, Admiral.”
“Stand by to take tracks 1531, 1532, 1533, 1522 with Standard enhanced range.”
A deafening buzz racketed. Heads snapped around. The Aegis operations specialist announced, “Cuing from AWACS. Profile plot, Meteor Alfa. Elevation forty thousand … fifty thousand … moderate climb out. Identified as hostile TBM. ID as hostile. Launch point … near Gwangju, South Korea. No impact point yet.”
Shit, he hadn’t even known there was an AWACS up. Before he could react Soongapurn called, “Slow climbout, that’s liquid-fueled. Single stage, medium range. Looks like a Nodong.”
“North Korean,” Mills supplied, punching a pub from the ref shelf. “But they fired from South Korea—”
“It’s road mobile,” Soongapurn supplied, behind them now. “On transporters. They trucked them south once the armistice was signed.”
Dan felt nothing. Just the icy detachment that seemed to take him when he got past fatigue, and past fear, into life-or-death mode. A place he didn’t like, and had hoped never to inhabit again.
Yet here he was.
The buzzer went off again. “Second launch,” Terranova announced. Then a third racketed into the cold air. And a fourth.
The Chinese might be fresh out of medium-range ballistics, but their allies weren’t. They’d trundled them down to the end of the peninsula, to help Zhang secure the sea lanes. And further threaten Japan, no doubt … Dan wrenched his attention back to the command net. The false strike group commander was still trying to steer them westward. No one was buying it, though, and most of the stations had signed off that chat room.
Staurulakis murmured, “Meteors Alfa through Delta acquired. Assigning Alfa and Delta to Hampton Roads. We’ll take Bravo and Charlie.”
“Manage it, Cheryl. I’m going to try to…”
But he couldn’t think of anything more to do.
He’d turned the formation around. Without authorization, but he’d generated the best defensive screen he could manage, given the numbers and the threat. Everything else was delegated.
“Meteor Alfa, point of aim generated.”
“Roll FIS to green?” Mills asked Staurulakis. The Firing Integrity switch wasn’t really a safety, but it ended up being used that way.
“FIS to green.” She unlooped the chain from around her neck and inserted the key. With the other hand, she depressed the 21MC lever. “Bridge, CO. Pass ‘Circle William’ throughout the ship. Launch-warning bell forward and aft.” She flicked up the red cover over the Fire Auth switch. ALIS had been computing intercept parabolas since initial detection. She clicked the switch over. Now the system would react as programmed, triggering at the moment kill probability peaked.
Four missiles shimmered on the screen, aimed right at the task group. A down-the-throat shot. Dan opened his mouth, then closed it again. Terranova and Soongapurn were already calling out the litany of engagement.
The deckplates rattled as, one after another, six SM-Xs exited their cells in blasts of flame. On the screen half a dozen blue carets hurtled outward. Picking up the initial guide beam, as far as he could tell. With three interceptors assigned to each descending warhead between the two cruisers, they should stand a decent chance. Of course, the price differential was about six to one, advantage Pyongyang … but that wasn’t his worry. He leaned back, kneading his neck as he watched the air strikes continue to close on him.
Then he noticed something.
The strike out of Kadena wasn’t heading for him.
Or rather, it had been, but had just altered course. On the display, its extended track was clicking around counterclockwise.
“Strike Alfa altered course to the east,” the TAO said, leaning across.
“I’m catching that, Matt.” Dan squinted up, getting a bad feeling. “Yep. They’re headed for the carriers now.”
“Concur. Crossing engagement? Whittle their numbers down, at least.”
“How far to their ordnance release point?”
Staurulakis answered. “Ten miles if they’re launching on us. Forty-some if they’re targeting Reagan. I passed a heads-up.”
“Got an acknowledgment?”
She nodded, pressing headphones to her temples. “Gaggle Bravo’s altering too,” Mills said. “Also toward the carrier.”
More unwelcome news … when he ratcheted his rulers the ranges looked bad. On their new headings, both strike groups would shortly be opening his task force. His antiair Standards were fast, but not all that much faster than a modern fighter on balls-to-the-wall afterburner. An overtaking engagement both shortened their effective range and dropped the probability of kill.
The carriers had already fought off two attacks. They were still trying to recover aircraft; couldn’t launch new fighters, or at any rate, not many. The COs of their destroyers had to be watching their weapons inventory displays with the same sinking feeling he had himself.
On the other hand, TF 76 was churning back toward them.
On this hand, on the other … Maybe the real question was, how did the strike leaders, riding with the lead elements of those hurtling J-8s, J-9s, and Sukhois, know where the carriers were? Since their mayfly-delicate drones had been swept from the sky?
He had his hand over the socketed handset when the red light lit. The speaker above his head beeped and synced. “Barbarian, this is Encapsulate.”
He pressed the phone into the crook of his shoulder, pressing the Sync button with his cheekbone as he worked the keyboard with both hands. “Barbarian. Over.”
“Dan, this is Encapsulate actual. Have to ask something hard of you. Gangbusters. I say again, Gangbusters. Over.”
He couldn’t help gulping, but kept his tone flat. “This is Barbarian. Copy, Gangbusters. Standing by.”
Cheryl was staring at him, aghast. The others were too. “No,” someone muttered. “Not us.” But Donnie Wenck was grinning like a madman. Interlacing his fingers, twisting them this way and that, like a concert pianist warming up. Then placing them delicately on the radar control keyboard.
“Going dark of the moon in thirty seconds. Good luck, and thanks.”
“Barbarian, roger, out,” Dan said. Wishing, as soon as he clicked off, he’d said something more memorable for his last recorded words. Something they could chisel into his tablet in Memorial Hall. How noble and sweet it was to die for … no, that wouldn’t fly. This wouldn’t be noble, or sweet.
Just fucking necessary.
“Dan?” Cheryl, looking concerned. Or scared. “What did he say? Was it, emulate?”
He muttered past the handset, “Yeah. Stand by to squawk flattop.”
She blinked at him. Then clicked to the EW circuit, and spoke into it in a low, stern voice, as if giving an order that might be disobeyed.
Dan gripped the edge of the command desk. Trying to deny, fight off, the image that kept shooting through his mind.
A lavender beam of fire. From one side of the compartment to the other.
Shearing off heads, necks, upper arms. Leaving charred trunks and flying flame.
The EW operator called, “Truman and Reagan off the air. No radar. No comms.”
Staurulakis rubbed her mouth. For the first time, she looked as if she’d forgotten about her husband’s death. “Okay, we’re—squawking flattop. Emulating the carrier.”
He nodded.
Radars. Other emitters. Even fake comms with the carrier air patrol, prerecorded and broadcast on the proper frequencies.
In the darkness that covered the deep, by the invisible emanations by which war guided itself in the twenty-first century, Savo Island looked just like the carrier now.
Five minutes later, both groups of enemy aircraft changed course again.
Back toward Task Force 76.
20
SCRATCHING the cracks between her fingers, Cheryl Staurulakis peered up at the display. Calculating their chances.
Yet her gaze kept being drawn back to the weapons inventory screen. Only three ABM rounds left. Enough for a reengagement, if these failed, but no more.
She leaned back, scratching harder. Until she felt the warm ooze of blood.
She stared down at it. Had Eddie had time to bleed? Wounded in the cockpit of his bright new fighter? Or had he died instantly, stunned and shredded? A tissue from the packet she kept in the drawer blotted the flow. But bright red spots bled through.…
Carriers had no business this near the coast. Whoever had ordered them to close the now-alerted defenses was taking a hell of a risk. She’d passed the warning, but Truman and Vinson would still be maneuvering to recover their returning aircraft. They had their own destroyer screen, but she didn’t know how their inventories were holding up. Glancing at the display, she guesstimated the distance to the carriers. Not yet near enough for Savo to cover them.
When the Gangbusters order came in, she tensed as Lenson rogered. When he signed off it took him two tries to resocket the handset.
“Did I hear ‘Gangbusters’?” she murmured. “Did you say ‘emulate’?”
“Yeah. Stand by to sq
uawk flattop.”
She started to protest. Then realized there was no way she could.
That was a cruiser’s reason for being, after all. Why Savo and her sisters had been designed, equipped, manned, tested, against this very moment.
Protect the higher-value unit.
Still she muttered, so low no one other than Mills could have overheard, “Dan. There can’t—you couldn’t light up—”
Lenson looked as if he were being torn in two. “Someone else? I can’t sacrifice Sejong. Not politically possible. Savo’s, um, the oldest unit out here. And you’re nearly out of ABM rounds.” His gaze slid off hers. “I’m sorry.”
She sat frozen for a second. Both horrified and ashamed. Then, forcing her fingers to function, clicked to the EW circuit. “CO.”
“EW, aye.”
She blinked at the bloody fingerprints she left on the selector switch. “Make all preparations to squawk Gangbusters. I say again, Gangbusters.”
For a second no answer came. Then the voice at the far end repeated the command, acknowledging.
Beside her Mills was typing, transferring command of Savo’s in-flight SMs. The missiles got updates, refining their guidance second by second. Hampton Roads would have to handle that now, until the third stage popped the nose cone, exposing the seeker.
The EW operator called, “Truman and Reagan off the air. No radar. No comms.” Then a moment later, over the IC circuit. “Radiating Gangbusters—now.”
The radar picture jittered, faded, changed. Of course: they couldn’t both emulate the carrier’s radar and gain the optimal picture the SPY-1s provided. Which meant not only that they were attracting the hornets, but that the warheads plunging downward toward them could not be refired on if their first salvo missed. She rubbed her mouth, then remembered: the blood. When she pressed her sleeve to her face the material came away blotched red. “Okay, we’re—squawking flattop.”
The steel around her seemed to snap into focus, in a way it hadn’t since Lenson had given her the news last night. She squeezed Mills’s arm. “Can you think of anything else we should be doing?”
He evaluated the displays. “We’ve been at GQ for over twenty hours, Captain. If we aren’t ready by now … Just get set to let everything fly, I guess. I’ll tell the Army guys aft to spin up the Stingers. And we should probably come bow-on to Group Alfa. If they have 802s, they’re gonna slide in low, all together.”