by Andy Farman
“Reynolds?” Max listened for a minute before replacing the receiver and grabbed his jacket.
“I have to go to a briefing of department heads; we just jumped all the way up to DefCon 2. It would seem the Brits got a solid link between the Kremlin, the killing of some rookie English Bobbies and the group planning to blow up London. Finish your coffee Scott, the Director wants you in his office soonest”. Scott was beginning to wish he had called in sick.
“Wrap a rubber band ‘round my waist and call me yo-yo” He looked at his watch, the traffic was going to be a sonofabitch!
Southampton, England
The sound of the shower awoke Svetlana and it took a few moments to recall where she was. After a few seconds more she slid from between the sheets and stretched. According to the clock on the wall she had slept for eight hours’. Looking down at the foot of the bed she saw the towel and blankets, recognising them for what they where she shook her head and smiled before gathering and folding them.
She looked herself up and down in the full-length mirror on the rear of the wardrobe door before opening the door to the bathroom a crack. The steam issuing from the shower cubicle would mask the lack of makeup she decided and striding in she opened the cubicle door. The waft of cooler air caused Constantine to turn hurriedly and wipe water clear of his eyes in alarm. Svetlana was stood there naked. He opened his mouth to protest but he saw the look in her eyes. The amorous look in them almost made him look over his shoulder to see who it was really directed at and despite the warmth of the moisture laden air her nipples were growing hard and proud before his eyes.
“I don’t think this is a very good idea” he told her as firmly as he could. Svetlana looked down his body before looking back up into his eyes with a smugly satisfied smile playing on her lips.
“Apparently you do, sir”. Stepping into the cubicle she pulled closed the door behind herself and with one hand on his chest pressed him back against the far wall of the shower and looking him in the eyes with a smouldering look. In an equally firm voice she said.
“I have never gone to a hotel room with a man without our both having at least three orgasms before I left it, and I don’t aim to start dropping my standards …so I am now going to do to you, what young Jubi thought I was going to do to him.”
She knelt before him in the shower but her eyes remained looking upwards into his as she took his erection deep into her mouth and cupped his balls in her left hand whilst the thumb and index finger of the right encircled him and began an up and down motion. Less than a minute later the Russian air force surrendered totally to a mere naked civilian in a two star hotel in Hampshire.
North Pacific: Same time.
The north Pacific has very little in common with the south Pacific other than co-ownership of half a title. There are no warm, gold sanded beaches or semi-clad beauties with natural tans evident anywhere.
Currently moving at 15 knots, 600ft below the surface the Los Angeles class attack submarine USS Commanche was electronically sniffing away for a scent of their quarry. Diverted from her mission to boldly map the cold-water currents where no one had mapped before, along the east coast of the American continent. Actually it had been done several times before and until their president honoured the Kyoto agreement, the world began to educate itself, pull in the reins on all forms of pollution, and then it would be done again and again as global warming altered the way of things. At least that was the opinion of Dr David Bowman, who was not at this moment a happy man. The oceanographic survey on which he was working was on a tight schedule. The skipper, Captain Joe Hart, had assured him that the detour they were making would still leave them with plenty of time to return and complete the job. However, five hours’ later a message was received and they had gone to DefCon 2. They were still heading for the area the detour directed them at but no explanation from the Navy ashore as to why they were on an increased alert state that was last implemented during the Cuban missile crisis. It would have helped had the skipper told him what was at the end, what was so important as to pull them off the task he had been contracted to perform.
Joe Hart on the other hand was more than happy to be doing anything but skulking along with a thermometer sticking out the window checking if water molecules were running a temperature. The target was a carrier, believed to be Chinese with a nuclear power plant. His original orders were to find and evaluate. That had now changed to all of the above …plus, shadow. That was more like real sailor man work. He ordered the boat to slow to five knots and come up to 70 feet in order to stream the floating antennae. He expected a general sitrep to follow behind the issuance of the DefCon step-up; no one liked being kept in the dark.
Two other submarines were also involved with the carrier group. HMS Hood, a Trafalgar class submarine had cut short its visit to Taipei and was heading northwards on a bearing of 070’. The other was an Akula class Hunter Killer. The Gegarin had orders not to let anyone near its charge, the carrier. She was heading 180’ and rather closer to the Commanche than she was to the Mao.
There were also some fairly un-warlike looking vessels too, seventeen deep sea trawlers of the People’s Republic sporting items acquired by means of espionage over the recent years. One gadget masked the ships sound by blowing bubbles into the sea to mask the propeller noise by an appreciable extent. The second was the ATA, Advanced Towed Array, essentially a highly sophisticated microphone trailing behind the ship to a distance where the degradation of its performance by the ships noise was greatly reduced.
The Hood and the Commanche also possessed the ATA but not the Prairie Masker system.
It was a bit of a game of one-upmanship, staying ahead of the opposition by research and innovation, with a little help from skulduggery when the opportunity arrived.
For a time in the early 80’s the Warsaw Pact submarine fleet held that tactical advantage with a new towed array which was a big improvement for them and it was more than a match for the West’s towed array of the time.
In 1982, following a very publicised conventional role of her part in the Falklands War, the Royal Navy nuclear powered Hunter Killer submarine HMS Conqueror re-entered port flying the white ensign of course, and also the skull and cross bones, denoting she had sunk an enemy warship (the cruiser Belgrano). That flag also carried a small dagger in one corner which most took to mean she had been actively engaged in a Special Forces operation, landing Special Boat Service and Special Air Service troops on an enemy coast. However this is not quite correct as she had been way up north at the time Argentina invaded, and picking pockets like the Artful Dodger in Russian waters. Fitted with an ingenious contraption of US design the British vessel had stalked a Russian spy ship, carefully clamping a robot arm of some description to its towed array before cutting through the tow and stealing off into the night with her prize. The US device had been designed to sever the tow in such a way as to leave the Russian’s believing another vessel passing over it had cut it by accident, or that it had snagged on a wreck somehow.
Great lengths are taken, at great expense, to be too quiet to be heard by the other guy whilst being able to hear him.
USS Commanche and HMS Hood’s propellers cost considerably more than fishing boats and the top secret method of their construction had once put those years ahead of the Soviet Union in terms of quieting the ship. However, one day in the 1980’s a German traitor had sold that secret to the opposition. The west though had still managed to stay ahead with other innovations. The noise from the pumps on their power plants for instance, were mere whispers compared with Russian and Chinese boats.
The two western submarines were generating noise but remarkably little considering their complex makeup of machine parts and size as they moved through the water. Rubber panels assisted in muffling the noise of their operation, and depth helped too. The Russian Akula however could dive much deeper than its opposite numbers, yet had not mastered the art of near silence.
Three weeks before at the Gold crew’s pr
e cruise party. Captain Hart had been almost affable to Dave Bowman. It had been the first time he had met the captain and the crew he would spend the next six months with. As a last minute replacement for a colleague with appendicitis he had been introduced and then abandoned by someone from the Admirals staff. When the youngster’s antics had got too boisterous for the old folks, everyone over twenty-six had gravitated outside beside the hotel pool and away from the too loud music. Although Dave Bowman owed his living to the sea he knew little of submariners or their expensive charges.
Joe Hart had chatted away to him about the subject that had fascinated him ever since he had seen a rerun of Voyage to the bottom of the sea in the first grade. The stealth of his vessel was a matter of intense pride to the captain.
“The secret of successful naval warfare was once to have the best radar to see over the horizon and sonar to see below the waves.” He had told Dave.
“Man is fiendish in his counter-weapon inventiveness. He has learnt to go beyond merely finding a defence against his enemy’s weapons; he can now kill him with them.” They had sat in comfy sun loungers staring across to the water beyond the lights of the city below.
“The battle winners of yesteryear if flagrantly used today will only assist the enemy in his quest to find you first and kill you. A popular defence in nature is to be bigger and louder than the other dinosaur, wolf, bear or tiger. The less ferocious and less large just get out of the way faster or hide a lot better.” Dave had smiled at the captains’ analogy.
“The big guys hog the top of the food chain while the small but sprightly and the better at hide-and seek are hardly likely to become masters of the universe are they?” Signalling for refills for them both he had looked at Dave with an ironic smile.
“Yet here we are, king of the hill, top of the food chain, call it what you will, but the way we stay alive is to be quieter than the other guy and have smaller, more compact weapons of war with which to bash each other over the head with. It’s all rather un-natural really isn’t it?” Those had been possibly the only reasonably friendly words the captain had spoken to him.
The complex system he was sat before was powered down when the detour began. Not that power was a problem, the USS Commanche’s power plant could run a small town, but with no point in continuing the readings
It was just one extra piece of unnecessary noise.
Another vessel abroad on those frigid seas was crewed by a retired English couple whom had sold their home and sailed from the UK in a 30’ Ketch to visited kin in Australia and New Zealand. They had topped up their supplies in a small fishing village near the northern tip of Japan two days before. Homeward bound (ish) via a few dozen places they had never seen before. Their next stop was Alaska where they would then turn south for the Panama Canal via Canada, California and Mexico.
Aboard the PLAN Aircraft Carrier Mao
Captain Hong surveyed his domain for the first time from the bridge of his country’s flagship. Having only arrived four hours’ before he had been busy sorting out the chaos of getting his equally newly arrived crew into their quarters before the business of their training by the relatively small Russian crew began. Even though he was his county's most experienced destroyer captain, this was going to be something like going from roller skates to the steering wheel of a juggernaut overnight. He felt the ship heel over slightly into the wind and turned to look aft over the bridge wing. A twin engine Antonov transport aircraft could just barely be made out by its landing lights turning behind the ship on its approach. This would be his pilot’s first experience of a carrier landing…and none of them were behind the controls. He watched, as the aircraft seemed to stagger and then recover as its Russian pilot earned his keep staying on the correct glide path. If he had believed in God, Captain Hong would have thanked Christ that he had arrived by rotary wing means and not fixed!
Hong knew that he had only eight days after which time they would be at war with a country with six carrier groups in the Pacific. The Russian Admiral Kuznetsov carrier group was already in Chinese waters and they were due to join with the Mao in four days for a joint exercise but he had grave doubts that the time they had to prepare would be enough to match America’s years of carrier expertise. If, and it was a big if, the bombs at Pearl Harbour, San Diego, Sasebo and Yokosuka caught any of the US carriers and their logistics vessels at anchor, then they would only have three carrier groups to tackle. Land based airpower would sink the remainder if they attempted to intervene in the invasion plans of Japan, Taipei and the Philippines. The PLAA had 4000 combat aircraft in place to support the operation. Three regiments of Backfire bombers purchased from the Soviet Union just before the fall of their regime, were all nuclear capable and they were earmarked for carrier hunting. He was banking on those aircraft to cover his ships until they were capable of competent air operations. Which in reality was likely to be several weeks after the first shots were fired despite his having the best sailors his Navy could offer?
Once the US Seventh Fleets teeth were pulled China would have free rein to do as it wished. Travelling by rail was the never activated reactor built for the Ul’yanovsk before her untimely visit to the breakers. Plans were now in hand, using the Ul’yanovsk’s blue prints to begin building another carrier for the PLAN, but it would be two years at the earliest before she would be launched.
“Do you approve of your new command comrade?” Hong turned to face Vice Admiral Putchev.
“Pardon me for not welcoming you aboard but we are short-handed and there was a problem in engineering.” Said the Russian who had a smudge of oil on the side of his neck and wore under his greatcoat a pair of coveralls that had seen much service.
Hong kept his face from showing surprise, firstly the man’s command of his language was very good and secondly no command level officer in his navy would ever consider getting his hands dirty on such a task.
“I was unaware that you were a qualified ships engineer comrade Admiral?” He received a broad grin in return.
“I am baffled by the workings of my daughters motor scooter engine Captain. My engineering staff required extra muscle rather than genius and I happened to be passing.” And that would definitely never happen on a PLAN warship.
Twisting to peer at his new home, Lieutenant Fu Shen was aboard the second Antonov carrying pilots to the ship. The young officer was actually thrilling at the prospect of his first landing on a carrier, unlike his squadron commander, Major Lee who was sat bolt upright in his seat and looking neither left nor right. His knuckles were white where they gripped his knees. After a nightmare journey just to get this far they would have a few hours’ sleep before flying off in the early hours’ to practice carrier landings on a very forgiving military air station. The Russian Naval Air Station runway was equipped with arrester wire gear on the coast near Ust’-Kanichtsk. Whilst the Mao group sailed in circles for four days the brand new air group would train. They had two days in which to become sufficiently skilled at landing in both day and night in the relatively safe surroundings of the rock steady practice ground on land before practising the same thing on the Mao.
The Antonov lurched in the air as the unpredictable updrafts toyed with it. Lt Fu Shen clapped his hands with glee whilst opposite him Major Lee closed his eyes and wished he had joined the infantry.
School of Infantry, Brecon: 0815hrs 26th March
No matter where you are in the world, if you are in the British Army and not already engaged in some actual work, 0815hrs means muster parade. At 0810hrs the tuneless bellow of
“Right then…Get-outside-and-get-fell-in!” will reverberate through barrack rooms. The sick, lame and lazy, as all those on restricted duties are known, are also required to be there unless they have a ‘sick chit’ from the MO, medical officer, expressively excusing them. WO2s, the Company, Squadron and Battery Sergeant Majors ‘Call the Roll’ and lord have mercy on any latecomers and those absent without reasonable excuse! Christmas day is the WOs tonsils only day off
.
At this official start of the Army’s working day all matter of business is dispensed, from soldiers being shouted at and reported for ‘dirty boots’ (not polished and buffed in the past 15 minutes) to the verbal notification of the day’s events. ‘Postings Out’ and courses are also announced despite the fact that all of the above will have been posted on the Company/Squadron/Battery notice board outside the Company Office the previous afternoon in Company Orders/Daily Detail.
At 0810hrs on this rather drizzly morning, CSM Probert was making his way from the Orderly room where he had been summoned from the Warrant Officers and Sergeants Mess a half hour before. The schedule posted the previous day had changed in a way that caused him concern. The young non-commissioned officers of Section Commanders Course number 95 were already outside their accommodation block.
Having finished the ‘Patrolling’ phase of the course they were due to begin ‘Defence’ in two says time. Today was intended to be one of instruction in Field Engineering, use of explosives in the preparation of trenches. The Duty Student called the Course to properly at ease. With his millboard in his left hand Colin wheeled to face them and drove his feet in.
“Course…Course ‘shun!” Colin Probert looked along the ranks to check everyone was there rather than subject the paperwork on his millboard to the elements by formerly calling the Roll.
“Hands up anyone who wants to go home?” This was the way Colin always finished his muster parades and the students always grinned and put their hands up. Any that did not he would accuse of being “Brown nosing wankers who would fit in well in the RAF”, (Royal Air Force). Today his use of it immediately caught them all off guard.