by Jeff Edwards
Captain Patke caught the eye of the sonar man. “How’s it looking, chief?”
The sonar chief looked up, his African American features intense with concentration. He shifted his headset far enough to the side to expose his right ear, and used his left palm to press the remaining earphone tighter against his other ear. “We’ve got a solid track on this guy, captain. You know that weird little low frequency flutter that the Han class boats make in their second-stage heat exchangers? Looks like the Shang class has a similar design. The dB level is a lot lower on these boats, but the tonal is still there.”
The chief turned back to the array of sonar screens. “If you keep us in his baffles, sir, we can track this guy until the fat lady sings.”
Captain Patke nodded. “How about our Indian friends up above? Are their sonars good enough to sniff this guy out?”
The Sonar Chief frowned at the screen, and answered over his shoulder. “Hard to say for sure, skipper, but I doubt it. The primary tonal we’re tracking is not all that loud. We detected it, but we’re sticking to this contact’s butt like a barnacle. Also the contact is running below the layer, and so are we. We’re in the same water with him, which makes it easier for us to track him.”
The layer (also referred to as the sonic layer) was a barrier to sound energy caused by the transition from virtually constant water temperature near the surface of the ocean, to the thermocline, a zone of rapidly decreasing water temperature that extended down to about two thousand feet. This abrupt shift in temperature could reflect much of a submarine’s acoustic signal away from the hull-mounted sonar sensors of surface warships. This did not make submarines acoustically invisible to ships on the surface, but it created a tactical edge that all good sub commanders knew how to exploit.
Patke nodded again. If Chief Philips was right, contact Sierra One Five’s presence might go unnoticed by the Indian Navy ships above.
Patke was about to walk away when the Sonar Chief spoke again.
“That’s weird…”
Patke turned back. “What have you got, Chief?”
Chief Philips tilted his head to the side, and stared at one of the sonar waterfall displays. “Got a transient… It sounds like…”
The sonar man straightened up suddenly and keyed his headset’s microphone. “Conn—Sonar. Sierra One Five is flooding his tubes! I say again, contact is flooding his tubes!”
“Holy shit!” someone in the control room said. “He’s gonna shoot!”
Patke sprinted the half dozen steps back to the OOD platform. The unidentified author of that comment was correct. Sierra One Five was getting ready to launch weapons.
Damn! Patke had been sure that the Chinese sub had come on a mission of surveillance. He had not expected the crazy bastards to start shooting.
He raised his voice. “All stations, this is the captain. I have the Conn, belay your reports. Helm, right full rudder, new course one-niner-zero! Diving Officer, take us down! Make your new depth six hundred feet.”
He didn’t wait for acknowledgements before belting out his next set of orders. “Weapons Control, prep torpedo tubes one, three, and five. Do not flood tubes until I give the order. Countermeasures, stand by to launch decoys.”
The deck tilted under his feet as the California nosed down and heeled to starboard in response to the boat’s changing course and depth.
The Sonar Supervisor’s voice came over the net again. “Conn—Sonar. Sierra One Five is opening his outer doors.”
“Not yet,” Patke said softly. “Don’t shoot yet, you stupid son of a bitch. Just hang onto your torpedoes a little while longer…”
The California needed distance now, to separate herself as much as possible from the bearing of Sierra One Five before the Chinese sub started pumping out torpedoes. Because about thirty seconds after the launches were detected, the Indians were going to pounce on this stretch of water with every antisubmarine warfare asset they could scare up. The area would be swarming with frigates, helicopters, and those new Kamorta class ASW corvettes that the Indian Navy was so proud of. Every one of them would be firing torpedoes at anything bigger than a tuna. And the Chinese sub, Sierra One Five, would probably pump out a few reactionary weapons as it struggled to escape.
“Passing three hundred feet,” the Diving Officer said.
“Very well,” Patke said. Not deep enough yet, but there wasn’t any more time. If the California was going to get out of this alive, she needed speed. He would just have to accept the increased risk of detection. “Helm, all ahead full.”
The helmsman’s response was immediate. “All ahead full, aye!”
There were about ninety seconds of relative calm before the Sonar Supervisor’s voice came over the net again. “Conn—Sonar. Torpedoes in the water, bearing zero-four-zero! Looks like a pair of wake homers, headed for the Indian carrier.”
Patke glanced at the tactical display screen. The range to contact Sierra One Five was opening quickly, but not quickly enough.
“This is going to be just like when I was a kid,” the Officer of the Deck said softly.
“How do you figure?” Patke asked. He couldn’t imagine how anyone’s childhood could be at all similar to the situation unfolding now.
“My little brother would steal cookies from the cookie jar,” the OOD said. “But I was always the one who got in trouble for it. He ate the cookies, and I got the ass whuppin’.”
The OOD nodded toward the tactical display. “I recon that’s what’s happening right here, sir. Our Chinese pals reached into the Indian cookie jar and grabbed themselves a big handful of snickerdoodles. We didn’t touch those damned cookies, but we’re about to get our asses whupped for it, just the same.”
Patke looked at the continually-opening range on the tactical display. “Maybe not,” he said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky this time.”
Four or five minutes later, sonar began reporting torpedoes in the water, but subsequent evaluation located them all at a safe distance to the northeast.
The control room crew began to breathe easier.
“Well, we didn’t get any cookies,” Captain Patke said. “But at least we didn’t get an ass whipping that we don’t deserve.”
Perhaps it was the tempting of fate. Perhaps it was purest coincidence. Or perhaps it was simple bad luck. But the Sonar Supervisor’s next report came over the net less than ten seconds later. “Conn—Sonar. We have just been over-flown by a multi-engine turboprop aircraft. We have multiple active sonobouys in the water!”
“Launch two static noisemakers,” Patke said.
The Officer of the Deck turned to the Countermeasures Control Panel. “Aye-aye, sir. Launching static noisemakers now.”
A pair of pneumatic hisses and two muffled thumps announced the ejection of the countermeasures.
“That’ll give our friends upstairs something to ping on,” he said. “Now, let’s get a little bearing separation. Left standard rudder, come to new course one-five-zero.”
The helmsman acknowledged the command, and turned the control yoke to the left, beginning the California’s slow turn.
Patke looked up at the overhead of the control room, as though he could see through the intervening steel and seawater to the Indian ASW aircraft circling in the night sky above. “Give us a break here, guys. We didn’t shoot at your carrier, and we didn’t come to steal your fucking cookies.”
CHAPTER 30
21ST SPACE OPERATIONS CENTER
ONIZUKA AIR FORCE STATION
SUNNYVALE, CALIFORNIA
SUNDAY; 30 NOVEMBER
0430 hours (4:30 AM)
TIME ZONE -8 ‘UNIFORM’
Technical Sergeant Jennifer Thaxton touched a soft-key to silence the alert on her SAWS console. The Satellite Analyst Workstation was monitoring real-time telemetry from GEO-3, a U.S. Air Force infrared detection and tracking satellite currently passing over northern China. The satellite had just triggered an alert, signaling a significant thermal bloom near the Chinese e
nd of the Gobi desert.
Thaxton called up a GPS grid and superimposed it over the site of the bloom. She was ninety-percent sure that she knew the location of the sudden heat source, but she wanted to be absolutely certain. She ordered the software to fix a cursor point at the center of the infrared hot spot, and then read off the accompanying latitude and longitude. Yep. She’d been right.
A flurry of taps on the keyboard summoned up a schedule of known activities for the facility in question. Thaxton scanned it rapidly, and then called up yet another screen—pulling in ballistic tracking data from two Synthetic Aperture Radar satellites belonging to the Air Force, and an Onyx bird from the National Reconnaissance Office.
After a few seconds spent cross-referencing their respective readouts, Sergeant Thaxton swung the microphone boom of her comm-set to a position near her mouth and keyed the circuit. “Watch Officer, this is Operator Fourteen. GEO-3 has detected an unscheduled launch from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the southern Gobi Desert. Rapid assessment of the trajectory looks like a low orbit insertion.”
The Watch Officer, Major Saunders, acknowledged the report. He was standing at Thaxton’s elbow almost before she had released the mike button. “What’s your analysis, Sergeant?”
“Too early in the launch to know for sure, sir, but it’s definitely not a weapons trajectory. If I had to take a wild stab at it, I’d say the Chinese are fielding a low orbit surveillance satellite.”
She touched the display screen, and followed an arcing green line with her fingertip. When she reached the end of the arc, she continued moving her finger, extending the curve with her best mental projection of the arc’s final shape. “Could be they’re getting ready to hang an eye in the sky over their little trouble spot in the Bay of Bengal.”
The Watch Officer nodded. “I think you’re right,” he said. “I’m going to forward your assessment up the chain, along with the tracking data.”
“Wait a second, sir,” Thaxton said. “That’s just a guess on my part. It could be completely out to lunch.”
“Understood,” the Watch Officer said. “But it’s a good guess. And personally, I think you’re dead on the money.”
CHAPTER 31
USS MIDWAY (CVN-82)
BAY OF BENGAL
SUNDAY; 30 NOVEMBER
2025 hours (8:25 PM)
TIME ZONE +6 ‘FOXTROT’
Admiral Richard Zimmerman sat in his raised command chair, facing the five large-screen tactical displays that covered the forward bulkhead of Flag Plot. Each of the six-foot–square screens was peppered with arcane tactical symbols representing the aircraft, submarines, and ships within the carrier’s area of responsibility.
The symbols were color-coded: blue for friendly, and white for neutral or unknown. A third available color-code (red for hostile) was not currently in use, as the USS Midway strike group was only in the area to serve as a stabilizing force. Theoretically, the U.S. Navy was a disinterested party, which meant that there were no hostile units in the area. At least not as far as the good old USN was concerned.
The admiral’s eyes locked onto the blue half-circle symbol that represented the submarine, USS California. Those guys had nearly gotten their asses shot off by the “neutral” Indian ASW assets screening the INS Vikrant, only an hour or so earlier. This little act of theoretical non-aggression had occurred after a Chinese attack submarine—also “neutral”—had blown the Vikrant’s doors off.
Now the Vikrant was burning and trying not to sink, somewhere up at the northern end of the bay, while the Indians were pounding the hell out of anything that moved up near that end of the pond. Only God knew how the skipper of the California had managed to get his boat out of that mess in one piece.
“Neutral my ass,” the admiral said. “If it gets any more ‘neutral’ around here, we’ll all be going home in body bags.”
Not that he could blame the Indian Navy. They hadn’t been trying to shoot at the California. They’d been going after the Chinese attack sub that had punched holes in their carrier, and they’d gotten a bit too quick on the trigger.
Admiral Zimmerman gripped the arm of his chair. If somebody blasted a couple of flaming craters in his aircraft carrier, he might just do what the Indians were doing… Hammer the living shit out of everything within reach.
His eyes swept the dimly lit compartment. Flag Plot was packed with electronic displays and support equipment. The outer bulkheads were festooned with radio comm panels, digital status boards, radar repeaters, and computer workstations—all dedicated to supplying the admiral and his staff with the information needed to command an aircraft carrier and its strike group.
As always when the carrier was deployed, Flag Plot was alive with activity, but quiet. The system operators and radio talkers spoke in hushed voices, through hands-free comm headsets. The collective murmur of their conversations was not much louder than the cooling fans that served the electronic equipment.
“If you have a moment, sir…”
The voice came from the left side of the admiral’s chair, about six inches from his elbow. It was that new Flag Lieutenant, the creepy one: Muller, or Moyer… something like that. The one who always seemed to appear out of thin air.
The admiral had watched the man enter and leave rooms, so he knew it wasn’t magic or teleportation. You could keep an eye on his movements, if you tried. But if you weren’t watching for him, the man had a way of showing up out of nowhere, always with that damned clipboard in his hand.
The lieutenant held out the clipboard. “If you have a moment, sir,” he said again.
Admiral Zimmerman accepted the clipboard, resisting the urge to snatch it out of the young officer’s hands. The cover sheet was white with a red border and red text, signaling that the document beneath was classified at the Secret level.
The admiral flipped up the cover sheet to reveal a hardcopy of a radio message. He began to read.
//SSSSSSSSSS//
//SECRET//
//FLASH//FLASH//FLASH//
//301332Z NOV//
FM COMPACFLT//
TO COMCARSTRKGRU FIVE//
USS MIDWAY//
USS TOWERS//
USS FRANK W FENNO//
USS DONALD GERRARD//
INFO COMSEVENTHFLT//
CTF SEVEN ZERO//
SUBJ/SATELLITE LAUNCH WARNING//
REF/A/RMG/SPACEOPCEN AF/301241Z NOV//
NARR/REF A IS LAUNCH WARNING AND INITIAL TACTICAL SUMMARY FROM U.S. AIR FORCE 21ST SPACE OPERATIONS CENTER, DETAILING SUSPECTED PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY (PLA) SATELLITE LAUNCH ON THIS DATE//
1. (SECR) REF A ANNOUNCED THE UNSCHEDULED LAUNCH OF A LOW ORBIT SPACE VEHICLE FROM THE PLA’S JIUQUAN SATELLITE LAUNCH CENTER IN THE SOUTHERN GOBI DESERT APPROXIMATELY ONE HOUR AGO.
2. (CONF) TRAJECTORY AND ORBITAL PROFILE ARE NOT CONSISTENT WITH MANNED SPACE LAUNCH OR ANY KNOWN WEAPON OR WEAPONS PLATFORM.
3. (SECR) INITIAL AIR FORCE EVALUATION IS HAIYANG HY-2F OR HY-3 SERIES SATELLITE, DEDICATED TO OPTICAL, RADAR, AND MULTISPECTRAL SURVEILLANCE OF BAY OF BENGAL OPERATING AREA.
4. (SECR) SATELLITE TRANSIT SPEED HAS BEEN INTENTIONALLY REDUCED IN ORDER TO APPROXIMATE GEOSTATIONARY POSITIONING FROM LOW EARTH ORBIT. 21ST SPACE OPERATIONS CENTER ADVISES THAT ORBITAL PROFILE IS NOT STABLE, AND WILL DECAY WITHIN TEN DAYS.
5. (SECR) FOR PLANNING AND COMMUNICATIONS PURPOSES, THIS SATELLITE HAS BEEN DESIGNATED AS REDBIRD ONE.
6. (SECR) DUE TO PREVIOUS OPERATIONAL PATTERNS AND NATIONAL INTERESTS, THE EXISTING INVENTORY OF DEPLOYED PLA SATELLITES PROVIDES COVERAGE OF THE BAY OF BENGAL OPERATING AREA ONLY APPROXIMATELY SIX HOURS OUT OF EVERY TWENTY-FOUR. DURING ITS PROJECTED LIFECYCLE, REDBIRD ONE WILL PROVIDE THE PLA WITH FULL-TIME SURVEILLANCE OF THE OPERATING AREA.
7. (SECR) ALL UNITS ARE ADVISED THAT THE FULL CAPABILITIES OF THE HY-2F AND HY-3 SERIES SATELLITES ARE UNKNOWN AT THIS TIME. REDBIRD ONE MAY PROVIDE HIGH-RESOLUTION IDENTIFICATION AND TRACKING OF ALL SURFACE AND AIR ASSETS IN THE AREA. RECOMMEND THAT YOU A
SSUME THAT THE PLA HAS FULL VISIBILITY OF YOUR OPERATIONS UNTIL ORBITAL DECAY AND SUBSEQUENT FAILURE OF REDBIRD ONE HAS BEEN CONFIRMED, APPROXIMATELY TEN DAYS FROM THIS DATE.
8. (UNCL) GOOD LUCK AND STAY SHARP! ADMIRAL STANFORD SENDS.
//301332Z NOV//
//FLASH//FLASH//FLASH//
//RBT 2034539//
//SECRET//
//SSSSSSSSSS//
The admiral read through the message twice before he scribbled his initials at the top and handed the clipboard back to Lieutenant Creepy. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he said.
The lieutenant tucked the clipboard under one arm. “Excuse me, sir?”
“Nothing,” the admiral growled. He waved for the strange little man to go away.
When the admiral looked around a few seconds later, the Flag Lieutenant was nowhere to be seen. The admiral hadn’t heard the watertight door open or close, but the lieutenant was no longer in Flag Plot. How in the hell did he do that?
The admiral’s eyes went back to the tactical display screens. Redbird One would be spying on every move the strike group made, every aircraft sortie, and every course and speed change made by the escorts, or by the Midway herself. But there was nothing in Pac Fleet’s message which designated the satellite as hostile, which meant that Zimmerman had no authorization to take the damned thing out.
This new Chinese surveillance tool was officially neutral. There was that word again…
The admiral leaned back in his chair. Neutral. He was starting to hate that fucking word.
CHAPTER 32
CNN CENTER
190 MARIETTA STREET
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
SUNDAY; 01 DECEMBER
9:22 AM EST
Despite Irene Schick’s prediction, the video of the killings in Lhasa did not run as the lead story. She was still convinced that the massacre was going to dominate the news cycle for several days, but the news director, Lloyd Neilson didn’t agree.