by Jeff Edwards
Monk acknowledged the order, acknowledged the yellow shirt’s ‘chocks-in’ signal, and powered down his port engine. The silence in the cockpit was almost deafening.
The flight deck crew was already moving toward his plane, bringing the tractor to tow Monk’s injured aircraft to its designated landing spot.
And then, with his plane safely on deck, Monk’s bladder cut loose and he pissed in his flight suit.
Great… He would hear about that for the rest of his fucking career. No one would ever talk about the two Bogies he had downed, or the third that he’d shot holes in, or how he had kept a severely damaged plane in the sky for 300 miles, and then managed a difficult trap.
All he’d ever hear about was how he had wet his fucking diaper.
But no one ever mentioned the urine soaked flight suit. No one ribbed him about losing control of his bladder. No one even hinted at changing his callsign to Potty Boy or Diaper Man. If Rob’s temporary lapse of continence was discussed by anyone, he never heard a word of it.
And no one ever called him Nugget again.
CHAPTER 37
WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM
WASHINGTON, DC
SUNDAY; 30 NOVEMBER
8:33 PM EST
President Wainright strode into the Situation Room, accompanied by a Secret Service Agent. The agent took his usual station in the corner as the president dropped into his chair. “Would someone kindly tell me just what in the hell happened?”
The Sit Room Duty Officer opened his mouth, but Admiral Casey, the Chief of Naval Operations, responded first. “It was an aerial combat engagement in the Bay of Bengal, Mr. President. Two F/A-18 Super Hornets off the USS Midway were vectored in to warn off four Chinese J-15 strike fighter aircraft from the aircraft carrier Liaoning. Planes off the Midway have conducted ten or twelve similar intercepts over the last week or so. Until now, they’ve always ended peacefully, with the Chinese fighters heading for home after the Hornets show up.”
“We’re not sure why it went differently this time,” he said. “All we know for certain is that the J-15s opened fire on our Hornets, and an air battle ensued. One of our Hornets went down and the other one took some damage, but made it back safely. At least two of the Chinese planes were destroyed. A third Chinese aircraft was damaged, but it was still in the air when it passed out of our radar coverage, so that one probably wasn’t a kill.”
The president stared at the CNO. “We are positive that our pilots didn’t shoot first?”
The Secretary of Defense, Mary O’Neil-Broerman, answered. “Absolutely positive,” she said. “We have the report from the Hornet pilot who survived, and his account is confirmed by the recovered sensor data from his onboard computers. It’s further corroborated by the mission tapes from the E-2D Hawkeye that was providing Airborne Early Warning for the carrier at the time. I haven’t seen the data myself yet, sir, but we have it directly from Admiral Zimmerman that the Hawkeye’s radar tracks show conclusively that the Chinese aircraft attacked without warning or provocation. One of our Super Hornets was destroyed by the first missile hit. The other Hornet engaged the Chinese fighters and sent them packing.”
The president raised an eyebrow. “Our pilot was outnumbered four to one, and he managed to get the upper hand?”
SECDEF nodded. “Yes, sir. I have it on good authority that he pretty much kicked their collective asses, Mr. President.”
“Well, it certainly sounds like it,” the president said. His voice was calmer now.
“Okay, what are we doing about it?” he asked.
This time, it was the CNO who spoke. “For the moment, Mr. President, USS Midway is doubling her Combat Air Patrols, and extending her defensive air perimeter by an additional twenty miles. Also, the screening ships in the strike group are on full alert, with Rules of Engagement that allow them to engage any potentially hostile air targets that ignore radio warnings and attempt to penetrate the carrier’s screen.”
No one at the table remarked on the fact that the word “targets” had just entered the conversation for the first time.
“I see,” the president said. “Are these additional measures enough to protect our carrier?”
“Frankly, Mr. President, they’re probably not adequate,” the CNO said. “But that’s about as far as we can go without putting our forces on a more aggressive footing.”
The president turned to face him. “What do you suggest, Admiral?”
The admiral pursed his lips. “With all due respect, sir, our people are flapping in the breeze right now. If they’re going to fight, we should take them off the leash and let them carry the battle to the other guys. If they’re not going to fight, we should pull them out of the area before any more of them get killed by so-called neutral forces. At the risk of mixing my metaphors, we need to fish or cut bait, Mr. President. You can’t win by waiting for the other guy to shoot you in the head, and then deciding whether or not you want to shoot back.”
“This is not meant to be a combat operation,” the president said. “We put the Midway strike group in the Bay of Bengal to act as a stabilizing influence.”
“Then I think we can safely say that it’s not working, sir,” the admiral said. “The Midway’s presence didn’t stop the Chinese from blasting the hell out of the Indian aircraft carrier. It didn’t stop them from trying to penetrate our carrier’s airspace. And it didn’t stop them from shooting at our defensive air patrols. I don’t know what we’re accomplishing over there, but we’re definitely not stabilizing the situation.”
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Horace Gilmore, adjusted his eyeglasses. “I have to agree, Mr. President. The Chinese don’t seem to be interested in stability. They’ve taken shots at our Navy and the Indian Navy. And now they’ve got a dedicated surveillance satellite sitting right over the operating area, watching every move we make. Every time we launch a helicopter or refuel a ship, they see it. If you ask me, sir, they’re tooling up for major combat operations.”
“We don’t know that for a fact,” the president said. “Right now, that’s just speculation.”
“You’re right, sir,” SECDEF said. “We don’t know it for a fact. But we probably won’t get ironclad confirmation until it’s too late. What the CNO said is true, Mr. President. If you wait for the other guy to shoot you between the eyes, you may not be alive long enough to get off a shot of your own.”
The president shook his head. “I’m not letting anybody buffalo me into making a hasty decision on this.”
The National Security Advisor spoke up. “Sir, it’s not my place to make military policy, and I don’t want to buffalo you into anything. But this is one of those cases where we don’t get to choose the timetable.”
The president looked at him. “What do you mean, Greg?”
Brenthoven looked at his watch. “I remind you, sir, that the Indian government intends to carry out their Shiva attack on the Three Gorges Dam in just about forty-five hours. If the Chinese response is anywhere close to what we think it will be, we may be looking at a significant nuclear exchange in southern and eastern Asia.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” the president snapped. “I’m just trying to focus on one crisis at a time.”
“Understandable,” Brenthoven said. “But I don’t think we can really separate one problem from the other. Anything we do for, with, or against China will impact India. Anything we do for, with, or against India will impact China. And if we try to maintain the status quo, India will press forward with their plans to devastate Central China.”
Brenthoven lifted a hand with all five fingers extended. “As I see it, we have five possible courses of action here…”
He folded down a finger. “One—we do nothing, and hope that India is bluffing about the Three Gorges attack. Of course, if it turns out that they’re not bluffing, the USS Midway strike group will be fairly close to ground zero when the nukes start flying.”
He folded down a second finger. �
��Two—we actively try to stop India’s attack on the Three Gorges site. This essentially means taking direct military action against India. It also means aligning the United States with China, who happens to be the aggressor in this whole bloody mess.”
A third finger went down. “Three—we leak the plan for the Three Gorges attack to the Chinese government, and trust to China to protect the dam. This is risky for several reasons, one of which being that the Indian government will pretty much know that we did it. This falls short of actually attacking India, but they will definitely move the United States over to their ‘enemies’ category.”
He folded the fourth finger. “Four—we agree to India’s terms, and throw in on the side of the Indian military. This means direct military action against China, but at least we wouldn’t be siding with the aggressor. Also, as China has attacked our forces and India has not, it makes more sense from a political and foreign policy standpoint.”
The last finger went down. “Five—we pull our forces out of the region immediately, and hope that there aren’t mushroom clouds all over Asia by this time next week.”
Brenthoven lowered his fist. “I hate to say it Mr. President, but General Gilmore, Admiral Casey, and Madam Secretary are right. It’s time to either take decisive action, or get the hell out of there and cross our fingers.”
President Wainright massaged his temples. “You’re saying that I’ve backed myself into a corner, and I don’t have any viable options?”
The Secretary of Defense shook her head. “Not at all, Mr. President. We’re saying that circumstances have backed us all into a corner, and we don’t have any attractive options. We’ve got choices, sir. You have choices. Unfortunately, they just don’t happen to be the particular choices we want right now.”
“It comes down to the same thing,” the president said.
General Gilmore frowned. “We don’t always get to choose the battlefield,” he said. “But we do get to choose how we fight, and who we fight against. That doesn’t mean we can force someone to become our ally, but it does mean that we can make them regret becoming our enemy.”
The president made a dismissive gesture. “Alright. Enough with the saber rattling. I take it your recommendation is that we throw in with India.”
“Yes, sir,” the general said. “Either that, or pull out of the region, and keep our heads down until the Indians and the Chinese sort it out for themselves.”
The president sat without speaking for several minutes. Finally, he leaned forward and rested his elbows on the conference table. “I’m not ready to decide yet. I need to think about this.”
“We don’t have a lot of time, sir,” the CNO said.
“I realize that,” the president said. “You’ve all made that point abundantly clear. But this is an enormous decision, with far-reaching repercussions. I’m not going to make it on the spur of the moment.”
“Understood,” the Secretary of Defense said. “But I have a recommendation while you’re thinking it over.”
“What’s that?” the president asked.
“I think we should authorize the Navy to take out that Chinese satellite,” SECDEF said. “If you decide to pull out of the region, it will make repositioning our forces a lot safer. And if you decide to fight, we sure as hell aren’t going to want that thing hanging over the battlespace.”
President Wainwright glanced around, taking a silent census of everyone at the table. Every head nodded.
“Fine,” he said. “Do it. Shoot the damned thing down.”
CHAPTER 38
USS TOWERS (DDG-103)
BAY OF BENGAL
MONDAY; 01 DECEMBER
1127 hours (11:27 AM)
TIME ZONE +6 ‘FOXTROT’
Lieutenant Lambert, the ship’s Combat Systems Officer, walked into CIC and headed straight for the spot where Captain Bowie and Commander Silva were standing.
“Looking good, Skipper,” Lambert said. “The patch is loaded, and SPY is back up and tracking.”
The ‘patch’ was a software application that modified the operating parameters of the ship’s AN/SPY-1D(V)2 radar system, to allow it to track targets at altitudes above 200,000 feet. With an output power level of over four megawatts, managed by a high–data-rate multi-function computer control system, SPY was quite capable of detecting objects from the surface of the earth all the way up to low orbit. In addition to near-earth satellites, the system could (and would) track any piece of space junk large enough to provide a detectable radar return. As there were an estimated ten-million pieces of manmade debris left in orbit by more than a half-century of manned and unmanned space launches, this could easily flood the radar’s display screens with useless false contacts.
To prevent this irrelevant data from overwhelming the system operators, the SPY software had a built-in subroutine that forced the radar to disregard all contacts above 200,000 feet during normal operations. On those rare occasions where it was tactically desirable to track objects in space, there was the patch: a small packet of uploadable program code that removed SPY’s electronic muzzle, and allowed the radar to see to the very edge of its power radius.
The Combat Systems Officer’s report confirmed that this task had just been completed. The patch had been uploaded. SPY had been unmuzzled, and the radar was now capable of tracking targets in space.
Captain Bowie nodded. “Good work. How long will it take us to get a track on Redbird One?”
“Shouldn’t be long,” the Lieutenant said. “SPY has probably already latched on to it, but it’ll take our operators fifteen minutes or so to sort out the sheep from the goats, and get solid identification on the target.”
* * *
It took eight minutes for the Air Search operators to identify the particular radar reflection that corresponded to the Chinese surveillance satellite, and another twelve minutes for them to cross-check the contact’s position and motion against the orbital tracking data provided by the Air Force.
Finally, the Air Supervisor’s voice came over the tactical net. “TAO—Air. We have a high-confidence track on Redbird One. This contact designated as Track Zero Zero One.”
The Tactical Action Officer keyed his mike. “TAO, aye.”
The TAO turned to Captain Bowie. “Locked on and tracking, Captain. Request batteries released.”
The captain smiled. “You’re absolutely totally completely positive that we’re tracking the right satellite? Because if I give the order and we accidentally take out the Disney Channel, I’m never going to be able to show my face in the O-Club again. Not to mention the NEX or the commissary.”
The Tactical Action Officer answered with an exaggerated shrug. “I can’t say that I’m absolutely totally completely positive that we’re tracking the right satellite. But I’m absolutely totally mostly positive. Is that good enough?”
“I guess it’ll have to be,” Bowie said. “Very well. You have batteries released.”
The TAO grinned and spoke into his headset. “Weapons Control—TAO. Engage Zero Zero One with missiles.”
“TAO—Weapons Control. Engage Zero Zero One with missiles, aye.”
* * *
An armored hatch flipped open on the destroyer’s aft missile deck, exposing the weatherproof fly-through cover that sealed the upper end of a vertical launch missile cell. A half millisecond later, the fly-through cover was blown to shreds as an SM-3 Block II missile roared out of its launch cell and shot into the sky on a ribbon of fire and exhaust gasses.
* * *
In Combat Information Center, the Weapons Control Officer keyed the microphone of his headset. “TAO—Weapons Control. Bird away, no apparent casualties.” The thunder of the departing missile was already fading as he spoke.
* * *
SM-3 Missile:
The first stage booster fired for six seconds before it burned out and dropped away, to tumble back into the ocean. By the time the Dual Thrust Rocket Motor of the second stage ignited, the missile was above the tropos
phere and climbing past 70,000 feet, where the blue of the sky began to darken.
The initial high-velocity pulse of the second stage burn lasted seven seconds, and then the missile coasted for nearly a half minute without thrust, passing out of the stratosphere and into the mesosphere. The sky was fully black now and the apparent flatness of the earth had given way to the curvature of its true spherical shape.
Temporarily deprived of thrust, the weapon lost only a fraction of its speed, due to a combination of inertia, the reduction in mass caused by the ejection of the first stage, and the rapid decline in atmospheric drag. Although the tenuous wisps of the ionosphere extended out to an altitude of about 700 miles, the majority of the planet’s atmosphere—more than 99% of its molecular gas content—had been left behind.
The second stage reignited for a thirty-five second sustainment burn before its fuel reserve was consumed, and the empty hulk of the expended booster was ejected. Nearly three-quarters of the missile’s mass had now been used up and jettisoned.
The guidance section of the missile took a GPS fix, and made minor corrections to the burn vector of the third stage rocket motor. This stage was also designed for two firings, the first at high-thrust, and the second at lower-thrust with lateral corrections to refine the trajectory in the terminal phase.
The third stage did not immediately detach when its final boost was complete. Instead, the onboard computer triggered the third stage attitude thrusters and pitched the nose of the weapon downward, away from the direction of the flight path. A ring of tiny explosive blocks detonated simultaneously, fracturing the locking collar that held the nosecone of the missile in place. In the near-vacuum of space, the protective aerodynamic shell was no longer required. It fell toward the atmosphere, where it would burn up on reentry.
This final task complete, the third stage attitude thrusters fired again, swinging the weapon back up to the proper angle for the intercept. With the nosecone removed, the odd elongated torus shape of the Lightweight Exo-Atmospheric Projectile was exposed.