by Don Keith
Looking around the room, the skipper reviewed the safety precautions they had practiced.
“This bottom shoals up fast. Running aground would be a bad thing. We will set yellow sounding at ninety feet, red sounding at seventy-five feet. At a yellow sounding, immediately turn one-hundred-eighty degrees with a full rudder. Red sounding, immediately back down until all way is off. Then back out and turn using the outboard. Secure fathometer will be run continuously. Fathometer Watch, keep your eyes open. Let’s not put a dent in our nice boat.”
The sonar tech standing by the BQN-17 Secure Fathometer chimed in, “Yes, sir!”
Commander Allison quickly reviewed the rest of what they expected to accomplish, concluding with, “If we suspect that the Chinese have detected us, we will turn toward deep water and open the area as fast as covertly possible. If we are fired on, we will counterfire if possible and open the area. Make tube one ready in all respects for UUV launch. Make tube two ready in all respects for the self-defense weapon. Tube four will be the backup self-defense weapon. Any questions?” There were none. “Helm, right full rudder, steady course one-two-five, make turns for four knots,” Allison ordered.
The big boat swung around to the harbor-entrance course and slowed to four knots. At that speed, it would be almost an hour before the boat was close enough to get good photographs. However, the slow speed meant that the periscope did not leave a telltale feather, or water plume, behind it as they approached.
“Raising number two scope,” Allison called out as he swung the red lifting ring. The shiny silver tube rose from the scope well as the skipper slapped down the training handles and peered through the eyepiece.
“Bearing to the harbor entrance left tower, bearing mark,” he called out.
The navigator read out the result. “Bearing one-two-seven. Recommend steer course one-two-three. Looks like we are being set to the south.”
“Steer course one-two-three,” Allison ordered. “Lowering number two scope. Next observation in five minutes. Nav, keep the timer.”
Allison stepped away from the scope as it slid back into its housing.
The team repeated the process multiple times as the Boise slowly slipped toward the harbor mouth. Each time they raised the scope, they were a few yards closer, until finally Commander Allison could clearly see the shattered hulk of the Tarbox firmly tied to the wharf just inside the breakwater. Chinese workers dressed in blue coveralls scurried all over the wreckage like ants picking at a carcass, some stabilizing the ship, others stripping it for intelligence purposes.
As he watched, Allison had to grip the training handles and bite his tongue to keep from ordering the launch of something far more deadly than a UUV.
“Verify that Tarbox is tied to the wharf,” he finally said with a grunt of disgust.
“Confirm identity,” the navigator replied. “We have it on video.”
Allison lowered the periscope. “Okay, let’s back out and launch the UUV. Left full rudder, steady course three-one-five. Make normal one-third turns. Sounding?”
“Sounding one-nine-two feet,” the fathometer watch quickly replied.
“Dive, make your depth nine-zero feet.”
“Make my depth nine-zero feet,” Hoss Blocker answered as the boat slid a little deeper.
Thirty minutes later found them three nautical miles away from the island and back up, hovering at periscope depth. Dong Doa Island was once again a low green line on the southeastern horizon. The sons of bitches had even gone to the effort to do some landscaping.
“MRUUV launch checklist complete,” Weps reported. “All checks are satisfactory.”
“Ship launch parameters verified,” the executive officer reported. “Ship is ready to launch the MRUUV.”
“Launch MRUUV, tube one,” Allison ordered.
The weapons officer punched a couple of buttons on the launch control panel. Down in the torpedo room, the MRUUV quietly came to life and obediently swam out of the tube into warm seawater. The unmanned underwater vehicle stabilized on its ordered course and briefly came shallow, using its antennas to check communications with the orbiting comms satellite and obtain a precise GPS fix. Then, as its program ordered, the vehicle dropped to thirty feet off the bottom and swam toward Dong Doa Island. At four knots, it took forty-five minutes for the small submersible to center up on the harbor mouth and then to swim on in.
The MRUUV made its way directly beneath the wrecked Tarbox and planted a couple of sensors on the harbor bottom. It then released a pair of sensors that floated up and magnetically attached themselves to the ship. Each sensor was attached to the submersible with a hair-thin fiber-optic line.
With its sensor deployment complete, the MRUUV swam back out of the harbor and turned to the north, just enough to get outside the shipping channel. There it settled on the bottom and promptly deployed a buoy antenna that floated up, stopping just below the surface. The antenna popped above the water just long enough—mere seconds—to exchange digital packets of data, reporting in before dropping back down.
Commander Allison received the deployment report as it was relayed by a satellite in geosynchronous orbit back down to his sub.
“Looks like our job here is done. Nav, plot us a course out of here so we can call home and brag to the boss.”
5
Phuc Ngyuan and his family had been netting a living from these same waters for hundreds of years. Ten generations of ancestors had called the Vietnamese village of Tam Thanh on Long Hai Island home. The South China Sea’s bounty had fed and housed them in reasonable and comparative comfort and security for most of that time, even paying for the steel fishing boat Phuc used to earn his income. Even though the vessel was now old and rusty, the Mau do Rong had reliably transported Phuc out to the same fishing grounds that his family had harvested for centuries, usually accompanied by the few other Tam Thanh families who earned their livelihood the same way.
It was too grand a description to call the boats venturing out of Tam Thanh’s tiny, protected harbor a fleet. The dozen or so ragtag vessels huddled together for mutual support as they plied the fishing grounds more than two hundred miles out in the South China Sea. Phuc and his fellow fishermen knew little of international law or sovereignty claims and cared even less. They only knew that their fathers had instructed them on how to avoid the hidden reefs and interpret threatening weather as they filled their nets. And they had taught them to pray at the village shrine for a safe return home.
However, the last three times they had ventured to their traditional grounds, the Chinese fishing fleet had arrived ahead of them. Hundreds of boats filling the sea from horizon to horizon, pulling in nets filled with catch. Then, when Phuc and his fellows had started to lay their own nets, the big, white Chinese Coast Guard ships had rushed in and roughly brushed them aside. They had not caught enough fish to cover the cost of their fuel.
As he finished some much-needed net mending, Phuc Ngyuan considered the possibility that the Chinese would be out there again on this trip and wondered what to do if they again chased him and the others away from where they earned their livelihood. He was so deep in his worries that he hardly noticed the approaching small skiff until it pulled up alongside the Mau do Rong. Phuc was far too poor to pay to tie up his boat at the pier. It was anchored in a recess afforded by the piled-stone breakwater. Anyone had to want to see him specifically in order to venture out to this anchorage.
Phuc immediately recognized the Vietnam Coast Guard lieutenant who leapt from the boat over to the Mau do Rong, leaving his own boat’s engine idling. Lieutenant Bo Tranh commanded the small, local Coast Guard facility on Long Hai. He rarely ventured out of his air-conditioned office in Long Hai City on the other side of the island, but all the fishermen knew him well. He occasionally felt the need to show his authority by enforcing arcane rules or harassing boat owners for no other reason than that he could.
“Ngyuan,” Bo Tranh said, with no greeting. “I have come to inform you that the fi
shing fleet sails at sunset. You will have your little boat fueled and ready. We will escort you to your destination and we do not have time to wait for stragglers.”
Tranh did not wait for a reply or challenge. He leapt back aboard his own craft and motored toward the next fishing boat.
Phuc sat there, net in his lap, with a quizzical look on his face. Was the Coast Guard suddenly taking an interest in the plight of the island’s fishermen? And if so, why?
Then he shrugged, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it, then took a deep draw and went ahead mending his net. He could not afford to lose a single fish.
Ψ
Phuc counted two dozen boats in the group as they motored out past the breakwater. The sun had just disappeared, dropping behind the island, as two Vietnam Coast Guard patrol boats made slow circles around them, herding the fishermen into a loosely formed gaggle before making certain they steamed to the east. The patrol boats were Cold War-era Soviet torpedo boats gifted to the Vietnamese, primarily because it was cheaper than scuttling them. The torpedoes and other weapons had first been stripped off them. The only offensive punch that remained was a twenty-three-millimeter machine cannon on the bow of each vessel.
Dawn found the ragtag group riding the swell on the western edge of their traditional fishing grounds. Phuc strapped the ship’s wheel in position and went to the stern, starting the backbreaking effort of deploying his nets. He was still curious about why the patrol boats had felt the need to accompany them out here, but now his mind turned to more practical thoughts. Maybe, if the catch was good this trip, if the Chinese had not already caught every single fish in the South China Sea, then he might be able to buy that used hydraulic winch on sale back along the pier in Tam Thanh. What would it be like to allow the machine to do the heavy lifting while he enjoyed a smoke and looked on? But for now, he would still be required to do it the old, manual way. Like his father. And a long line of fathers before him.
Then he could see on the distant horizon that the Chinese fishing fleet was still there, filling the sea. Phuc could only imagine the devastation this vast armada was causing to any potential harvest. Another few days of such intense fishing and there would be nothing left for him and his family. Nothing at all.
Phuc was busy spending out his nets and did not notice when one of the white Chinese Coast Guard ships charged in their direction, an angry wave rising high on its bow. When Phuc did spot the belligerent vessel, he assumed she would steam around for a while, like a blustering bull, threatening them. She may even try to shoulder some of the Vietnamese boats aside. But this time, there was little need for worry. Surely not even the Chinese would want to pick a fight with the Vietnamese Coast Guard ships.
The sea was large enough for everyone. At least for this trip.
Just to make sure the Chinese were aware of them, the Vietnamese Coast Guard boats charged forward, clearly intending to protect their little flock. But then, Phuc saw the big gun on the Chinese ship’s bow turn ominously toward one of the patrol boats. It spat once, then a second time. He watched, stunned, as the Vietnamese boat exploded. What remained burst into flames. Two more shots and the other Vietnamese patrol boat was a smoking hulk.
Phuc Ngyuan stood there, still clutching the nets of his father and grandfather, and watched in stunned disbelief as the white cutter worked its way slowly through the tiny Vietnamese fishing fleet. The ship’s machine cannons ripped into the small, defenseless fishing boats, leaving them sinking.
Phuc Ngyuan’s last image was the cutter’s high bow towering over him, just before it cut the Mau do Rong in half.
Ψ
“Damn! Damn them to hell!” Commander Geoffrey Smythe cursed. “Did we get all that on video?” he asked no one in particular. But no answer was required. He already knew that the submarine’s computers were storing every byte of what had just occurred up there for later replay and analysis.
HMAS Audacious was barely a thousand yards from the destruction wrought by the Chinese Coast Guard cutter. The Australian submarine’s low-profile photonics mast was poking up just above the wavetops, raking in all the visual and electronic data that was available for it to gobble up. The gunfire and explosions recorded on the sonar “tapes” gave the audible counterpoint to the anguished scene captured by the video.
Smythe beat his fist against the control panel in frustration. There was nothing he could do to come to the aid of those poor bastards up there. The crews of the Vietnam patrol boats or the poor fishermen being brutally and mercilessly attacked above him, apparently with no provocation. There had been only one short radio transmission from the Chinese, likely a warning, as was typical. And a short reply from the Vietnamese Coast Guard ship. Certainly a “go to hell.” Then the sudden and brutal assault.
Nothing Smythe and his crew could do. Nothing but slink off and report what they had just witnessed.
He took one more look through the periscope. Smoke, wreckage, bodies in the water. And beyond, the Chinese fishermen pulled in nets teeming with fish, their silvery scales winking in the light from the early-morning sun.
Ψ
The two stories hit the news services at almost the same time. The submarine video was grainy, but the story was obvious. The Australian Broadcasting Service led the story, but the world press immediately picked it up. The European press services, of course, soft pedaled the angle, charging that the Chinese Coast Guard had “allegedly” fired on “apparently defenseless” Vietnamese fishermen, even as the video clearly depicted the blazing devastation. Vietnam News, the country’s official journalistic organ, was not nearly so benign. The editor demanded an immediate response from the United Nations and protection under the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Treaty. The story, of course, did not appear in the New China News feed. The Vietnamese government requested American military aid, including fifth-generation fighter aircraft and advanced anti-ship missiles. The Vietnam Navy’s own “fleet” of a half-dozen Kilo-class submarines quietly got underway and disappeared from view.
Wheels were turning. A long-standing conflict over fishing grounds had just escalated to one with international implications.
Ψ
The other news story, one about a mountain of gold lying six miles beneath the Pacific, discovered by a scientific research vessel, also grabbed world-wide attention. It, however, played front and center on the New China News feed.
Within hours of hearing the news, King Tofuwanga II claimed an Exclusive Economic Zone out to two hundred nautical miles around Tonga, which just happened to cover the reported location of the golden mountain.
The United States, on behalf of American Samoa, and New Zealand, representing Niue in foreign affairs, immediately rejected the Tongan claims. Diplomatic missives regarding claims on the gold find flew around the globe at the speed of light, soon eclipsing in number and vitriol those concerning the massacre of the Vietnamese fishermen in the South China Sea.
Meanwhile, Yon Ba Deng, the Assistant Vice Deputy to the Minister of National Defense for Naval Matters, watched the controversy from his plush offices in the Forbidden City in Beijing with growing interest.
And no little excitement.
Ψ
The hotline around the Association of Southeast Asian Nations was abuzz. The Chinese Coast Guard openly attacking an unarmed Vietnamese fishing fleet in waters that Vietnam had claimed as theirs for centuries was causing a great deal of angst in all of the capital cities. But the leaders of ASEAN were, after all, practical people. They had lived their entire lives under the shadow of the Chinese tiger. After some clamoring for retribution or UN intervention, cooler heads prevailed. The lives of a handful of poor fishermen were not worth goading that particular stalking tiger. A major war would not serve the interests of anyone in the region. Who knew if the fishermen, with their rudimentary navigational gear, might have actually strayed too close to Chinese waters in their quest for full nets? Most unfortunate.
And the decision seemed to be the correct one. Withi
n three days, any follow-up story run by major newspapers around the world—in every instance the story distributed by the Associated Press—was a mere four-sentence mention in their single-column “International” wrap-ups. Fox News, CNN, and the BBC failed to mention the incident at all.
6
The dark sea was bathwater warm. The only way that Navy SEAL Lieutenant Commander Jim Ward could even see the inside of the Shallow Water Combat Submersible was from the warm glow given off by the computer control panel. This was Ward’s first adventure piloting the SWCS on an actual operational mission. With capacity for only six people and their gear, there was no room inside the mini-submarine for the luxury of a dedicated pilot or navigator. Everyone onboard was necessarily a shooter, a fully trained and qualified SEAL.
The world of the SEAL Delivery Vehicle teams was a new one for Jim Ward. Despite having seen more than his share of new technology—and old-fashioned kinds of engagement with bad guys as well—he had not yet ventured into the shadowy world of mini-subs and their surreptitious littoral missions. At least until now, when he got the chance to serve as executive officer of SDV Team ONE, based in Pearl Harbor.
He had discussed the opportunity with his dad, who just happened to be Admiral Jon Ward, now head of Naval Intelligence at the Pentagon. After giving him renewed grief for not following in his footsteps, and those of his grandfather, driving submarines for the Navy, the elder Ward told him he thought it was a fine idea.
“I knew you would come around and become a bubble-head before it was over,” Jon Ward had told him. “Even if it is a toy sewer pipe you’ll be skippering. Submarining is in your blood, Jimbo.”
The younger Ward had spent several weeks at Coronado in California, learning how to operate the new SWCS. He assumed he would have more time to perfect his abilities. Now, though, it was time to prove that he had paid attention in class.