by Don Keith
Normally assigned as a forward base for Marine units, the massive Expeditionary Mobile Base, or ESB, was now pulling double duty. She was substituting for a submarine tender while standing by, just in case the Marines needed her somewhere to help them kick in a few doors. But now her mission deck was full of CONEX boxes converted to shops and offices. The place hummed with early morning activity as Glass strode across the deck, careful not to trip over the thick power cables and hydraulic lines that snaked everywhere.
“Skipper! Hey, Skipper!”
The voice sounded familiar.
Glass turned to see LCDR Walt Smith emerging from one of the CONEX boxes that had been converted into a machine shop. Smith had been Glass’s engineer from his days commanding the USS Toledo. And one of the best he ever had the pleasure of knowing.
“Eng! Great to see you,” Glass cried out. “What are you doing in this tropical paradise?”
“Well, Skipper...I mean, Commodore,” Smith answered, shaking his hand. “But it’s XO now. I just relieved as XO on the Cheyenne.”
Their conversation was interrupted by the whistle blowing for morning colors. Both submariners stood at attention and saluted as the National Ensign was raised and “The Star-Spangled Banner” played over the ship’s loudspeaker. At the “carry on” signal, the pair snapped their arms down and resumed their chat, taking little notice that they had just participated in a tradition as old as the Naval Service.
“XO, huh? Well, congratulations!” Glass told him. “Cheyenne has one lucky CO to have you as his exec. That is, if he can convince you to do XO things and stay out of the engine room.”
Walt Smith laughed at that. “Is this a case of the pot calling the kettle black? I seem to recall you always wanting to play engineer back on Toledo every time something needed to get fixed.”
It was Glass’s turn to chuckle. “Yep. It’s a temptation to want to relive your best tour. I’m just trying to give you some sage advice. I didn’t say that I necessarily followed it myself.”
Smith pursed his lips and deftly changed the subject.
“I would ask if you had time for a cup of something black and bitter, but I suspect you’re not down here for the weather.”
“Good deduction, Eng. Uh, XO. Raincheck, though?”
“Deal.”
Ψ
Lieutenant Commander Billy Jonas stepped into George Mason’s Control, his hands full of file folders and loose papers. It was time for him to relieve LCDR Jim Shupert, the Nav, as officer of the deck. Although it was just after midnight, local time, and moonless dark up on the surface, there was no way to tell the time of day down here except for a glance at a clock. One of the benefits of submarining. Same LED sunshine twenty-four hours a day.
Billy Jonas liked to stand the midwatch, the least preferred of the watches. It was usually the curse of the most junior qualified officer on board. But Jonas had figured out that the midwatches were an especially quiet time because everybody’s first team was resting. Even their Chinese wolf pack had been remarkably quiet and consistent, just steaming a straight course punching holes in the waters of the Sulu Sea. Here was his chance to catch up on the grinding load of paperwork that was the engineer’s challenge. Tonight’s task was reviewing and checking the Reactor Quarterly Data Report, his report card back to Naval Reactors Headquarters, assuring them that George Mason’s nuclear-powered tea kettle was performing up to snuff.
“’Bout time you showed up, rack hound,” Jim Shupert kidded as the two looked over the tactical situation plot on the ECDIS. “I’ve been smelling whatever Cookie’s been baking for the last hour. My stomach’s growling like a cement mixer.”
“Hate to disappoint, Nav,” Jonas replied, “but it’s beanie-weenies again. Whatever Cookie is baking, it must be for breakfast. Nothing good for mid-rats. So, what’re our Chinese friends up to by now?”
Shupert waved his hand at the track history printed out on the tactical display.
“Pretty much the same-ol', same-ol. They’ve been on a course of one-six-zero, speed a little under five knots all watch. Steaming in line, a few thousand yards apart. I’ve been staying out here at twenty to twenty-five thousand yards off their starboard beam, holding good contact on the thin line array.”
Stepping over to the command console, Shupert punched up the sonar displays and grunted.
“What you got?”
“A lot of contacts out ahead of us,” he replied, pointing out a series of traces on the broadband waterfall. “Sonar thinks they are mostly a fishing fleet, but it’s a pretty crowded fishbowl in this part of the world. Trying to sort out the contacts is going to get really interesting if our Chinese friends get mixed up in that gaggle.”
Jonas chuckled dryly. “Wouldn’t be fun if it wasn’t a challenge. Anything else going to pique my interest? Or keep me from getting work done?” He still held the armful of paperwork.
“Well, Eng, glad you asked.” Jim Shupert grabbed the CO’s Night Orders and handed them to Jonas. “Skipper and the XO both want to be awakened at zero-two-thirty. We’re scheduled to copy comms at zero-three-hundred. I suspect they both want to see what CTF-74 is going to say about us paddling into Philippine territorial waters without a permission slip.”
“Well, at least the first couple of hours should be quiet. Maybe I can still get some paperwork done.” The engineer plopped down his stack of files on the top of the command console. “I relieve you as officer of the deck.”
Jonas settled back in the OOD’s chair and was quickly deep into the complexities of the Quarterly Data Report. The normal watch-standing routine hummed around him as everyone in Control settled in. The pilot and co-pilot maintained course and speed while the sonar operators detected and tracked the fishing boats and freighters plodding above them across the crowded surface of the Sulu Sea. The roving watches kept the control room watchstanders well stocked with coffee.
Almost two hours passed before the routine was abruptly disturbed.
“Possible contact zig, Master One, the lead Chinese sub,” ST1 Hannon, one of the sonar operators, suddenly called out. “There’s a drop in bearing rate, drop in received frequency. He’s slowed.”
A few seconds later, Hannon added new information. “Possible contact zig, Master Two,” and then, “Possible contact zig, Master Three. They have all slowed.” He chuckled. “It’s like watching synchronized swimming. And just about as exciting.”
Jonas dropped his file folder onto the desk and punched up the sonar displays on his console. Sure enough, there were the three traces, still shadowing each other but now tracking off from the expected solutions.
“What are you seeing?” Jonas called over to Hannon.
“Not sure yet, sir,” the sonarman replied. “It’s getting real confused. They are merging into that fishing fleet. Pretty much under them now. Keeping them sorted out is going to be a challenge.”
“Okay. I’ll hold course and speed until we get this figured out.”
“Get what figured out?” Brian Edwards strode into the control room with a cup of coffee in his hand and a quizzical look on his face. “We have a problem, Eng?”
“The Chinese have just zigged, Skipper,” Jonas reported. “All on cue. Not sure yet what they’re doing, except heading through a fishing fleet just to mess with Hannon over there.”
“Picking up loud transients on the bearing to Master One,” Josh Hannon piped up. “Sounds like he just started snorkeling. Loss of the eleven hertz tonal on Master One. New broadband contact on the bearing to Master One on the conformal array. Also, on the wide-aperture array. Range two-five-thousand yards. Equates to Master One.”
Hannon had barely finished shooting out his report on Master One when the broadband sonar again blossomed. He immediately updated the captain and his OOD.
“Master Two has commenced snorkeling, loss of eleven hertz tonal, gained broadband on the conformal array and WAA. Range two-three-thousand yards. Master Three commenced snorkeling, range two-nine-thousa
nd yards.”
The Chinese submarines had slowed and came close enough to the surface to extend a pipe up into dry air. Edwards shook his head and looked at the situation on the tactical display.
“Looks like they’re using the fishing fleet to mask their diesel noise while they charge batteries and run toward the Mindanao Sea. Smart move.”
Captain,” ST1 Hannon called out. “New sonar contact on the conformal array. Classified snorkeling submarine, bearing one-nine-three. Now hold on the WAA, range three-one-thousand yards.”
Edwards jerked his head up from staring at the tactical display, looking puzzled once more.
“You sure?”
“Yes, sir. Same signature as the others. This is a fourth Yuan,” Hannon answered. A fourth Chinese submarine, just like the other three they had been tailing.
Jackson Biddle, the XO, joined Edwards at the display. “Looks like our new friend is about two thousand yards astern of Master Three.” In his best C.W. McCall twang, Biddle added, “Looks like we got ourselves a convoy.”
Edwards glanced over at the master clock. It read eighteen-fifty-three zulu time or zero-two-fifty-three local time. “XO, you keep an eye on our convoy. Eng, let’s get up to periscope depth so we can call home. We need to tell them about our party crasher. And I want to see how hard they’re going to slap my hand for venturing into Philippine waters.”
The George Mason slid smoothly up from the depths to stick its low-profile photonics mast into the clear dark skies. Despite all of the sonar contacts currently popping up all over their displays, for all they could see from the periscope, they were alone on a quiet tropical sea. There were only a couple of masthead lights barely visible, low down on the eastern horizon. Almost certainly fishing boats.
Within seconds, the 21MC speaker blared, “Captain, Radio, receiving a ‘Personal For’ from CTF Seven-Four addressed to you. Patching it to the command console.”
Edwards punched up his personal message account on the command console and entered his password. The screen quickly shifted to a message from Rear Admiral Dan Jorgensson, Commander Submarine Group Seven and Commander Task Force Seventy-Four. Most importantly, he was Brian Edwards’s boss. The message was curt.
BT:
Personal For: Commanding Officer George Mason
Acknowledge your contact report message 0718Zulu. Higher authority directs that you maintain passive trail on contacts until relieved.
You are to exercise every precaution to ensure that you are not to be detected by any forces while you are in Philippine waters.
If detected, you are to make every effort to ensure that you are not identified as a US warship.
Use of force is authorized for self-defense in accordance with the current rules of engagement.
You are to minimize your time in Philippine territorial waters.
You will maintain a six-hour comms cycle until further notice.
We will discuss your actions taken to date upon your return to port.
CTF 74 Actual sends.
BT:
Edwards whistled under his breath. Then he told Jackson Biddle, “Don’t think the boss is in a good mood right now. Sounds like maybe the heavy brass in Pearl, or maybe in DC, disturbed his golf game. Anyway, we have sent them everything we have on our Chinese friends. Let’s get back down and work our way out in front of them a bit so maybe then he can’t hide with all the fishing boats.”
12
The night was wardroom-coffee black. Treetop-level clouds hid even the stars and the slightest sliver of a moon. Through his night vision goggles, Jim Ward could easily see the Texhong fabric mill as a green glow, half a mile away over the sandy, bramble-pocked beach dunes. A narrow, barely paved roadway snaked across the dunes, past where the young SEAL-team commander lay hunkered down, and on to a rickety pier that jutted out into the shallow, brackish waters of the bay. A cloyingly humid tropical breeze brought the stench of mud flats and rotting vegetation. It did nothing, though, to dissipate the humming cloud of mosquitoes that circled Ward’s face.
The goggles also allowed him to just make out Jason Hall in his hiding spot across the road. The big, black SEAL had set up his emplacement at the top of one of the sand dunes. That provided him a shooting lane that covered the southern approaches to the old ferry pier as well as the low marshes to the west. Elevation was an advantage. But it left him a bit more exposed, too.
The rest of Ward’s team were hidden around the perimeter of the Texhong facility. That allowed them the opportunity for as much warning and protection as his meager six-man team could provide. Unfortunately, the intel source had only provided the expected target and the approximate timing of the impending attack. Not the threat vector. That meant the SEALs would be forced to cover all three hundred and sixty degrees around the sprawling plant. That also meant the range of his tiny inter-squad radio was being tested to the max. He could just hear Tad Riley at the far northwest corner. Bill Ross, dug in on the northeast corner, and Sean Horton, over on the southwest corner, were significantly closer and easier to talk with, without the digital artifacting on their audio.
The tactical situation was certainly not ideal. Only he and Hall were in positions to easily support each other. Any one of the others would have to be on his own until someone could scurry over to help out.
Ward was hedging his bets. The logical attack vector would be from the sea, then over the ferry pier or across the nearby beach. The attackers would not expect opposition or think they needed the cover of the nearby woods. That was why he and Hall were dug in where they were, waiting, watching.
What they lacked in numbers the SEALs certainly made up for in firepower. Ward again checked his Mark 48 machine gun. Still locked and loaded. His M79 grenade launcher, with half a dozen forty-millimeter grenades, lay ready beside the machine gun. His MK4A1 carbine that he kept strapped across his chest was set, too. Ward settled back and scanned the dark horizon.
“Skipper!” The whisper in Ward’s earbuds sounded like raspy thunder, jolting him alert. “Couple of dark boats coming in from the south, real quiet like.” It was Jason Hall reporting. “Just coming around Hon Mieu Island now. I’d say there are at least a half dozen shooters on each boat.”
Ward nodded, as if Hall could actually see him. Two boats. A dozen men. He and his guys were only outnumbered a little better than two-to-one.
“Roger, Jase. Heads-up, everyone. Keep your eyes open for anybody trying to slip in the back door while we’re watching the front. Remember the plan. When I give the word, everyone fall back to the CONEX box.”
Ward counted the mike clicks as each SEAL acknowledged that he had heard him. Five clicks. Good.
Now Ward could just make out the low, wicked shapes of the two boats against the dark water. It took him a second, but then he recognized the profile.
“Jase,” he whispered into his throat mike. “You need to get your eyes checked. Those are Chinese Type 928 assault boats. And those bastards got a real stinger on their bows. We’ll need to shoot and scoot on this one.”
One mike click.
Ward watched as the two blackened Chinese assault boats silently slid across the calm waters toward the ferry landing. Now he could see that at least a couple of dozen shooters were crowded topside. The odds just went badly askew for him and his team.
The SEAL could also see that each boat’s bow-mounted 12.7 mm machine gun was manned and ready. For an assault team with no reason to expect any resistance, these guys were not taking any chances.
Ward now knew one other thing their intel had not told them. They were facing a team of China’s Sea Dragons, an elite special forces group within the PLAN Marines. But it made sense. They were the only ones with the reach and training to pull this raid off. And do enough damage to attract the world’s attention.
“Jase, they’re Sea Dragons. We need to tackle them before they get ashore. Wait until they dock and then let’s blitz ’em with a couple of grenades.”
Another s
ingle click of Hall’s microphone. Hall had once been an All-American linebacker for the Alabama Crimson Tide. He understood the football metaphors as well as the value of stuffing a play with a well-timed and unexpected defensive move.
Ward continued to build his plan even as he spoke.
“Then...then let’s scoot back to Doug’s hole. I don’t think it would be healthy sticking around here once we kick the hornet’s nest.”
Ward could now barely hear the burbling diesel engines as the boats slid to a smooth stop alongside the pier. Then he watched as a few of the black-uniformed marines jumped to the shore and took defensive positions while crewmembers efficiently tied the boats up to the pier. This was a well-trained team performing a choregraphed, well-practiced tactic.
It would be a difficult shot, almost three hundred yards from where Ward now stood, the M79 Thumper grenade launcher at his shoulder. The weapon was not the newest of its type, but it was the easiest to carry and use. And the 40 mm grenade could do some damage if he got it close enough.
He sighted carefully, allowed for the slight crosswind, and squeezed the trigger. The launcher’s deep, roaring thump split the quiet night, almost simultaneously with Jason Hall’s similar shot. Ward did not hesitate. He broke the gun’s action, slammed another grenade in the chamber, and fired again. At eighty meters a second, he had just over three seconds to get the next grenade in the air before the first one landed.
Ward was grabbing his machine gun when his and Hall’s first rounds hit. In the brilliant explosive flash, he could see that one round had hit the wheelhouse on the lead assault boat and the second one exploded on the pier.
The heavy machine guns on the two boats’ bows opened up immediately, spraying the sand around him with deadly fire. Ward slid out the backside of his firing pit on his belly. Small arms fire buzzed and snapped all around him.