by Don Keith
The Marines gave a desultory cheer. Then, urged on by their officers, managed something a bit more enthusiastic. Finally, they formed up and marched toward the waiting craft.
Within a few minutes, the three patrol boats and the lone landing craft cast off and steamed away, down the winding channel, heading out for the open water.
King Tofuwanga stood and watched until they had eased away from the pier. Only then did he sit and direct the driver to take him back to the airport and his waiting jet.
Ψ
Yon Ba Deng frowned as he read the message a second time. Then he slammed his fist brutally on his desk.
“That pompous, fat fool!” he yelled. “He is going to ruin everything! Does not the idiot understand how delicate the timing is?”
Bing Dou had delivered the message and, having read it beforehand, prudently stepped back a safe distance. Experience had dictated that when bad news was revealed to the Assistant Vice Deputy to the Minister of National Defense for Naval Matters, it was best to put some distance between himself and his chief.
“Elder brother,” Bing Dou said, employing his most placating voice. “It may not be so damaging as it might first appear. King Tofuwanga’s troops have at least a thirty-hour journey ahead of them. Their only landing craft is an LCM, what the Americans call a ‘Mike boat.’ It will be a struggle for them to make a speed of fifteen kilometers per hour. And it is five hundred kilometers across open water. I believe we have adequate time to take corrective measures.”
Yon Ba Deng nodded and calmed noticeably.
“You are right, of course, younger brother. We must remain calm and prudently adjust our plan.”
Bing Dou smiled and stood just a bit taller. This was the first time that Yon Ba Deng had ever used the honorific of “younger brother” toward him. Clearly, he had finally earned a hard-won place of respect. Respect and trust.
“I will remind you of what Master Sun Tzu said,” Bing Dou offered. “‘Victory comes from finding opportunities in problems.’ It will take six hours for our Marines to land on Niue once they are commanded to do so. They can take off from Guadalcanal tomorrow afternoon. Then they will land on Niue in darkness.” Bing Dou paused to gauge his boss’s reaction so far. He appeared to be listening with great interest. The minion pressed on. “And Master Sun Tzu also told us, ‘Conflict is darkness and light, danger and opportunity, stability and change, strength and weakness, the drive to move forward, the force that restrains it. All conflicts contain the seeds of creation and destruction.’”
Yon Ba Deng smiled ever so slightly. The man rarely smiled. And often when he did, it foretold dire actions.
“So now the servant quotes to the master? But there is insight in what you are telling me. Perhaps a better quote would be, ‘If, in the midst of difficulties, we are always ready to seize an advantage, we may extricate ourselves from misfortune.’”
Yon Ba Deng stood so suddenly it startled Bing Dou. He retreated another step. But his master maintained his half smile. “Arrange for the Marines to attack tomorrow at sunset.” The vice deputy strode over to the office window, still contemplating something. “However, the primary weakness in the plan is now our submarines. The most recent report had my brother just entering the Celebes Sea. At that rate, he will not arrive on time, considering these changes. Contact him and order his force to make best possible speed.”
Bing Dou bowed slightly and replied, “The orders are already drafted, elder brother.”
15
Vice Admiral Yon Hun Glo read the message a second time. Again, he could only shake his head. It still did not make a lot of sense to the submariner. The admiral, according to orders, had been leading his lang qun—his wolf pack of four submarines—in a stealthy transit, first through the Sulu Sea and now across the Celebes Sea. The only way that his AIP-powered boats could make the long voyage to Tonga without the risk of being detected by every sub-hunting nation in the Western Pacific—including, of course, the USA—was to do it with the near silent air-independent propulsion systems. At a maximum speed of ten kilometers per hour, they would require a month for the transit. Clearly, his older brother did not realize how large the Pacific Ocean was and how long it took to cross without alerting the entire world of what was occurring.
Yon Hun Glo turned to Captain Liu Zhang, the commander of the submarine Wushiwu, the boat in whose control room they now stood.
“Captain, you will now signal the others to come to a speed of ahead flank. Steer course zero-nine-zero and head straight for the Philippine Sea. Once we are again in international waters, we will make a surface transit at flank until we are east of Fiji.”
The diminutive commanding officer frowned as he considered the charts. He carefully measured off the distance and consulted with his report of fuel status.
“Admiral, with all respect, this is a distance of seventy-five hundred kilometers. We will be critically low on fuel when we reach Tonga. It would be much better to use our most fuel-efficient transit speed.” The captain did some quick calculations. “We would arrive a day later, but not nearly so seriously low on fuel. We would have practically no tactical usefulness since we...”
Liu looked up and saw Yon Hun Glo shaking his head with a wry smile. Maybe Liu Zhang was not a complete idiot, even if he was a Party sycophant. But in this case, common sense did not matter. The admiral’s orders were to arrive as soon as physically possible. And that was precisely what they would do.
“Captain Liu, I have my orders. Now you have yours. You will carry them out.”
Yon Hun Glo turned on a heel and headed toward his stateroom. He had only just sat down with a cup of tea when he felt the pronounced nudge as the submarine surged forward.
Ψ
The Chinese admiral was not the only one who noticed the dramatic increase in transit speed of each boat in the wolf pack.
“Possible contact zig, Master One,” Ensign Sam Walters called out. “Bearing rate increased to right-two-point-three.”
Bill Wilson, George Mason’s on-watch officer of the deck, was just flipping to the fire control solution when Sonar called out an update.
“Increase in received frequency, all four contacts of interest. Unless they turned straight toward us, they gotta be making twenty knots!”
Wilson watched the fire control solution. With an increasing right-bearing rate, they certainly were not coming straight at the George Mason. The only possible answer was that the Chinese wolf pack had kicked in the afterburners and were now hightailing it out of Dodge for some unknown reason. And the Chinese apparently did not care who might hear their sudden skedaddle.
“Mister Wilson,” Chief Schmidt, the pilot, spoke up. “I think you should tell the XO. He is the command duty officer right now.”
“Tell the XO what?” LCDR Jackson Biddle asked as he strolled into the control room, still licking the sticky-bun syrup from his fingers. “Something going on I need to know about?”
“XO, the wolf pack just zigged. Looks like they are steadying up on course zero-nine-zero, speed twenty.”
Biddle whistled softly.
“Either they want to drag race, or they are suddenly in one hell of a real hurry to get somewhere.”
Ψ
Joe Glass heard the knock at his stateroom door. At his grunted acknowledgement, a tall, fit Marine lieutenant colonel opened the door and stepped inside. He stood at attention as he announced, “Lieutenant Colonel Stanton Readly reporting, sir.”
Glass stood and stepped around his desk toward the door, extending his hand.
“Colonel Readly, glad to have you and your Marines aboard.” He waved toward the sideboard that held a coffee pot. “Grab yourself a cup of coffee and have a seat. I’m assuming the rest of them are right behind you.”
As Lt. Col. Readly poured himself a cup, stirred cream into his coffee, and pulled out a chair at the conference table, he reported, “Yes, sir. I believe Captain Jones and Commander Weiss stopped in on the way to say hello to Captai
n Wooten. Apparently, Captain Jones and Captain Wooten are old shipmates.”
Glass grabbed his coffee cup—no cream or sugar—and moved toward the conference table just as the other officers arrived. After greetings all around, and cups of coffee poured for all, the group sat down to business.
“As Senior Officer Present Afloat, USINDOPACOM has made me responsible for the security of the local area,” Glass told them as he opened the meeting. “If you have been keeping up with the news lately, you will already know that things are getting interesting, and from a lot of different directions. The announcement of the gold find at the bottom of the Tonga Trench has certainly focused some attention on this particular tropical paradise. The attack on our frigate and King Tofuwanga’s little performance at the UN has heightened security concerns. So has recent intel we’re getting from some well-placed sources within PLAN. This thing is a veritable stew of intrigue, apparently. The gold is only one element, pun intended. So is the recent ramp-up in the Chinese pressing their territorial claims by violent means. We’ve had very curious reports from some of our submarines that are keeping tabs on several Chinese boats. But our sources tell us that there is also some considerable in-fighting and intrigue within the Chinese military, with some high-placed individuals jockeying for power. They are apparently willing to push us close to war to achieve their goals. Besides, it appears their goals are not all the same.”
Glass took a sip of his coffee. All eyes were on him. It occurred to him yet again how far he was now from the wardroom of a submarine. “But our job is simply to watch and react to whatever all that James Bond stuff might end up being. I called us all together to see exactly what we have to play with and to set up a little planning on how we respond. Should it come to that.”
Looking around the table, Glass was pleased to see each officer nodding, listening. He went on. “For Naval assets, it looks like we have the Cheyenne. The sub should be completed with her maintenance and ready for underway in a couple of days. I’m thinking that the Puller is best kept here in Pago Pago and used as a command center.”
Captain Wooten offered his agreement. “That’s what she’s designed for. If we try to use her as a warship, she is only going to get in the way.”
“Once we get the ORCAs off-loaded and underway, we can use the Portland to show the flag when she is underway,” Glass went on.
Both Jones and Weiss started to speak, then Weiss nodded for Captain Jones to go ahead.
“We have a problem with that,” Jones reported. “ORCA TWO is down hard. Parts are being shipped in from the States, but even at best, it will take a couple of weeks to get it fixed. You don’t get parts for those submersibles at the local yacht marina. Until then, our well-deck is out of action, too. On the bright side, ORCA ONE is ready to go.”
Glass frowned.
“Not the best timing. That puts a crimp in our style. Let’s go ahead and get ORCA ONE out on mission. I want to keep constant eyes on the area that King Tofuwanga claims is his new backyard. We all know there is a reason for his choice of neighborhood. Can we do that?”
CDR Weiss answered, “No problem. As soon as we complete fueling and load the mission package, we can be underway. Say eight hours.”
Well, at least one thing is going our way, Glass thought. He turned next to the Marine.
“Colonel, it looks like you are our boots on the ground if we need them. Where are you going to be useful?”
Lt. Col. Readly sat up straight. “Captain, I have a Marine Special Purpose Force detached from the Fifteenth Marine Expeditionary Unit. I have three hundred and twenty shooters. The MSPF is qualified Special Operations Capable. You get us where you need us and tell us what you want done. We’ll get it done.”
Glass did not doubt it. Not for a second. Not from the set of the Marine officer’s jaw.
Ψ
The USS Boise slowly turned in a big arc to the east. Her skipper, Chet Allison, his eye pressed to the periscope eyepiece, watched disbelievingly as the unexpected scene unfolded. Two Chinese SSNs were broached on the surface, just visible against the night sky, barely three thousand yards away. A full moon added illumination to the scene so that Boise’s skipper could just make out the activity topside as the two submarines launched several small craft, probably inflatable boats.
As many times as he had shadowed Chinese submarines in his career, this was the first time he had actually seen one live and in color and on the sea surface. Just then, a new element was introduced into the unfolding event.
“Conn, ESM. Detecting an SPS Fifty-Five surface search radar. Just lit off. No threat to us. Probability of detection for the surfaced submarines, very high.”
Someone else was in the vicinity, also watching the Chinese boats. However, they were using radar to do so.
Lieutenant Juan Esteban, the battle-stations officer of the deck, keyed the 21MC, responding, “Conn, aye.”
So, who else was out there? Allison spun the scope around until he was looking at Dongsha Island. There was a Kee Lung-class Taiwanese destroyer anchored there. He shifted the scope to twenty-four power. Sure enough, he could make out the “bed-springs” radar antenna on the former USS Kidd-class DDG. It was slowly rotating.
“Conn, Sonar, hearing what sounds like gas turbines lighting off and anchor chain noises, bearing zero-one-three.” Chief John Vincent’s voice was calm and assured.
“Sonar, Captain. I hold a Kee Lung-class destroyer on that bearing. Sounds like he is getting underway.”
“That sounds right,” Vincent answered. It appeared the Taiwanese navy was not going to allow the Chinese to steam into their territorial waters, surface, and launch some rubber boats. At least not without some kind of perfunctory challenge. Now Allison had a front-row seat to this little stare-down that appeared to be on the verge of taking place.
The skipper swung the scope back to see what was happening with the SSNs. He was just in time to see the men topside scurrying toward hatches. It was either time for them to go, or they, too, were aware of the Taiwanese destroyer heading their way.
The small boats the subs had put into the water were lost in the darkness. Seconds later, both SSNs slid smoothly below the surface with barely a ripple.
“Conn, ESM, detecting SPG-Sixty gun-control radar. Equates to a Kee Lung-class destroyer. It’s in target acquisition mode.”
The destroyer was in the process of homing in on the proposed targets, the final step before shooting. Or at least trying to convince the PLAN vessels that they were about to do just that if they did not go away.
Allison spun the scope back toward the destroyer in time to see it charging boldly out into the open water. Just then, a brilliant orange-red flame shot from the barrel of the vessel’s forward five-inch gun. Three more shots followed in rapid succession.
This was no bluff. They were trying to sink the two interlopers!
The AN/WLY-1 Acoustic Threat Intercept System on Boise began ominously chiming. Simultaneously, Sonar reported, “Receiving three-point-five kilo-hertz active sonar. SQS-Fifty-Three. Signal strength forty-five. Probability of detection eighty percent.”
Allison nodded. The situation was getting very serious very quickly. The destroyer had stormed out of its anchorage looking for submarines and was already shooting. The Fifty-Three sonar system they were employing was a really good high-power active sonar. There was a damn good chance it would be able to detect all three of the submarines swimming around in Taiwanese waters, the two Chinese boats and the Boise. But great as it was, it could not sort out the good guys from the bad.
“Captain,” the XO, Henrietta Foster, jumped in. “Recommend we go active to tell the destroyer who we are.”
Allison did not hesitate. He was already thinking the same thing.
“Sonar, go active on the BQQ-Ten. Max power omni mode.”
The BQQ-10 sonar transmitted on the same frequency as the SQS-53. They were very similar systems, actually designed and built by the same people. The sonar operator
s on the destroyer should easily be able to identify that one contact they were seeing was a US submarine.
Of course, the two Chinese SSNs would also know now that Boise was an uninvited guest at their little party. Allison would have loved to see the looks on the Chinese skippers’ faces when Boise’s BQQ-10 popped up.
There was, of course, a chance their reaction might be drastic. Time to get the gun cocked, just in case.
“Make tubes one and two ready in all respects. Assign tube one to Master One, tube two to Master Two.” Now it would only take a few seconds to put two torpedoes in the water if they needed to, one aimed at each of the Chinese submarines.
“Conn, Sonar. Three active returns. Master One, bearing three-four-four, range three-five-hundred yards. Master Two, bearing three-five-one, range four-two-hundred yards. Sierra One-Seven, the Taiwan DDG, bearing zero-one-six, range six-five-hundred yards.”
It was a regular South China Sea regatta!
Allison spun the scope around again. Time for one final look and then they would get out of town. He did not want to be in the middle of an Old West gunfight.
The skipper was just in time to see two ASROC missiles leap from the forward launch rails of the destroyer. Brilliant white flames arched across the night sky.
“Torpedo in the water!” The pitch of Vincent’s voice had gone up a notch or two. “Hold two...wait...hold four torpedoes in the water.”
“Snapshot tube one Master One. Tube two Master Two,” Allison called out. He reached up and spun the red ring to lower the scope.
The captain hardly had time to consider what had just happened. Torpedoes had been launched at them with the intent of blowing them up and sending them to the bottom. He was about to launch weapons at the two submarines attacking him, occupied by fellow living, breathing submariners.