Peacekeepers

by James Rosone

  A couple more minutes went by, and then the underwater threat officer shouted, “Brace for impact!”

  The carrier briefly lifted several inches in the water before crashing back into the hole created below it. The bow of the ship dipped dangerously low to the waves before plowing through the water like a hot knife through butter.

  The sudden jarring and impact from the explosion threw nearly everyone who wasn’t seated or strapped into a chair to the ground. Many people injured their ankles, knees, or backs from the sudden impact.

  Seconds after the violent tumult, the lights flickered briefly before they went out entirely, throwing the CIC and the ship into complete and utter darkness. The emergency generators should have automatically kicked in, but they failed—either from the sudden jarring or something else.

  As the ship slowed to a stop from the loss of the engines, the battery-operated emergency lights popped on, providing them with a modicum of light. Then they heard it—a series of loud groans as the hull of the carrier buckled and broke from the numerous fissures and fractures spreading across the structure of the ship.

  “Give me a damage report!” shouted Captain Reynolds. He climbed back to his feet in a state of bewilderment and shock at what had just happened. Never in his thirty years in the Navy had he experienced anything like this. He still couldn’t believe his ship, his pride and joy, had just been torpedoed.

  “Systems are still offline. I’m trying to reboot the computers now!” shouted one officer in reply.

  “Captain, I have engineering on the phone!” yelled one of the senior chiefs. He held out the receiver to the ship’s internal phone system.

  “How bad is it, Scottie?” asked Reynolds as he grabbed the receiver. He said a silent prayer that the ship could be saved.

  Commander George Scott, or “Scottie” as he was often called, had been the chief engineering officer on the Truman now for three years. He was one of the most senior engineering officers in the fleet, and he was definitely the guy you’d want in charge if there were ever a major disaster or accident.

  Scottie’s gruff voice yelled above the alarms going off in the background. “It’s bad, Captain. The lower decks are flooding rapidly. I don’t think we’re going to be able to stop the water pouring into the engine room.” A short pause ensued as Scottie yelled out some orders to someone nearby. Alarm bells continued to blare relentlessly.

  “One of the torpedoes hit the propeller shafts and ripped them apart, sir,” Scottie reported. “The explosion broke all the seals from the external shafts, all the way back to the engines. With those seals gone, we’ve got a massive flow of water rushing through them without a way of stopping it. I’ll know more in a few moments if we’ll be able to stop the flooding, but if we can’t get it under control soon, we may lose the ship.”

  Captain Reynolds was horrified. Never before had a modern aircraft carrier been hit by a twenty-first-century torpedo. There wasn’t a lot of data on how to deal with a hit like this because it just hadn’t happened before.

  “Just do what you can, Scottie,” Reynolds ordered. “Call me back if things get worse.” He handed the phone back to the senior chief. He then turned his attention to the other damage reports that were finally starting to flow in now that their computer systems and sensors were back up and running. The other damage control parties around the ship were also beginning to call in their reports.

  The situation they were painting across the ship was bleak. They were currently dead in the water. To make matters worse, the leaks in engineering were becoming unstoppable as the magnitude of the damage was becoming known.

  Twenty minutes after the torpedoes hit the Truman, it was determined that she was most likely going to sink. The driveshafts for the engines had been torn apart, and they had four large holes in the ship that couldn’t be sealed off. To make matters worse, the cracks and fissures that had developed throughout the ship meant that once-watertight spaces and bulkheads were now leaking water faster than their pumps could expel it. As more water flooded into the ship, the pressure on the already damaged portions of the Truman caused more leaks to appear.

  When Captain Reynolds realized there was a good likelihood the ship was going to go down, he ordered what helicopters they had on the flight deck to promptly begin evacuating the wounded to the other ships in the strike group. Likewise, the other destroyers and cruiser escorts used their helicopters to help offload the wounded from the carrier and begin ferrying as much of the crew over as possible. Since the ship was roughly twenty-six miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, they sent an emergency message to the Coast Guard and to Norfolk for immediate assistance.

  Soon, dozens of helicopters from Norfolk and the nearby Coast Guard facilities were landing on the carrier deck, picking up the hundreds of wounded sailors and Marines. Several of the destroyers had also come nearby, and they did their best to assist in getting the injured and other sailors off the ship while bringing over additional people who could try and help control the flooding.

  The first shot of the third war of the Atlantic had been fired, and it looked like the UN forces had drawn first blood.

  *******

  Pacific Ocean

  200 Miles South of Hawaii

  “Captain, we’re receiving a flash message from INDOPACOM. They’re ordering us to go to Condition One. We’re being told to prepare for an imminent attack,” announced the communications officer.

  Captain Ian Grady of the USS John C. Stennis walked up to his comms officer and grabbed the flash report to read over what it said for himself. Then he acknowledged the order, proclaiming, “Sound general quarters. Bring us to battle stations!”

  The general quarters Klaxons blared, and the crew of the ship mechanically ran through their various procedures and processes that had been drilled into them from the first time they’d ever boarded a ship.

  A couple of minutes after the alarm started, the strike group commander, Admiral Leslie Parker, walked in to see what was going on. She spotted the captain and made her way over to him.

  “What is it, Grady?” she asked with a look of concern on her face.

  Admiral Leslie Parker had just taken over command of the strike group ten days ago. She had transferred in from the CNO’s office when the Pentagon had begun to prepare the entire armed forces for combat operations. She’d been one of the first female captains of a supercarrier, and now she was the first female strike group commander. By all accounts, she was a hell of a commander. She’d earned her chops as an F/A-18 Super Hornet pilot, flying combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. She’d worked her way up the food chain the old fashion way, through grit and determination.

  Captain Grady was usually happy to see Admiral Parker, but he just shook his head in disbelief and handed her the flash report.

  “It’s the Truman. They were apparently ambushed twenty-some miles off the Virginia coast. The report doesn’t say how many torpedoes they were hit with, but it looks grim,” he replied.

  Rear Admiral Parker didn’t waste any time. “I want to know immediately what ships are within a two-hundred-mile perimeter of our fleet,” she announced. “Send a flash message to our destroyers and let’s make sure we don’t get sucker punched by a similar attack. I want all our ASW helos airborne now.”

  With her initial orders issued to the fleet, she turned to look at Captain Grady. “I recommend we get some strike fighters ready in case we come across some targets of opportunity. If this UN force attacked the Truman, you can bet whatever ships they have in the area are probably looking to attack us as well.”

  Grady nodded, then turned to his Commmander, Air Group. “CAG, we need to get the ready alert fighters in the air,” he ordered.

  As soon as he’d finished his sentence, one of the radar operators yelled to get his attention. “Captain, I’ve got something!” he shouted.

  Grady and Parker made a beeline for the chief petty officer, who was manning one of the surface-radar stations. The man was poi
nting at a cluster of ships on his radar screen.

  “What do you have, Chief?” asked Grady.

  “I show two Chinese Navy destroyers escorting what appear to be three massive freighters. They’re roughly 140 miles away, so well outside our threat bubble, but they just turned on their targeting radars a few seconds ago. They’re actively painting the strike group,” the man explained. The nervousness in his voice was evident.

  “I don’t like it,” Admiral Parker remarked. “Not after the attack on the Truman. Come to think of it, how did we not see them sneaking up on us like this?” she asked, the pitch of her voice rising higher.

  “It’s not that they snuck up on us, ma’am,” replied a lieutenant who’d clearly come over to make sure his chief wasn’t being unduly picked on. “They’ve only just now come into our search bubble. We hadn’t expanded our perimeter yet. It does appear that they’ve turned to head toward us. The last time we had spotted them, they were roughly 160 miles away, and that was several hours ago.”

  Turning to look back at Grady, Admiral Parker ordered, “Get a strike group airborne now. I’m going to try and get permission from 7th Fleet commander to sink them. While I’m doing that, I want the strike group up and ready for action.”

  Captain Grady nodded and turned to get to work on his new task while Admiral Parker worked on trying to get through to the 7th Fleet commander.

  *******

  Aboard the DDG-155 Nanjing, Senior Captain Ding Yiping watched the targeting radar screen with keen interest as the information started pouring in. They had already deployed two of their smaller surveillance and reconnaissance drones, which had helped them find the strike group a few hours ago. As the supercomputers on their destroyer crunched all the data coming in, they fed the results to the targeting computers on the CJ-10 cruise missiles they were about to fire.

  Unbeknownst to the rest of the world, the People’s Liberation Army Navy had converted a number of these massive freighters into floating missile platforms. It was a modern-day merchant raider fleet, just like the Germans had done during World War II. In place of internal cargo compartments, the ship’s cargo holds had been redesigned and fitted with vertical-launch pods.

  To add to the ruse, the tops of the cargo ships were covered with containerized shipping pods. These were all specially mounted on a rail system that could be opened up when it was time to fire off their missiles. After their missiles had been fired, the rail system would move the shipping pods back over the top of the VLS system, once again concealing them from the prying eyes of satellites and reconnaissance drones.

  After the Chinese Navy had finished the conversions, a single cargo vessel now held fifty CJ-10 land-attack cruise missiles, providing the ships with a potent standoff weapon. These missiles were very similar to the American Tomahawk cruise missiles in range and payload. The ships also held one hundred of the vaunted YJ-18 or CH-SS-NX-13 anti-ship missiles. These missiles had a maximum range of 540 kilometers and gave the ships the ability to legitimately challenge the US Navy. The missiles cruised at speeds of Mach 0.8 and had a terminal velocity speed of Mach 2.5 to 3.0 when zeroing in on their prey. The warheads consisted of an armored tip for deep penetration of a ship’s hull and a 300-kilogram warhead of an advanced explosive mixture, designed purely to cause maximum damage to a ship.

  The Chinese had turned these floating behemoths into twenty-first-century battleships. Their overarching goal was to use them as a first-strike weapon against the US Pacific fleet, and either sink or disable the American carriers. With the US’s carriers taken out of the equation in the Pacific, the Chinese could move forward with a multitude of operations to cement their hegemony over the Pacific.

  One of the targeting officers who’d been manning a radar screen flagged Captain Ding down. “Sir, it would appear the Americans are launching additional fighters. Do you want us to order the raiders to begin their attack?” he asked.

  “Find out if the raiders are ready to launch. Tell them they need to hurry up—I believe our cover has been blown.”

  “Yes, sir,” he replied, and he rushed off to make the call.

  A moment later, he came trotting back. “Captain, the raiders told me they need just a few minutes as they ready the VLS systems to fire.”

  “Very well,” Captain Ding answered. There wasn’t anything he could do now but wait.

  As the minutes went by, they observed several of the American destroyer escorts moving into a screening position, placing themselves between the carrier and the Chinese ships. Six additional aircraft also joined the four fighters that were already circling the carrier. Two fighters, F/A-18 Super Hornets, headed toward the Chinese fleet. They were still a little more than 120 miles away, so the Chinese ships had time to get themselves sorted and ready to begin their attack. One thing was abundantly clear, though—the Americans suspected something and were preparing to deal with them.

  Suddenly, a few alarm bells sounded in the CIC of the Nanjing.

  “Sir, the Americans’ targeting radars have painted our ships,” a radar technician announced.

  Despite this proclamation, the captain and the rest of the crew didn’t seem too concerned just yet. The American Harpoon anti-ship missiles only had a range of 67 miles, or 124 kilometers. Unless the American ships started firing Tomahawks at them, they were well outside the Americans’ range.

  Ding’s executive officer walked over to him, demonstrably excited. “Captain, the raiders are reporting they’re ready to begin launching their missiles. They said it should take them approximately five minutes to carry out the first volley. The captain recommends we begin firing soon so we can keep the American warships at arm’s length.”

  Taking in a deep breath, Captain Ding slowly let it out before issuing the attack order. They were about to show the world that China was officially a blue water navy, capable of projecting power well beyond its territorial border.

  “Order them to begin firing volley one,” he said confidently. “Have them begin preparations to fire volley two on Hawaii. We need to make sure we neutralize the next threat.”

  Within a minute of issuing his first order of this new war against America, the three merchant raiders made history by firing off hundreds of anti-ship missiles at an American carrier. It would take them close to five minutes for the firing sequence to complete. Then they’d begin the next firing sequence, which would look to hammer the American naval and air facilities on the Hawaiian Islands, roughly two hundred miles away.

  *******

  One of the air defense officers aboard the USS John C. Stennis yelled out, “Vampires, Vampires, Vampires!”

  Over his shoulder, Captain Grady watched as the radar screen suddenly filled up with dozens upon dozens of anti-ship missiles. “Where the hell did they come from?” shouted Grady.

  “It’s those cargo ships, sir,” replied another air defense officer. “It appears the missiles are emanating from them.”

  Captain Grady felt his jaw hang open in shock, and he couldn’t respond for a moment. He looked at Admiral Parker—she was similarly speechless.

  “The missile count is now surpassing fifty!” shouted another petty officer excitedly.

  The radar picture of the area was now being shown on the big board in the CIC. What they saw was terrifying. The small cluster of five Chinese ships was suddenly emitting missiles at an astonishing rate. A missile every two seconds was appearing from the cargo ships while the two destroyers were focusing their efforts on going after the fourteen aircraft the Stennis had managed to get airborne before the attack started.

  One of the communications officers held a hand receiver out to Admiral Parker. “The Antietam is requesting permission to take over the strike group’s air defense effort and begin engaging the enemy missiles,” she said.

  “Permission granted!” shouted Admiral Parker. “Order the rest of the fleet to engage those Chinese ships with our Tomahawks. We need to take them out before they can keep pummeling us with missiles. Go
d only knows how many of them are packed in there.”

  The UAV operator waved his arms to get the captain’s attention. “We’re starting to get some images from the Triton. Holy hell! Look at this!”

  Captain Grady rushed over to him. The drone operator had moved the UAV to get in closer to the Chinese ships and used its advanced optics to get them detailed visuals of the ships.

  Before Grady could say anything, one of the master chiefs commented, “I don’t know how they did it, but it sure looks like they covered the entire cargo hold of those ships with vertical-launch system pods. They probably packed them with hundreds of missiles, turning them into massive floating missile platforms.”

  Captain Grady found himself feeling simultaneously impressed with the idea and irate that they hadn’t thought of it first.

  Turning to the UAV operator, the master chief added, “Make sure this video is getting sent back to INDOPACOM. We need to spread the word of this new threat to the rest of the fleet ASAP. God only knows how many more of these ships they’ve got prowling the Pacific right now.”

  Captain Grady looked over at Admiral Parker, who’d followed him over. She definitely didn’t appear to be her usual stoic self—she poked at the bun on her head as if it were about to fall off, and one vein in particular on her forehead was suddenly very visible.

  Grady understood the reaction. The missile count was continuing to climb, now breaking through the two hundred mark. Many of those missiles would start to come into range of the strike groups anti-missile defense bubble in another three to five minutes. In ten minutes, the missiles would be in range of their point defense systems.

  The captain heard Admiral Parker mumble, “Well, if you haven’t found God, now would be the time to pray that our defensive systems do their job and protect the fleet.”

  *******

  Captain Ding was feeling good and optimistic about the attack underway against the American strike group until their radar screens showed a series of new threats. Tomahawk cruise missiles were being fired by the carrier’s destroyer escorts, while the two guided missile cruisers went to work on engaging their anti-ship missiles.