Peacekeepers

by James Rosone

  The first wave of Chinese and American missiles were nearly ready to collide with each other as the YJ-18 missiles’ AI systems took over and began to maneuver their way through the barrage of missile interceptors streaking toward them. Slowly, then very rapidly, the volume of missiles heading toward the strike group shrank.

  “Begin engaging the American Tomahawks with our own interceptors,” instructed Captain Ding. “Order the raiders to start launching their second wave of missiles.”

  The Nanjing shook as her own forward and rear missile magazines started firing their interceptors. In minutes, the two Chinese destroyers had launched twenty interceptors. As long as the Nanjing or her sister ship stayed operational, they’d be able to help guide the merchant raiders’ missiles. If both of them were taken out, then the merchant raiders would have to rely on their own, less sophisticated targeting radars to go after the American ships.

  “Captain, the first volley of missiles should be entering the carrier’s point defense systems now,” exclaimed one of the targeting officers.

  Looking at the radar screen on the large wall-mounted monitor, Captain Ding saw that of the first two hundred missiles that had been fired at the fleet, only forty-two had survived to get within the American strike group’s point defense systems.

  Within two minutes, the group of forty-two missiles had been thinned out until there were just twelve left. Fortunately, four of them slammed into the carrier, while the remaining eight scored hits against the destroyer escorts.

  “Prepare for impact!” shouted one of the officers.

  Their own point defense systems engaged the American Tomahawk missiles. The loud ripping noise so synonymous with the CIWS gun system was deafening as the guns spat out a wall of 25mm tungsten projectiles. A loud blast erupted a few hundred meters away from the Nanjing, slapping the outer structure of the ship with shrapnel. One of the incoming missiles had detonated when it hit the wall of tungsten.

  Then three enormously loud explosions rocked the ship. Turning to look at the CCTV cameras that provided them with an exterior view of what was going on outside the ship, Captain Ding saw that two of the merchant raiders had sustained multiple hits from the Tomahawks. Less than a minute after the missiles impacted, one of the raiders exploded in a massive fireball as the ship was literally ripped in half. The two broken remnants of the ship were ablaze and sinking rapidly.

  The Nanjing’s sister ship, the Taiyuan, suddenly exploded in a brilliant display of flames and smoke as two Tomahawks slammed into the side of the ship. While the Taiyuan hadn’t been torn apart like the raider, it was nearly completely covered in flames from the impact.

  Turning to his XO, Captain Ding yelled, “How many Tomahawks are left?”

  “We have ten more inbound,” the XO answered nervously. “They’re three minutes out. Our next set of missile interceptors is engaging them now.”

  One of the operations officers shouted, “Raider Three is firing their first round of land-attack missiles now! They’re also firing another round of anti-ship missiles at the American strike group.”

  “What’s the status of Raider One? Are they still able to fire missiles?” Captain Ding demanded.

  “Not yet. I just spoke with their XO. They took a hit to the forward VLS pods. It took out their interceptors and temporarily disabled their targeting computers. They’re working on getting them recalibrated and ready to fire. He said it’ll be at least five minutes before they can resume firing.”

  “Five minutes?! We may not have five minutes if they don’t get their missiles operational,” Ding shouted.

  *******

  “Brace for impact!” yelled out one of the Stennis’s targeting officers as they watched the next volley of enemy missiles enter their point defense systems.

  Even from inside the CIC, Admiral Parker could hear the Phalanx CIWS guns start to fill the air with tungsten rounds as they sought to create a wall of protection around the carrier. The RIM-7 Sea Sparrow and RIM-116 rolling airframe missiles speedily joined the fray as they sought out the remaining missiles converging on the carrier.

  Boom, boom, BOOM.

  The enemy missiles began to be swatted from the sky.

  Bang!

  The carrier shook violently in a thunderous rumble as it took a direct hit from one of the missiles. Admiral Parker gripped her chair as if holding on for her life.

  This is the one time we need seat belts, she thought.

  Several of the crew members fell over, despite bracing themselves for the impacts. The process repeated five more times as a total of six missiles rocked the ship. After the last impact, the lights briefly flickered off before the auxiliary power kicked on and the emergency generators took over the load.

  “Damage report!” shouted Captain Grady.

  The damage report board showed a host of red alarms from a couple of the decks. The lieutenant commander who was manning the reports as they came in responded, “Sir, we’ve got fires raging out of control on the hangar deck. Apparently, one of the missiles scored a direct hit on a couple of the strike aircraft that we had been getting armed with anti-ship missiles—with all of that fuel and those Harpoon missiles aboard, the blast caused a series of secondary explosions to ripple through the hangar deck. It’s a dangerous situation down there because there’s the possibility of even more secondary explosions. Damage control parties are working to get it contained, but they’re asking for help.” After he finished speaking, the lieutenant commander immediately went back to other tasks—he needed to do his best to redirect personnel from other parts of the ship to where they were needed most.

  “What’s the status of those enemy ships? Have we sunk them yet?” barked Admiral Parker over the growing chaos in the room.

  The petty officer who was watching the cruise missiles as they converged on the enemy ships answered, “The next wave of Tomahawks is arriving now. This should finish them off.”

  It felt like an eternity as the next two minutes passed and they watched, as one by one, the remaining Tomahawk missiles hit the surviving Chinese ships. Eight more missiles scored hits on the enemy, either blowing the vessels up completely, or engulfing them in fiery blazes that would ultimately consume the ships.

  Looking at the big board, Admiral Parker didn’t see any additional surface threats heading toward them. The strike group had successfully shot down the remaining enemy missiles from the second wave. It had been a much smaller cluster of missiles than the first one, so it was a lot easier to handle.

  However, prior to her strike group sinking the last of the merchant raiders, the raiders appeared to have fired off twenty-two land-attack cruise missiles, which looked to be headed toward the Hawaiian Islands. Sadly, the missiles had gotten out of their range to intercept them. All they could do now was send a warning to the US facilities on the island, letting them know they had a cruise missile attack inbound.

  *******

  From Reuters Online:

  The world continues to wait to see if conflict will erupt between the United Nations and the US. The American’s New Year’s Day raid to recover the Nimitz and destruction of two Chinese destroyers have increased concern that further military action may be inevitable.

  In the last week, a host of meetings have taken place between the American Secretary of State and the foreign ministers of nearly a dozen countries. Sources reporting on condition of anonymity have confirmed that the goal of these negotiations is to dissuade these nations from participating in the UN military force. The success of these efforts is unknown; however, several leaders continue to publicly call for Sachs to step down as President.

  Within the United States, polling shows that more Americans currently back President Sachs than President-elect Tate. The majority of the country’s population supports the plan for a new election in November of 2022. However, no new Republican or Democratic nominees have come forward at this time.

  *******

  Arlington Virginia

  Pentagon<
br />
  National Military Command Center

  The Secretary of Defense, Chuck McElroy, had just finished reading the latest signals intelligence report from the NSA. They had uncovered a burst of attack orders issued by the UN military headquarters at the Canadian Forces Base in North Bay, sending out all sorts of orders to their ground and air force units to begin whatever military operations they had in the works.

  Fortunately, the NSA was steadily decoding the encrypted messages about where these forces were being ordered to attack. As targets were being identified, the NSA was sending flash messages to the bases and military commands of an impending attack.

  “Do we need to activate the COG?” McElroy demanded.

  General Joseph Tibbets, the commander of US Northern Command and now all US forces in North America, chimed in via teleconference. He was just about to move his entire staff into the mountain at NORAD when the attack had happened, so they were still operating out of Peterson Air Force Base.

  “We’re not tracking any missiles or aircraft to the capital region yet, so I’m not sure if we need to initiate the COG,” Tibbets replied. “However, if these UN forces are able to break through our air defense of the region, I can’t guarantee that they won’t try and attack Washington. What I can say is this—General McKenzie knows that if he’s going to fight America, he has to take us out of the battle quickly. He knows his forces won’t be able to go toe to toe with us in a protracted fight. He needs to try and score quick political victories to maintain UN support. I’d be willing to put money on the odds that he’ll try and launch an attack on the Pentagon and the White House.”

  With a look bordering on exasperation, General Adrian Markus, the Air Force Chief of Staff, interjected, “As soon as we heard about the attacks on the Truman and the Stennis, we scrambled our ready alert fighters out of Langley AFB and here at Andrews. We also rotated the 325th Fighter Wing to Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey last week. They’re scrambling their F-22s to meet this threat, but we need to get the President to ground all civilian air traffic ASAP. If an air attack is imminent, then there are going to be a lot of missiles flying around, and I don’t want a commercial airliner to somehow get caught in the crosshairs.”

  Thinking for a moment, McElroy weighed his options while at the same time trying to keep himself from being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of data and decisions being thrown at him. Between NORAD and the intercepts from NSA, he knew there were a massive number of forces being made ready to attack the US ground and air forces in the Midwest and Northeast, but he still wasn’t sure whether they should activate the COG.

  The continuity of government plan had only been implemented a couple of times since it had been created. Most recently, it had been put into effect on September 11, 2001, when the country was unsure if there were more terrorist attacks still underway. The challenge with the COG was that, once it became activated, it put a series of plans into place that were hard to stop or unwind—such as evacuating all essential government personnel, including the Supreme Court justices, members of Congress, and other principal government workers, to various underground command centers. It also placed FEMA in charge of vast swaths of the government for as long as the President decided to keep the COG in place. On the other hand, if the UN forces were able to land a successful blow against the Pentagon, Capitol Building or White House, it could have a profound impact on the government’s ability to respond to the attacks underway.

  Turning to look at the Air Force General, McElroy asked, “Are there any strike aircraft in Canada that can pose a serious threat to the capital region?”

  General Markus thought about that for a second before turning to one of his aides. “Give me a moment to find out, sir,” he responded.

  While the general was tracking down the information, the SecDef turned his attention to Admiral Smith. “What’s the status of the Stennis and the Truman?” he asked. It had been nearly an hour since both strike groups had been attacked.

  Admiral Smith grimaced at the question. “It doesn’t look like the Truman is going to make it. She’s slowly losing the battle to stay afloat. At this point, we’ve managed to get her tied to several tugs, which are going to do their best to drag her as close to the shore as possible before she goes down. Our goal at this point is to get her back into shallow water so she can be raised at a later date if the damage control crews are truly unable to save her. I mean, a miracle could happen, but she sustained five torpedoes to her underbelly. The hull’s broken.”

  “I can’t believe we got sucker punched like that,” McElroy remarked, clenching his fist like he felt like punching someone. He let out a huff. “How about the Stennis? I heard we sank a few Chinese ships in that engagement.”

  Smith nodded. “We did. This attack was truly unique. We’d never seen anything like it. The Chinese Navy essentially converted several large freighters to become floating missile platforms. They hit the Stennis strike group with 340 anti-ship missiles. Our ships were able to shoot down 302 of them, but we still took thirty-eight hits across the strike group. The Stennis took a number of them. She was hit with nine missiles. The carrier’s still afloat and in no danger of sinking, but she’s knocked out of the fight for the time being. Nearly half of her aircraft were destroyed when several missiles hit the hangar deck. Admiral Parker, the strike group commander, has ordered them to return to Pearl Harbor for repairs.

  “Before we sank the enemy ships, they managed to fire off a number of land-attack cruise missiles at Hawaii. The naval facility and the airbase at Hickam suffered some pretty bad damage—nothing that can’t be repaired, but it certainly put our forces in Hawaii on notice that the Chinese have the ability to hit them.”

  “What about San Diego?” McElroy asked. “I heard they hit us there as well.”

  “They did,” Admiral Smith replied. “Apparently one of the cargo ships near the Port of Ensenada had also been converted into a missile platform. They hit our naval facilities in San Diego with thirty cruise missiles and the Marine base at Pendleton with twenty. I’m still waiting to get a firm casualty count, but I can tell you it’s going to be high, probably in the thousands.”

  McElroy shook his head in disgust. “Admiral, you need to make sure your captains are getting their ships out of port and ready to handle whatever’s coming next. I want you guys to start looking at all Chinese freighters within striking distance of our coast and naval facilities to see if any of them have possibly been converted into these floating missile platforms. For all we know, the Chinese could have them strategically placed along our shores and facilities. We could be on the verge of getting hammered with cruise missiles and not even know about it until it was too late.”

  The SecDef stopped for a second before shifting topics. “We also need to hit that UN naval force in the North Atlantic. I’m concerned that they have that out there as a giant distraction and they’re about to sucker punch us from somewhere else.

  “Also, the President is going to ask me this, so I might as well find out—what subs or ships do we have that are in striking distance of the EU or Mainland China? When the President gets over here in ten minutes, he’s going to want to know what we can hit them back with.”

  Admiral Smith smiled and pulled a sheet of paper out of his notebook. “We’ve got two subs currently in the Med that could strike at targets in Italy or France, and then we’ve got three subs operating in the North Sea off the coast of England that have been monitoring the shipping between Europe and Canada. All five of these subs have a handful of Tomahawks that could be fired at critical military and port facilities, which would have an effect on their ability going forward to ship additional reinforcements to Canada. As to Asia—we have two subs between South Korea and Okinawa. There’s a single sub near Taiwan and another sub down in the South China Sea. We could easily fire off forty or so Tomahawks at some Chinese ports or military air bases if the President orders. It won’t hurt their long-term efforts, but it’ll certainly
let them know that we’re in the area and can retaliate.”

  Clearing his throat, General Markus interrupted their discussion. “Sir, I’ve got that answer for you.”

  McElroy signaled for him to proceed, and the others waited to hear what the general had to say. His response would largely determine if they should advise the President to activate the COG when he arrived.

  “Our latest satellite pass, along with our own signals intelligence, has confirmed that the French have two squadrons of Mirage 2000N and D strike aircraft at the Canadian Forces Base Bagotville in Quebec. These aircraft have a combat range of 920 miles when equipped with their two drop tanks. The fighters can carry one Storm Shadow low-observable air-launched cruise missile, which has a range of 300 miles and packs a 990-pound enhanced warhead. If these aircraft penetrate our northern air defense zone, they could hit Washington with these missiles.”

  General Markus held up a hand to forestall any questions. “In addition to the Mirage threat, the Russians have also moved two squadrons of Backfire bombers to the Canadian airbase at Goose Bay and Cold Lake. While these aircraft are old, they are still very capable bombers that could deliver a number of land-attack cruise missiles. There’s also a rumor that the Chinese moved their two operational H-20 stealth bombers to Cold Lake. Our satellites haven’t physically seen them, but a human source we have near there said they had spotted what appeared to be a black winged aircraft land at the base several days ago.”

  “Why am I just hearing about this?” asked General Pruitt angrily. “If your fighters can’t keep these guys off our backs, they’re going to hammer my brigades before they even find the enemy.”

  “Aw, that’s it—we’re going to recommend the President activate the COG,” muttered McElroy. “The UN’s already hit us in sneak attacks in the Pacific and the Atlantic. I’m not about to gamble that they may or may not hit Washington with cruise missiles.” He felt his frustration levels rising—he’d hoped to hit the UN forces first, but now they were reacting to them instead of the other way around.