Indian National Command Bunker, near the Himalayan Town of Puranpur, 1835 Hours, May 7th, 2016
Prime Minister Gandhi sat alone now in the conference room. He'd sent the military chiefs away to their quarters, and put the Defense Minister under arrest. He had finally pulled himself together enough to do the right thing, which was precisely nothing. The failure of the missile strike had given him back his options, and now he was going to limit the retribution on India to this bunker, and probably the missile launch site. He knew that the Americans had probably already targeted both locations, and that they would hit them soon. He ordered all non-essential personnel out of the facility, than sat down and began to pray for his soul. He hoped that it would be over soon.
Flight Deck of the Aircraft Carrier Colin Powell, 1925 Hours, May 7th, 2016
They had been forced to wait until the resolution of the Indian missile strike to know which weapons they would upload. Had any of the Indian IRBMs hit their targets, then the F-25Bs would have been each loaded with a pair of B-61-15 nuclear penetrating gravity bombs targeted on what had been called "strategic" targets. The population density of India meant that the use of any such weapon would kill hundreds of thousands of civilians at a minimum. Thankfully for the ordnance personnel and the pilots, the orders from the National Command Authorities had been explicit. Response in kind. This meant that unless a nuclear detonation had taken place, only convention weapons were authorized for use in the coming strike on the Indian leadership and their nuclear missile depots.
The F-25Bs would each carry a GBU-32 JDAMS with a modified BLU- 109 two-thousand-pound penetrating warhead to seal the bunker entrances. Then the F/A-18 Super Hornets would finish the job with 4,700-pound GBU- 28 "Deep Throat" bombs armed with BLU-113 warheads to collapse the tunnels. Similar attention would be given to the Indian missile silos near Nagpur.
It took a little over three hours to get the aircraft loaded and the crews briefed. As usual for such things, it would be a precision night strike to help degrade the Indian defenses. As the first pair of F-25Bs taxied up to the catapults at the bow, the deck crews lined the catwalks, cheering the pilots as they launched into a beautiful night sky. It would take a few hours for the planes to reach their targets.
Indian National Command Bunker, near the Himalayan Town of Puranpur, 2242 Hours, May 7th, 2016
Prime Minister Gandhi lay in his bedroom waiting for the end. He had authorized the actions that had resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of human lives. He would be remembered as the first great genocidal despot of the new millennium, and that was a difficult thought to die with. But he knew he was doing the right thing now. Down the corridor he heard the sounds of the first penetrating bombs sealing the exits. At the same time, the air raid sirens went off, an unnecessary distraction. Death was at most a minute or two away.
When the F/A-18s finally arrived overhead thirty seconds after the F-25Bs had done their jobs, it took just a few minutes for the four pilots to set up their laser designators, get the weapons into parameters, and make the drop. Thirty seconds later, eight of the big bombs entered the solid granite protecting the mountain bunker. They split the wet stone for almost a hundred feet before detonating, setting up a shear shock wave in the rock strata. The effect was to collapse the bunkers below, destroying everyone and everything inside instantly. With the destruction of the command bunker, the American aircraft headed home to the Colin Powell and an early breakfast.
Aboard the Command Ship USS Mount McKinley (LCC-22), Five Hundred Nautical Miles South of Colombo, 0400 Hours, May 8th, 2016
"That's right, Jack," Admiral Connelly said over the conference phone to the JCS chairman. "We got them back safe and with all the targets hit, at least as far as the early BDA can tell. In addition, the two MPS squadrons arrive in the morning, and should be off-loading by midday. What do you hear on your end?"
The JCS chairman was quick and concise, having been up for almost two days holding the President's and National Security Advisor's hands during the short but brutal combat. "Well, what's left of the Indian government is asking for UN peacekeeping and nation-building teams to reform their government. Pakistan is doing the same thing. My guess is that we'll be able to pull you and your people out within a few weeks, when the permanent UN units arrive. The boss says to tell your people that they did an incredible job out here, and that he'll meet them when they get home next month."
"Thanks, Jack," said Connelly. "You know, he'll probably want to give me another star or some other damned thing and get me back home again on shore duty."
"He just might at that. You'll be back to that snoozer work you love so much," the JCS chairman replied. Unable to resist that perfect opening, he ended the conversation with, "Have a nice nap."
As it happened, Connelly slept for two straight days.
Stockholm, Sweden, February 14th, 2017
The Nobel Prize ceremonies were agreeably short this year, though the significance of the awards made the usually esoteric descriptions of the winners' work absolutely sparkle with excitement. The combined prizes in physics and chemistry went, of course, to Jill Jacobs, who was already a billionaire from her licensing advances on the superconducting-wire formula. She chose to donate the Nobel Prize money to her alma mater at New Mexico. The Peace Prize went jointly to Venkatesh Prasad, the Sinhalese Prime Minister, and his new Interior Minister, Arjuan Ranatunga, for their peaceful forging of a new nation. Both men had decided to donate their prizes, as well as significant funds from their overflowing national coffers, to disaster relief in India and Pakistan, an olive branch to their new customers to the north. Finally, the Nobel Committee had awarded a special peacekeeping award to Admiral Connelly, now the JCS Chairman in Washington, D.C. It was the first time that all of them had met, but their paths had already crossed in the currents of history, and between them they had created a better world.
Conclusion
When I started working on this book in 1997, I had little doubt that I could justify good reasons for America to continue its support for carrier aviation. If I've done nothing else in this book, those reasons should be readily apparent by now. However, at the same time, I went into this book with a real concern about the ability of the U.S. Navy to address the many leadership and material problems that have plagued the service since the end of the Cold War. As it turned out, I need not have been so worried. The U.S. Navy is a resilient institution, which has endured trial, scandal, and other ills many times, and continued to prosper. So too, with the Navy of our times. The simple fact is that as a nation whose trade is primarily maritime based, we need the oceans the way that humans need oxygen. This country was founded on a strong maritime tradition, and will likely be that way for the rest of our existence. Therefore, the question is not whether we need naval forces, but what form and numbers those units will represent. Within our current concept of naval operations, that means that aircraft carriers and their embarked air wings are here to stay.