Today the PLAN Jiangwei class frigate Anqing was receiving radar data from a pair of FC-1s providing the CAP, and two fast gunboats, which accompanied her. A Haiqing class patrol boat held station five miles ahead and a second vessel, a smaller Haizhu class, kept pace five miles aft, allowing the frigate to engage without bring its radar out of standby and therefore revealing its own position.
The Anqing was cruising at an economic ten knots, twelve miles off the peninsular and in relatively calm seas when the data link failed. Her communications officer tried to raise both patrol boats first and then the aircraft, but when his hails received no response her captain ordered the radar to go active. In addition to the sea search and Eyeshield 2D air search radars the 6 cell HQ-61 SAM was put in active mode, the gun crews of the dual 100mm and all four dual 37mm mounts closed up and swung out to seaward. They heard their attacker and they saw it with the naked eye but the radar screens remained clear. The bat shaped aircraft was on the landward side and only a mile distant when it was seen, climbing to 1600 feet before rolling inverted and diving back toward the island. It had disappeared into the sea haze before the quickest 37mm crew could get a round off, and by then of course it was too late anyway to avoid the pair of laser guided 1000 pounder’s the aircraft had toss-lobbed there way.
At Edwin Andrew Airbase the American bomber force took to the air first, leaving the Philippines for the foreseeable future as they made full use of the gap in the picket. They were followed by four transports, two USAF C-5s and a pair of Royal Air Force C-130s which flew just a couple of hundred feet above the waves until well clear of the land and well beyond the radar coverage of the remaining Chinese pickets before the C-5s set course for Guam. The C-5s carried away the technicians, ground crews and essential stores that were needed to keep the B-1Bs, B-2s and the F-117A force in running order, the fuelling stop at the tiny atoll was just the first step on the journey home. The two Hercules from 47 Squadron took a different route, and headed for the nearest tanker serving the silo strike. Squadron Leader Dunn and Flight Lieutenant Braithwaite’s C-130 led the way, and they settled down to share the flying between them. They had a long way to go and at an average speed of 460mph it was going to take them a while to get there, so the ‘Loadies’, and the Royal Marines aboard for security, settled down too.
There had been neither sight nor sound of a helicopter all day, and yet the runway was to remain covered until the last possible moment, and the troopers at stand-to in their fighting holes. The commander of the small unit was not about to let standards drop just because the job was nearly done. The militia were miles away and floundering, but in his experience it could take just one piece of bad luck to have the tables turn on them, so until the F-117X was away for the last time, he was keeping everything locked down tight. In his original thinking the airstrip would be abandoned within an hour of take-off, but Major Nunro had come to him with a request and an apologetic expression.
“The problem I have is that I’m not flying a USAF Nighthawk, and this aircraft doesn’t have the legs.”
“If it’s not a Nighthawk then what is it?” he had asked. “Looks like one to me.”
“It’s experimental and it still belongs to Lockheed-Martin, not the air force.”
He’d seen the humour.
“It’s a loaner?”
“Nighthawks are single crewed if you didn’t know, this one can do more than a pilot on his or her own can deal with, so a back seater was required but to accomplish that they had to lose an internal fuel tank.” The pilot had looked very apologetic.
“The short version is, we can reach the target and do the job, but flame out inside enemy territory. Or we can return here, and refuel before trying to get out.”
He had acquiesced of course, because they were too deep within the forest for the militia to hear an aircraft take off, and it was only for a few extra hours after all.
To the south west, the two men he had shadowing the militia reported that the current rate of advance was less than half a kilometre per hour, and the radio traffic they were intercepting didn’t indicate any surprises, but he wouldn’t let the men relax.
In its well camouflaged niche the aircraft sat like a dark, brooding thing awaiting the dark whilst its crew and Svetlana, dressed in flight suit purely for environmental practicality, sat about talking and waiting for the night to fall.
There was little to break the monotony of the endless routine that had been drilled into each and every crewman from the first day they had stepped foot across the threshold of submarine school. The only way was the Navy way, and there was a logical reason for that, the Navy way was quieter, quicker and safer, never mind that it turned the hands into automatons. No one aboard had felt fresh air on their face since before the start of the war, and although the captain had seen daylight it had only been through a periscope and the last occasion that had been raised was over two weeks before. There wasn’t a man aboard who did not miss their families and the outside world as much as they loathed the steel shell that they were forced to exist in. The enemy was out there and their submarine required only their chief executives order to attack and destroy them, but what was taking so long, they had been here for days now?
They were not party to the command-in-chief’s intentions, and did not know the orders were dependant on events elsewhere in the world, so they continued to tip toe in the dark so as not to alert the enemy as to their presence.
The captain ordered the vessel up toward the surface, so that the floating antennae to be streamed. It was a daily occurrence, listening for the order to attack and at first there had been an air of expectation whenever they had done this, but that however had palled with the passage of time.
At 100 feet the vessel had levelled off and 1800 metres of antennae cable had been streamed, but unlike past occasions a bell sounded in the control room this time to announce high priority incoming traffic.
The captain and the executive officer wore solemn expressions after reading the received signal, and accompanied the weapons officer to his panel where they supervised the input of amended targeting data, adding Davao and Melbourne to their existing strike package of Pearl Harbor, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Guam.
Aboard the USS San Juan, 7500m behind, they listened to the Chinese boomer reel in the antennae and return to her patrol depth.
CHAPTER 6
One mile to the rear of his forward companies, the regimental commander of the Czech 23rd MRR was feeling a whole lot more optimistic than he had twelve hours before. It had been expected that his regiment would lose anywhere from 20 % to 60 % of its strength in successfully attacking the British marines in their current defensive positions. The combat between his unit and that of the Britisher’s was also expected to be a long, drawn out affair, and it was probably more to do with the time element than concern for the fighting men’s welfare that had prompted the Russians to present him with the services of one of their Spetznaz units. The units commander had not looked the most terribly enthusiastic of warriors when he had been shown into the regimental commanders presence, but they were apparently quite recently returned from operations on the other side of the line and may have felt entitled to some rest. Despite his mistrust of special operations he had to take his hat off to the Spetznaz major and his handful of men, wearing the clothing and equipment of freshly dead Royal Marines they had infiltrated the Commando position in a captured vehicle and pinpointed high value targets for the artillery. They had wrought havoc with the marine units command and control before moving on, and without doubt saving the 23rd MRR, men, equipment, and above all time.