“Shit, they still don’t know about the drone,” said Conan.
As the lead Osprey touched down over the green of the first hole, the Chinese quadcopter popped up from the swirl of smoke around the destroyed tennis courts and fired a missile. The tiltrotor aircraft pulled up quickly, trying to dodge the missile. A Marine cartwheeled out of the open rear ramp from forty feet up, clutching his rifle the whole way down until he slammed onto the second hole’s men’s tee box. The quadcopter’s missile hit the aft fuselage near the horizontal stabilizer, causing the heavily loaded aircraft to swing wildly and then crash into one of the condo units overlooking the fairway.
The second Osprey in the flight, hovering just behind, pivoted. As the aircraft turned its back to the quadcopter, a gunner fired a .50-caliber machine gun mounted in the Osprey’s rear ramp. The aircraft turned in its hover, and the arc of red tracers edged closer and closer to the quadcopter and then shattered it in a small explosion. The Osprey then pivoted back and touched down on the golf course. Marines poured out the ramp onto the fairway grass. They immediately started to take small-arms fire from the porch of a townhouse that Directorate troops had been billeted in. As the Osprey’s propellers tilted forward and pulled the aircraft out of its hover, a missile arced in, fired from the main resort. The aircraft’s defensive flares fired, decoying the missile’s seeker head and triggering its proximity fuse, causing an explosion a few hundred feet away, but shrapnel slashed the right engine. One of the massive blades broke off and knifed into the Osprey’s fuselage just behind the cockpit, and an explosion broke the aircraft in two.
Conan tracked the missile trail back and saw two Directorate troops just at the edge of the main resort’s pool complex reloading an FN-8 man-portable missile system.
“Time for us to get down there and help out,” said Conan, checking her rifle and rig.
The fourth Osprey in the line exploded; machine-gun fire from another townhouse had hit a fuel tank. The Marines on the ground popped smoke grenades and the swirling white smoke added to the confusion.
Duncan shook his head. “No, Major, that’s not our fight. We’re to stay put and coordinate fires. I know it’s not what you want to hear, but those are the orders. Mission comes first.”
“Not this time, not for me,” Conan said.
She took off toward the resort at a jog. Duncan let her go. She was no longer essential to the mission.
USS Zumwalt Ship Mission Center, One Hundred and Eighty Miles Off the North Shore of Oahu
The view was majestic in a way, the columns of black smoke rising above the green landscape, the peaks of the Waianae mountain range in the distance. Then the image fizzled and the screen in the ship mission center went blank.
Captain Jamie Simmons swore under his breath. The live video feed from the SEAL team labeled Nemesis had to be considered a luxury, not a requirement.
“Did we lose them or just the connection?”
“Jamming, sir. We’re working it,” responded the communications officer.
Simmons took in the scene around him. It was a sign of how different this ship was that the best place for a captain to be in the midst of battle was not on the bridge but in a windowless room. Looking down from the second level of the ship mission center, he could see each of the LCD screens that paneled the walls displaying the various systems’ status while in the middle of the room, a holographic map projected the topography of the island of Oahu, the various targets and suspected enemy formations overlaid with constantly updating digital red dots and triangles.
He checked the screen for the SEAL fire team’s footage of the strikes, but it was still blank. Still, the mission moved on smoothly without it. The anxiousness he felt at that one missing piece of data flow was a reminder of how quickly people took for granted the sea of information they floated in. He only hoped that being thrown back into the dark would be even more disorienting for the Directorate generals and admirals who had enjoyed such data dominance so far.
“ATHENA, display task force with projected time to point bravo.”
The holographic map pulled out, shrinking the island and projecting the rest of the task force several hundred miles behind them. The system predicted just a few hours of steaming time before the forces would tactically link, but those hours could make all the difference, not just to the success or failure of the assault but to getting the Z back under their air-defense umbrella. It was an honor to be the tip of the spear, but very lonely.
“We’ve got it back, sir.” The footage from the SEAL fire team at Turtle Bay Resort reappeared on the screen. Then the video feed began to cycle though the other imagery sent from teams inserted around the island chain.
“Fidelity?” asked Simmons.
“We’re at forty percent,” said the communications officer.
“Not good enough. I don’t want to risk any more civilians than we have to,” Simmons said, knowing that some would become casualties in any event, “and I damn well don’t want to stay powered down any longer than we have to if we’re just shooting wild.”
That was the more disconcerting part, having the ship essentially motionless, the engines at minimal turns solely to hold the ship steady. Conceived as Drift Ops, this approach was meant to both maximize power to the rail gun and make the Z an even more difficult target to detect. Ships were always moving, it was assumed, so a radar signature the size of a dinghy just floating with the current would be filtered out by automated sensors. That was the hope, at least.
“Captain! One of the recon teams, Erinyes, outside Wheeler Army Airfield, is requesting another salvo,” said a weapons officer from the bullpen of desks below.
“The hangars were taken out as planned, but the runway strike was off target by a few hundred meters.” Simmons winced, hoping they hadn’t put one of the rail-gun rounds into the POW compound they suspected was on the base.
“ATHENA has updated the firing solution,” said Cortez, looking over at Simmons, who nodded. “Main gun, batteries release,” said Simmons. The weapons officer’s hands flicked at the touchscreen in front of him, giving ATHENA control over the rail gun’s targeting. The intelligent system did more than just aim the barrel of the rail gun at the target; it also interfaced with the ship’s propulsion and navigation systems to ensure that it stayed on target.
“Commencing power transfer,” said Cortez. “In five, four, three, two —”
The tactical action officer broke in. “Viper, Viper, Viper. ATHENA is reporting two, no, there’s three YJ-12 cruise missiles in the air.”
The YJ-12 supersonic anti-ship missile carried a four-hundred-and-fifty-pound warhead and could go Mach 4. More important, in addition to their radar, the missiles had imaging seekers, so they could be fired off blind and sent on a hunt for targets in a radius of two hundred and fifty miles, roughly the same range as the rail gun.
“Cease fire,” said Cortez.
“No, proceed with the firing plan, XO,” said Simmons emphatically. “Either they’ll find us or they won’t. In the interim, we need to get in as many hits as we can.”
“Aye, Captain,” said Cortez. Simmons noticed him tapping the heel of his prosthetic foot, which he did when he got anxious. His voice boomed throughout the ship. “This is the XO. Batteries release. Switching to auxiliary power in three, two, one. Mark.”
A warning siren blared throughout the ship. “All hands, the ship is on auxiliary power.”
The room’s LED lights flickered twice then returned to life, powered by their own local batteries. But screens throughout the ship mission center went dark as key ship systems shut down. A low whine followed, giving the crew a sense of dread as the ship powered down.