He looked at the digital display that showed the progress of the Chinese antiship missiles. Most had been shot down at the midway point between the two fleets. The problem with launching their weapons was that, as with any emission, doing so gave away the approximate position of his ships. That gave the Americans updated targeting data.
The Americans were shooting down Admiral Song’s first volley of missiles. Now the Americans would be faced with a choice. Use this new data to reattack and give away their own position? Or close the distance, gather more information, and fire at a range that gave them an increased probability of a kill? Both paths came with their own set of risks and advantages. Which would the Americans choose?
An alarm sounded, and the admiral had his answer.
“Sir, the American fleet are firing their antiship missiles. Approximately forty missiles inbound. Bearing one-five-zero. Range one hundred fifty kilometers.”
The admiral nodded. “Understood.” He could see that the faces of his men were filled with fear. They were going into combat for only the second time, and taking action that was contradictory to all of their training. But they held firm. The admiral had trained them well.
No one asked to initiate surface-to-air missile launches in their defense.
The Chinese YJ-18 surface-to-surface missiles were almost all intercepted by the American Navy’s surface-to-air missiles. Ten Chinese missiles broke through the American wave of SAM defense.
Those ten missiles continued to close the American destroyers at subsonic speed. The US Navy ships fired a second wave of interceptor missiles, destroying all but two.
Those final two Chinese missiles had just hit their late-stage supersonic kick, diving towards the water and then skimming the ocean’s surface as they headed for their targets.
A thunderous WHRRRRRTT. WHRRRRTT. WHRRRRRT noise could be heard on the USS Farragut as the Phalanx Close-In Weapons System fired its revolving gun at the remaining two missiles. One was destroyed, its fragments landing harmlessly in the ocean. The final missile scored a hit on a nearby littoral combat ship, slamming into the superstructure and detonating its 660-pound warhead. A gray-white explosion erupted from the ship.
One hundred miles to the northwest, the American volley was arriving at the Americans’ best guess of where the Chinese fleet was located. Dozens of SM-6 missiles fired from the Navy destroyers were about to enter their final phase of flight, where they would drop towards the water and skim the sea at a speed of Mach 3.
But that never happened.
“Directed Energy System is synced to phased-array radar network, Admiral. All air tracks are targeted.”
A few kilometers away, on both of the Jiaolong-class ships, the towers were being put to work. Thermonuclear reactors fed an enormous supply of energy into the system. The entire Chinese fleet of air defense radars was searching for the smallest air contact and feeding in that data to the Jiaolong-class ships. That was supplementary information, however. Within each tower, billions of micrometer-size antennae had been created by using carbon nanotubes. The towers were a new type of phased-array radar, able to overcome the plasma breakdown in the atmosphere that had hindered previous generations of directed-energy weapons.
Each incoming American missile was detected, tracked, and targeted within a fraction of a second. The towers directed lightning-quick pulses of concentrated energy at each of the incoming missiles.
One after the another, the inbound missiles came under attack, their onboard computers and guidance systems fried. There were a few explosions as some of the energy bursts triggered warhead detonations. But in most cases, the inbound missiles, now lobotomized, just continued on overhead, passing by their targets. Eventually the missiles ran out of fuel and fell harmlessly into the ocean.
The Chinese air defense team had already seen how well the directed-energy system worked when the US fighter-bomber aircraft had attempted to locate and attack the fleet earlier in the battle. But those aircraft were much larger and easier to detect. Enemy missiles were tiny. No one had known with certainty whether it would work. The destruction of the air-launched missiles gave them confidence. Now they were overjoyed.
“We are invincible, Admiral.”
Admiral Song cast the officer who had uttered such nonsense a disapproving glance. “We have a momentary advantage, that is all. We had best use it. Send in the next slew of antiship missiles.”
“Shall we launch our fighters, sir?”
It was the same young officer who had just claimed they were invincible. The admiral would need to remember to reassign that one. “No. We must continue launching our cruise missiles until the American ships have depleted their air defense capability. Only then will we launch our fighters.”
Another alarm sounded throughout the combat information center as more Chinese missiles were detected by the SPY radar.
Victoria watched in horror as the ship’s number of surface-to-air missiles began dwindling.
She heard someone whisper, “What do we do when we run out of SM-2s?”
No one answered.
The blue friendly air tracks headed towards the red inbound missile tracks on the display screen at the front of the space. Just as before, the numbers were close to evenly matched. A few missiles got through, and the roar of rocket engines thundered outside the ship as more defensive missiles fired out of the Mk-41 vertical launch system.
Another Klaxon alarm sounded throughout the ship, and Victoria again heard the giant WHHRRRRT of the CWIS Gatling gun. The familiar noises of air defense. But this time, there was a new sound — a shaking boom that rattled her teeth — and then the room went dark.
They had been hit.
She was in pitch blackness. The white noise of computers and radios had gone silent, and now she heard the sickening sounds of secondary explosions somewhere in the distance. The air had a stale metallic taste, and she could hear cursing as someone tripped and fell to the floor in the darkness.
Victoria found herself holding on to the chart table next to her, feeling a slight panic as the floor moved underneath her. A wave? Or had they been hit that badly that they were already listing?
People regained their awareness and began shouting. Someone opened the hatch in the aft of the space. A faint ray of daylight flooded into the compartment, giving them the gift of sight, and then the door shut again, plunging them back into darkness. It was only temporary, however, as a dim yellowish light came on around the edges of the compartment. Backup electric power had kicked on. The computer screens fluttered to life as systems began to reboot.
The 1MC let out a loud series of bells followed by, “Fire, fire, fire… fire in engineering…” A description of the spaces and then, “Flooding, flooding, flooding…” and more announcements.
Bodies leapt into action throughout the USS Farragut. The men and women on the ship formed into preordained damage control parties. Years of training forcing them to overcome the fear of fire, drowning, darkness, and death. Sailors who might normally be cooks or helmsmen or sonar experts or rescue swimmers were now aligned to the same mission: save the ship.
Victoria departed the space and headed up to the bridge. On the bridge wing, she could see thick black plumes of smoke rising up from two of their ships in company. From the USS Michael Monsoor, more defensive missiles shot up from its vertical launch system, their white trails of smoke arcing off towards a distant threat.
“Captain on the bridge!”
The captain climbed up out of the ladder, standing in the center of the large space. The officer of the deck briefed him on the ongoing damage control team’s progress.