He held up night vision binoculars, looking out over the ocean. As far as the eye could see, the masts of Chinese warships peppered the horizon. The radars on each ship searched the sky for any sign of trouble, the ships communicating with each other in short-range encrypted bursts of data as they sailed north towards Hawaii. The ASW drone dirigibles led the way, their sonar clearing the strike group’s path for any American submarines.
But no submarines had interfered with their journey. The Americans feared and respected the dirigibles now. They knew better than to waste their billion-dollar weapons and hundreds of lives on a fool’s errand.
“We are ready to launch, Admiral.”
“Any further word from Beijing?”
“No, Admiral.”
They had spent the last few hours transiting east of their original course so that they could pass as close to Johnston Atoll as possible. They would capture the island, and with it whatever defensive mechanism the Americans were building there, which could supposedly render the Jiaolong technology less lethal. He was more worried about the minefields that the Americans were laying in the surrounding waters. His minesweepers were positioned toward the front of his fleet, but their transit speed was much too fast for them to be effective. The intelligence Chinese headquarters had sent was gold. They needed to act on it quickly.
“Then you may launch now, Captain.”
The admiral’s command was relayed around the fleet. Soon the carrier’s jets were lighting off their afterburners and shooting up the ski ramp on the bow. The jets circled overhead in stacks for a few minutes until enough of them had gathered. Then they headed north in two separate squadrons.
Two junior officers sat behind computer terminals on the forward part of the admiral’s bridge. They typed to their fellow staffers in the combat operations center below decks. These officers were here to relay to the admiral all the information the warfighters were seeing.
One of them now turned and said, “Admiral, we have inbound hostile air contacts! Over fifty headed towards the strike group from Hawaii.”
“Classification?” the admiral asked.
“Unknown, sir.”
“Are they in range of our air defense system?”
“They will be shortly, sir.”
“Very well. Keep me informed.”
Admiral Song nodded. He was confident, but not overly so. He looked through his night vision binoculars at the Jiaolong-class ship a few miles off the starboard side. During each encounter with the Americans, she had performed beautifully. With luck, she would again.
Several squadrons of US Air Force B-52s and B-1Bs had taken off in rapid succession. Another squadron of F-22s was already flying combat air patrol overhead.
Flying in command of one of the B-1s was Major Chuck “Hightower” Mason. He had flown his B-1 from Guam during the first attack on the Jiaolong, a few weeks ago. From his aircraft, he had launched nearly a dozen antiship missiles. But each of his missiles had been vaporized by this new directed-energy weapon the Chinese had. They had also shot down many of the American aircraft.
It had been humbling.
Even more humbling was accepting the orders to fly his aircraft from Guam to Hawaii, in anticipation of the American surrender there. But US commanders had evacuated all of its flyable aircraft before the Chinese destroyed them. At the time, the major had felt angry as hell about leaving Guam. But dozens of those aircraft were now flying this mission. Live to fight another day.
“Here we go. Just got the prep command,” came the voice of the weapons systems officer in the rear of the aircraft.
“Bomb bay doors coming open.”
They went through the sequence of commands to fire the weapons and then waited for the final signal from their flight lead.
Moments later, the sky was filled with streaking miniature air-launched decoys (MALD). The gray missiles traveled at hundreds of knots, flying towards the Chinese fleet.
Major Mason looked out his window. Below them was the US aircraft carrier Ford. In the darkness, he could see the afterburners of their jets taking off from the flight deck.
“They fixed that thing quick.”
“Not sure if they fixed it or just put enough duct tape on the flight deck to let her launch jets.”
“That where the Growlers are launching from?”
“They already launched. They’ll be doing the jamming for the MALDs.”
Admiral Song frowned. “What do you mean there are five hundred air contacts? That number is preposterous.”
“Sir, that’s what the air defense officer is saying.”
“That is impossible.”
“The air defense officer says that the…”
The officer had stopped midsentence and was holding his headset to his ear.
Admiral Song snorted. “What? Finish your sentence.”
“Sir, there are now over one thousand inbound air tracks.”
Admiral Song went pale. He looked out to his starboard side. The Jiaolong technology was about to be tested. Its artificial intelligence computers and rapid processing power should theoretically be able to shoot down that many contacts. But there were many nodes in the network. All that information would be flowing through the many ships in the battlegroup. The higher the number of air contacts, the more complex the problem. If…
“Sir…” The young officer looked scared now. “Sir, the air defense officer says that there are now over one thousand, five hundred inbound air tracks. The first wave is within range of the Jiaolong system. He has commenced firing.”
Admiral Song shook his head. What was this trickery? The Americans didn’t have the capability to fire so many missiles at once. The admiral looked back out at the metallic monoliths fore and aft of the Jiaolong ship. He imagined the invisible beams of energy shooting upward toward the sky.
Relax. It will work, he told himself.
“Sir, the air defense officer has told me to inform you that—”
The admiral’s head snapped to the port side as the yellow flame and white smoke of missiles began firing upward from the destroyer next to his aircraft carrier, illuminating the night sky. Then other streaks of bright flame and smoke came from the other ships in company, each one shooting into the air, arcing into the distance.
The admiral smiled. “The cruise missiles have begun firing.”
“No, sir. I apologize. The air defense commander has begun firing our surface-to-air missiles. He says that the Jiaolong system is oversaturated with air tracks, and he is not sure if they are destroying…”
The admiral didn’t wait for the officer to finish. He rose from his seat and practically ran towards the ladderway. His instincts told him that something was drastically wrong. He headed to the combat operations center to see for himself.
38
Victoria watched in awe as numerous bright green missile ignitions momentarily bloomed out her night vision goggles. Fired from ships over a dozen miles away, the missiles streaked upward, passing thousands of feet overhead, traveling in the direction she’d come.
Plug whispered into his lip microphone. “Jesus. Would you look at that.”
As they flew closer, masts rose like spires throughout the horizon. Then the full silhouettes of countless Chinese warships appeared, backlit by the intermittent missile launches. The warships sat menacingly on the water, like graveyard wraiths, moving slowly through a hellish lightning storm. Every few seconds, more bright glows bloomed in their goggles as additional missiles were launched.