“The Kim faction pulled a lot of their best antiaircraft units into the area, so we have very little information from aerial reconnaissance, either by manned aircraft or UAVs. So many UAVs have been shot down that we can’t afford to lose the rest. We are using what’s left to track the Chinese forces, although it’s your prerogative, General, if you want to change their tasking.”
Sohn shook his head. “No. We need to know about Chinese movements as well. I don’t like fighting two different enemies at the same time.”
“But our enemies can also fight each other,” the intelligence officer responded happily. “The northern edge of the Stronghold is on the south side of the Chongchon River. It’s likely that the Chinese will be able to attack soon. They’re bringing up bridging equipment, as well as more artillery, so they can force a crossing.”
Tae had to say it. “They may very well be ready to attack before we will.”
“The area is all mountains, filled with troops that have had weeks to dig in,” Sohn replied. “I won’t send in a force that can’t win.”
“Then let the Chinese attack, and inflict some casualties,” Kwon suggested.
Sohn shook his head. “I think we must move quickly. If the holdouts have nuclear weapons, then the risk increases the longer we wait. The Chinese attack across the river may pressure the holdouts to launch.” He gestured toward Rhee. “You remember what the colonel reported about the holdouts’ sentiments—’they won’t go down quietly.’”
Tae was also against waiting. “And if the Chinese do get across the river into the mountains, it could be very hard to push them back out, if it came to that.”
Sohn agreed. “Once they’ve paid in blood for that land, they’ll want to keep it, or charge us a high price to give it back.”
“When the Chinese invaded Vietnam in 1979, then retreated to their own border, all they left behind was scorched earth,” Tae said darkly. “If they couldn’t steal it, they blew it up or burned it. My country has suffered enough without them adding more ruin and destruction.”
“It’s now our country, General Tae, whatever the politicians decide to call it,” injected Rhee firmly. “We will defend it together.”
General Sohn, after nodding to General Kwon, said, “And that’s why you’re here, Colonel. Our orders to General Kwon are twofold: slow down the Chinese advance, and at the same time find a way to break through the holdouts’ defenses. We have to destroy their nuclear weapons and any delivery systems before it’s too late.”
Kwon pointed to Rhee. “Of the two, you can guess which one has the highest priority. I want you to work with me here, designing missions for all the brigades, not just your Ghosts. You’ve done well in this fight, Colonel, and we need you to come through for us again.”
Rhee carefully aimed his response at all the generals. Smiling, he answered, “I’ll do my best.”
No pressure.
“Captain, Yantai‘s getting set for another pass.” The OOD’s report sounded almost routine.
“Understood.” Commander Ralph Mitchell fought the urge to walk out on the bridge wing and look aft. The Independence class had been built with sloped, smooth sides to reduce their radar signature. They’d done away with the bridge wings, along with a lot of other things.
The old-style helmsman at the wheel and the sailor standing by the engine order telegraph had been eliminated. The bridge watch even got to sit down, which would have been heresy in his father’s navy. The officer of the deck and junior officer of the deck had their own display screens, and sat on either side of a bank of controls for the ship’s operation. To look aft, Mitchell could use the flat-screen display next to the chair, complete with joysticks and zoom controls.
The bridge on the Independence class was larger than those on most ships, and it seemed even more spacious with only two people at the control console, instead of the five or six or more on earlier ships. The normal watch section of two men — a commissioned officer of the deck, and a senior enlisted junior officer of the deck — could run the ship under most conditions. In a pinch, one man could do it. The “CO’s chair” was to the right of the control console, and came equipped with its own workstation. However, Mitchell often preferred the extra chair immediately behind the two watchstanders. Any similarity to science-fiction starships probably came from similar design goals. Probably.
Mitchell’s orders were clear. He was to trail the Chinese formation and monitor their operations. The Chinese clearly didn’t want him around, but just as clearly weren’t ready to fire on him, at least not yet.
“Yantai‘s speed is still increasing.” When you only had two people on the bridge driving the ship, division of labor was important. Mitchell had set up his teams so that the JOOD would concentrate on conning the ship, while the OOD kept his attention on the tactical situation. Monitoring the ship’s internal systems and sensors fell to the four watchstanders in Integrated Command Center 1, or ICC1, just behind the conning station.
Although an enlisted man, the JOOD was a first-class petty officer and technical specialist in one of the ship’s main systems — the gas turbines and waterjets, the weapons and sensors, and so on. He’d then received cross-training in the others. Besides, Mitchell could rely on Petty Officer Booth’s judgment. One of the good things about serving on Gabby was her small crew. You got to know everyone. He trusted Booth to mind the store, which allowed the OOD, Lieutenant Sontez, and Captain Mitchell to focus on the Chinese.
The formation they were trailing had left the navy base at Qingdao three days earlier. Chinese fleet activity had steadily increased since the crisis started on the fifteenth of August, but the sailing of this group had both Seoul and Washington deeply concerned.
It was centered on three amphibious ships, which between them could carry a regiment of troops, with armor and helicopter support. Three first-line guided missile destroyers and five frigates escorted them, while Chinese fighters from nearby bases along the coast flew top cover.
At first, some in Washington had thought the group might be heading for the Spratlys, raising the possibility of a naval confrontation in the South China Sea, but there were two fleets based well to the south that were more than capable of performing that mission, and still might. All doubts were removed when the Chinese task force hadn’t turned south, but loitered along the border of the Yellow Sea and Korea Bay.
They were likely a contingency force. If the ground troops hit a roadblock, the amphibious force would land their troops to break it up.
As the Chinese incursion into Korea had developed, this task force had steamed about almost at random, keeping clear of the surface traffic that filled the Yellow Sea, but making no attempt to conceal its presence. Every radar on the Chinese ships was energized, broadcasting electromagnetic radiation as it searched for contacts. Helicopters buzzed around the formation, inspecting nearby surface ships and searching for submarines.
Mitchell and Gabby had received orders to proceed westward within hours of a US Navy P-8 getting near enough to identify not only the warships, but the amphibs in the center of the formation. It was a twelve-hour run from the port of Busan, on the southeast coast of Korea, around the peninsula and north into the Yellow Sea, pushing her to nearly forty knots. She could go still faster, but would not have had any fuel when she arrived.