Captain Worden interrupted the bridge’s celebrating. “What bearing are those missiles headed?”
“Um, 270 degrees and picking up speed. Already 20 miles past us, Captain.”
The captain checked his navigation computer. The executive officer rolled his eyes at his never-satisfied superior. “Please relax, sir. We just made it back from the verge of death and you still have to find something wrong?”
Captain Worden ignored his teasing and ran some quick calculations on the computer in front of him. A moment later, his face turned white. “God almighty. Raise the admiral. His task force is going to be hit in less than 10 minutes.”
“Hit by what, sir?”
“What do you think? Thirty-six cruise missiles, type unknown.”
They already fired the ready rack and backup SAM’s. He’d need a few more minutes before fresh missile modules could be loaded in place. Far too late to catch those supersonic death rods. His mother carrier battle group were on their own.
“Sir, fleet thanks you for the head’s up, but not to worry. They can handle, in their words, ‘such a tiny strike.’ We’re to continue our mission.”
Two hundred miles further west, the rest of Captain Worden’s giant armada continued stalking their prey. This little cruise missile attack didn’t impress the federal admiral. What must have seemed like Armageddon to a lone destroyer was a mere nuisance to his three nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and fifteen supporting cruisers and destroyers.
No, he kept his attention on readying for the first carrier-on-carrier naval battle since World War II. Contrary to intelligence estimates, somehow the URA managed to outfit a carrier task force and slip it out of San Diego. The Pentagon’s ever-more infrequent satellite reconnaissance finally pinpointed the small enemy fleet yesterday. A handful of amphibious assault ships with them implied they were making a move to retake Alaska, rather than attempting to punch a hole in the blockade. Perfect. Now that he finally had a solid fix on their location, he wouldn’t be distracted by anything. With triple the air power as this enemy force, the fight should be a turkey shoot. Just have to deal with this little hiccup first.
As the US fleet began engaging the incoming cruise missiles, the admiral complimented his flagship’s captain. “Fine job, Captain! Fighting the ship while prepping for a major airstrike and your team makes it look easy. Very impressive.” Twenty white surface-to-air missiles from their ship joined more than a hundred other rocket plumes rising above the fleet. All those contrails merged and turned in one magnificent ballet, racing against the few dozen incoming threats.
Despite his public praise, the admiral was a little irritated. Even with the advance warning from that lone destroyer, this engagement was closer than he cared to admit. These peculiar cruise missiles soared so low that their exhaust steamed the water below them. One had actually been lost already when she plowed into a particularly high wave. Talk about hard to pick up on radar. Complicating matters further, the strange rounds appeared to be stealthy. A new twist, but hardly revolutionary. The admiral jotted some notes for the after-action review. So they couldn’t engage the threat at 50 plus miles, like usual. The range would be closer to 10 miles by the time his point defense missiles reached their targets. No big deal. Wouldn’t change a thing.
Each of these high-tech spears had a 75 % kill probability against another missile. With four interceptors targeting each hostile warhead, this little episode should be over in moments. Even if, by some miracle, a few slipped through the barrage, then multiple automatic Gatling guns on each federal ship stood ready to throw up a shield of lead. The only way to kill a modern warship is through saturation… and this puny strike was far from a saturation bombardment. The admiral smiled and jotted that down. A good line for his memoirs.
The first interceptor missile was less than three seconds from impact when its target flared out and crashed into the ocean. The fleet’s combined radar operators weren’t stupid. Something was wrong. The missiles had been shedding speed for a while. Too much of a coincidence. A moment later, the seldom heard from sonar operator filled in the details. “Torpedoes in the water!”
The URA didn’t have any more of these experimental cruise missile/torpedo hybrids. A mysterious and patriotic defense firm had brokered the deal with some shady Russian arms dealers. Even at $20 million apiece, the missiles were worth every penny. Since they operated the only fixed-wing aircraft carriers in the world, the US Navy had never invested much effort perfecting ways to sink them. Unfortunately, some American adversaries had studied destroying these floating mountains for decades. None of the 6,000-crewmembers in harm’s way on the USS George Washington gave a shit about the history of the technology though.
Sailors onboard huddled in surprise when the speaker blared, “Brace for collision!” The admiral watched helplessly from the bridge as four terrifying wakes matched his ship’s desperate maneuvering. Some junior lieutenant let out a sigh of relieve when sonar reported impact, but he felt no explosions. That same officer didn’t have a thing to say when the floor under his feet buckled a moment later. Delayed impact fuses. The admiral jotted down a final note in his journaclass="underline" Well played.
The admiral closed his eyes one last time as the shockwaves from four warheads, each detonating 650 lbs. of PBX high explosives just below the ship’s munitions bunkers, threw him across the bridge. In minutes, the carrier’s 2,500 tons of bombs and more than 12,000 tons of aviation fuel fed the inferno. Within moments, a chain of ever-larger secondary blasts broke the carrier’s back. The type of explosions Hollywood spent millions replicating… all for free. Hundreds of crewmembers on firefighting details manned their hopeless stations; buying with their lives a few extra seconds for their mates to abandon ship. Their sacrifice was the only reason almost half the crew survived.
The George Washington was the hardest hit, but not the only ship hurt. Both the other carriers took a few powerful, even if less crippling blows. As if that wasn’t bad enough, a single torpedo split an AEGIS cruiser in half. Within 10 minutes, only an oil slick and a few loose rubber items marked her final resting place. None of the 330 sailors aboard were ever seen again.
With herculean effort, the other two carriers managed to contain their own fires and flooding. Miraculously, they would survive and be towed intact back to Pearl Harbor. Of course, both ships would need hundreds of new crewmembers and billions of dollars in repairs before they’d ever be operational again though.
In a matter of minutes, the entire strategic equation in the North Pacific was turned on its head. Shocked by their success, the URA was slow in exploiting their victory. While 4,000 American families received chaplain visits over the next few days, the rebel task force reinvaded Alaska and swept aside the token US garrison. By this point, the US military didn’t have enough chaplains to keep up. The Pentagon had to outsource to private contractors in the booming grief counseling industry.
URA news networks broadcasted the footage of sinking ships 24/7 into the US heartland. Supposedly to influence the national dialogue. That they did. All the high-minded political talk about negotiations, grand compromises and presidential checks and balances fell to the wayside.
There was only one subject the American people were still interested in discussing.
From congressional members to teenagers, Americans east of the Missouri River all shared the same message online: