2. South China Sea Station
Captain Mackey looked around the small wardroom, meeting the gaze of each of the officers assembled before him. “The price of success,” he said. “The Navy was so pleased with our operations while en route to Pearl that they decided to send us directly into harm’s way. Cheyenne has been ordered to rendezvous with the USS Independence (CV-62), which will be heading in the direction of the recently occupied Spratly Islands. Independence is currently steaming in the Indian Ocean. We are to meet up with her one hundred miles northwest of Natuna Island. Upon crossing the Pacific Ocean we will chop (change operational commander) to the Seventh Fleet.”
Mack kept his voice and his gaze steady. Such transfers were common between fleets, but this one carried the connotation of an increase in risk. The Third Fleet was remaining on station closer to home; the Seventh was on the front lines of this new war.
“Naval intelligence reports that there are large numbers of enemy warships operating in the area,” Mack went on. “We will, without a doubt, come into contact with many of these. Our first priority, however, remains meeting up with Independence. We will take this dangerous mission one step at a time. Remember, they have the home-court advantage.”
He looked around the wardroom one last time. “We’ll depart as soon as our refit is complete.”
If only that were true, Mack thought. But the truth was, they would be leaving before they were completely outfitted. As was always the case during peacetime, materiel was never ordered in large enough quantities to satisfy the demands of wartime operations. There were too many ships steaming into Pearl for supplies, and not enough weapons and ammunition to go around.
More was on order, of course, and it wouldn’t be long before Pearl was fully stockpiled, but by then Cheyenne would be halfway to the South China Sea.
Cheyenne’s loadout included sixteen Mk 48 ADCAPs, six Tomahawk land-attack cruise missiles, and four Harpoon antiship missiles for medium-range attacks on surface ships. The loading was a long process. The Mk 48s had to be slowly and carefully lowered into the loading hatch one at a time, and the Tomahawks in their loading canisters were loaded directly into Cheyenne’s vertical launch tubes.
If Mack had had his way, though, the loading process would have taken even longer. He’d take Cheyenne out as soon as she was ready, of course, but he would have been happier if she’d had a full complement of weapons.
The transit to the rendezvous with Independence would take Cheyenne in a southwesterly direction through the Pacific Ocean and past the Marshall and Solomon Islands, both sites of grisly combat operations over fifty years ago. She would then pass by the Caroline Islands and cut through the Celebes Sea before entering the Sulu Sea and, finally, the South China Sea.
Naval intelligence had confirmed that Cheyenne had sunk the second of the Chinese Han class of nuclear attack submarines, number 402, and that she had been witness to the destruction of what turned out to be Han number 404 south of Honolulu. These two confirmed kills, along with the Han destroyed earlier by the submarine escorting Nimitz, meant that the Chinese navy had only two remaining nuclear powered submarines. Or at least, Mack reminded himself, only two that the United States knew about.
Addressing that lack of intelligence was a part of Cheyenne’s mission. Once in China’s home waters, Cheyenne’s orders were to gather intelligence on Chinese naval operations while making her way south in the direction of Indonesia. There, 100 miles northwest of Natuna Island, their old friend USS Independence would be waiting for them.
Thinking about their mission and the tools they’d have available to complete it, Mack adjourned the meeting. The loadout would be complete in less than two hours, and he wanted his officers and sailors ready for imminent combat operations.
Somewhere in the central Pacific, a Chinese Luda class destroyer sat quietly, dead in the water. One hundred meters below it lay its partner in crime, a Romeo class diesel attack submarine. Their mission was simple: sink as many American vessels as possible. They had heard the news of China’s losses in the Pacific Ocean, so they were pleased to detect a merchant ship, The Southwest Passage, an American merchant vessel two days out from Japan, en route to one of the Hawaiian Islands.
The merchantman was not a big ship, but she was flying the American flag, and that made her a target. As soon as The Southwest Passage came within eighty miles, the destroyer captain launched one of his two Harbin Z-9A helicopters in order to confirm the identity and nationality of the ship.
The merchantman did not, at first, realize the danger she was in, and her captain kept her on course. When the Chinese helicopter finally buzzed the bridge, however, he radioed their observations in to the U.S. Navy and received orders to alter their course to avoid, as the Navy radioman described it, “a possibly life-threatening situation.”
Unfortunately for the merchant ship and her crew, it was already too late. Without warning, three Chinese HY-2 missiles, variants of the Silkworm surface-to-surface missile family, came streaking across the sky, directly into the hull of The Southwest Passage. All three impacts came within seconds of one another, two in the aft section of her hull, the third closer to the bow.
The Southwest Passage went down like a rock, not even pausing to break up. All hands were lost, most of them dying in the explosions.
Aboard the Chinese destroyer, the captain was well pleased with the results. They had struck back successfully at the Americans. Even better, he had used only his destroyer in the attack. With luck he would be able to keep his submarine a secret, saving it as a surprise for a bigger fish, perhaps even a U.S. warship.
Having just passed Midway Island, Cheyenne was about to begin turning southward when she received word of the attack on The Southwest Passage. Since getting underway submerged from Pearl, Mack had maintained the floating wire communications antenna streamed to get any information that the Navy might wish to pass along to them. He had expected intelligence updates, and information on the latest developments, but he hadn’t been expecting news like that.
According to the message, the attack had occurred due south of Cheyenne’s current position. The coordinates were located approximately one day’s travel at full speed — or about a day and a half at their current rate of twenty knots. Mack didn’t hesitate. His orders allowed him some latitude, and he was prepared to take full advantage of that.
Reading the message a second time, he gave the order to turn Cheyenne and head full speed toward the destroyer’s reported position. In the absence of a formal declaration of war, the Chinese government would undoubtedly brand the destroyer a renegade. Which was fine with Mack. He intended to bring them to justice… American style.
Twenty-six hours later Cheyenne received her second surprise. They had picked up a target, but it wasn’t the destroyer. Instead, there was another signal masking the one they’d expected.