“We have a tenuous lead on their carriers, just one submarine in contact with them. Their carriers are the Damocles Sword that hangs over us. The threat has to be neutralised before we deal with the rest of it.”
“And what if the satellites aren’t back up?” queried the president. “When did we last have their carriers position?”
“Twenty-six hours’ ago, HMS Hood is weapons free now, they will be in too close to transmit, and possibly already setting up an attack.” The general turned a page before carrying on.
“ USS Constellation was in Hawaii until last week, it will be three days before she is in range to begin offensive operations. John C. Stennis was midway back to San Diego and she is turned about now. The Nimitz is still in refit, but she is now being rushed back. In short, it will be three days until another carrier group can intervene. A month before all of them are on station. HMS Prince of Wales is an ASW carrier, intended for convoy work in the Atlantic. Her Sea Harriers are for fleet defence but they have an anti-ship role too. We put some Phoenix’s, AIM-54Bs aboard and they have retrofit the airframes to carry them, it is not a Harrier weapon so the PRC will have a shock if… or rather when they come looking.
“What about Europe, what is the story there?”
“The Red Army… we started calling them that again, sir… ”
“May as well, I suppose… sorry, carry on Henry.”
“The Red Army has three main thrusts, one into Belarus from Russia, another building in The Ukraine, ready to go through Poland and a third has curved through Rumania, Slovakia and into the Czech Republic from The Ukraine. That one, on the face of it looks as if it could hook north into Poland, but it is a feint, they are going to go west sometime today, into Germany, even though they had recon units cross into Poland.”
The president leant forward.
“How do we know?”
“The Brits are facing the Czech border, they were busy last night, lots of patrols out and the SAS raided a regimental command post inside the Czech Republic. What they found there was corroborated by an officer snatched in Germany, turned out to be a generals son.”
“I heard there was a battle yesterday, Russia invaded Belarus a couple of days ago and they locked horns yesterday, so my pilot told me?”
“In the early afternoon, the Belarus forces that went over to Russia spearheaded the invasion. The loyal Belarus had a defence line along the Dnieper/Byerazino rivers; the Red Army beat on it with massed prolonged artillery before starting their assault. The Belarus air force attacked as the enemy were trying to force the river but the Russians got in amongst them using the Belarus IFF codes of the day; the Belarus have only a few airworthy airframes left now. They held their armour back until we could assist in the air… that happened last night. We took losses in the air but the Belarus counter attacked with armour before withdrawing to their next defence line.”
“And what were those losses we took?”
“NATO lost three Tornadoes, three Jaguars, all RAF. Two Super Mirage from the French, five F-16s, two were Belgian, three were ours, as were three F-15s, two B-52s and two F-117A Nighthawks.” General Shaw finished reading from a list in front of him and looked at the screen.
“How did we do, Henry?”
“That thrust has been blunted sir, they are going to have to reconstitute before they can resume the advance, say… three days.” He turned a page.
“We destroyed, in the air and on the ground. Five of their A-50 AWACS, thirty-four combat aircraft and a lot of armoured fighting vehicles, logistical vehicles and personnel… no numbers as yet.”
The president pursed his lips.
“Convoys, tell me how it is going and is there anything we can divert to the West Coast?"
The general frowned.
“1st Armoured, 9th and 22nd Mechanised are either in the terminal stages of loading or afloat. 5th Armoured got snarled up in the exodus from Texas City, they are over a day late and haven’t uploaded yet. The first convoy is on the way, with a heavy escort. The Canadian 1st Corps is also afloat and their first convoy leaves at last light today… what are you thinking sir?”
“I am thinking that the PRC were not a factor when we put this together and we are going to need Australia as a base to assist Taiwan, Japan, Okinawa and the Philippines. Either way, the PRC needs Australia and it needs to be denied to them.” The president looked apologetic.
Henry Shaw blew out his cheeks and was looking not into the screen but thousands of miles away. Eventually he looked back at the screen.
“You know of course that you will not be getting any Christmas cards from the planning and logistics staff this year, Mr President?” he then went on.
“I agree that Australia needs help, but we are now at war with the two other super powers, we are very over stretched. I have already started the reactivation of the reserve fleet and AMARC, the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Centre in the Sonora Desert is reactivating what they can. The VP authorised it and the next two levels of call-up… you realise sir, we are going to have people screaming to bring the troops home, to protect the homeland?”
The president turned to an aide, requesting he contact the Australian prime minister and the British prime minister.
“Okay, Henry… I wanted you to go and make your planning staffs wish they had voted for the other guy, get the 5th turned around and headed west, get shipping into ports ready to move them to Australia. I am going to ask Her Majesty’s government for permission to do just that, okay?”
“Yes Mr President.”
“And Henry, I need a full brief on dispositions in Europe in two hours’ please?”
General Shaw nodded and his screen went blank.
“DDI… you’re up, what’s hot and what’s not?”
Lt Fu Shen took a deep breath and advanced the throttles to the stops. Two miles away the Kuznetsov air group was launching, using that carriers ski slope deck’s assistance to get airborne with their heavy loads.
Fu Chen was pressed back into his seat as the catapult launched him down the deck and the Su-27 got itself airborne without his help. “What a rush!”
Climbing to join the rest of his squadron and top off his tanks, there were sixty-two Russian and Chinese combat aircraft in the air, and all were bound for the Prince of Wales group with its nine Sea Harriers.
Charlie Whiskey 01, the USS Curtis Wilbur’s UH-60B, Sea Hawk ASW helicopter, was dipping its sonar for the umpteenth time that day. There was a sub here, they had it hemmed in with sonar buoys and they had been chasing the damn thing all day. It had to snorkel sooner rather than later, at best bet they had been down fourteen hours’. There were three helicopters at any one time prosecuting the contact. The thermal layer below the ocean’s surface was fluctuating, making it harder to detect the diesel submarine, which ducked in, above and below the layer.
“I got a faint contact on buoy twelve… ” The sonar operator informed the pilot. The buoy was at the centre of their north-south line and Charlie Whiskey raised its dipping sonar once more, headed east and dipped again.
“Ok, I got a faint contact at 023’… I’m going below the layer… firming up, we got us a submarine on the sprint, heading 287’, 260 feet.”
“Raise the dipper… standby… drop, drop, drop… one away!”