Admiral Song hoped to sail his fleet through the picket lines of a stunned American Pacific Fleet. There were two American aircraft carriers operating in the Western Pacific theater, and dozens of warships and submarines.
Song knew that the Chinese air force and missile force intended to strike the carriers and most warships within the next few hours. And while the military planners projected victory, in his mind, he knew that these were the optimistic presentations of eager young officers. Combat and experience would quickly season his men. Their bright looks and fearless attitudes would give way to realism and a thousand stoic stares. Blood and loss were a taste not easily forgotten.
But if China was to succeed, they must move swiftly, before the United States comprehended what was happening. And he fully intended to use the element of surprise to his advantage.
30
“Anything yet?” the captain asked.
“Radars are coming back up now, sir.”
They had done a full restart of every air defense system that wasn’t working properly. A flash like the sun, the lookout had said. That poor seaman was now down in sick bay, blind in one eye. The kid had been looking at some of the F-18s flying overhead when it happened. The captain shook his head.
A flash like the sun.
Inside the skin of the ship, many of the electronics had begun malfunctioning. Some didn’t work at all. The captain had been in his stateroom, typing up an email, when it had started. His computer screen had gone dark. No blue screen of death. Just completely off, and it wouldn’t turn back on.
He had walked into the combat information center, witnessing the chaos in there. Then the TAO had gotten word through the sound-powered phones of the “medical situation” with the forward lookout.
A flash like the sun.
The captain had read about the danger of electromagnetic pulse weapons while at the Pentagon. Thankfully, most of the military equipment on board the Ticonderoga-class cruiser was hardened against that sort of thing. But no one really knew what would happen if a real EMP went off above them. No one knew how powerful it would be, or how all the different systems might react. Would some of the “hardened military hardware” rely on weak links somewhere in the chain of electronics?
Another question was, who had fired the EMP weapons? The big stink this week was North Korea. But to his knowledge, North Korea didn’t have that capability. China was the big kid on the block over here. The USS Lake Champlain’s officers and crew had received the recent messages about a sortied group of Chinese merchant ships, and an unusual Chinese surface action group deployment. Everyone was on edge after the exchanged fire between US and Chinese warships several weeks earlier. But they couldn’t be completely sure who was responsible. The North Koreans had begun their attack on South Korea and Japan hours earlier. So, it made sense that they would launch EMPs out here — if they had them.
They needed intelligence, and they needed orders.
The USS Carl Vinson was off the starboard beam. The Lake Champlain was the shotgun cruiser in the Carl Vinson Carrier Strike Group. Two more destroyers were within twenty miles of their location. Between the destroyers and his cruiser, they were responsible for the defense from enemy air threats, whether they be fighters, bombers, or missiles. But for the last thirty minutes, the captain of the Lake Champlain hadn’t been sure just what their air defense capability was. A pretty sad admission from the air defense commander.
He looked at the TAO. “Any orders from strike group?”
“No word from the carrier sir.”
No one had responded to radio communications since the EMP. That was a bad sign. The captain had been scheduled to join a video conference with the carrier strike group. He had expected to discuss rules of engagement as they headed towards the Korean peninsula. The last message that the Lake Champlain had received said that North Korea had attacked the South, and that North Korean forces should be considered hostile. But these widespread electronics and communications outages were greatly effecting their situational awareness.
Diagnostics on the air defense systems showed that technically, most of their equipment was unaffected by the EMP. But he could see with his own eyes that the display screens were not working properly.
A tech rep happened to be on board. He had been working on their SPY radar the week before and was due to leave for the carrier later in the day. Instead, he was removing panels and replacing parts, assisted by the ship’s own enlisted radar experts. It took them twenty minutes, but they managed to get things working the way they were supposed to.
“What the hell are they doing over there?” The captain was pointing at the carrier.
“Not sure, sir. We now have them on bridge-to-bridge. But none of our other comms circuits are working yet.”
“Nothing?”
“Not yet, sir.”
“Then get someone up on bridge-to-bridge who knows what the hell’s going on.”
“Yes, sir.”
The captain shook his head. He felt bad for raising his voice. He knew it wasn’t the fault of the operations officer. But he needed information. They could be under attack, for God’s sake. If he had to get the admiral to come up to the bridge of the carrier and speak to him there, he would do it. He left the combat information center to go to the bridge.
No sooner had the captain climbed up to the bridge than he heard a 1MC call asking him to return to CIC. “Captain, TAO, you’re needed in combat. As soon as possible, sir.”
Urgency in the woman’s voice. No — fear. The woman was one of his best officers, and she didn’t get rattled easily. Today was different.
The captain hurried back into the combat information center.
“Sir, AEGIS is now coming back online — we don’t have everything operational yet, but we have enough to see multiple unknown air contacts inbound bearing two-six-zero for eighty miles.”
“Altitude?”
“The system was having trouble…”
A loud aural warning tone went off.
“VAMPIRE! VAMPIRE! VAMPIRE!” a petty officer manning one of the air defense stations yelled. “TAO, enemy missiles inbound. Bearing two-four-zero for fifty miles. I show… forty… no, sixty inbound missiles headed towards our position.”
The captain looked up at the screen. It was filled with little icons moving at a high rate of speed. “You know what to do, folks. Let’s go!”
The combat information center erupted in organized shouts of information and rehearsed commands. The 1MC speaker said, “All hands stand by for heavy rolls.” Then the alarm, followed by, “General quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations…”
Sailors from the combat fire control division evaluated the information on their displays, their hands moving swiftly over buttons and keyboards. Sweaty palms and foreheads. Fast-beating hearts and dizzying levels of adrenaline. These sailors followed their years of training, trying not to think about the dozens of missiles skimming the surface of the water at just under the speed of sound, headed right towards them.