Each of the missile crews had begun preparing for launch the day before, working tirelessly day and night. Timing was everything.
“Sir, our air search radars are set up. We have dozens of contacts that we are now tracking off the coast. We believe many of them to be commercial air traffic.”
“Very well, thank you.” The commander of the missile force on the lead ship was waiting to hear from all the other vessels in company. Each one would eventually check in, telling him that they were ready to attack. The sky was blue. The weather was warm. With any luck, they would get their payload off without so much as a bullet fired at them.
He checked his watch. “Launch the drones.”
Two catapults from the ship launched medium-sized fixed-wing drones into the air, their propellers buzzing as they flew to the east. There was no way to retrieve them, but that didn’t matter. Last-minute targeting updates were needed. Minutes earlier, their GPS signal and satellite datalink had stopped working. At first, his communications officer had thought it might be a momentary glitch in the system. But after a few minutes, the commander had doubted that was the case. The attack had begun, and the Americans were responding. The US cyber warriors were striking back and had shut down Chinese satellite capability.
But had the intelligence operations succeeded in tricking the Americans into thinking that his fleet of merchant ships were thousands of miles to the south, near the Marianas? That was what the false navigational plans stored in the logistics network had said.
Soon they would find out. Within the hour, Chinese targeting drones would be circling high over Hickam and Kaneohe Bay. His men would make their final targeting updates, and a rain of more than two hundred missiles would fall down on Hawaii, crippling the US military capability on the base.
“Sir, are we sure about this? Merchant ships?”
“Admiral, that’s affirmative.”
Admiral Manning stood in his stateroom on the USS Ford, speaking on the HF secure line to the commander of the Pacific Fleet, who was sitting in Hawaii. The four-star admiral on the phone — his boss — had just informed him that six Chinese merchant ships were located only seventy miles to the west of Oahu and should now be considered hostile. Intelligence had just come in that weapons on board these merchants included surface-to-surface missiles, which could target US military bases in Hawaii.
The synapses fired in Admiral Manning’s brain. “We’ll launch sorties on them immediately, sir.”
“Good. Coordinate with Air Force assets launching from Hickam. The 199th has a pair of F-22s ready for air defense, but I don’t know how long it will take them to load anti-ship weapons.”
“Yes, sir, we’ll be sure to coordinate.”
Admiral Manning practically ran to his tactical flag command center. The room was the size and shape of a small movie theater, with lighting to match, but the big screen in the front of the room was cut up into several different tactical displays and video images.
Admiral Manning said, “Are there a group of merchants to our west?”
“Yes, sir. The Zulu guys just had Ripper 612 roger up to getting eyes on them.”
“What did they see?”
“Nothing, sir. Just a group of merchants that are oddly close together.”
“Send him back. And get the CAG in here. And launch the alert swing-loaded aircraft, now!”
“Yes, sir.”
The strike group’s communications officer bolted into the room. “Admiral! Sir, this just came in…”
He handed the admiral a printout.
They had just received an Emergency Low Frequency message from the National Command Authority. The United States was going to DEFCON 1.
Plug couldn’t believe they had him doing this shit. He had literally spent his whole day typing on a freaking instant messenger — albeit a classified one. What did he do on this instant messenger? Answer to the admiral’s staff every five seconds, letting them know what had changed since the last time they’d asked. Which was, primarily, nothing.
The admiral’s staff — otherwise known as the strike group — watch team sat in their big computer-screen-filled tactical flag command center several decks above him. Plug, meanwhile, sat in his tiny computer-screen-filled Zulu module, deep in the heart of the ship. Half the time Plug suspected that the strike group watch standers didn’t even read what he typed. But when they did, and he didn’t answer fast enough, they called him on the radio, like they were doing now.
“Foxtrot Zulu, this is Foxtrot Alpha, over.”
Plug rolled his eyes. He was tired of this bullshit SWO radio etiquette. Was it really necessary to say, “this is” before you said your name every time, and “over,” at the end of every transmission? You didn’t do that on a phone call. And aviators didn’t waste words like that when making their radio calls. As if strike group didn’t know it was the new guy in Zulu, Plug, talking? Ridiculous.
Plug picked up the phone and dialed the number for the strike group guy who was trying to talk to him over the radio. “What’s up, man?”
Plug could hear the disdain in his voice. “You should use the tactical radio to respond,” replied the lieutenant commander who was standing duty.
“Okay, I will next time. Just, what’s up?”
“Are you in control of the Ripper aircraft right now?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, vector the F-18 back over to those merchant ships and tell him to send back video. The admiral is standing right next to me, and he wants to see it.”
“No problem.”
Was that so hard? Plug just didn’t get why these people had to play these silly radio games. Sure, maybe back in World War II, when you only had the option of talking over HF radios, it had made sense. But especially when they were on the same freaking boat — just use the phone.
“Sir, chat is down,” the chief standing duty with him said.
“What?”
“Chat’s down, sir.”
Plug looked at his computer. The instant messenger chat rooms were all displaying gibberish.
“This happen often?”
The chief shook his head. “Nope. I’ll troubleshoot.” The chief got on the phone.
Plug frowned, reaching for the radio so that he could contact the F-18 they were having perform surveillance for them. That had been one of the few parts of the job that was kind of fun. The F-18s were amazing. They could get from one side of the carrier’s area of operations to the other in a flash and then send him pictures or video of what he wanted to see. It would take him an hour to do that in a helicopter.
He held down the radio transmit button. “Ripper 612, Zulu.”
“Go, Zulu.”
“Can you guys go back to those merchants and resend your video?”
“Wilco.”
Short and sweet. Plug couldn’t believe he’d been relegated to this surface warrior hell. He was the only aviator on the carrier who didn’t get to fly. And he was slowly being brainwashed by the SWOs. He was starting to talk like them. Soon he would be hanging out with them. Then he’d be using black shoe polish. Aviators wore brown shoes, after all.
“Holy shit. What the hell is that?” Plug was looking at the video imagery being broadcast by the F-18 back to the Ford.
One of Plug’s underling watch standers said, “Sir, is that a missile? Are — hey, there’s another one.”
The voice of the F-18 aviator came on the radio. “Zulu, you guys seeing this?”
The communications speaker blared next to Admiral Manning. “Foxtrot Bravo, this is Foxtrot Zulu, Ripper 612 reports what looks like missiles on deck of the merchant ships. Merchant ships not transmitting AIS transponder identification. Recommend classify as hostile, over.”