At Fiery Cross Reef it was the same devastation.
OFF MISCHIEF REEF THE SSN USS Hawaii, Stonewall Jackson’s nuclear powered Pacific fleet sister, attacked with a devastating blow.
Her tactics were outlined in a directive from COMSUBPAC, who’d ordered her skipper to name the action Operation Kaminski. Her Captain had no idea why, but complied.
“KAMINSKI. SET US A course for Hainan Island,” said Nathan, “we’ve one last bug for Joe to whisper his sweet nothings to.”
“Aye sir.”
USS Stonewall Jackson headed off to the holy of holies: the main PLAN submarine base.
The following day Nathan sat in the galley eating his scrambled egg and sausage breakfast.
Lieutenant Kaminski joined him.
“You sleep ok Kaminski?”
“Yes sir, a good night. I have to admit, the coffee’s welcome.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“Our course takes us about twenty miles west of the Paracels, sir. I just looked and we’re now about thirty five short of our closest approach.”
Nathan nodded. “Maybe we could do some scouting on our way back.” They finished breakfast and onto the second coffee, when the intercom sounded.
“Commander to the control room.”
“No rest is there? Come on.” he said.
CPO Benson looked up at him.
“We have some guys coming out to play sir. I picked up a Luyang class, a type 53C Destroyer. But a few miles ahead of him are two subsurface contacts. They’re around 75 miles away. Both Yuan Class, type 039A, conventional boats. Two hundred and thirty feet deep, bearing three four five degrees. Speed 12 knots. Heading in our general direction, I don’t think they’ve detected us.”
“Did you get some sleep Benson?”
“Enough sir.”
“Kaminski, what’s the course to the nearest Paracel Island?”
“Thirty eight degrees sir.” Maybe they could wait in the lee of the Paracels? That might work, yeah, lay a trap for them.
She spread out a chart over the table. “Sir, we have several of these.” Nathan looked at the chart it was the Parcels; it was marked up in Chinese. “They’re Republic of China Navy charts Sir. Taiwanese Navy. Very detailed.”
“Good, should be useful Lieutenant.”
The three met in the Wardroom.
“How about we sneak off to the Paracels and wait for them?”
“A trap? Yeah that might work, Nathan,” said Larry.
“We could come out behind the Destroyer; the boats are in front of it. Come up its baffles.”
“Get close,” said Nikki, “we can put a Mk 48 in each of them.”
Nathan looked at them. They were confident and riding high. It had gone well so far, but he knew the line between success and failure was a fine, taut cord. It did seem the way to go though.
“Ok it’s a plan. Let’s do it. Then it’s on to the Dragon’s Den up north.”
“I SEE IT’S ODD, BUT what is it?” said Admiral Kamov. He looked up and around at the Joint Chiefs.
Chief of Staff of the Air Force General Neil L Cooper sat back in his chair. “That is a new weapon. It’s a wing-in ground-effect cruise missile, capable of flying three feet over the sea’s surface with a 2,000 pound warhead. They’re low drag, so around 750 miles plus range.” The picture showed up-swept wings, forward canards and an air intake above the fuselage.
“Although the air is thick at low altitudes and drag is high, the wing-in-ground-effect design overcomes that drawback by providing high amounts of lift. It rides a cushion of air below the craft as it skims across the ocean's surface. It’s a bit like the Caspian Sea monster, the Russian aircraft. It rides a cushion of air at that altitude by staying so low throughout its flight, and the missile-drone is harder to detect than higher-flying missile systems, as it can hide from radar among the reflective clutter of the ocean's surface. Look-down-shoot-down radars are less effective here. They’re not so expensive to build either, so ‘the swarm effect’ could be employed. With a warhead, that size even one getting through would be devastating. We have indications that it’s called Hua kuai or Slider. A 2,000 pound warhead could disable or sink an aircraft carrier. This is a serious threat to our Pacific fleet.”
“Seven fifty miles? That’s all the South China Sea?”
“Yeah, it’s worse by a good margin,” said General Cooper, “Singapore, all of Taiwan and could be the southern Islands of Japan. That’s from the Spratly Islands. These satellite pictures are from two days ago in the Paracels. That means maybe as far as southern Japan.”
“Two thousand pound warhead,” Admiral Kamov shook his head. “I’d be very reluctant to deploy a carrier with these in the area.”
“How many do they have in the area?” asked General Cotton.
“We have pictures of six of them, two on Woody Island and four on Duncan.”
“We have to take them out. I know they’ll make more, but we have to set down a marker,” said Admiral Kamov.
“Hard to do,” said General Cooper, “they deploy HQ-9. With its G band HT-233 radar it can intercept targets out to 125 five miles. Maybe a B2 Spirit, but even that…”
“We have an asset in the area that can do it,” said Kamov, “by its low flying cruise missiles. We have an ace. We have the USS Stonewall Jackson, she’s approaching the Paracels now.”
“We don’t have any Tomahawks left on board her,” said General Sally Weingarten.
“I think I know a way to get her replenished,” said Kamov.
“Do we do it?” asked Cotton. “We take a risk. Not only to our submarine but there’s the nuke threat to Guam and Pearl.”
The Commandant of the Marine Corps Bruce Nanut, cleared his throat. “Let’s teach them not to fuck with the big boys.”
LIEUTENANT COMMANDER Lemineux, the boat’s Communications Officer, handed Commander Nathan Blake a communications slip.
“This just came in from COMSUBPAC Sir.”
PRIORITY RED
R 231347Z OCT 88 ZY09
COMSUBPAC PEARL HARBOR HAWAII//N1//
TO STONEWALL JACKSON
PACFLT// ID S072RQ81//
NAVAL OPS/02
MSGID/PACOPS 6722/COMSUBPAC ACTUAL//
MSG BEGINS://
IMMEDIATE TLAM STRIKE. TARGETS ARE:-
N7644.987 W237.4418
N7644.983 W237.4423
N7644.982 W237.4495
N7644.974 W237.4461
N7644.972 W237.4445
N7644.979 W237.4439
PRIORITY RED ALPHA D. CAPTAINS EYES ONLY.
BACK UP NUCLEAR RELEASE AUTHORISED IF NECESSARY.
YOUR RELEASE CODE IS NG4-92274066-PEQ83 REQUEST KEY BLAKE@U6I5T.
AUTHORITY — POTUS — CHAIRMAN JOINT CHIEFS — COMMANDER BLAKE.
REPLENISHMENT OF TLAM STORE. MSG TO FOLLOW. PROCEED WEST.
MSG END//
Nathan handed to message to the XO.
“So much for a laying a trap.”
“Yeah, but we have an order. Set course bearing two seven zero.” Nathan sat back in his seat. What the hell was going on? Where are we going to get more Tomahawks? This is just about the funkiest patrol I’ve ever been on.
CPO JOHANSSON STOOD on deck with Lieutenant Commander Lemineux and a rating. It was warm with a balmy breeze, but it was black out there. The sail was just visible by a very faint cloud covered moon to their right. The distant lights of Da Nang on the Vietnam coast were faint but visible. He knew they were lucky. Good job it was a calm sea, he wouldn’t like to do this in a swell. They’d been there since 22.00. The boat was making use of her time up top by running her two Kawasaki V12 diesel engines to charge her banks of Lithium ion batteries.
Johansson spotted a flashing light. “There sir,” he pointed.