Rules of Engagement

by David Bruns

  The young officer gave Cremer a blank look and earned a disappointed headshaking in response. “You should have gotten that from your watch turnover,” Cremer said. “Quartermaster, when did our Chinese friend last make a trip to periscope depth?”

  “Six hours ago, sir,” came the crisp reply. The tracking team was enjoying seeing the young OOD squirm. Cremer pulled him back to the sonar display, away from the tracking party. “If we have to clear traffic every eight hours, you can bet they’re on some kind of similar schedule, right?”

  Dawkins nodded.

  “Conn, Sonar, contact is slowing and we’re detecting hull popping noises. He’s headed to PD, sir.”

  “Sonar, Conn, aye,” Dawkins said. Even in the dimness of the control room, Cremer could see the young man blushing. Good, that meant he wouldn’t forget this lesson.

  “Let’s break trail and make a trip topside to get our own radio traffic, OOD,” Cremer said.

  “Aye, aye, sir.” Dawkins’s tone told him the kid had recovered from his embarrassment. He slid into the familiar routine of taking the ship shallow and clearing their own acoustic baffles before they ventured to periscope depth.

  “Request permission to raise the mast and query the satellite,” said the radio operator when they were at PD. Cremer watched the monitor while Dawkins manned the periscope. It looked like a beautiful morning in the South China Sea.

  “Permission granted, Radio,” the OOD called out, never taking his eyes away from the scope.

  A sharp burst of static sounded, indicating that the radio operator had sent a signal to the satellite.

  “Conn, Radio, we got no response from the satellite. Request permission to retransmit.”

  Cremer put a hand on Dawkins’s shoulder before the young officer could reply. “Radio, this is the XO. Recheck your lineup and retransmit.” Every bit of electromagnetic signal they released was another opportunity for them to be detected. He let irritation bleed into his voice. That was just sloppy work. Here they were, sitting on China’s doorstep and having to retransmit!

  “Aye, sir. Lineup rechecked. Retransmitting.”

  Cremer waited.

  “Conn, Radio, no response from the satellite.”

  Cremer said to the OOD, “I’ll be in Radio.”

  The radioman on watch held the locked door open so the XO didn’t have to input the cipher. “It’s not on our end, sir. I checked and rechecked. The satellite’s not responding.”

  Cremer studied the young petty officer second class. He had a reputation for being a smart kid and detail-oriented. Maybe there was something wrong with the satellite. “Is there an alternate bird we can query?”

  The radioman nodded. “We’ve got another coming into range in three minutes.”

  Cremer chewed his lip. “All right, check everything again and query the new bird as soon as it’s available.” He pulled a handset off the rack and dialed the captain’s cabin.

  “XO, sir. We weren’t able to clear traffic.” He shot a look at the sweating radioman. “We believe it’s a satellite problem, so my intention is to stay at PD and catch another bird in about two minutes.” He waited for the CO’s assent, then ended the call.

  By the time he was back in the control room, Captain Langford was there. The XO spoke to his captain in a low tone. “Sir, Williams is on watch in radio. If he made a mistake on the first query, I seriously doubt he’d make the same mistake again.” Cremer couldn’t remember the last time they’d experienced an unannounced satellite outage.

  “Conn, Radio, querying the satellite.” A short burst of static followed. “No response from the satellite, sir.”

  Cremer raised his voice. “Chief of the Watch, have the radioman chief lay to the radio room ASAP.”

  Captain Langford pinched his lip. “Radio, this is the captain. Raise the BRD-7 mast. See what you can find on commercial traffic. XO, go listen in while the chief works the problem.”

  Cremer entered the tiny radio space and slipped on a pair of headphones. “What do you want to hear, sir?” Petty Officer Williams asked.

  “Gimme CNN, I guess,” he said.

  He caught the tail end of a commercial; then the top-of-the-hour news summary began. “Our top story this hour is the reported loss of a US Navy maritime patrol aircraft near the Spratly Islands, southwest of the Philippines. A commercial fishing vessel reported a Mayday call from the US Navy aircraft early this morning. The island chain has been a source of friction between the United States and China, which claims the islands as part of its territorial waters. Sources tell CNN the US Navy P-8 Poseidon aircraft was shot down while on a routine freedom of navigation flight near the contested Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands. There has been no official confirmation from either the Chinese or the United States.”

  Cremer snatched the mic from the hook over the operator’s head. “Captain to Radio, sir.”

  Langford appeared a few seconds later, concern etched on his face, and Cremer stepped aside so his CO could edge past him to the headphones. Langford’s stern face went still as he listened to the CNN broadcast.

  He ripped off the headphones and said to Cremer, “Take us deep, XO. And find that Chinese submarine.”

  CHAPTER 44

  Chinese submarine Changzheng 5

  Alone in his tiny cabin, Captain Sun reread the flash message from South Sea Fleet headquarters.

  Intercept US carrier. Launch attack. The latest coordinates, speed, and direction of the American carrier strike group ended the message.

  The message was classified as eyes-only for the captain.

  This was insanity, he thought. A US carrier had layers of protection—destroyers, antisubmarine aircraft, other submarines. To attack such a ship was madness. Unless …

  He put down the message and picked up his tea. The surface of the amber liquid quivered.

  Unless this was a preemptive strike against the Americans, a move to even the odds before the real battle began. In a way, it made sense; the US had three aircraft carriers in the waters around the Chinese homeland. The Chinese had one, and she was untested in combat of any kind. Nearly all Chinese air power had to launch from land-based sites, a distinct disadvantage against the highly mobile American navy.

  But a preemptive attack, a submarine attack, on one or more carriers could tilt the scales a bit in China’s favor. And the Americans would be caught unawares. They would be at a peacetime posture, ready, dangerous, but unsuspecting. If he could get close enough, his missiles just might be able to penetrate the layers of defense that surrounded the aircraft carrier.

  Captain Sun strode into the control room, nodding curtly at the officer of the deck. He made his way to the quartermaster’s plot, where he read off the coordinates from the message. The young quartermaster found the spot and marked it with a pencil. The captain read off the last known course and speed, and the petty officer turned the dot into a vector. Nearly fifty miles distant, running perpendicular to their own track.

  “OOD,” the captain called. He tapped the track of the US carrier group. “Make best possible speed to intercept this track.”

  The deck of the Changzheng 5 tilted forward as the ship went deep. The pressure hull popped and creaked, and the powerful engines made the deck plates quiver under his feet.

  USS Key West (SSN-722)

  Cremer paced back and forth between the diving officer’s chair and the sonar shack. While the Key West had wasted precious minutes at periscope depth waiting for satellite availability, the Chinese sub had disappeared.

  “Anything, Sonar?” he called out. That was his third request in ten minutes, and the sonar supervisor made no attempt to hide his frustration in his response.

  “Conn, Sonar, we’re not seeing him, sir. Recommend you come to new course one-eight-seven to give another angle on the array and change depth to three-five-zero fifty feet.”

  Cremer gave the orders for the recommended depth and course, then resumed his pacing.

  Reacquiring a sub
merged contact after breaking trail was a tricky business. You could make assumptions about his course and speed, but they were only guesses. If the Chinese sub had received new tasking during his trip to periscope depth, he could be headed in any direction at any speed. Or he could have rigged for ultraquiet and reduced his speed to fool his American trackers.

  Cremer stopped. If the Chinese boat had received new orders … what if his new tasking was to intercept the Ford strike group?

  “Sonar, assume our contact is attempting to intercept the carrier strike group. Focus your search on that bearing.”

  “Aye, aye, sir. This new depth is much clearer. Stand by.”

  The minutes ticked by and Cremer paced. He accepted a fresh cup of coffee from a steward and sipped as he walked. Five steps across the control room, turn, five steps back.

  “Conn, Sonar, we’ve got him. Hull pops indicate he’s changing depth. It looks like he’s going deep and increasing speed.”

  “Give me your best guess on course and speed, Sonar. I intend to stay with him.”

  Cremer had the quartermaster lay out the Chinese sub’s vector as well as the last information they had about the Ford carrier group. He called the captain.

  Captain Langford loomed over the chart, listening to Cremer’s theory. He nodded gravely. “You recommend we try to trail him at speed, XO?”

  “Normally, sir, I’d say we go to PD and phone home, but if we can’t rely on the satellites that would just be a waste of time. I say we stick with this guy and see what he’s up to.”

  Langford tapped the chart a few inches ahead of the carrier strike group’s track. “There’s another option. We try to get there first and wait for him.”

  Cremer hesitated. Their passive sensors were useless at high speed. If his guess about the Chinese boat’s final destination was wrong, they’d never find him again. “What if he doesn’t show?”

  “Then my faith in the sanity of man will have been restored, XO.” He looked at the quartermaster. “Plot a course to this point.”

  * * *

  When the USS Key West slowed more than two hours later, Cremer waited impatiently in the entrance to the sonar shack. They’d gone deep and run as fast as possible without causing cavitation of the massive screw that drove the submarine.

  He glared at the four sonar operators, trying to will them to find the Chinese submarine.

  “Sir, it’s going to take a few minutes,” said their supervisor. “We need to recalibrate the towed array and do a full sweep before we can tell you anything.”

  Cremer stepped back into the control room, resuming his pacing. The captain stood between the scope wells, his feet planted, arms crossed.

  “Conn, Sonar, we’ve got a possible contact bearing two-seven-three. The signal’s weak, but the tonals match. I think it’s our guy, sir.”

  Cremer breathed a sigh of relief. “Good job, Sonar—”

  “Conn, Sonar, we’re getting transients! He’s flooding tubes and opening outer doors!”

  A burst of sonic energy from the transient noise showed up as a bright spot on the waterfall display.

  “Conn, he’s launching, sir!”

  Captain Langford’s voice rapped out, “Snapshot, tube one, bearing two-seven-three.”

  At the sound of the emergency launch order, the fire-control technician sprang into action, punching buttons to flood the torpedo tube, open outer doors, and launch a weapon. Seconds later, Cremer’s ears popped as the pressure changed in the ship due to the torpedo launch.

  The general-quarters alarm pulsed in the background. “Sonar, report!”

  “Contact launched two weapons, sir. Looks like cruise missiles. He’s on the move, sir.”

  “What about our torpedo?”

  “Torpedo is acquiring, sir. Shifting to high speed.” Sonar put the audio feed over the intercom. The high-pitched drone of the torpedo’s engine was interspersed with sharp pings from its active sonar. The pings shifted to a steady beat that increased in intensity as the seconds crawled by.

  “Torpedo has acquired, sir.”

  The explosion of the Chinese submarine exceeded the range of speakers. The USS Key West rocked gently in the depths of the China Sea.

  CHAPTER 45

  USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78)

  Rear Admiral Han Manolo could almost hear his wife’s voice echoing in his head: They’re professionals. They know what they’re doing and you screaming at them is not going to make them work any faster.

  He folded his arms, gripped his biceps until it hurt, and kept his mouth shut as the barely controlled chaos roiled around him in the Flag Watch of the Ford.

  The strike group was still at general quarters—and would stay there until they had reliable communications restored—so he had a petty officer on sound-powered phones following him everywhere he went in Flag Watch, feeding him updates from around the ship.

  “Bridge reports they have restored ship-to-ship secure comms, sir,” said the petty officer.

  Manolo nodded in response.

  A lone voice cut through the hubbub of Flag Watch. “We’ve got incoming! Two missiles, port side. Probably submarine-launched … time to impact … one minute.”

  Manolo rushed to Vulture’s Row, shading his eyes to squint at the horizon. One of the destroyers was accelerating, trying to get between the missile and the carrier. It was a bold move, but Manolo could tell at a glance it wasn’t going to work.

  His mind raced. The missiles had to be sub launched. How else could they have gotten so close?

  He could see the missiles now. Two fiery streaks headed right at them, barely skimming the wave tops. Their speed was breathtaking. A slew of SeaRAM missiles launched, and he heard the steady bzzzt of the Phalanx close-in weapons systems spewing forty-five hundred rounds per minute of depleted-uranium bullets at the bogeys. He recalled a Command School instructor’s famous line: If you have to rely on a CIWS, you’re fucked.

  One of the incoming missiles wobbled, then spun out of control. Pieces hurtled toward the Ford, causing Manolo and the petty officer shadowing him to duck.

  The second missile escaped the stream of bullets and slammed into the hull of the carrier a mere twenty feet above the waterline. The massive ship lurched, and a rumble came from deep within the superstructure as if some enormous giant had belched. Smoke began to pour out of the port-side hangar deck.

  Antisubmarine warfare helos lifted off from the destroyer and the carrier.

  Manolo knew they could handle one hit and live, but how many more Chinese submarines were out there?

  “Sir,” the petty officer said. “Alpha Xray reports the attacking Chinese sub was killed by the USS Key West, approximately twelve miles off our port beam.” AX was the undersea warfare commander in the Ford’s combat center. Manolo swore. The entire strike force structure was designed to protect the carrier and they’d failed—badly.

  “Damage report,” he said.

  “Missile struck amidships,” the petty officer said. “Hangar deck and engineering sustained damage. Crew quarters, too. Fires are not yet under control. Estimate at least twenty dead, another twenty injured. Port-side hangar elevator is out of commission and we have damaged aircraft. Damage-control teams are on scene.”

  The smoke from the burning ship—his flagship—stung Manolo’s eyes. He blinked. A ship of the United States Navy had been attacked by a foreign power. American sailors killed. His mind grappled with the concept for a split second, then snapped into focus. He threw open the door to the chaos of Flag Watch.

  “Listen up, everyone.” A hush fell. “We have been attacked by the People’s Republic of China. We are weapons free on all platforms. You shoot first and ask questions later. Any questions?”

  There were none.

  CHAPTER 46

  US Cyber Command, Fort Meade, Maryland

  Don was logging off his computer for the day when Lieutenant Jackson called his office. “Sir, I think you’d better come out to the watch floor. It looks like al
l hell is breaking loose in West Pac.”

  The mood on the watch floor was tense, edgy, and ominously quiet. The normal chitchat between watch stations was absent, he realized. He found Jackson at the supervisor’s station. “What’s up?” Don realized he was whispering.

  “We’re getting news media reports of a P-8 Poseidon shot down near the Spratlys, and a Japanese destroyer patrolling the Senkakus has disappeared. Both point to Chinese involvement. I think we should get authorization to use Happy Panda, sir.”

  Don frowned. What most people never fully understood about the cyber world was that hacking was a long game, played out over days, weeks, even months or years. Big splashy events, like denial-of-service attacks to shut down a website, got all the press, but the most successful hacks were the ones you never heard of—because they were never discovered.

  Happy Panda was the longest of games. Over six months ago, the NSA had discovered a flaw in the Chinese elite military cyber corps known as Unit 61398. Using Cyber Command resources, the NSA had exploited the flaw, turning it into an entry point, a back door to China’s deepest military secrets. After some initial probing, a joint decision was made to let the back door go dormant to reduce their chances of discovery. The top minds gambled that a day would come when they needed an ace in the hole with the Chinese and Happy Panda would fit the bill.

  The problem with knowing about a hidden ace is that everyone wants to use it for their pet issue. Don knew requests for Happy Panda access were sent to his boss at least once a week and they all got shot down.

  “Where are we with the communications issues on the Trident network?” he asked in an attempt to change the subject.

  Jackson shook her head. “Not much progress. It’s definitely a systems problem and it’s worse now that we’re having spotty outages on the satellites.”

  A petty officer rushed into the room with a clipboard, which he handed to Don. “Flash message, sir. You need to see this now.”