Overwhelming Force

by Andrew Watts

  General Schwartz said, “Men, for the past week you’ve been training to land at Johnston Atoll. Well, there’s been a change of plans. Your mission will be very similar to the training we’ve done. But you aren’t flying to Johnston Atoll.”

  Stunned silence. Someone rolled out a cart and shined a red flashlight on it. It was filled with large white cylinders. Victoria recognized them as signal underwater sound (SUS) buoys.

  “Each aircrew needs to have two of these on their aircraft.”

  Then the general and some of the civilian staff explained the change in the mission. Victoria and the DEVGRU commander were already aware. They had been sworn to secrecy until now.

  At last Victoria said, “There’s one more thing. With this change, we may not have enough fuel to make it back to a landing spot.” She looked over the crews. “Anyone have a problem with that?”

  No one spoke.

  “General, we’re ready.”

  Thirty minutes later, the four helicopters taxied to the runway and took off. They flew south over the Pacific, taking turns refueling on a pair of littoral combat ships. Then they continued on, the red sun rising in the east, and the Chinese fleet ahead of them.

  37

  Admiral Song watched the battle unfold from his bridge, several stories above the bustling flight deck. He wasn’t thrilled about the night operations. His carriers weren’t as well versed in night ops as their American counterparts. But they would manage. Below him, the J-15 jets were being positioned for launch, missiles and fuel tanks filling them to capacity.

  He held up night vision binoculars, looking out over the ocean. As far as the eye could see, the masts of Chinese warships peppered the horizon. The radars on each ship searched the sky for any sign of trouble, the ships communicating with each other in short-range encrypted bursts of data as they sailed north towards Hawaii. The ASW drone dirigibles led the way, their sonar clearing the strike group’s path for any American submarines.

  But no submarines had interfered with their journey. The Americans feared and respected the dirigibles now. They knew better than to waste their billion-dollar weapons and hundreds of lives on a fool’s errand.

  “We are ready to launch, Admiral.”

  “Any further word from Beijing?”

  “No, Admiral.”

  They had spent the last few hours transiting east of their original course so that they could pass as close to Johnston Atoll as possible. They would capture the island, and with it whatever defensive mechanism the Americans were building there, which could supposedly render the Jiaolong technology less lethal. He was more worried about the minefields that the Americans were laying in the surrounding waters. His minesweepers were positioned toward the front of his fleet, but their transit speed was much too fast for them to be effective. The intelligence Chinese headquarters had sent was gold. They needed to act on it quickly.

  “Then you may launch now, Captain.”

  The admiral’s command was relayed around the fleet. Soon the carrier’s jets were lighting off their afterburners and shooting up the ski ramp on the bow. The jets circled overhead in stacks for a few minutes until enough of them had gathered. Then they headed north in two separate squadrons.

  Two junior officers sat behind computer terminals on the forward part of the admiral’s bridge. They typed to their fellow staffers in the combat operations center below decks. These officers were here to relay to the admiral all the information the warfighters were seeing.

  One of them now turned and said, “Admiral, we have inbound hostile air contacts! Over fifty headed towards the strike group from Hawaii.”

  “Classification?” the admiral asked.

  “Unknown, sir.”

  “Are they in range of our air defense system?”

  “They will be shortly, sir.”

  “Very well. Keep me informed.”

  Admiral Song nodded. He was confident, but not overly so. He looked through his night vision binoculars at the Jiaolong-class ship a few miles off the starboard side. During each encounter with the Americans, she had performed beautifully. With luck, she would again.

  Several squadrons of US Air Force B-52s and B-1Bs had taken off in rapid succession. Another squadron of F-22s was already flying combat air patrol overhead.

  Flying in command of one of the B-1s was Major Chuck “Hightower” Mason. He had flown his B-1 from Guam during the first attack on the Jiaolong, a few weeks ago. From his aircraft, he had launched nearly a dozen antiship missiles. But each of his missiles had been vaporized by this new directed-energy weapon the Chinese had. They had also shot down many of the American aircraft.

  It had been humbling.

  Even more humbling was accepting the orders to fly his aircraft from Guam to Hawaii, in anticipation of the American surrender there. But US commanders had evacuated all of its flyable aircraft before the Chinese destroyed them. At the time, the major had felt angry as hell about leaving Guam. But dozens of those aircraft were now flying this mission. Live to fight another day.

  “Here we go. Just got the prep command,” came the voice of the weapons systems officer in the rear of the aircraft.

  “Bomb bay doors coming open.”

  They went through the sequence of commands to fire the weapons and then waited for the final signal from their flight lead.

  Moments later, the sky was filled with streaking miniature air-launched decoys (MALD). The gray missiles traveled at hundreds of knots, flying towards the Chinese fleet.

  Major Mason looked out his window. Below them was the US aircraft carrier Ford. In the darkness, he could see the afterburners of their jets taking off from the flight deck.

  “They fixed that thing quick.”

  “Not sure if they fixed it or just put enough duct tape on the flight deck to let her launch jets.”

  “That where the Growlers are launching from?”

  “They already launched. They’ll be doing the jamming for the MALDs.”

  Admiral Song frowned. “What do you mean there are five hundred air contacts? That number is preposterous.”

  “Sir, that’s what the air defense officer is saying.”

  “That is impossible.”

  “The air defense officer says that the…”

  The officer had stopped midsentence and was holding his headset to his ear.

  Admiral Song snorted. “What? Finish your sentence.”

  “Sir, there are now over one thousand inbound air tracks.”

  Admiral Song went pale. He looked out to his starboard side. The Jiaolong technology was about to be tested. Its artificial intelligence computers and rapid processing power should theoretically be able to shoot down that many contacts. But there were many nodes in the network. All that information would be flowing through the many ships in the battlegroup. The higher the number of air contacts, the more complex the problem. If…

  “Sir…” The young officer looked scared now. “Sir, the air defense officer says that there are now over one thousand, five hundred inbound air tracks. The first wave is within range of the Jiaolong system. He has commenced firing.”

  Admiral Song shook his head. What was this trickery? The Americans didn’t have the capability to fire so many missiles at once. The admiral looked back out at the metallic monoliths fore and aft of the Jiaolong ship. He imagined the invisible beams of energy shooting upward toward the sky.

  Relax. It will work, he told himself.

  “Sir, the air defense officer has told me to inform you that—”

  The admiral’s head snapped to the port side as the yellow flame and white smoke of missiles began firing upward from the destroyer next to his aircraft carrier, illuminating the night sky. Then other streaks of bright flame and smoke came from the other ships in company, each one shooting into the air, arcing into the distance.

  The admiral smiled. “The cruise missiles have begun firing.”

  “No, sir. I apologize. The air defense commander has begun firing our surface-t
o-air missiles. He says that the Jiaolong system is oversaturated with air tracks, and he is not sure if they are destroying…”

  The admiral didn’t wait for the officer to finish. He rose from his seat and practically ran towards the ladderway. His instincts told him that something was drastically wrong. He headed to the combat operations center to see for himself.

  38

  Victoria watched in awe as numerous bright green missile ignitions momentarily bloomed out her night vision goggles. Fired from ships over a dozen miles away, the missiles streaked upward, passing thousands of feet overhead, traveling in the direction she’d come.

  Plug whispered into his lip microphone. “Jesus. Would you look at that.”

  As they flew closer, masts rose like spires throughout the horizon. Then the full silhouettes of countless Chinese warships appeared, backlit by the intermittent missile launches. The warships sat menacingly on the water, like graveyard wraiths, moving slowly through a hellish lightning storm. Every few seconds, more bright glows bloomed in their goggles as additional missiles were launched.

  Plug said, “Right into the lion’s den…” He had the forward-looking infrared (FLIR) camera aimed at the nearest ships. Frigates, by the look of them, now only a few miles away.

  “No kidding.” The hair on the back of Victoria’s neck began to rise.

  “The entire fleet is all bunched up by the look of it. Why are all of their ships so close together?”

  “It’s the way their new air defense system works. Instead of spreading out and separating the targets, they keep them packed in close to the high-value-unit. That way the Jiaolong’s energy weapon can play zone defense for their entire fleet.”

  The flight of aircraft was now entering the forest of enemy warships, weaving in and out of the Chinese fleet, trying to keep them all far enough away that they might be confused for friendlies. Victoria knew they were bound to be seen any moment. But the Chinese had helicopters flying around as well. If the American aircraft weren’t showing up on radar, most Chinese lookouts would just report the contacts and move on. With any luck, the controllers would assume that the American aircraft were Chinese helicopters. After all, no one would be stupid enough to do this…

  Victoria said, “At least we know the jamming is working. No one’s firing at us yet.”

  Plug said, “Or vaporizing us with a laser. If I have a pick, I choose that one.”

  “I don’t think that’s how it would work, but okay.” She wiped sweat from her eyes. Her body ached from the hours of flying they’d already done, including a refueling stop on a pair of littoral combat ships. Flying close formation was challenging. Flying it for over six hours, on night vision goggles, only twenty-five feet above the waves, was excruciating. The concentration and discipline it took was monumental. Plug and Victoria took turns at the controls, switching every hour. Now he was flying again, and she was sucking back water from the thick Camelbak straw at her shoulder.

  Victoria looked down at the digital map displayed on the center console. It was being fed information via a secure datalink, specially installed for this mission. Overhead, one of the Air Force’s ultrasecret space-based reconnaissance assets had just sent updated locations of the Chinese fleet. The resolution of the imagery was so good that even her helicopter was visible. Military supercomputers on Hawaii processed the visual information and cross-referenced it with electronic signals intelligence, updating Victoria on her target’s location, along with information tags next to every ship in the Chinese fleet. All displayed in front of her to help her make decisions. It had been part of her training over the past week. This allowed her to get passive navigation and targeting data without alerting the enemy to her position, like she would have if she had turned on her radar.

  “Five minutes until target. Signal the other aircraft.”

  “Roger.”

  In the back of the aircraft, her aircrewman signaled the helicopter next to them with an infrared flashlight.

  “Plug, see if you can get us down another five feet or so.”

  The four aircraft tightened up the formation and flew lower to the water. The waves were a good six feet, with occasional whitewater splashing upward. The ocean was a blur of dark green in her night vision goggles. The two MH-60S helicopters both had high-mounted winglets, carrying rocket pods and AGM-114 Hellfire missiles. The two MH-60R helicopters, carrying the weight of the custom electronic attack device mounted under the nose, carried only a left-hand extended pylon of Hellfire.

  “Come a little right, Plug. Try to stay away from—”

  “I am. But if I get farther from one destroyer, I get closer to another.”

  The feeling was surreal. The four US Navy helicopters were now flying within the Chinese fleet’s surface screen. Snaking their way in between the Chinese warships. They were now flying at one hundred and fifty knots, which seemed incredibly fast at this low altitude.

  The closest Chinese warship thus far had been two thousand yards away. Which certainly placed their aircraft within range of its heavier antiaircraft weapons. But anyone who had spotted them had to be incredibly confused. Their low altitude and close proximity meant that surface-ship watch standers actually had to look down to see them. Most of the Chinese sailors were busy looking at radar and digital readouts. They were launching missiles, after all. The attack would come from above.

  The helicopter assault plan was so audacious, so unexpected, Victoria was beginning to think they might get all the way to their destination without taking fire. They only needed a few more minutes.

  “Contact three o’clock level.”

  “Break left.” Plug used the external UHF radio for this transmission. The jig was up now, so radio silence was pointless.

  Victoria felt the helicopter bank sharply left and held her breath at the thought of the tight formation colliding in the night. They didn’t. But a stream of yellow tracer fire emanated from one of the Chinese ships to their right.

  Then they were beyond it, and out of range of the Chinese guns. Victoria said, “One minute to target. There it is.”

  Ahead of them were two behemoth ships, both captured on the FLIR camera and displayed on the monitor in front of Plug. The nearest looked like a Frankenstein mashup of a commercial supertanker and a San Antonio–class amphibious ship. But the metallic spires fore and aft went up much higher, she realized. Elevated flight deck platforms jutted out from each side of the hull. Four of them altogether. One was servicing a giant dirigible aircraft. These were the killer ASW drones she had heard so much about, the ones that were wreaking havoc on the US submarine fleet.

  This was the Jiaolong-class ship.

  Behind it by at least a mile was the Chinese aircraft carrier, the Liaoning, its curved ski ramp forward on the flight deck. No jets were launching or recovering at the moment, but she did see a small helicopter just above the horizon. That would be the SAR aircraft. Which meant that they were most likely conducting flight operations. God help her if a Chinese fighter got them in their sights. She realized how silly the thought was. There must have been thousands of surface-to-air missiles surrounding them. What did it matter how they got shot down?

  “How much time?” Plug’s voice was strained. He was now turning the formation of aircraft so low to the water that the rotor disk was only feet from the wavetops. The ocean’s surface was easier to see. The eastern horizon was brightening on the goggles, giving them more light. Dawn was coming within the hour, and when it did, her helicopters would no longer have one of their chief cloaks.

  Victoria looked at the timer in the top left corner of the datalink digital display. “Thirty seconds until the attack time.”

  “Roger. And what’s our ETA?”

  “Just over that.”

  “Nice. Well, if we live, I’m sure the SEAL Team Six guys will complain that we were a few seconds off, but I’m rather impressed. That’s got to be an above-average grade for this flight.”

  “Let’s start slowing it down.
”

  “Roger. Bringing the speed back.”

  Plug pulled back on the stick and lowered the collective power lever. Their airspeed began to bleed off from one hundred and fifty knots.

  One forty.

  The profile of the Jiaolong-class ship grew in front of them. Now they could see Chinese sailors on the aft bridge wing, pointing at them. But no gunfire yet. They were in for one hell of a surprise.

  One twenty-five knots. Fifteen seconds.

  Advanced precision kill weapon system rockets began firing from the MH-60S helicopters’ cylindrical launchers. Skinny white rockets were guided into the ship, targeting the bridge and the two antiaircraft guns.

  One hundred knots. Ten seconds.

  “I’m going to circle the ship and keep them on our right side,” said Plug.

  “Roger.” Victoria was craning her neck to get a visual on the other aircraft in the formation. Everything looked good. They were loosening up the formation as they slowed, and the Sierras, which housed the majority of the special operations team, were now separated from the Romeos by a good three rotor diameters.

  “Here it comes,” said Victoria. She was looking out the cockpit window. “Let’s hope they got the coordinates right.”

  Suddenly more surface-to-air missiles began firing from the Chinese fleet, upward into the sky, along with the tracers of antiaircraft guns. All over the horizon, white trails of smoke shot up and then began streaking off to the north. There must have been fifty separate lines of tracer fire, all aiming up at the sky in a brilliant fireworks display, attempting to defend against the American attack.

  Admiral Song was red-faced, spittle flying from his mouth, his arms flailing wildly as he screamed at his air defense officer.