by David Poyer
So the Kims had chosen well. But with most of the NK army now sucked into the occupation of the South, the Joint Chiefs had calculated that a surgical strike stood a reasonable chance of taking down the command structure, possibly including the dictator himself.
At least, that was the plan. As the trooplifters headed inland, escorted by fighters and attack helicopters, Cheryl tried to keep her attention on her own role. Stand guard, defend Japan and the other Allies, and the homeland, against retaliation. That was her mission.
Jeonnam reported back that they’d warned the fishing craft heading for Savo and Sioux City, received no response, and sunk the lead two with gunfire. At which point the other fishermen had turned south and headed away down the coast.
Fleeing. And the right choice, she thought. Their hammering diesels had been impossible to overlook, their scanty armament a risible nonthreat. Even if they were burdened hull-deep with explosives and manned by suicidal fanatics, they’d never have gotten close. Not that North Korea had any shortage of either—explosives, or fanatics.
But she couldn’t help donning the helmet again now and then to monitor the beachhead elements as they crept inland, securing roads and heights. Sealing a perimeter against counterattack. Creating a safe zone damaged aircraft could retreat to, along with developing a lodgment in case the Koreans buckled after their leadership was decapitated. Helicopters and LCACs shuttled in artillery and ammunition. Close air support UAVs circled ahead of the ground element, eliminating opposition, while deep strikes cut bridges on the Chinese side, in case Beijing was tempted to intervene. The Ospreys hopscotched ahead, dropping parties to seize bridges and passes.
So far, they seemed to be making good progress.
She scratched violently at her neck, where the helmet rested. It seemed to be irritating her skin, which was already prone to rash. Sighed, and told the TAO to call instantly if he needed her. “And by instantly, I mean if anything at all happens out of the ordinary. Bad news doesn’t improve with age. I’m going to see if I can get my head down, at least for a little while.”
“Best of luck on that, Captain. Wish I could join you,” Mills said, with a tired smile.
At her console a few feet away, Terranova snorted. Mills reddened. “I mean—I didn’t mean—!”
“I know what you meant, XO. Forget it.” She felt like giggling. Laughing insanely. God, she was tired. She couldn’t think of anything to add that didn’t sound ludicrous. So she just sighed, and undogged the door.
* * *
THEY were on the beach again, at the bonfire. Alone together there, this time. The steady wind from the sea whipped the coals into white heat in the moonless, starlit dark. Sparks snapped and whirled up into the night. The surf crashed with a long, dull, withdrawing roar.
She and Yeiyah. His skin like smooth brown leather, so soft-looking she had to caress it. A tattooed dragon in blue and green writhed down his arm in the firelight. Muscle bulged, and tanned fingers gripped her shoulders like iron clamps. She pulled the blanket over them as he drove into her. Dug her head back into the sand, gasping, as the stars far above almost went supernova in her belly.
Almost, almost, almost …
But never quite. She could get only so close, and then, it didn’t seem to happen …
He lifted his head in the firelight. No. It wasn’t Teju. It was Eddie. Only there was something wrong with his face. His breath stank of decay. When he pulled out of her and rolled away, it felt as if something remained. She looked down. To see it had come detached, rotted out of him, was still sticking out of her … and it was beeping … oh my God …
She bolted upright, eyes blasted open, to near-dark. Red numerals blinked 0300. She was in her at-sea cabin, and the phone beside her bunk was going nuts. She tried to shake off the dream. It was too horrifying. Too real … she grabbed the handset desperately. “CO,” she rasped.
“Skipper, TAO. Call for fire from Underwood.”
“Underwood” was the fire coordination center for Chromite, back in Japan. “Go ahead.”
“They want Tomahawks on an armored concentration north of Paekam.”
She struggled up on an elbow and clicked the bunk light on. Stuck her toes down, searching for her boots. She was still in her smelly coveralls. Shit, fuck, she’d meant to change … “Paekam … what … where the fuck’s that?”
“It’s a blocking force. Holding the Strykers up at a pass through a ridge. They need a laydown ASAP.”
She zipped her boots. “Get a package rolling. Be right there.”
The dream shredded, evaporating into confused wisps as her mind lurched ahead. Into what her task group had left in the magazines, flight time, preparations for launch. She started to grope after it, then shook her head. Why bother? They didn’t mean anything, dreams. They were less than nothing …
* * *
UNDERWOOD requested an immediate laydown of sixteen TLAM-Ds, which expended the last of Savo’s land attack inventory. That left her with only the Alliance rounds and enough Standards for self-defense, plus the railguns and lasers, of course. The Tomahawks were on their way within eight minutes, along with five more from Jeonnam. AI-enabled models, once in the target zone they would seek out armor on their own, distinguish enemy vehicles from the Marines’ Strykers and Abramses, and dispense submunitions to destroy them.
Aboard the old Savo, each launch had vibrated the ship and shaken dust out of the overhead. But now, deep within the Citadel she couldn’t hear the faintest echo or tremor as they roared out of the magazines, oriented themselves, dropped their boosters, and headed off. Only the video from the deck cameras showing gouts of flame venting from the redirectors, then stars climbing into the night, proved they were indeed on their way.
“Sonar reports engine noise bearing zero eight eight.”
She cleared her throat, knuckled her eyes, and got up from the command desk. Crossed to the blue curtain that traditionally walled off the sonar stacks from the rest of CIC. Pushed them aside, to reveal a small balding man leaning over the chairs of two younger petty officers, like an aging high priest over his acolytes. Before them screens streamed marigold lines. They marched steadily top to bottom, a mysterious hieroglyphic only the trained eye could make any sense of. “Chief, what’ve we got?”
Chief Zotcher glanced up. “Skipper. Something out at roughly zero nine zero.”
“Those are fishing smacks,” she told him. “Jeonnam sank two and the others are skedaddling.”
One of the petty officers placed a finger on the screen. “See it? There’s a tone.”
Zotcher said, “Use the K filter.” To Cheryl he added, “We have those, yeah. Broadband, small-boat harmonic signatures. Off the engine and prop, mainly. Typical four-stroke, six-cylinder marine diesels. But there’s something else there too.”
She glanced back at the displays in CIC. The gaggle of small contacts that were the fishing boats had slowed. They were trailing out into a long line, but still heading south along the coast. “Something else. What?”
“We’re not sure … a bathtub pattern under what we think is the fishing boats. But on the same bearing, so it’s hard to separate out, even with analysis.—Move the window, show the Skipper the Fourier.”
She stood watching marigold waterfalls march up the screens as Zotcher prattled on about grating lobes and covariance matrices. Not for the first time, she reflected that the chiefs could probably run the ship without officers aboard at all. At least until they confronted the administrative requirements … She interrupted his search. “I don’t see it.”
The petty officer hissed. Zotcher hopped from one foot to the other, pointing. “Right there. There! See it?”
“I don’t, but I believe you. So what is it? Biologics?”
“I can’t tell you that, Captain, just that it’s multiple low-energy contacts, with low bearing drifts. Biologics come in at a higher frequency.”
She scratched between her fingers, considering. Low bearing drift meant the source
was headed either for or directly away from the receiver. “Does Sioux City have it? Did you get a cross-bearing?”
“She’s only got the towed 20. They’re not picking this up, but they don’t have our whiskers.” Meaning, the supersensitive passive detector rods lined along the keel. “Uh, I’d recommend getting our bloodhounds out there, check this out. Captain. Just to be on the safe side.”
“Both our USVs are inshore with Jeonnam. Just get me a range,” she told him, and turned and pushed her way back into the main space. Worrying, now, that her resources were being drawn down to the danger point. She could send a drone out along a line of bearing, but it would be slow and largely limited to video coverage. Could launch a helo, but that might constrain maneuvering for at least a few minutes … She glanced at a wind direction indicator. Actually they were pretty close to a launch envelope.
“Let’s get Bedsores out there. Come right till we have wind. Vector him out along zero nine zero, on sonobuoy and ELINT run,” she told the TAO. The lead helo pilot was compact, taciturn, and apparently born without the need for sleep. He spent most nights playing board games in the hangar with several of his similarly addicted maintainers. Hence, naturally, the nickname.
The TAO nodded and started the ball rolling.
* * *
FORTY minutes later their TLAMs reached the target area and began crisscrossing it, dispensing munitions over the enemy armor and bunkers blocking the pass. She kept checking the nanochat and was happy to see the land commander’s praise of their effectiveness.
When the announcement came they’d broken through a muted cheer bounced around CIC. Not long after, the symbology showed the lead elements on the move once more. They pushed through the pass, hooked left along the ridge, then turned right for the climb up the mountain. Their final destination lay six miles ahead: the tunnels and bunker systems of the dictator’s last redoubt. A second surge of refueled UAVs and fighters orbited overhead, taking out bunkers, concealed batteries, and firing points along the road with Hellfires and JDAM bombs.
Cheryl couldn’t help marveling. Chromite had seemed like a bridge too far, a victory of wishful thinking over the reality of the North Korean will to resist. But to judge by their progress so far, the operation just might succeed.
Surely killing one of the enemy dictators, and knocking one of the Opposed Powers out of the war, would go a long way toward ending it.
She was actually feeling optimistic when one of the UAV symbols popped red. A line unrolled on the nanochat board.
Locus: to Matador
Disturbance reported on surface Lake Chon
She frowned. Chon was the jewel-like pool cradled in the caldera of the volcano. Similar to Crater Lake: an immense spread of water walled by precipitous mountains. A disturbance? Maybe … it was erupting?
Half a second later the alert-script cuing buzzer went off at the AALIS control station. Chief Terranova called over the racket, “Launch cuing! Simultaneous cuings from MICE and Locus.”
“Confirm from UAV,” said the controller, behind her. “Video.”
Cheryl snatched for the helmet. Her hair snagged on the cable. She jerked it free, tearing strands out by the roots, and powered up. The screens lit. She toggled to overhead from Locus, the Marauder that had sent the alarm.
Rugged, snow-etched mountains fell to a blue, lovely, wind-rippled surface. For a moment she stared, puzzled. What the fuck, over?
The camera lurched, canted right, and refocused.
On a patch where that placid blue was being torn apart, erupting into foam and smoke as above it a fiery lance climbed skyward.
Beside her Mills, probably seeing the same feed on his screen, breathed, “That’s a JL.”
* * *
CALLOUTS flashed beside the video of the climbing missile on Cheryl’s own screens. Terranova called, “Profile plot, designate Meteor. Very rapid climb rate. Consistent with solid-fueled first stage. Size and acceleration profile … consistent with sub-launched IRBM. Passing angels five. Identify as SLBM. ID as hostile.”
Sub-launched? But there couldn’t be submarines in an inland lake.
There could be submerged tubes, though. Linked with command nodes through deep tunnels …
“Take as target,” Cheryl said into the throat mike.
“Roger, ma’am … have lock-on … computing trajectory and IPP.”
Beside her Mills said urgently, “Their sub-launched IRBM. Reverse engineered or copied from Chinese JL-1. Range … red book guesses at a thousand kilometers. Unitary missile. Single warhead. But … I don’t know, this looks … bigger.”
“Presumed thermonuclear,” Cheryl added through a suddenly dry mouth.
The video froze, canted, then recommenced. A mountain filled the field of view. Then the lake surface again, boiling once more. A second blunt-nosed torpedo-shape burst up through smoke-stained spray, ignited its booster with a silent clap that spread blast waves across the water, and began to climb.
But as the video canted again, violently, a flame-tipped cone of white fire entered the frame from the right. It dwindled rapidly as it chased the rising missile into the crystalline sky.
The two fires merged and vanished in a ball of yellow-white flame, followed by an immense cloud of dirty smoke. Pieces emerged at jagged angles, still afire, looping and tumbling before falling back into the seething, steaming lake.
She toggled from video to radar. The vibrating brackets of AALIS’s tracking. Readouts showed a rapid climb rate, altitude angels fifty. “Meteor Bravo splashed. Meteor Alfa, nearing pitchover,” Chief Terranova noted.
They had a problem. She toggled from screen to screen, thinking rapidly as a third missile burst out of the lake and climbed. Another Hellfire chased it, but fell behind and at last staggered down out of the sky to detonate against a mountainside.
“Meteor Alfa, gathering horizontal velocity,” AALIS’s neutral, ungendered voice informed her. “Stand by … pitchover. Meteor Charlie, locked on. Solid lock both contacts.”
Two targets now. They wouldn’t get an impact point or an intercept angle right away. Once she had a firm impact prediction, Terranova could set up to fire.
A unitary target—meaning the warhead didn’t detach from the main body of the missile—presented a huge radar return. But Cheryl also had to consider range, speed, and geometry. If the target was too far to the south, the intercept probabilities went down. If it was aimed north, they rose. Best of all was a head-on shot, the classic reentry phase intercept, but she doubted they’d get that. One seldom got an easy shot at a ballistic missile. And they had no idea how many more lay poised at the bottom of that lake. Or when Dictator Kim would decide to push his famous red button again.
Not that she wouldn’t whack that mole if she had to. Just that she might have to expend more Alliances to get an assured kill. Without all that many rounds to start with. “I need an IPP,” she snapped. “First target's coming out of pitchover. Let’s get it, I need it now, people!”
“Looking at the angle. Extending the arc … Target is … Tokyo.” Terranova’s soft voice was as unconcerned as it would have been if the thermonuclear had been dialed in on the South Pole.
Cheryl toggled to the IPP screen. The GCCS underlay on which it was imposed didn’t show populated areas as such. Just black circles with town names. But the way they clustered as they approached the largest circle of all made it plain how many millions lay beneath the lifted sword.
In the streets, sirens would be wailing. Cells would be streaming text alerts, directions to the nearest shelter, warnings to take cover immediately.
But even with the sirens, the texts, the shelters, hundreds of thousands of Japanese would die.
The AOU shrank, widened, then contracted again as AALIS recalculated, matching its projections with the Network’s. But it never budged from the middle of the Tokyo plain.
Okay, Cheryl. Stay cold. Execute the prefire checklist. Toggling to the intercept template as AALIS set it up, she conte
mplated the geometry.
The missile’s closest point of approach would be southeast of their assigned station. If she launched quickly enough, they could catch it in the postboost phase, while the sustainer engine was firing and it wasn’t yet at maximum velocity.
Move farther south, out of her box? They didn’t have enough time to gain a better angle for the shot, but if more surprise packages emerged from Mount Doom, even a few miles southing might improve their P sub K. She snapped to Mills, “Come around to two zero zero, XO. Flank speed, thirty-five knots.”
He was bent forward, frowning at the display. “Pass to the bridge, or execute from here?”
“Suit yourself. Just get us around and kick her in the ass.”
The compartment heeled slightly. Something clattered back by the ASW plot. Without shafts or the conventional huge spinning screws aft, propelled instead by electric motors in rotatable pods along the hull, the cruiser pivoted and accelerated without a shimmy.
“Hitting thirty,” the TAO told her a couple of minutes later.
“CO, Air control: Helo reports sonar contact bearing 085 true, 21,000 yards Mother.”
“Mother” of course was Savo Island. Cheryl rogered, intent on the still climbing radar contact that was Meteor Alfa.
Headed for the biggest city on the planet.
Thirty-eight million people. She remembered that. From somewhere.
The Japanese had layered missile defense. Patriot Advanced Capability, Aegis Ashore with Standards, and an independently developed multi-object kill system based on the SRB-A3 solid rocket booster. She assumed they were seeing the same picture she was. But she owed them more than an assumption. She typed rapidly:
Matador: to Grandstand
Confirm MDA, Tokyo informed ICBM en route generated IPP Tokyo
Grandstand: to Matador
Affirmative. But if you can intercept do so soonest. Reduce risk to population as much as possible
