Yocto

by Timothy Jon Reynolds

  The entire sweep took five hours and twenty-three minutes. Thanks to modern weapons and armor, not one serviceman lost his or her life.

  * * *

  Chairman Yu cleared his voice before the UN Counsel and spoke more clearly into the microphone, “I said there has been a problem that has arisen that will make producing the wanted substantiation for the attack on Pyongyang impossible.”

  That threw the room into pandemonium, until the Chairman started speaking again. “Before the room casts a shadow of doubt on the Peoples Republic, let me say this, I saw the proof myself, and I backed the decision to take action. We could not have known that the file that the evidence came from had a virus attached to it. Not only did the virus delete this crucial file proving our innocence, but also like the malicious worm it was designed to be, it is still doing damage to our systems as we speak.

  “It was no easy decision for us to take such a harsh step, and the fallout will be coming to us for years and years, environmentally, politically, and socially. So it disheartens us greatly that not only are we being scorned, but there is absolutely no thanks coming to us for saving millions of innocent lives.”

  Walter could not believe his eyes, yet right before them, the Chinese were trying to weasel out of the thing that he said was not negotiable. Did they really expect him to give two shits if the UN ended up lending a sympathetic ear? The UN was not in on the three-way meeting that happened, the one where Walter was crystal clear that he needed that substantiation. And that was before the impeachment actions threatened him.

  As he was sitting with his Cabinet watching these events unfold, he and Gary looked at each other with the same thought: could this have something to do with his current impeachment situation? Had the Chinese pieced together that by failing to present their evidence for the bombing, Walter stood a good chance of getting impeached, and if that were to happen, it would weaken the U.S. as a whole. By the look on Gary’s face, he knew they were simpatico.

  Walter Kessel, President of the United States, was a man of his word, and his words had been simple and to the point. There would be no further cooperation coming from his country if the Chinese were suspected of lying. Walter suspected them of lying.

  The meeting broke up and Sid was the first to him, “Looks like we’d better be getting a call from your new Ruskie friends, as I seriously doubt this was any part of their plan.”

  Walter was thinking the same thing as Gary walked up and said, “I have news about Cabazon, California.”

  Unfortunately, this was not the end of the day and they would not be having a whiskey to talk it out. Before Walter was done today, he would have seen nearly a hundred people, about everything from new towns seized to trying to keep a sputtering school system afloat, so Walter was not being disrespectful to Sid when he said, “Okay, quickly Gary, what happened?”

  Without hesitation Gary explained, “Operation Monolith went perfectly, and the town is now back in control of the citizenry.”

  President Kessel said, “Great, which town is next?” And then the two walked off leaving Sid standing there, but not before Walter shot back over his shoulder, “Sorry I can’t be there today, Sid, but you understand, right?”

  Sid answered, “You’ve done quite enough, Mr. President, I have this one.” The Vice President looked very relieved as his boss and the Chief of Staff made their way to put out the next fire, for Walter had indeed come through. He had Samuel Hager’s body removed and transported back East where he had tracked down some of his extended family. Today they were going to put a great man to rest, a man who had previously saved his life, unbeknownst to most. It still made Sid sick to his stomach that another American killed Samuel Hager. Jesus, thought Sid, that’s like someone killing Neil Armstrong.

  Sid had a sad epiphany right then, and that was that his country needed a cleansing, and it had nothing to do with ethnicity. America needed a miscreant purge. There were way too many people that put no value on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It was not lost on Sid that once the chips fell, the outlaws made themselves readily identifiable by banding together, and now if they were lucky, when they were done, maybe they would stop burying National Treasures due to violence in the country they forged.

  Sid walked to his office to get his speech and he could only think of one word: MADNESS.

  * * *

  Captain John Fontanilla was a lifer in the U.S. Navy. Halfway through his senior year in high school he couldn’t take it anymore. There was nothing but immature teens attending his school and he was anything but a kid at seventeen and half years of age.

  His parents were both into real estate and his path was set for him if he wanted it, but he didn’t. Instead, he made his pleading case for his father to sign the paperwork that sent him on his own path. He had no regrets for not being at his high school graduation, because by the time the children he used to attended school with were getting their piece of paper validation, he was already a man defending his country.

  That was the role that suited him best. The way the navy ran their rotation nowadays, he was never out to sea too long anymore, and being stationed in Japan, it left him time to train in his other favorite pastimes, and that was martial arts and naval history.

  He was a second-degree black belt in karate and a master of knives, swords, and sticks. But the doctorate on his office wall meant more to him than his previous career fighting professionally as a stick fighter.

  It actually was in his quest for all things history that he’d learned of the Kali fighters. Kali was an ancient sword technique that predated the Spanish occupation of his ancestral homeland of the Philippines. John would match a Kali Master against any hand-to-hand combatant in the world.

  From the time he enlisted, the one thing he noted was there were generally two kinds of sailors. One was the type who enlisted because they had nothing else to do, and the others were the lifers. Of course, not all lifers had a calling, but he did, so he buckled down, stayed single and went to school on Uncle Sam.

  Of course, the payoff was not some office job, as this was no secure place to sit while his “time in” passed by. The South China Sea was becoming more treacherous by the day, as the Chinese were ramping up all aspects of their military, especially their navy.

  Not only did they still have to deal with a hostile Russian Navy, but now they also had to worry about the Indian Navy getting in the way, and all the while, ponder just how far the Chinese had advanced their submarine technology? His ship was currently patrolling in the South China Sea, in between Vietnam and China’s self-proclaimed “nine-dash line” maritime border.

  China’s claims of ownership were based on ancient borders that were not relevant in today’s world—and even though they were not enforcing them currently, the rhetoric was building such that one day they would in fact do just that. If that happened, then the South China Sea would be the next hotspot to start a world war.

  Captain Fontanilla was called to the control room ten minutes prior as they had pinged a sub in their vicinity. It was believed through a number of variables that this was a Russian made Akula-class submarine, but that made little sense, as any of those remaining in the Russian Navy were either in the Northern fleet or a shipyard for an upgrade . . . unless you counted one.

  Captain Fontanilla was aware that the Russians had leased one to the Indian Navy two years prior. But that was what did not make sense. Considering their ongoing range war with Pakistan, India’s only nuclear attack sub should be nestled in the Arabian Sea, somewhere between the Gulf of Oman and their country, unless of course they saw a greater threat than their biggest enemy in Pakistan. Could they believe that China was such a threat to them? These questions were troubling enough, but making the event more interesting was where they were heading. They were moving inside the nine-dash line and Captain Fontanilla could not resist the chance to track her.

  His Seawolf-class attack submarine was designed to return the technology edge that America
enjoyed for decades. Unfortunately, due to its massive cost, only three were made out of the original fleet of thirty that were supposed to patrol the oceans. It was common for one to call submarines boats, but due to his erudite path, he’d learned his submarine was, in fact, a ship. So even though it disturbed Rear Admiral Thompson, Captain Fontanilla called his vessel a ship.

  He had learned, and the Admiral knew this as well, that subs from the past were small, they were called boats, but his sub could carry other vessels inside its dry dock shelter, therefore it was a ship. It also happened to be a ship that was designed to run deeper and be able to destroy two specific kinds of Soviet Era submarines, one being the Typhoon class, and the other being the Akula class, like the one they were now stalking into disputed Chinese coastal waters.

  His hull was stronger, and his sub carried twice the load of a Los Angeles-class submarine, but that wasn’t what made it deadly. What made his ship deadly was the fact it was so quiet that they could move at twenty knots and still be more silent that most subs moored to a pier. So far, the clumsy Indian crew had made two other mistakes, the last of which was a ripple from their screw that no Russian submariner would ever have made.

  It was settled in the Captain’s mind, they were following India’s leased Chakra submarine, which opened all kinds of other political and strategic doors. His communication to the NMCC (National Military Command Center) was worded and coded as high priority. No sooner had his message been sent than things started to heat up for India. A Chinese frigate had come into their waters, and it must have caught something as they had, or so it seemed, as it would not give up searching for the source of the ping.

  So far two hours had passed, the situation was being relayed to the NMCC play by play, but then it was their turn to get a communication. China’s only carrier, the Kuznetsov-class Soviet ship formerly known as Riga, now rebuilt by China and re-launched as the Liaoning, was heading to their coordinates. It was being used as a training ship supposedly, but Captain Fontanilla never fully believed that, and now, according to Central Command, it and its attack group were less than three hours out. Maybe that was where the Indians were heading, thought the Captain.

  The Indian sub was in trouble, as China’s new frigates were much more sophisticated than their predecessors, and the one out there was a type 054A, believed to have towed array sonar that made it impossible for the Indian sub to leave at more than a snails crawl. Eventually, they would have been able to creep out, but then a Chinese light-attack Corvette showed up. Captain Fontanilla knew this boat, and the Indian’s were now in mortal peril. If this were the newest type 056A light attack boat, it would have variable depth sonar, plus a sophisticated towed array sonar, making it quite easy to find the Akula-class sub and kill it. With the YU-8 rocket propulsion torpedo, it could drop straight down for use with the sonar.

  Captain Fontanilla knew that things sometimes seemed to be heading toward conflict, but then hostilities get averted, both sides not wanting to escalate things into warfare, but needing to get points across. Maybe this was China keeping its word about starting to be more protective of its borderlines. For some reason, though, this did not feel like a training exercise, and Washington was watching closely.

  With the arrival of the Chinese Corvette attack vessel, Captain Fontanilla and the entire crew of the USS Jimmy Carter knew that the Indian sub would have to stay in place, giving the entire Chinese carrier group a chance to hunt for her in just scant hours. Jesus, what were they doing out here?

  When President Kessel pulled out the surface fleets from all foreign waters and brought them home, many a submariner knew what that move really meant. Aside from the obvious duties of the ballistic submarine fleet, theirs was a duty to protect carrier groups. With no carrier groups to protect, and more importantly, no carrier groups to support them, their mission had become fairly clear to those in the know, and no one would mistake John Fontanilla as ignorant. President Walter Kessel had decided that he would pit America’s submarine fleet against the world if it came to it, so when his ship was brought in as the lead to patrol the Chinese territorial waters, there was no misapprehension; for lack of a better term, the President was not fucking around.

  Suddenly from the sonar station, “Torpedo in the water!”

  The 056A Corvette had launched its Yu-8 torpedo at what it thought was its target. By their calculations, they were right above the Indian sub. That confirmation happened moments later as the Chakra fired off a decoy torpedo, and began evasive maneuvers. The Chinese torpedo bought and chased the decoy. Almost immediately, the Indian sub launched two SS-N-15 Stallion anti-ship missiles and two Russian Type-65 torpedoes at the Chinese ships above. Then the Chinese frigate launched a torpedo at the Indian sub.

  Once the Stallion missiles breached the water’s surface, they had to go out and slingshot back to their targets, which also gave the Chinese ships time to defend themselves, although, they had to do it on two fronts. Both surface ships had to launch anti-sub torpedoes, and then both had to use their deck guns to knock out the incoming missiles.

  The newly launched Corvette attack boat also had a missile decoy of its own, and its crew had deployed it at the perfect time. It survived as the missile missed wide left and plunged into the water, detonating into a massive plume. Unfortunately for the frigate, it did not have same missile decoys, so the Stallion missile nearly ripped the ship in half in a massive explosion. Not long after that, the torpedo heading to the Corvette also bought its decoy and it missed badly, the other striking the already shredded frigate, completely destroying it.

  The Corvette was lucky twice, Captain Fontanilla observed. He noted their strategy for the future, as the Chinese had used one decoy to mock the propulsion of the sub, and then one that jammed the sonar on the torpedo.

  The destroyed frigates Yu-8 torpedo did not take the propulsion decoy this time. The jamming decoy did not work either. Even though the head was severed with the frigate gone, the Chinese Yu-8 torpedo destroyed the Indian Akula-class nuclear-powered submarine, and all the men that operated her.

  Never before had the crew of the USS Jimmy Carter had the opportunity to see death and combat in such proximity. Captain Fontanilla thought it fortuitous that they got to see exactly how the Chinese operated before they came into contact with them. Things had changed in a wisp, and John Fontanilla wondered what the EAM (Emergency Action Message) was going to say?

  The Liaoning Carrier Group showed up to help with rescue and salvage; NMCC said that no international report of this incident was showing up.

  Suddenly, as before, a torpedo was in the water, and the sonar person called it out. Only this time, it came out of a hole in the ocean. The torpedo was two thousand yards out and on a heading a thousand yards wide of their location. Captain Fontanilla stopped all evasive measures from going into action, for he knew what this was. The Indian crew had been inexperienced and made several mistakes. If the frigate and light attack boat really did detect that sub, then it was one impressive grab into the ocean, which would signify the Chinese had made some leaps and bounds in sonar and satellite technology, which they have, but that’s not what happened here. Captain Fontanilla knew that something else was in play here, and once again his search for all facts about nautical warfare had him understanding just how bad their situation was.

  He had read an article recently in the Washington Times that claimed the Chinese were working on a Zhou-class submarine that ran on magnetic liquids and can out run torpedoes. It had no screws, and was free of tail and horizontal rudders. It was a black hole in the ocean—and those words in the article just came true right in front of them, as that torpedo seemingly came out of nowhere.

  The captain of the Chinese sub must have thought that somehow the Indian sub had an escort sub with it, and he also thought the captain to be as inexperienced as the one they’d just sunk. That as soon as his torpedo was in the water, the next inexperienced Indian Captain, would take evasive measures and reveal his sub so
they could be hunted down and killed.

  Thirteen hours had passed since their first encounter, and now it was light outside again. While the American Captain patiently sat and waited out this deadly game of cat and mouse, the new stealth sub inexplicably surfaced with its carrier group. The American Captain’s mind was reeling, as that was the last thing in the world it should have done? Maybe the sub was having an issue? Maybe they were retrieving something, or maybe they were fixing a problem. John decided it didn't matter. Regardless, Captain Fontanilla knew that an opportunity to see this boat topside might not come again.

  On Captain Fontanilla’s orders, the Chief of the Watch, seated on the port side of the operations compartment, released water from the ballasts and raised them to periscope depth. Then they video taped the new Chinese sub and sent the video to NMCC.

  * * *

  President Kessel watched the video, as did all his senior command. Once it was finished, the round table discussion exploded into action as though someone shot a starter pistol. Starting with Rear Admiral William Johnson, “My people are telling me that this is basically a fourth generation Jin-class sub, but they thought the Chinese were a year from even running a beta.”

  President Kessel retorted, “Looks like someone should inform the Chinese of that.”

  Gary Salisbury spoke next, “Our sources are saying India is inquiring about its sub and is trying to open diplomatic channels with the Chinese, who are not responding.”

  Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Maxwell Morss, added, “This puts a whole new light on Pyongyang as well. I think our commerce buddies in red have pulled the wool over our eyes gentlemen. My final sentiment is put out prematurely due to time constraints and it’s in two parts. First, will we ever get this chance again? Secondly, to waylay the thought that this is some knee-jerk reaction, and not a smoking-gun thing, I am going with the old adage that if it walks like a duck and looks like a duck, chances are it’s a duck.”