Cyber Warfare and the New World Order: World War III Series: Book IV

by James Rosone

  Another contractor jumped in, “It’s an idea. If we start to see all the troop transports and other support ships move from Oakland and LA up to Alaska to pick up more soldiers, then you might be right. Until that happens, even with the help of the Russians, they do not have enough sealift capability or support ships to make it happen.” He was somewhat flippant in his dismissal of the Marine’s idea.

  The third contractor (who had not said anything up to this point) broke into the conversation to add, “What everyone is missing is what the Indians and Indonesians are doing. Both countries have sent troops to participate in the California invasion, we already know that. But what we have not talked about is the massive troop movements showing up on our satellites to the Chinese railheads. These forces are moving by rail to Russia. Thus far, the Indians have not made a move against our forces now occupying the Islamic Republic, but all indications are they are moving hundreds of thousands of soldiers to Russia, then possibly on to Europe. If that is the case, then our forces in Europe are going to be in some serious trouble come spring.” He sat back in his chair, waiting for the information to sink in.

  Admiral Casey finally chimed in with his own thoughts, “I believe Russia and China are trying to distract us by attacking everywhere, knowing if they hit us in enough different places, they can bleed us dry. What we have to figure out is how we can hit them hard enough to take them out of the war without them going nuclear.”

  Everyone nodded.

  Casey continued, “I have an idea and I want you all to vet it and see if it is possible. As everyone knows, we are systematically destroying Japan and India electronically. The US has a limited supply of X59 scramjet cruise missiles, which the President currently wants to use to destroy several major Chinese port facilities being used to build PLAN naval ships and super carriers. What if we used those cruise missiles to destroy key rail bridges linking China, India and Russia together in Siberia? How would that impact the logistics of the war? Also, if we hit the Three Gorge Dam in China, how bad would that hurt the Chinese?”

  Casey didn’t wait for a response, instead plowing on to the next tactical point. “I want you guys to look at how we can go after their transportation industry and how we can systematically destroy these countries from within. I do not care how many civilians may be killed in these attacks or because of them; I want you to consider all angles and find a way to defeat them before they tear our country apart. I want your ideas ready by the end of this week.”

  “Yes sir,” the group responded.

  Admiral Casey then got up from the table and left to go check on his next think tank group to see what they had come up with. That was the one that was systematically destroying Japan electronically...Casey may have been slightly too happy to learn about how his enemies might be suffering.

  Vampires During the Day

  30 December 2041

  100 Miles off the Coast of Mexico

  “Vampires! Vampires! Vampires!” yelled one of the petty officers in the CIC as the radar screens started to show one, then dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of cruise missiles heading towards the American fleet. Immediately, the fleet’s automated defense system began to take over, slaving every ship in the fleet to the central command at the heart of the fleet, the USS New York, the flagship of the fleet. Admiral Stonebridge would now be able to control all of the ships’ defense and targeting systems.

  The carriers immediately began to launch their drone fighters to get them heading towards the missiles to engage them. The missiles were still several hundred miles away, but they were closing that distance fast. As the naval attack came into range of the first ships in the strike group’s screening force, the frigates, destroyers and cruisers began to engage them with their railguns and anti-missile interceptors. A curtain of projectiles was flying at the thousands of missiles streaking in towards the strike group. Dozens of missiles started to disintegrate as they were shredded by the railgun projectiles, while others were destroyed by the missile interceptors. As the ships desperately fought to destroy the waves of incoming fire, several of them started to find their marks, ripping through the frigates and destroyers. Fireballs appeared as the missiles ripped through the hulls and superstructures of the ships like hot knives through butter. As the enemy swarm overwhelmed the outer screen of the strike group, the heavy cruisers and battleships began to throw up their own wall of projectiles, missile interceptors and point defense lasers, engaging as many missiles as their systems could target.

  Several anti-ship missiles plowed into the two heavy battleships, the pride of the American Navy. To everyone’s amazement, they sustained little damage. The reactive armor added to the battleships had held, and the ships just shrugged off the hits, only sustaining superficial damage to the exterior structure. As the final wave of missiles flew towards the three carriers of the American fleet, they disintegrated in a hail of railgun projectiles and laser point defense systems.

  America had learned a hard lesson early in the war when they had found out that the carrier fleets were vulnerable to a missile swarm attack. It had been a difficult lesson to accept at the time, but now it was paying off through the new design of the carrier fleet’s defensive systems. The JDF and PLAN had just thrown over 2,100 anti-ship cruise missiles at the American fleet, and all but 62 missiles had been destroyed. The Americans did sustain damage, losing three destroyers, four frigates and one cruiser to the missile swarm. However, all three carriers survived with no damage, and the battleships (which packed most of the fleet’s heavy firepower) had taken little damage. The core of the fleet was still intact despite the losses, and now they were moving into their own strike range; soon the JDF and PLAN would feel the wrath of American ingenuity.

  Don’t Forget to Turn out the Lights

  30 December 2041

  Ft. Meade, Maryland

  NSA Headquarters

  Neven Jackson and his partner in crime Milo had received a lot of congratulations from the bosses at the NSA for their successful hack of the Chinese exoskeleton suits during the PLAN beach invasion of Oceanside. The Chinese had still captured Camp Pendleton and San Diego, but they had suffered horrific casualties and lost the ability to use their exoskeleton combat suits until their programmers could figure out how to remove Neven’s malware and get the suits operational again. Neven and Milo had even been invited for lunch with President Stein as a reward for a job well done.

  Meeting the President was not something high on either of their minds. As hackers, their natural inclination was to have little respect for authority figures, let alone the President. However, after their lunch, they both walked away with a better understanding of Stein, and may have even started to see him as a real person. For a politician, the President had a very strong grasp on cyber warfare and cyber security, something neither of them expected from any president. They also felt a renewed purpose to not let the country down after seeing how their direct efforts were affecting the war.

  Colonel Jeff Blount may have been a little jealous of Milo and Neven’s facetime with the President. He walked into their little hacker fiefdom on a mission, and with barely any gesture to politeness, bluntly asserted, “Ok gentlemen, sorry to disrupt the joyful reverie of your ‘lair,’ but it’s time for you to launch your next malware attack. We need you to move against the Japanese Fleet off the Pacific Coast of Mexico.”

  As the drone feed was directed to their large screen monitors, they could see that the naval battle between the joint Chinese/Japanese fleet and the Americans was well underway. They saw the missile swarm heading towards the Americans and thought for certain the fleet was finished. To their surprise, they saw hundreds and then thousands of enemy missiles being destroyed, reducing the swarm into a manageable flock.

  Several bright flashes could be seen as multiple American ships were hit. Then numerous large explosions occurred.

  “What was that?” asked Neven, as he began work on another screen.

  Colonel Blount was almos
t callous as he responded, “That was 291 people being killed. Those ships just blew up.”

  As the missiles converged on the battleships and carriers, it seemed that they were all but destroyed.

  The Colonel walked to the front of the room, standing in front of the monitors. Then he announced, “Now it is our turn. I need you guys to go in through your established backdoors and turn the Japanese ships off. We know you cannot access the Chinese ships; our fleet will handle them. Disable the JDF ships and let’s finish this battle, bringing the war one step closer to victory.” Then he walked to the side of the room to let the hackers do their work.

  Neven pulled another Rip It out of the fridge near his work station, turned on his favorite music and began to type away. Neven was working on three different twenty inch monitors while reclining in a soft leather chair with his headphones on, and Milo was setting up the malware that would jump from the JDF fleet to the PLAN and begin to bog down their communications system with a concerted DDoS attack from every IoT device in the JDF fleet.

  As Neven moved from folder to folder, system to system within the carriers and battleships of the JDF fleet, he began to activate a series of viruses and crypto-locker protocols that would shut down the carriers and battleship and then summarily lock them out of their systems when they tried to reboot them. The ships would effectively become dead in the water, unable to move or defend themselves when the American fleet started to carry out their counter attack. It was going to be a bloodbath.

  Battleships

  30 December 2041

  100 Miles Off the Coast of Mexico

  An intelligence officer walked onto the bridge and handed Stonebridge a memo. “Admiral, this message just came in from NSA. They said the JDF fleet has been taken offline and is dead in the water. We should conduct our attack now before they are able to bring their systems back online.” The officer waited for the Admiral to finish reading the report and issue his next set of orders.

  “Now it’s time for some American justice,” thought the Admiral to himself.

  Stonebridge turned to Captain Mason and directed, “Captain, order your attack aircraft to engage the enemy fleet immediately.” Then he turned to his operations officer and said, “Captain Lacey, order the battleships to launch their missiles and continue at flank speed until they are in range of the enemy fleets ships with their laser and railgun turrets. Once they are within range, they are to engage the enemy at will.”

  Admiral Stonebridge looked back at the holographic map and the distances between the two fleets; the gap was closing quickly as the Americans were moving at flank speed towards the enemy. The Chinese and JDF continued to move towards the Americans to get their battleships in range to use their main guns, unaware of what awaited them.

  *******

  Captain Jeremiah Wright had just completed his twenty-first year in the US Navy and his second year as the Captain of the USS Iowa Battleship. He had been selected to be the Captain of the Iowa after completing his assignment as the executive officer of the USS George H.W. Bush just months before it had been destroyed in the Pacific by the Chinese during the opening engagement of World War III. He had felt terrible about the loss of his previous ship; he knew a lot of the officers and enlisted personnel on board that had died, so it’s sinking hit home. He had lost over a hundred people he considered to be close friends. His assignment to the USS Iowa had been a blessing and a curse. He had needed time to emotionally heal and grieve the loss of so many friends; he had gotten that in a way because he had been sidelined from participating in the war up to that point while he worked on getting the USS Iowa ready for battle for more than 18 months.

  Now, as Captain Wright stood in the CIC of America’s most powerful warship ever built, he felt almost god-like at the power and sheer destruction he was about to unleash on America’s enemies. His orders were to target the Chinese Supercarriers and battleships and leave the Japanese ships for the drones to destroy. With the cyber-attacks crippling the Japanese fleet, his real concern was the Chinese navy.

  He turned to his weapons officer, “Commander Lewis, do we have a firing solution on the first Supercarrier?” he asked.

  Lewis replied, “Yes, sir, we do. We have both weapon systems locked in right now. Do you want to hit them with the railgun or the laser?” he asked with a grin.

  “First, let Admiral Stonebridge know we are ready to fire and make sure everyone can see the drone footage. Let’s hit the first carrier with the railguns. Then we’ll hit the second carrier with the pulse beam and see which one has the most effect.” Captain Wright had been told by Admiral Stonebridge that President Stein himself was going to be watching the battle, so he wanted to impress.

  The communications officer replied, “All outstations are reporting ready, and the various feeds from the drones are coming in nice and clear.”

  Looking at the men and women in the CIC, Captain Wright ordered, “Commander Lewis, FIRE guns one through four!”

  There was a slight increase in the mechanical hum of the ship as the reactor increased power and then an ear-piercing SNAP, SNAP, SNAP, SNAP, as the four railguns fired one projectile each at the Chinese Supercarrier one hundred and eighteen miles away. It took nearly a minute for the projectiles to fly the distance to the Chinese fleet, and then the rounds hit the carrier. They saw on the drone feed the impact against the side of the carrier, causing it to rock heavily to one side before it righted itself from the impact. Initially, there was a somewhat small entry hole into the hull, and then a massive explosion detonated as the projectile flew through the ship and out the other side. The projectile was traveling so fast when it hit that the shockwave caused a huge section of the hull on the opposite side to blow right open. Critical sections of the ship started to catch fire and explode. The carrier was still floating, but clearly had suffered a critical hit. Flames burst out of the entrance and exit holes where the projectile had been.

  Captain Wright looked at his weapons officer and ordered, “Fire a second volley.”

  The USS Iowa shook a second time as the main guns fired a second volley of projectiles at the Chinese warship. When the second round hit the carrier, it shook violently. Several additional explosions erupted, and the carrier began to rip apart. Within minutes, the carrier began to list heavily to one side and started sinking quickly. An audible gasp could be heard in the CIC as the men and women watching saw the ship start to roll over on its side and quickly descend below the waves.

  “Commander Lewis,” barked the Captain. “Fire the lasers at the second carrier!”

  The reactors of the Iowa began to spool up again, and this time the ship’s two pulse beam lasers discharged. Upon hitting the ship, each laser burned a three-foot round hole into the hull of the ship, just below the flight deck. Within seconds, the laser had ignited the fuel and weapons used for the drones, causing significant damage and secondary explosions.

  “Commander Lewis, have the gun battery aim for the waterline, and let’s see if we can sink that ship with the next shot,” the Captain ordered.

  Commander Lewis nodded, then picked up a phone to talk with the targeting officers for the laser battery, who quickly made the requested adjustment. The second laser shot impacted the carrier, burning a hole several feet below the waterline and causing the water surrounding the new hole in the hull to quickly bubble away until the laser turned off. In seconds, a huge rush of water could be seen swooshing into the vacant hole left by the laser. In less than a minute, the ship began to tilt heavily to one side as the flames from the drone fuel and ammunition continued to rage.

  Admiral Stonebridge came on to the fleet PA system, “Impressive show, Captain Wright. It’s time for both battleships to fire at will now. We need to begin to systematically destroy the Chinese fleet while the carrier drones fly in to finish off the Japanese.”

  The battle lasted less than thirty minutes. In that time, the Japanese lost three Supercarriers, their two prized battleships, and their entire support f
leet. The Chinese recognized what type of weapons they were being hit with, and the ships that were left immediately began to sail away from the American fleet as fast as possible to try and get out of range of the American super weapons. Three of the four Chinese Supercarriers were destroyed, while the fourth sustained a hit from the Wisconsin’s railgun, causing significant damage. Only three other Chinese surface ships escaped the battle as they ran quickly towards the waters of Hawaii.

  In the Middle of the Night

  30 December 2041

  Tokyo, Japan

  Prime Minister’s Official Residence

  Prime Minister Yasuhiro Hata was asleep with his wife when a knock at the door woke him out of his slumber. As he fumbled with the covers and placed his feet on the floor, he reached for a robe and slowly walked to the door just as the knocking started again. “Shhh--you are going to wake my wife. What is so urgent that it could not wait until morning?” PM Hata asked the military officer standing in front of his bedroom door.

  “Sir, I was told by Admiral Hito to come and get you. He said to tell you there has been a major naval engagement with the Americans in the Pacific,” the officer muttered. He seemed to be completely out of breath.

  “Perhaps if the officer hurried that much to see me, the situation is truly serious,” thought the Prime Minister.

  “Tell the admiral I will be over shortly,” Hata responded aloud. “I am going to get dressed,” he said, and he closed the door, not waiting for a reply.

  Twenty minutes later, PM Hata walked into the operations center in the bowels of the PM’s offices and saw several military officers talking animatedly around a holographic map while others were reviewing several different drone feeds. The room looked every bit the military headquarters it had turned into these past few weeks since the start of the war with America.