Dead Storm: The Global Zombie Apocalypse

by Nicholas Ryan

  Even muffled by the ship’s superstructure and the stiff breeze blowing from abeam, the sound of the missile launch was like a punching solid fist of noise. The entire ship seemed to shudder.

  Four missiles burst from their launcher tubes at five-second intervals. Each missile was almost twenty feet long; a sleek, finned arrow of death. At the same time, four more missiles streaked into the sky, launched by Jianguanan.

  Commander Zhao stood stiff and motionless, watching the white trails of the eight missiles as they hurtled towards a moment that might define the future of mankind. Behind him the XO’s shaken voice confirmed the successful launch.

  Zhao wasn’t listening.

  *

  “Christ!” the startled radar operator in USS Hacksaw’s gloomy Combat Information Center gasped. “Vampire! Vampire! Vampire! Eight vampires bearing 000, range seventeen nautical miles.”

  The ship’s Tactical Action Officer took a split-second to assess the threat before reacting instinctively. The missiles were close and had escaped immediate launch detection. Now the USS Hacksaw had just precious seconds to defend herself.

  “Air, TAO, batteries released Air. Kill all vampire tracks bearing 000! OOD maneuver to minimize radar cross-section and maximize countermeasures effectiveness.”

  The Anti Air Warfare Coordinator obeyed. Within seconds the American destroyer shook with the exit of a volley of standard missiles, launched towards the inbound vampires. “Missiles away!” the AAWC announced.

  Eight missiles exploded from their launchers, guided automatically by the ship’s Aegis system. They streaked skyward on intercept courses leaving the ship shrouded in its own cloud of grey roiling smoke.

  An alert was broadcast to the bridge. Captain Benbow felt his blood turn to ice. “Jesus!” he gasped. He strode across the bridge and snatched up a pair of binoculars, staring out over the grey forbidding horizon.

  In the CIC, the ship’s highly trained crew worked with concentrated dedication, no word wasted, no moment lost to hesitation.

  “It’s a raid,” the radar operator’s voice shot up an octave, using the term to describe multiple incoming missiles.

  The Aegis system used to fight the destroyer was a state-of-the-art missile defense system, still shrouded in DoD mystique and secrecy despite being in service since the late years of the previous century. The powerful radar and computer system instantly identified each of the incoming missiles as being hostile threats and assigned them priorities based on their proximity. A master tactical display console showed the system ‘thinking’ as symbols and vectors spilled across the monitor.

  The Arleigh Burke destroyer had two Mark 41 Vertical Launching Systems, capable of firing a potent mix of ninety missiles straight upwards from cells below the ship’s deck. Part of Hacksaw’s missile package included forty-two RIM-66 SM-2’s. The missile was the Navy’s principle air-defense missile, guided to its target by inertial positioning and datalink updates until a semi-active radar system illuminated the target in the last few seconds to ensure precision.

  The SM-2’s hurtled towards their designated targets while the battle played out in the CIC, the crew’s tense sweating faces painted by the eerie green light of the monitors they hunched over.

  “Splash, multiple vampires!” the AAWC exclaimed, celebrating each enemy missile detonation like an excited broadcaster calling a football game. Five of the eight Chinese missiles were destroyed before they reached the Hacksaw’s close-in defenses… but three of the sleek YJ-62’s slipped through the net, displayed as inverted V-shapes on the master tactical display, each with vectors to identify their direction and speed. They were too close now to launch more RIM-66’s. The ship’s computer system automatically switched over to close-defense and initiated her two topside SeaRAM launchers.

  Hacksaw was one of only a handful of Arleigh Burke’s in the Navy equipped with the sophisticated self-defense system. The Rolling Airframe Missile had a range of about four nautical miles, and fired through a rotating launcher, based on the Phalanx Close-In Weapons System. The system’s own radar took up the fight, launching eight of the eleven RAMs available from the aft launcher. Two of the remaining YJ-62’s exploded three miles off the ship’s bow. Up on the bridge, Commander Benbow saw the bright eruptions of flame through the lens of the binoculars and felt the percussion, like a shock wave.

  Down in the CIC two more targets disappeared from the display.

  The final Chinese missile came skimming across the tops of the waves, weaving slightly through minor course corrections, racing towards the ship’s port quarter. Tim Benbow saw the dark speck against the horizon and felt himself tense.

  “Brace for shock!” he cried out – just as the remaining three RAM missiles in the forward launcher streaked across the sky in a last desperate attempt to intercept. Benbow tracked the white feather-like trails of each missile as the radar dome atop the launcher guided them.

  It happened in the space of a single heartbeat.

  Three hundred yards from impact the final Chinese missile suddenly detonated in a fiery flash of light and shrapnel, heaving a high tower of water into the air. The sound of the explosion was like the boom of a cannon. On the Hacksaw’s bridge, the shockwave punched crewmen off their feet and heeled the ship over as if she had been struck by a sudden savage squall.

  “Damage report!” the captain staggered to the ship’s comms system and snatched up the phone. He had a cut above his right eye from where he had struck his head. Bright red blood trickled down his cheek. The XO had been thrown against a bulkhead and lay unmoving, his eyes closed. Benbow cuffed at his wound irritably. He was shaken and trembling.

  And he was mad.

  *

  “TAO, confirm the missiles launched at us were fired by the Chinese destroyers to our north,” Commander Benbow said through clenched teeth. His ears were ringing and the wound above his eye continued to bleed.

  “Affirmative, sir,” came the reply from the Hacksaw’s TAO.

  “And confirm that both Chinese destroyers took part in the attack.”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Right,” Benbow snarled. “Hit the bastards! Hard!”

  The RGM-84 Harpoon missile was the destroyer’s primary anti-ship weapon; a high-explosive missile fitted with a 500lb warhead capable of crippling or sinking even the largest ships. Hacksaw had eight Harpoon’s on board. The Aegis Combat System launched six of the Harpoons in a salvo and assigned three to each of the Chinese destroyers.

  The radar-guided Harpoons blasted out of their circular canisters in an erupting volcano of flame and smoke that sent a shudder through the spine of the ship. They raced towards their targets at Mach 0.7, skimming the surface of the ocean to avoid detection.

  Tim Benbow watched the launch, his eyes black and merciless, his hands clenched into fists.

  “Make the bastards pay!” he willed the missiles towards their targets, muttering the words under his breath like a savage, vengeful curse until they had disappeared over the curve of the horizon.

  When he could do no more but wait, Benbow turned his attention to the safety of his men and ship. There was still the possibility the Chinese might launch a second counter-salvo. He ordered the OOD to put Hacksaw into a series of radical course changes at flank speed.

  The destroyer dashed forward like a greyhound let off its leash and then pirouetted ninety degrees to port, leaving a white foaming knuckle on the ocean in her wake. The deadly game of cat-and-mouse was seconds away from climax.

  *

  “Six low-altitude contacts to the southwest, Commander. Missile alert! Missile alert!”

  Zhao flinched with incredulous shock, his expression hidden by the gloomy lighting inside the Combat Suite. “Are you sure?” It seemed impossible that his attack on the American destroyer had been defeated. His plan had never anticipated a retaliatory strike.

  “Yes, Commander! Confirmed!”

  “Engage!” the snapping voice of Yalou’s senior weapons officer
cut across the confusion. It was his job to fight the ship, and precious seconds were being wasted.

  “Notify Jianguanan!”

  The destroyer’s rotary launchers, located forward of the superstructure, released a salvo of eight air-defense missiles. They burst from their boxes in clouds of white smoke then seemed to hang in the air above the ship for a moment before streaking away to intercept the looming threat.

  Zhao fought to regain his composure while in the background the Yalou’s radar operator began to chant the closing range.

  “Fourteen kilometers. Six contacts. Subsonic… Twelve kilometers… Ten kilometers… speed four six zero knots…”

  On the weapons officer’s digital display, two sets of converging symbols raced towards each other. The outbound air-defense missiles were faster than the incoming Harpoons. The screen filled with a chaos of colored triangles and vectors that resembled the action of a surreal high-tech computer game.

  “Jianguanan just launched air-defense missiles!” the radar operator’s voice leaped with excitement and rising tension.

  On the combat display, two of the incoming Harpoons suddenly disappeared. Zhao felt his body ratchet tight with tension. There were still four inbound enemy missiles.

  “Range six kilometers…”

  At the last possible moment another Harpoon vanished from the screen, taken out by the missile salvo launched by Jianguanan.

  “Range four kilometers… speed four five zero knots…”

  The weapons officer stared fixedly at the monitor, his face washed in the eerie green glow of the screen. There was no time to launch another salvo of missiles. The ship’s last hope was her close-in weapon systems.

  The two Type 730 close-in weapon systems were installed in front of the bridge and on top of the aft deckhouse. Each CIWS consisted of an H/PJ-12 seven-barrelled 30 mm gun and a fire-control radar, housed inside a single turret complex. The weapon had a firing rate of over four thousand rounds per minute and a range of three kilometres. The weapon in front of the bridge opened fire at maximum distance with the maniacal sound of a revving chainsaw.

  The ship’s weapons officer studied the tactical display for long tense seconds, then sat back suddenly, his eyes blank and sightless. He pulled his headset off and let it dangle around his neck. There was nothing else that could be done.

  “Brace for impact,” his voice was fatalistic, drained of all emotion. He turned in his chair and locked eyes with Zhao. The Commander’s face was a mask of rising horror. The weapons officer shook his head like a surgeon pronouncing a fatal diagnosis…

  Two American Harpoon missiles struck the Jianguanan amidships. The first missile tore through the hull and exploded below decks in a towering, boiling eruption of smoke around a blinding orange flash. An avalanche of seawater was flung into the sky and fell again like rain. The destroyer seemed to shift sideways in the ocean and began to list. Then the second Harpoon smashed into the superstructure with such ferocity that the entire bridge section and radar masts were swept away. Steel bulkheads melted, and more than a hundred ship’s crew were immolated in the fireball. Two huge grey thunderheads of smoke boiled into the sky over the stricken vessel, marking the place in the ocean where the ship rolled slowly onto her back and began to sink.

  Aboard the Yalou, Commander Zhao heard the two sudden violent explosive thunderclaps from the sinking Jianguanan and knew that they heralded his own imminent demise. He closed his eyes – and a moment later felt the ship around him heave as though struck in the stern by a mighty hammer. The impact flung him off his feet and slammed him against a bulkhead as a crushing pressure wave punched the air from his lungs. He came to his knees with his ears ringing and the left side of his body a white-hot agony of pain. He could hear people screaming nearby, but the below decks was completely dark. Zhao could smell smoke and diesel fumes. The ship groaned an agony of twisted metal.

  He crawled on his hands and knees through a tangle of wreckage towards a door. Dull battery-powered lights blinked on to light the way and to show the extent of the carnage. Smoke billowed through the narrow passageways. Zhao crawled over the crumpled dead body of a crewman and saw another man on his knees with hands clasped to his face. The man was screaming in pain, blood trickling through his splayed fingers.

  A two-man fire crew came swarming down a steep ladder. Each of their faces were hidden behind bulky masks connected to their breathing apparatus. They recognized the ship’s Commander. The fire crew hooked hands beneath Zhao’s armpits and heaved him to his feet. Zhao screamed in agony and felt his left leg collapse, unable to take his weight.

  “How bad is the damage?” the Chinese Commander croaked. His voice sounded like the reedy whisper of a frail old man.

  One of his rescuers snatched off his breathing mask. “Commander we have been struck in the stern. The missile hit the helicopter hangar. We’re badly damaged, but if we can get help from the fleet swiftly, we will not sink.”

  ‘BOUNTIFUL TIGRESS’ CRUISE SHIP

  SOUTH CHINA SEA

  “Admiral, this is a disaster and a humiliation!” President Xiang raged, clutching the phone to his ear so tightly that his knuckles turned bloodless white. “Report to me again in fifteen minutes. I want to know exactly how the American Navy is reacting. After that I will consider the continuation of your career.”

  Xiang glared savagely around the cruise liner’s conference room until his gaze settled on Yi Dan who sat smoking at the far end of the table.

  The President ended the call and flung the phone away in seething frustration. Yi Dan calmly crushed the remains of his cigarette into an ashtray and kept his expression carefully nonchalant.

  “Something has gone wrong, Xiang?”

  “Yes!” the President fumed. “That was the Admiral of the Fleet. An American destroyer was fired upon a short time ago by two of the ships in our vanguard. The American was encroaching on our declared safety zone. Two of our new Luyang II destroyers warned the American and then engaged the vessel with their missiles. One of our ships was sunk during the battle and the other severely damaged when the American ship fired its own missiles in retaliation.”

  “What was the fate of the American?” Yi Dan asked mildly.

  “It evaded all our missiles!” President Xiang roared. “It’s undamaged, Yi! The American ship was fired upon first, defeated our attacks, and then sank and badly damaged our ships that challenged it. The shame of this failure by our Navy is a crushing embarrassment.”

  Yi Dan felt the same stinging outrage as his president, but he was a pragmatist and level tempered. He was not prone to volatile outbursts; Xiang was fire – Yi Dan was water. Both could be equally destructive when their power was applied in the correct manner.

  “Xiang, this is a setback, yes. But we are talking about a minor skirmish between small ships. This is a schoolyard scuffle, not a war. An American destroyer has sunk one of our ships and damaged another. This is a political and military insult. We are certainly entitled, given the outrageous provocation, to defend our people and ourselves. We should launch a full-scale attack. The American Seventh Fleet is outnumbered by the size and firepower of the mighty flotilla that surrounds us. Slip the dogs of war off their leash to attack their aircraft carrier. To sink such a mighty American ship would not only be a blow to America’s Navy, it would also be a severe shock to their arrogant national pride.”

  The conference room was filled with a thick haze of cigarette smoke. President Xiang prowled through the tendrils like a shark drifting through currents of murky water. He was red-faced with temper. He clenched his hands into bunched fists. The sinking of the Chinese destroyer and the severe damage to the second ship felt like the humiliating sting of a slap to the face. Such a slight could not be left unchallenged.

  Tong Ge walked into the conference room. In his hand was a stack of printed reports. He sensed the tight, strained atmosphere and knew there was peril here. He stopped in mid-stride.

  “What has happened?”


  “The Admiral of the Fleet has just reported that two of our destroyers have been sunk and damaged by an American destroyer attached to their Seventh Fleet,” Yi Dan said between deep drags of his cigarette. “We are about to give orders for a counter-strike against the American aircraft carrier, the Ronald Reagan, to teach the American dogs a lesson they will never forget.”

  Tong Ge looked with silent pale shock to President Xiang.

  Xiang growled. “We must exact revenge. China’s honor must be restored. The Americans are no longer masters of the sea. They must learn that lesson the hard way.”

  Tong Ge set down the papers he held and came around the long conference table as if he approached a wild animal that might savage him. His voice was calm and reasonable. Yi Dan watched from the sideline, silent and analytical.

  “President Xiang, I do not know the circumstances of the incident you described. But regardless of whether our ships were attacked without provocation – or whether we fired first on the American – I would urge you to think first about the broader picture, the longer plan, before declaring all-out war.”

  “There is only one plan!” Xiang snarled. “China must dominate.”

  “Then China must carefully choose where and how it projects its dominance,” Tong Ge said. “We are vulnerable, President Xiang. We are five million people in a sea-borne armada. We are all that remains of more than a billion. Surely our first priority must be to survive so the Chinese Empire can rise again.”

  “We can do that in peace once the American Navy has been taught a lesson,” Xiang said hotly.

  “But at the risk of our own annihilation? If we challenge the American Fleet – even if we win the naval engagement – how many of our citizens and soldiers aboard the freighter ships will survive? It would be a hollow victory that leads only to our own destruction. Yes, we have a powerful fleet, but we are still perilously vulnerable. What would happen if the Americans were to launch a nuclear weapon into the heart of our flotilla?”