Monroe Doctrine

by James Rosone

  *******

  Gulf of Mexico

  USS Hue City

  Task Force Dupre

  Commander Dupre had just lain down, figuring he’d try and catch a couple hours of sleep while he could. He was just drifting off to sleep when suddenly the 1MC sounded the general quarters alarm.

  “General quarters, general quarters! All hands, man your battle stations! Set Condition Zebra. This is not a drill!”

  Dupre reached for the phone next to his bed and called the CIC. “TAO, what the hell is going on?” he said groggily as he swung his feet over his bed and began the process of putting his trousers on.

  “Captain, we received a FLASH priority message from NORAD. They detected multiple missile launches from Cuba and three Chinese Type 52s off of the northern coast of Cuba,” Lieutenant Price answered immediately.

  “What the hell?! Hang on, I’ll be there in a couple of minutes. Out.”

  As Dupre walked out the door of his room, the hallway was filling up with people running to their various stations.

  The master chief petty officer or MCPO of the Hue City caught up with him as the two of them rushed to the CIC. As Dupre moved down the tight corridors, his master chief yelled out behind him, “Make a hole!” The sailors, realizing they were in the way of the captain, parted like the Red Sea for them to run the rest of the way to the CIC.

  Barging into the room, Dupre shouted, “TAO, give me an update!”

  Lieutenant Price answered immediately, “Sir, NORAD and their early-warning systems are still showing multiple missile tracks originating from those PLA destroyers and some land-based launchers heading toward the US. However, our systems aren’t showing anything to verify what they’re saying.”

  Dupre almost did a double take at what Lieutenant Price had told him. Snapping out of his momentary surprise, he asked, “What do you mean we aren’t detecting them? How’s that possible?”

  Lieutenant Price took a breath and tried to explain. “Sir, all we know right now is NORAD’s early-warning systems, including the PAVE PAWS out of Cape Cod and Eglin’s Site 6, which can track cruise and ballistic missile launches from the Gulf, picked up two hundred missile tracks ninety seconds ago.”

  Scrunching his eyebrows together, Dupre countered, “Whoa, what? They’re tracking all that, but we’re tracking nothing on AEGIS? That’s not possible.”

  Lieutenant Price seemed as dumbfounded by the situation as he was. “Negative, sir, AEGIS is clear. We detected no launches.”

  “This makes no sense. We need to get a verification of launch, Lieutenant!” ordered Dupre.

  “Aye, sir,” responded Price.

  *******

  COMDESRON 40

  Naval Station Mayport

  Jacksonville, Florida

  Commodore Charles Mathison, the commander of Destroyer Squadron 40, had returned to his desk after getting his third cup of coffee for this shift. He hated the graveyard shift, but as the commander, he needed to do it from time to time. He didn’t want to model his command style on that of his direct boss, Admiral Levison, the deputy commander of 4th Fleet—the guy loved the sound of his own voice and routinely made life tough for those who worked for him. Levison also generally didn’t do unpleasant things if he could have his underlings do them instead..

  Mathison opened the slide deck one of his staffers had sent him, wanting to give it a quick check before he forwarded it to the admiral’s desk for the morning brief. Ugh, slide six is using Arial when it needs to be Times New Roman—are they all using the wrong font?

  Then one of the night shift staffers burst into his office, startling him. “Sir, you need to come to the operations center. We just received a FLASH message from NORAD. They’re reporting two hundred missiles were just launched from the waters off Cuba, and from the island!”

  It’s way too early in the morning for this be a prank, he thought as he grabbed his cover and headed down the hall to the operations center.

  When they entered the squadron operations center, every wall-mounted OLED monitor displayed the missile tracks from the vicinity of Cuba, heading right for the American underbelly.

  Mathison didn’t hesitate in the least once he saw what was happening. “Get me Task Force Dupre, now!”

  *******

  Gulf of Mexico

  USS Hue City

  Task Force Dupre

  “I understand your orders, ma’am,” Dupre replied to General Barrett. “We are one hundred and ninety nautical miles from the launch points and showing no missile tracks on our AEGIS or on the Laboon and Barry.”

  Dupre was on a video call with the 2nd and 4th Fleet admirals, the ones that had been able to get on a video call, and the DESRON 40 Commodore, along with the NORAD Commander.

  General Barrett forcefully responded, “Commander, my understanding is you reported a computer glitch on all three ships in your task force not more than thirty minutes ago. It’s very conceivable that your systems have been compromised. The entire North American early-warning system is tracking two hundred cruise and ballistic missiles heading toward the southern United States from the location of those Chinese warships and several locations on land.”

  “Commander Dupre,” the 4th Fleet admiral cut in, “those enemy missiles will be outside of your engagement envelope in less than sixty seconds. POTUS has ordered you to engage them now. They’re still trying to decide what to do about the enemy warships and those land targets, but the CNO is pushing the President to order a counterstrike on them. You have your orders, Dupre. Don’t let us down.”

  Nodding, Dupre reached over for the handset. With everyone on the call still watching him, he ordered his TAO to engage the enemy missiles with the targeting data fed to them from CONUS.

  The ship shuddered briefly as the magazine of SM-2s took flight after the cruise missiles while a set of SM-3s went after the ballistic missiles.

  The NORAD Commander placed the hand receiver down as she returned her gaze to him. “Commander Dupre, POTUS ordered a retaliatory strike against the Chinese ships and those sites on Cuba. Please confirm you received your new orders and execute them immediately.”

  “I received and confirm attack orders. Will execute immediately.” Commander Dupre grabbed for the phone next to him. “TAO, POTUS directed us to attack those ChiCom warships and those launch sites in Cuba. Spin up a targeting solution and package for the task force. I’m on my way to CIC now.” He turned back to the monitors. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to return to CIC to oversee our counterattack. Admiral, I’ll reestablish contact in the CIC.”

  Dupre shook his head as he left the wardroom. One of our radar systems is right…I just hope it’s theirs, or we’re about to start a war with China…

  When Dupre entered the CIC, he saw Lieutenant Price waiting for him.

  “Sir, we located the Chinese warships and we received the coordinates for the sites in Cuba. All targets are programmed, and Bulldogs are ready to launch on your command. Laboon and Barry report their targets are programmed and weapons ready in all respects, sir.”

  Dupre paused for a moment, thinking about the gravity of what he was about to do. Then he commanded, “Fire!”

  He echoed the command to the Laboon and the Barry. The deck plating shuddered as their missiles left the vertical launchers and streaked into the sky toward their targets. On the monitors in the CIC, he watched each missile as it shot skyward and then arched into its flight track toward four Chinese destroyers and the island of Cuba.

  Dupre said, “I’ll be on the bridge, Clarissa. Stand by for possible counterattack by the enemy warships.”

  The sailors stepped aside as he left the CIC.

  Lieutenant Clarissa Price followed him into the passageway so the two of them could talk privately for a moment. The fact that he’d called her by her first name seemed to have upset or surprised her.

  Price asked, “Sir, if we’re at war, what do we do now?” Her question was desperate for a reassuring answer, yet Dupre didn’t
have one.

  Looking at her, he calmly said, “Now, Lieutenant…we fight.”

  She nodded, then turned to head back into the CIC while he went to the bridge. Dupre reflected on the situation. The task force had fired sixty-five cruise missiles at the Chinese warships and the land-based targets. He had trained for this his entire adult life.

  Despite the years of training and having ordered the firing of his weapons at targets in Syria and Iraq, he felt a wave of sadness wash over him. Something about this just didn’t make sense. He was about to be responsible for the death of hundreds of Chinese sailors and soldiers. He’d also fired the first shot in what might become the Third World War…

  No matter what happened now, history would remember his name and what he had done today. That thought made him sick to his stomach.

  ********

  Type 909D Merchant Raider

  Mid-Atlantic

  “That’s it! We received the message. Authenticating now,” called out the communications officer excitedly.

  “XO, let’s open the safe and authenticate,” Captain Tsai announced as he went to the small vault on the bridge.

  Tsai entered his code and the safe popped open. He reached in and retrieved the only two plastic keycards. Walking over to the communications officer, he placed them on the table. The XO looked at the authentication code from Command and compared it to the two keycards. Once he found the one that matched, he broke it open and pulled out the code and the small metal key that would fire the missiles.

  The XO took a few seconds to verify the codes, nodding in satisfaction. “We have a valid launch order,” he said, then handed the papers over to the captain for verification.

  Tsai looked at the two papers and read them over. A grim look settled on his face as he turned to his weapons officer. “Lieutenant, prepare the missiles to fire.”

  This single order set into motion a series of actions across the ship. On the bow deck, the double stack of shipping containers pulled apart to reveal the three hundred and fifty vertical launch tubes. While the front of the ship performed its transformer trick and became a full-blown missile ship, the targeting officer fed in the final targeting data from Jade Dragon into the missiles’ targeting and flight computers.

  The XO’s eyes grew wide as he stood behind the targeting officer’s shoulder and saw the number of missile groups and targets being downloaded. Given these missiles were going to hit during the wee hours of the morning, it would come as quite a shock once they landed.

  Group One: Eight missiles, Naval Submarine Base New London, Connecticut

  Group Two: Two missiles, Defense Intelligence Agency facility on Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, Washington, D.C.

  Group Three: Two missiles, Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland

  Group Four: Four missiles, NSA Headquarters, Ft. Meade, Maryland

  Group Five: Eight missiles, Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia

  Group Six: Six missiles, CIA facility, McClean, Virginia

  Group Seven: Four missiles, CIA facility, Herndon, Virginia

  Group Eight: Eight missiles, National Reconnaissance Office, Chantilly, Virginia

  Group Nine: Thirty-two missiles, Langley Air Force Base, Hampton, Virginia

  Group Ten: Sixty-eight missiles, Norfolk Naval Facility, Norfolk, Virginia

  Group Eleven: Thirty-two missiles, Naval Air Station Oceana, Virginia Beach, Virginia

  Group Twelve: Forty missiles, Joint Base Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina

  Group Thirteen: Twelve missiles, Hunter Army Airfield, Savannah, Georgia

  Group Fourteen: Fifty missiles, Fort Stewart, Hinesville, Georgia

  Group Fifteen: Twelve missiles, Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, St. Marys, Georgia

  Group Sixteen: Fifty missiles, Ft. Benning, Columbus, Georgia

  Group Seventeen: Twenty missiles, Naval Station Mayport, Jacksonville, Florida

  Group Eighteen: Twenty missiles, Blount Island, Jacksonville, Florida

  “This is a huge list of targets, Captain. We will kick up one hell of a hornet’s nest with this attack,” commented the targeting officer.

  As the data from Jade Dragon was loaded into the missiles, it designated each one inside the targeting group to hit a specific target. Some missiles were redundant to offset the chance that one or more might get shot down, but each missile had its own unique purpose.

  “How many missiles are we firing?” asked Tsai as he observed the progress status on the missiles inch closer to one hundred percent.

  The XO looked at the control screen. “A total of two hundred and ninety-two missiles have assigned targets. That will leave us with fifty-eight missiles for follow-up attacks if we are not sunk or captured in the next couple of days.” The XO gulped as he realized he shouldn’t have said that last part.

  Turning to face him, Tsai snapped, “Do not take a defeatist attitude with me or anyone else on this ship, Commander. Is that understood?”

  The tension on the bridge was thick. The men anxiously awaited the orders to attack soon, cognizant that they might not live for very long once they launched.

  Tsai’s XO hung his head low, realizing his mistake.

  Softening his tone, Tsai turned to look at his bridge crew. “Listen, we will do our duty to China. Our leaders gave us every tool possible to help us survive the next few days and weeks. But make no mistake, whether we live or die, we will hit the American intelligence and military with a blow so hard it will make Pearl Harbor and September 11th look like a pinprick. Our single attack may very well knock the Americans out of the war before it even has a chance to start. You all should feel pride in being selected to take part in this mission, for it will be talked about in the annals of history for hundreds of years to come.” Captain Tsai spoke with real conviction in his voice.

  “The missiles are ready, Captain,” announced the targeting officer.

  Turning to look at the young man, Captain Tsai lifted his chin up a bit as he exclaimed, “Fire!”

  The missiles fired every three seconds until all two hundred and ninety-two missiles were gone. While a cloud of missile exhaust consumed the ship, the crew went to work covering the missile launch tubes and repainting the sides of the vessel. Their pilot and navigator found a new cargo ship lane seventy miles to their northeast, and the ship headed toward the new shipping lane at flank speed. If they got lucky, they would be able to tuck themselves into a new shipping lane without anyone being the wiser.

  They would then make their way back toward Europe, hopefully undetected until they received their next set of orders for their remaining missiles.

  Chapter Three

  The Age of AI

  February 2017 – Seven Years Earlier

  Alibaba AI Division

  Shanghai, China

  Dan munched on a Tunnock’s tea cake and checked his personal email on his phone before he got back to work. He saw a message from the hotel he’d booked last night for his upcoming trip to Macau. He had planned to meet up with some friends for a weekend of drinking and general debauchery. Unfortunately, the email informed him that he could not stay with them. His social credit score had fallen too low.

  Seeing that rejection really ticked him off. This was the third hotel to deny him a booking in the last couple of days. He’d gotten lucky finding a plane ticket, but he was striking out hard in getting a room at one of the high-end casinos. His friends in Singapore and Hong Kong were pestering him to know which hotel they should meet him at. He still didn’t have an answer for them.

  Frustrated by yet another denial, Dan reached for his noise-canceling headphones and put them on. He wanted to shut out the world around him and focus on solving a problem with a line of code some of the senior analysts had been unable to fix for weeks. Sometimes he felt like he was surrounded by idiots. It wasn’t that they weren’t good programmers. They just didn’t seem to have the ability to come up with something novel and unique. You couldn’t teach a program how to interpret data and then us
e that interpretation to perform a specific set of objectives if you couldn’t allow your mind to think outside of the box.

  An hour into his work, his headphones were suddenly removed, the music he’d been listening to still blaring out of them.

  He turned to see who had touched him without his permission. The face of his immediate supervisor, project manager Joseph Chung-Hsin, hovered over him, staring at him angrily.

  “Ma Yong, I need to speak with you in my office. Oh, and turn that music off!” He turned on his heel and headed to his office, not waiting to make sure Dan was following him.

  Sighing, Dan turned his music off and got up. What have I done now? he wondered. And why can’t he call me by my Western name, Dan, or even Dr. Ma? Is it too much to ask of them to call me by the name I want to be called?

  Walking into his supervisor’s office, Dan saw there was another person waiting for them. His boss’s boss, Zhang Lou.

  “Please sit down, Ma,” his supervisor told him, and the three of them took a seat at the table in his office.

  “Have I done something wrong? Is my work not up to standards?” Dan inquired hesitantly. He had only been at Alibaba’s artificial intelligence division for a year, so he was still technically in his probation period.

  “Hello, Dr. Ma. It has been a while since you and I last spoke. My name is Zhang Lou, though you may call me Lou if you prefer. I like to be as informal with my staff as possible,” the older man offered with a warm and inviting smile.

  Dan wasn’t sure why the head of the department wanted to speak with him, but it was obvious he had done something wrong or he wouldn’t be here.

  Lou continued, “As you know, Dan, I am the managing director for this unit. I oversee all two thousand employees that work in this unit. Unfortunately, I do not get to spend as much time with each of you as I would like. However, something about you was brought to my attention. I felt it important enough for me to take some time to speak with you privately about it.”