by Ira Tabankin
“Have you seen the size of our room?”
“Yea, they’re all the same size. Mine, yours, Mom and Dad’s.”
“I don’t think so. I think he’s got another room he keeps hidden. He and Lacy sleep in the hidden room, they show off the small one so everyone feels good knowing that we’re all the same. We know we’re not. Everyone knows that Jay and his mafia friend must have better accommodations someplace the rest of us don’t know about.”
Todd shakes his head in disgust, “Ricky, I really feel sorry for you. You have a serious problem. I suggest you not go around spreading that rumor, certain people hearing it might pay you a visit. You won’t like the result if they link you as the source of the rumor.”
“It’s no rumor. It must be true.”
“Why must it be true?”
“There’s no way the high and mighty Jay or the mobster Tony would stay in the same type of small room as the rest of us.”
Todd walks away shaking his head muttering under his breath, “Man is certifiable, he’s nuts. I don’t know what she sees in him. I better warn Jay or Tony, he could be a real problem. I bet he tries to open the door and leave. If he did, it would put the rest of us in danger. I better ask John to keep a sharp eye on his comings and goings.”
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Lacy finds her granddaughters in the children’s playroom. She asks Nancy, who watches the kids if she can ‘borrow’ her granddaughters. Nancy says, “Lacy, of course. Is something wrong?”
“No, Fred had an idea how to snap Jay out of his depression.”
“I get it, use the kids to tug at his heart. I bet it works. Do you think they’ll be back today?”
Smiling and hugging Nancy, “I hope they're not. If they don’t return today, it means Fred’s idea worked.”
“I hope so, Tony and I miss the old Jay.”
“So do I, Nancy, so do I.”
Lacy takes the two girls to her and Jay’s room, she says, “Do you want to play a special game?”
They jump up and down saying, “Yes!”
“We’re going to play, tag. Do know how to play tag?”
“Of course we do.” Bianca touches Lacy’s arm saying, “Tag, you’re it.”
“Honey, that’s very good. But, I’m not playing in this special game. I want you to find Papa Jay and tag him. Make him chase you until he catches one of you and tags you. When you tag him, make sure you hug and kiss him.”
Linda and Bianca cheer, Bianca asks, “You’re going to let us chase Papa Jay here? We can really play tag with him?”
“Yes, go find him and tag him. Make sure he knows how much you love and miss playing with him.”
“Oh boy. We’re going to find Papa.”
The kids take off running to find their Papa. Lacy smiles thinking, Fred, if this works, I will owe you a big one. You might have saved all of us. Lacy smiles when she hears the kids screaming and running down the halls. She thinks, if anyone can snap Jay out of his depression it’s the kids. He loves them and they love him. No matter what he would be doing, he always stopped when they wanted something. He would give up his life for them. Lacy hears screaming and laughing, she hears the youngest, Bianca saying, “Papa, we found you. Lacy said you were lost, but we found you. Come on, tag you’re it. You have to catch and hug us.” There’s silence then, she hears Jay say, “On the count of three you run, the first one I grab and hug is going to be it. One, two, three, run.” Lacy’s heart breaks with joy, tears of happiness flow down her cheeks, he sounds like his old self, she hears them running after each other. By God, Fred was right, the kids snapped him back to reality, the kids brought him back from whatever dark place he was in. Bianca runs past Lacy singing and laughing, “Watch out, a Papa monster is coming this way.” Lacy hears Jay running and puffing, out of breath. When Jay turns the corner, he runs into Lacy, “Bianca, honey, wait, I want to hug and kiss Lacy.” Lacy melts into Jay’s arms. Her eyes overflow with tears, “Honey, by the way, you’re it.” I want to find John and see what’s going on above us. I think it’s been a little while since I last checked in with him.”
Lacy nods with tears rolling down her cheeks, “I’ll be it and chase the kids, tell John I said hi.” Lacy turned to chase Bianca thinking, He sounds like nothing ever happened. I wonder if to him it was a dream. I don’t care, I’m not going to ask him. I’m just happy he’s back. Maybe he can figure out how to get rid of the assholes in my house. I’m going to have to fumigate it after they’ve been living in it. If they broke my good china, I’m going to skin them alive. I swear I’ll make them regret ever coming here. I’m sure Tony will be able to think of some suitable, painful punishment for them. Something to make them wish they’d never set foot on our land. I wonder if they still give people cement shoes and toss them in rivers, come to think of it, that may be too good for them.
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Chinese Fleet Admiral Zin checks the master clock in the Chinese military subterranean command center, when the second-hand strikes twelve, he picks up a handset, “GO, attack code, mongoose blue, repeat, mongoose blue.” He smiles as he lights a cigarette. He inhales deeply wondering if his plan will work or if the Americans found and countered his secret. He asks one of the junior officers who is sitting in front of three monitors, “How soon will we know?”
“Sir, we should know very quickly. The boats should have been able to silently maneuver into their positions without the Americans discovering them. The wake homing torpedoes should damage or destroy their vaulted carriers. Without them, they won’t be able to launch or recover aircraft, they won’t be able to stop us. Most of their surface ships are armed for carrier defense, not with long-range offensive weapons. They removed their anti-ship Tomahawks from their ships in the late 90s. All they have left are their short range Harpoons which should be easy for us to bring down.”
“Captain, I hope you’re right. If not, this is going to be the shortest naval battle in history with us on the losing end. If the boats succeed, we should win and also cripple the American Navy forever. They can’t afford to replace their 100,000-ton carriers.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll let you know as soon as the signals come in.”
“I’ll be right here, I want to watch the battle unfold in real time.”
Admiral Zin kept his eyes on the clock and the large monitor that displayed icons representing each of the hundreds of ships about to do combat in the Pacific. The Chinese secret plan was to send their almost silent diesel-electric submarines to shadow the American Nimitz class carriers. The carriers don’t have their own sonar. Even if they did, their propellers make so much noise that they are deaf to any sounds in their wakes. The Chinese submarines hide in the turbulent water behind the massive American carriers waiting for their “GO” code. The American carriers also receive their “GO” code at the same time the Chinese submarines received theirs, they start to turn into the wind and accelerate to 30 knots. The additional wind flowing over the decks of the 1,000-foot long nuclear-powered carriers provides additional lift for the launching airplanes which are being catapulted fully loaded with bombs and missiles. Unknown to each American carrier, each had a Chinese submarine following it. The Chinese fired as soon as they received their “GO” code, they couldn’t afford for the carriers to speed up to their maximum speed, which is in excess of 40 knots. The Chinese torpedoes only have a 5 knot advantage over the carriers so there is a risk they could be overrun. The American carriers have almost unlimited nuclear fuel, the wake homing torpedoes have very limited fuel. The heavy anti-shipping torpedoes have a sensor that directs them to attack the stern of their target ship by following the ship’s wake. None of the American carriers have a defense against the Chinese torpedoes. The American anti-torpedo system, called the NIXIE, is towed behind warships. It emits a signal to fool a sonar based incoming torpedo. Incoming torpedoes strike the NIXIE versus the ship. Wake homing torpedoes don’t use sonar, they can’t be tricked into attacking the NIXIE, they follow the ship’s wake to its source,
the stern of the target ship where they detonate, usually destroying the ship’s propellers, rudder and cracking her hull plates.
The American carriers don’t hear the Chinese submarines launch their spread of four torpedoes each due to the churned water behind them. Six of America’s ten Nimitz Class carriers each have four heavyweight anti-shipping torpedoes targeted against them. Each Chinese torpedo has a 678-pound warhead. The first warning the Americans have is when the USS Lincoln is struck by four torpedoes. The torpedoes appeared to come out of nowhere, they struck the stern of the large carrier. Her four propellers are damaged, as are both of her forty-foot rudders. The double hull plating is cracked, allowing the cold Pacific Ocean to rush into the carrier. Damage alarms sound throughout the Lincoln. One moment she’s launching F/A18s to attack the Chinese fleet, the next the entire ship shudders and shakes with fires burning in many areas. She slows due to the loss of her propellers, Captain Jack Wilson picks himself up from the deck, his heart sinks when he looks at the damage control display, he knows his ship is out of action. She’s been hit in the stern, she’s lost all power and the ability to steer. Fires are burning in her engineering spaces. “Captain, reactor, the reactors SCRAMED from the shock waves. I’m going to hot start them. I need five minutes to get them back online. We also lost all four generators in the attack.”
“How bad is it down there?”
“We have fires burning out of control in ten compartments. We got hit by at least three heavyweight fish, they must have been wake homers, we never saw them coming.”
“Will we be able to move and steer once you get the reactors back online?”
“No, sir. I think the props and rudder are severely damaged, if not destroyed.”
“Do the hot restart and get back to me.”
The damage control line buzzes, “Captain, weaps.”
“Weaps, Captain, go.”
“Sir, fires are getting close to the stern magazines, I recommend we flood them.”
“Do it.”
“Aye, sir.”
The line buzzes again, “Captain, CAG, what happened?”
“CAG, we got hit by a Chinese sub, fucked us in the ass. We can’t navigate. I suggest you start making arrangements to move your planes to the other carriers. The Lincoln is going to be out of the battle. We’re fighting fires and I just ordered the stern magazines flooded. We’ll most likely require a tow to get home. We can’t afford to lose the firepower your planes represent.”
“Aye, sir. I’ll check with the other CAGS.”
“Good, keep me informed.”
Captain Wilson opens the bridge door to look at his ship, the stern third of the ship is covered in billowing dense black smoke. The ship has started to settle in the water, the stern slipping lower due to the weight of the water filling the stern sections of the ship. Captain Wilson picks up the sound powered phone, “Damage control, Captain. Can we counter flood to level the ship?”
“Captain, damage control, sir, we’re fighting the fires, I have people seeing if we can close the holes. Sir, we have the pumps running 100%. I need twenty minutes before I know how bad we’ve been hurt.”
“OK, get back to me when you know the damage.”
Captain Wilson lifts the phone to call the Admiral. He has to report that the Lincoln is out of the battle, he’s about to make the call when he sees water plumes rise into the air behind three other carriers. He thinks to himself, shit we’ve been suckered. They snuck subs up our asses. They got us in our most vulnerable spot. Damn them. At least four of us are out of action before we got a punch in. Captain Wilson sees a huge flash out of the windows, the flash pulls his attention to port, he sees the USS Missouri fire a two-third broadside of six rounds. Her guns point up, huge flames jet out of her barrels. The Missouri is pushed back from the over pressure of her front guns firing. He smiles thinking, Mighty Mo, give them hell. Make them pay for what they just did to us. Before he completes his thought, he sees two ships blow up, one an LCS, which was behind one of the carriers, and a destroyer which was cutting across a carrier’s stern when the torpedoes found her first. The two carriers were saved, at the loss of the two ships. The LCS just disappeared, the destroyer slowed with smoke pouring out of her bow and midsection, when the wind blew some of the smoke away he saw that the destroyer had no bow. The torpedoes blew it off of the ship. Captain Wilson said a silent prayer for those who just died. He presses the button to connect him to Vice Admiral Long, “Admiral, Captain Wilson, Lincoln actual. Sir, we’ve been struck by an undetermined number of Chinese heavyweight fish. We’ve lost propulsion and steering. Damage control believes we’ve lost most of our props and rudder. We’re working on putting the fires out, I’ve had to flood the aft magazine. We’re going to counter flood to level the ship. I’ve ordered the CAG to move his planes to another carrier.”
“Captain, the Chinese were able to slip submarines into the wakes of all six of our carriers. You, the Nimitz, the Reagan and the Truman were all hit the same way. The Bush was lucky she had one of the LCS in her wake, the poor ship was struck by four fish and disappeared, the George Washington had a DDG 52 crossing her wake, the fish hit her. She lost her bow, we might lose the DDG before the day is over. Tell your CAG to hold his planes on board unless you think you’re going to lose the Lincoln, if you lose her, have the good sense to go down with her. We don’t have the deck space to absorb the aircraft from the four struck carriers. We may need yours and the others depending on losses from the attack as a reserve force. Jack, they gave us a black eye in front of the entire world. They destroyed most of our naval power when they took out our carriers. I’d issued the orders to send a destroyer to sit in the wakes of each of you when you got hit. The bastards hit us first. The Missouri is going to take out their carrier, then our planes and missiles will take out the rest of their fleet. We’re going to win today by destroying the Chinese fleet and save the people of Hawaii from having to learn Chinese.”
“Admiral, what can I do to help?”
“Jack, get your ship as ready as it can be. I’ve called Pearl to order ocean going tugs. Get your anti-submarine helicopters up, find the SOBs who hit us and sink them. They couldn’t have gone far.”
“Aye, sir.”
Hanging up, Captain Wilson punches another button on the phone, “CAG, Captain, Admiral says hold your planes here. We’re in no danger of going down. I want your anti-sub copters up. CAG, find that SOB that hit us. When you find it, sink it!”
“Aye, sir.”
Two minutes later four anti-submarine helicopters lift off of the Lincoln’s deck. Each is armed with two anti-submarine torpedoes. They have orders to find and sink the Chinese submarine who struck their carrier.
Meanwhile on the Chinese submarine Ling, the crew rejoiced over their torpedoes striking their target, the USS Lincoln. The Ling’s captain, SingHo told his men to be quiet and to turn 90 degrees to port. He knew he and the other Chinese submarines kicked over a hornet’s nest of very angry hornets, each with a fatal stinger. He knew the US Navy was going to pour every resource they have into finding and destroying them. Ten minutes into their turn, they hear a strong sonar pulse strike their submarine. “Captain, Sonar, US Navy dipping sonar just located us. Recommend we come to a new course of 225 degrees.”
“Sonar, Captain, keep me informed. Control, change course to 225 degrees. Crew of the Ling, this is the captain, we need total silence, the US Navy is hunting us.”
Unknown to the Ling’s captain the US Navy has her plotted. Between the helicopters and a destroyer, they have the Ling in a box. A helicopter hovers over the Ling, she releases one of her Mark 50 digital lightweight torpedoes. The torpedo enters the water above and slightly to the right of the Ling, it went active the moment it hit the water. The digital signal processor in the torpedo quickly locates the Ling, it accelerates to 45 knots, striking the Ling where the conning tower meets the hull. The torpedo’s warhead blows a hole in the Ling, the Pacific Ocean flows in sinking the Ling wi
th all hands.
Within two hours of the Chinese attack against the US carriers, five of the six Chinese submarines were found and sunk. The American damage control was well trained, they got the fires on the four carriers under control within two hours, the Nimitz was the only carrier of the four struck that was able to get one of her four screws turning. She was able to make eight knots. The other three required ocean tugs to take them under tow to Pearl Harbor where it is hoped they could be repaired. Admiral Long wanted to keep the carriers in the area in case he needed their firepower.
The Liaoning’s captain had just received the news that the Chinese submarines were able to surprise and damage four of America’s carriers. He turned to his aide saying, “I’d hoped for a clean sweep of all six, but taking four out beats the computer projection of taking down three of them. Our fleet has enough anti-air weapons to take down their combined air wings. We’ll fly our attack planes just a few meters over the wave tops. Our planes will come in under their radar coverage, we’ll surprise them again and take out their last two carriers before they can launch at us.”
