Area Denial (Maelstrom Rising Book 7)

by Peter Nealen

  He was scanning the message log, then pointed at an error message on the screen with a triumphant look on his face. “Well, what do you know? Our jammer worked.” At Hank’s raised eyebrow, he nodded. “We turned it on as soon as we started popping smoke. Just in case.” Looking back down at the message log, he traced the error messages after the first. “We really didn’t know if we were hitting the right freqs in the right sequence. Looks like we got lucky… Wait.”

  “What?”

  “Fuck.” Chan straightened as he tapped the screen one last time. “Not quite the right sequence. Something got through.” Both men looked up at the windows, in time to see a pair of helicopters rise from the Dalian and one of her escorts. “Guess we need to move fast.”

  “What have we got on the anti-ship missiles?” Hank stepped up to join Chan at the next console over.

  Chan was frowning as he scanned the screens. Most of the command center’s consoles were little more than desks with laptops installed within purpose-built cubbies. But those laptops had some serious capability built in, judging by Chan’s reaction as he went around the room. The techs were still huddled in the corner, Huntsman watching them balefully, his M5 ready in his hands, most of them alternating between staring at Huntsman and watching Chan go from screen to screen, not without some trepidation.

  “We’ve got full control of the point-defense guns here.” He pointed to a set of laptops near the back of the room. “Including radar targeting. We could just have the boys torch the ZBD-05s and pull everybody back here.”

  “We could, but then we might have to fight our way back out to the ships.” Hank preferred having some extra cover on their extract. “Let’s leave the thermates to the last step.”

  “Fair enough.” Chan’s eyes lit up as he moved to the next console. “Here we go. Let’s see… Yeah. We’ve got full remote targeting control for the Saccades.” He was using the standard NATO reporting term for the YJ-83 anti-ship missiles.

  He looked up at the windows. “Those helos might cause us some trouble before I can get this squared away, though.”

  “Is Lind setting charges?” Hank was already starting to move for the door, motioning to LaForce and Bishop to join him.

  “He should be. He’s doing it with only one or two other guys, though, since we’ve had to secure those IFVs.” Chan was absorbed in the screen again, pulling a chair out and sitting down. He looked a little incongruous, wearing almost all American gear except for the acquired PAFMM camouflage. He could easily have passed for a PLAN marine if he’d wanted to.

  “I’ll head down and help out.” Hank glanced out at the incoming Z-9s flanking a bigger, bulbous Z-18. Those were going to be a problem. So was the CCG cutter coming in toward the reef behind them. But he had an idea. “See what you can do with those anti-ship missiles. We’ll handle the rest.”

  He hustled down the stairs with LaForce and Bishop, all three still moving carefully, weapons up and watching for the enemy. They reached the ground floor without incident, however.

  “Evans! Friendlies coming out!” Even as he called from the stairwell, Hank realized he hadn’t heard from Evans or Reisinger in a while, and he couldn’t be entirely certain that they were still there.

  “Come on out!” Evans vaguely hoarse voice was reassuring as it echoed down the hallway. Hank stepped out, getting eyes on the heavyset Triarius at the same time Evans spotted him. With nods of recognition, Evans turned back to the hallway, while Hank led the other two toward them. Reisinger was covering the door itself.

  For a moment, Hank seriously considered just pulling Evans and Reisinger out along with the others. There was a lot to do in a short period of time. But that would mean leaving Chan and the others without someone holding the door for them. That could go badly very quickly.

  “I’m afraid you guys are still going to have to stay here.” He looked over at LaForce and Bishop. “Either of you guys got smokes on you?” He had one, but most of the weight in his plate carrier—aside from the plates, which didn’t account for much—was ammo.

  “I’ve got one.” LaForce tapped his pouches. Bishop, though, shook his head.

  “Okay. We’re going to push out and get to Faris and Winkler.” Hank peered out the doorway. The cloud of smoke was still drifting across the platform from the docks, still aided by more HC smoke grenades. It had almost covered the entire pier. Once again, he was thankful the wind was as calm as it was. “Bishop, I need you to run back to the boat and get a couple more smokes.”

  Still cognizant that they were on hostile ground, the three men went through the door fast, dashing down the steps and across the short open space to the blue-and-gray ZBD-05, its 30mm cannon still pointed out at sea. The smoke was getting thicker, and Winkler was squinting and coughing slightly as they came up to the back hatch.

  Hank peered around the corner of the infantry fighting vehicle, judging how close the helicopters were getting. Then he pulled his smoke out of his vest, pulled the pin, and tossed it lightly behind the ZBD-05.

  “You trying to choke us out, Hank?” Winkler coughed again.

  “No, I’m trying to make it look like the fire’s spreading and provide some screening for what we’re about to do.” He keyed his radio. “Seven Two Five, this is Six Four Actual.”

  “Send it.” Lind sounded slightly winded. He must have been hustling to get charges set. The artificial island wasn’t that big, but there were still quite a few bits of infrastructure that needed demolition, and setting charges wasn’t a videogame matter of slapping something up and punching a button to arm it. He had to set each charge where it would do the most damage, prime it, and set up the detonator for remote activation. Explosives are dangerous things, and running around with a bunch of TNT and C4 primed and ready to go was often a recipe for disaster.

  “Can you get me an early boom? Preferably in the tanks just across from the boats?” Hank was still watching the oncoming helos, which appeared to be heading either for the open concrete pad immediately south of the main building, or the weirdly landscaped area to the east.

  “I’ve got charges already set and primed, but I can’t mess with the detonators without setting everything off,” Lind replied. “And we’re up by the north tanks right now.”

  “Roger.” Hank had hoped for those extra fireworks, but maybe the smoke alone would do. The helos were coming in closer, and LaForce, seeing what the plan was, popped his own smoke and tossed it out on the concrete. Visibility was getting noticeably shorter, and the thick white obscurant was scratching at the backs of their throats.

  “Faris!” Hank stuck his head inside the vehicle. “Get ready to rotate that turret and take the nearest helo under fire as soon as they start to descend into the smoke.” He stepped in closer, making sure that Faris was paying attention. That had been a problem in the past. “Make sure you wait until the last moment, you understand me? This has to look at least something like an accident.”

  “Roger.” Ordinarily, that would mean I understand and will obey, but Hank had heard it from Faris enough times as more of a vocal dismissal than anything else. Still, that hadn’t happened in a while, and Faris knew just as well as any of them that his ass was on the line here, too.

  Bishop came running back with a satchel full of smoke grenades, and immediately popped another one and tossed it out. The thick cloud from the pier was still billowing toward them; Chan’s crew must have had a smoke pot going, rather than just a few grenades. They’d gone all out.

  The three helicopters were coming in, flaring and whipping massive whorls of smoke around their rotor wash as the Z-18 came in and tried to clear a landing zone. This was apparently the reef’s standard LZ, since he wasn’t circling while trying to contact the ground to clear it. The two Z-9s on either flank were circling, waiting their turn, but they were still close.

  Faris, to his credit, waited as long as he needed to. The smoke was getting blown away from the LZ, clearing their visibility, as the big medium-lift helicopter, p
ainted light blue and sporting the crimson stars of the People’s Liberation Army Navy on its tail, settled toward the LZ.

  Then, quick as a striking snake, Faris spun the turret around and put a burst of 30mm fire through the bird at point-blank range, while it was still hovering about fifty feet off the deck.

  The cannon spat fire with a deafening chunk-chunk-chunk, sending tracers the size of golf balls into the helicopter’s flank, smashing through thin aluminum skin, struts, and delicate machinery. He tracked the fire up the side of the Z-18, having timed his burst perfectly to run the burst right into one of the circling Z-9s right behind it.

  With a thunderous boom, the Z-18 crashed to the ground, fragments whickering through the air, shattering glass in the main building. The still-spinning main rotor came apart, chunks of metal and fiberglass flying into the side of the building and over the ZBD-05. Hank and the others had put the body of the IFV between themselves and the crash site. A good thing, too, because several larger bits of frag skipped off the roof with a loud clang.

  One of the other ZBD-05s, just a hundred fifty yards away, pivoted its turret and blew the second Z-9 out of the sky and into the water, timed almost perfectly to hopefully make it look to a distant observer as if the Z-9 had been struck by fragments from the crashed Z-18. The Z-9 tilted over, smoking, and spun into the shallow ocean a couple hundred yards off to the west, striking with a splash and sinking almost immediately beneath the deep blue waves.

  Then everything went quiet again, at least for a moment. The smoke billowed up and covered over the wreckage, which was starting to burn and add its own black smoke to the clouds of white and gray that already half-obscured the artificial island. Hopefully, without on-the-ground observation—which Hank hoped Chan remembered to wipe from the CCTV system—this would all look like a massive, tragic accident turned into a vicious chain reaction.

  Well, at least for a little bit longer. The big surprise was yet to come.

  Hank came around the back of the ZBD-05, LaForce and Bishop following. Faint moans of pain were coming from the wreck of the Z-18, turning into screams as the flames mounted.

  None of them felt entirely comfortable, turning their backs to that fiery abattoir as they headed back toward the pier to get more explosives. But war was war, and they didn’t have the facilities to care for the wounded, anyway.

  The cutter was getting closer, circling out to the south to come in along the dredged channel to the pier. Their time was running out.

  Chapter 28

  “All charges are set. Heading back to the boats.” Lind sounded like he was running, and he probably was. He and his fire team were all the way up on the northern jetty, with almost a half mile to cover to get back to the pier. And the Chinese cutter was now less than a nautical mile away, already hailing the artificial island and demanding reports.

  It didn’t seem as if the cutter had seen the 30mm fire that had downed the second Z-9. But they couldn’t be sure, so they had to move fast.

  “Seven Two Actual, Six Four.” Hank still hadn’t seen the men come out of the main building. “Time’s flying.”

  “Affirm.” Chan sounded busy. “Two more minutes.”

  Hank was already back aboard the captured squid boat, watching the oncoming CCG cutter, wishing really hard that he had the Jacqueline Q’s 30mms, or even one of the torpedo boats nearby. That Zhaoyu-class only had a single 30mm in her bow, but that could still do a number on a fishing trawler, not to mention the men aboard her. “Make it fast.”

  “Stand by.” A moment later, Hank got a taste of what Chan had been working so hard on.

  The Gaven Reef point defense towers were tall, hexagonal structures of concrete, topped by armored 30mm guns, arranged around the central building in an array that almost looked like a swastika from the air. Two of them could easily cover the southwest quadrant, and now both of them pivoted and opened fire on the low, white silhouette of the cutter, spitting fire in the near-dark of late twilight, their hammering, chunk-chunk-chunk reports echoing over the water.

  More flashes sparked along the cutter’s flank and water geysered up from near misses around it. The cutter immediately started to turn away, and Hank was sure that the Chinese channels were currently filled with angry, near-panicked demands that the defenders stand down.

  Then the evening really lit up.

  Flame roared from the rear of multiple blue-tone camouflage trucks, and with roaring hisses, the entire battery of YJ-83 Saccades raced into the air, their smoke adding to the already thick pall that hung over Gaven Reef. Three of them arrowed toward the west, while the rest rose and shot off to the southeast, quickly dwindling to tiny points of fire low in the sky, momentarily drowning out the first stars of night in the dome overhead.

  Flashes flickered in the west as fire was exchanged between the Dalian and the Đinh Tiên Hoáng. That might have been avoidable, but there had been only so much that the Triarii—and the Tiradores, for that matter—had been willing to tell the Vietnamese. The Vietnamese frigate was now maneuvering, and had opened fire with her own guns—they were still too close for missiles—apparently believing that the anti-ship missiles were aimed at her.

  They weren’t. And even if they had been, the one minute that it took for the missiles to streak across those ten nautical miles between Gaven Reef and their targets wouldn’t have afforded the Đinh Tiên Hoáng nearly enough time to maneuver.

  The first missile struck the Yuncheng near the bow, and the water lit up again with a brilliant flash as the missile warhead fireballed against the frigate’s hull. The second, only a fraction of a second behind the first, slammed into the Liuzhou’s superstructure with another massive fireball. In seconds, both ships were burning, the Yuncheng already down at the bow, her decks awash.

  The Dalian presented a more difficult target. Built with certain stealth characteristics, if the cruise missile had been relying on radar, she might have been difficult to hit. But from barely ten nautical miles away, and with precise targeting laid in from optical as well as radar inputs, the YJ-83 arrowed in and struck the Dalian right at the forward edge of her helo deck.

  The third flash lit up the sea, and then Chan and the rest were running through the smoke toward the pier. One of them had Taylor’s body slung over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry, and Hank felt a surge of silent gratitude that the man’s body hadn’t been left behind. “All hands, get in, get in, get in!” Hank all but roared over the radio. He could just make out Faris and Winkler piling out of their captured ZBD-05, one of them pausing just long enough to toss a thermate grenade inside. Nothing would be left for the enemy if they could avoid it.

  It took less than two minutes to get everyone aboard and heads counted. To Hank’s surprise, they had met no additional resistance on the way out. Some of the PLAN personnel had been seen trying to get the surviving wounded out of the wreckage of the Z-18, but the Triarii had run past them in the smoke without the Chinese apparently noticing them at all.

  “Six Four, up.” Dunlap was already spooling up the engines, and had already begun backing water, pulling the tiller over to draw them past the bow of the Thermidor. The big ship’s engines were already thrumming, her captain apparently no more eager than the Triarii to stick around as everything seemed to be on fire on Gaven Reef.

  He had no idea what was coming.

  “Seven Two Actual, up.”

  “Seven Two Five, up.” All three boats were moving away from the pier now, backing water until they could come about and get away at full speed ahead. That wasn’t all that fast, given they were all fishing trawlers, but they should be able to get some distance before things got really sporty on the reef.

  “That cutter’s still out there.” LaForce was watching with night vision binoculars. “She’s gotten some distance, and I think she’s still looking at the fucking devastation we just wrought with their own weapons, but she’s still out there. And she’s still afloat.”

  “We’ll give her a wide berth.”
Hank moved to join him, only to have their view cut off as Dunlap brought the boat around, pointing off to sea. They shifted across the bridge as they pulled away from Gaven Reef, the other two boats trailing behind, still letting off some smoke from their screen. “Is she still under power?”

  “Looks like it.” LaForce still had his eyes glued to the binoculars. “And I think her gun’s still intact, too. Hard to tell from this distance, though.”

  “She’s hailing us.” Dunlap pointed at the radio, which was indeed squawking in Mandarin over the maritime frequency.

  “Faris, you’re up!” Hank barked.

  Faris looked put upon. “You’d think I wouldn’t be the only guy who’d studied the damned language.” A glower from Hank put an end to his muttering, however, and he grabbed the handset.

  He jabbered back at the cutter in Mandarin, then listened to the reply. His eyes widened a little at what he heard. He tried another transmission, but was apparently cut short. He looked up at Hank, his face a little scared. “They want us to hold position. I tried to tell them there’d been a terrible accident and that we were getting away before our ships burned, but they’re not having it. And Hank? I think their gun is still working.”

  “Probably is.” Hank grimaced as he looked at the situation. Three warships burning on the horizon. More low fires on the artificial island astern. Damn, I wish we had some raiders with us. It wouldn’t have maintained the façade they’d needed to get to the island, though. “Okay, start turning toward them.”

  “What?” Dunlap’s head snapped around to stare at him. “We’ll be sitting ducks.”

  “She’s damaged.” Hank was studying the cutter. “You can see that at least one or two of those 30mm rounds went in below the water line. She’s listing to starboard, and she might still have her gun, but several of her radar masts are smashed. She’s at a disadvantage.”

  “Not as much as we are, unless you managed to get one of those 30mms aboard.” Dunlap was clearly not happy about this idea.