Empire Rising (26 page)

FUJIAN PROVINCE, CHINA

Along the shore of the East China Sea, in a dark room deep inside sloping cliffs, Captain Zhou Pengfei stood tensely behind one of the eight consoles in the control room, his face illuminated by blue icons moving south through the Taiwan Strait. As Zhou studied the display, his thoughts drifted back a few days, to the unexpected visit by his country's president. That Xiang Chenglei had visited three times meant his missiles would play a crucial role in the battle. But none had been fired so far. However, he had received orders a few minutes ago. All forty batteries were to open fire precisely at noon. He checked the clock on the nearest console, its red numbers contrasting with the blue icons on the monitor below.

Two minutes to go.

Zhou stepped next to his Targeting Officer, reviewing the missile assignments. Their thirty-two missiles had been assigned to the lead American carrier strike group heading south. Five quad-launchers would target the carrier, with the remaining dozen missiles directed against the cruiser, destroyer, and frigate escorts. One missile was enough to cripple an escort, but an aircraft carrier was another matter. It would take several direct hits to seriously harm one, and a few torpedoes to finish it off. However, with the aircraft carrier's escorts destroyed and fires raging inside the carrier, it would make it easier for their submarines to move in for the kill.

One minute remaining.

Captain Zhou reached up, pressing a button beneath the display. Turning toward a second monitor, Zhou watched the portal at the front of the missile battery casement retract slowly upward, providing a flight path for the missiles. A wide, yellow shaft of light streamed into the dark launch chamber, reflecting off the missiles' white skin. Zhou glanced at the electronic clock above the display, counting down the seconds. When the clock reached noon, he gave the order to his men.

“Fire!”

 

41

USS
NIMITZ

The General Alarm was sounding throughout the carrier as Captain Alex Harrow slid down the ladder to 3rd Deck.
Nimitz
was fifty miles into the Taiwan Strait when things took a turn for the worse. At five minutes before noon, the Navigator reported all satellites had gone down—GPS, tactical links, even their communications satellites were unresponsive—leaving only line-of-sight voice, which was cumbersome at best. Moments later, the first barrage of missiles appeared on the horizon, slamming into the carrier's escorts.

Harrow decided to swing by CDC before heading to the Bridge. He stepped into the noisy Combat Direction Center, locating the Operations Officer, Captain Sue Laybourn, huddled over the Tactical Action Officer's shoulder. Laybourn looked up as Harrow stopped next to her, updating the ship's Captain. “The first round of cruise missiles was targeted at our escorts. The
Lake Erie
and
Shiloh
have been hit, along with four destroyers and one frigate.”

Captain Helen Corcoran exited Air Ops at the back of CDC, joining Harrow as the three Captains examined the Video Wall on the aft bulkhead, the left eight-by-ten-foot monitor displaying a video feed of their escorts to the west. Black smoke spiraled upward from seven ships; half of their escorts had been hit. As Harrow wondered how badly they were damaged, Captain Laybourn filled in the missing details.

“Our cruiser and destroyer Aegis Warfare Systems are completely off-line. They went down just before noon, when we lost our satellites. They're trying everything, but their systems won't respond. It seems China fooled us into thinking we had a solution to their malware in our Aegis Warfare System, saving their real assault for now.”

“What does this mean for the strike group?” Harrow asked.

“Our escorts still have their close-in weapon systems,” Laybourn replied. “But they're not very effective against these Chinese missiles. They're a new variant we haven't seen before. They travel at Mach speed and hug the ocean's surface. They also make last-second evasive maneuvers, making it difficult for our CIWS systems to lock on to, resulting in a seventy-five percent miss rate.”

As Harrow digested the grim news, red icons began populating the right display on the Video Wall, annotating another wave of incoming missiles. Twenty-eight missiles were targeted at the seven undamaged escorts, four per ship. Harrow watched tensely as each ship was able to shoot down only one of the four incoming missiles. Harrow felt helpless as the twenty-one surviving missiles slammed into his seven remaining escorts.

Black-fringed orange fireballs billowed up from the stricken ships, and Harrow wondered how they could remain in operation. But his concern was overshadowed by another wave of red icons appearing on the display. It didn't take long to determine that twenty missiles were headed toward
Nimitz
. With the carrier's escorts unable to defend
Nimitz
, that task fell to Captain Laybourn. Harrow looked on as Laybourn ordered
Weapons Free
and put the ship's missile and CIWS systems in auto.

With both sets of missiles traveling near the speed of sound, it took only a few seconds for the scenario to play out. Five of the carrier's ESSM and Rolling Airframe missiles hit their targets, and the remaining fifteen Chinese missiles continued onward. The carrier's CIWS Gatling guns activated as the missiles approached, churning out 4,500 rounds per minute. But the missiles began evasive maneuvers as they approached the carrier, veering left and right at unpredictable intervals, and only two of the fifteen missiles were destroyed by the carrier's last-ditch self-defense system.

Seconds later, the thirteen remaining missiles slammed into
Nimitz
. Explosions rumbled through CDC, and thirteen sections of the Damage Control Status Board illuminated red. All thirteen missiles had impacted the starboard side of the carrier, below the Flight Deck. Two missiles penetrated the Hangar Deck, and secondary explosions rippled through the ship as ordnance staged for reloading aircraft detonated.
Nimitz
had well-trained Damage Control Parties, and Harrow knew they were responding quickly. But thirteen simultaneous fires, compounded with secondary explosions, would strain his crew.

Harrow glanced at the monitors, displaying black smoke rising from every surface ship in his carrier strike group. They could not continue their mission, launching sorties against targets in China and Taiwan. They'd be lucky to exit the Strait alive. His job now was to recover his aircraft and retreat to the far side of Taiwan, where they could regroup and lick their wounds.

Harrow picked up the microphone. “Bridge, Captain. Reverse course and exit the Strait at ahead flank.” He turned to Captain Corcoran. “Recover the air wing. I don't know how much longer we'll be able to conduct flight ops.” He followed up with an order to Captain Laybourn. “Direct all escorts via line-of-sight comms to reverse course and exit the Strait at maximum speed.”

Corcoran and Laybourn acknowledged Harrow's orders as a bright flash lit up the Video Wall. USS
Lake Erie
had disintegrated in a massive explosion. The fires must have reached her magazine. A somber quiet descended upon CDC as Harrow and his crew reflected on the loss of the cruiser and the men and women aboard.

*   *   *

Harrow returned to the Bridge as
Nimitz
sped north, black smoke trailing behind the carrier. Only six of the thirteen surviving escorts had managed to keep up, black smoke likewise rising from their superstructures. As
Nimitz
continued north at ahead flank speed, a gut-wrenching sight greeted Harrow's eyes. The scattered remnants of the
Lincoln
Carrier Strike Group were adrift, eleven of the carrier's fourteen escorts ablaze, with three oil slicks on fire marking where the three missing warships had sunk beneath the ocean waves.

Thick, black smoke was pouring from every opening of USS
Lincoln
, and she was dead in the water. There were dozens of black puncture wounds in the side of the aircraft carrier where she had been struck by missiles, and the carrier's Island superstructure was completely destroyed, reduced to a mangled heap of blackened, twisted metal.
Lincoln
was also listing twenty degrees to starboard. She'd been torpedoed as well.
Lincoln
would not survive. Without propulsion, it was only a matter of time before she was finished off.

Harrow couldn't pull his eyes from the burning aircraft carrier. This wasn't supposed to happen. The United States Navy was the most powerful navy in the world. Yes, a few ships would be lost in an all-out confrontation with China or Russia, but the United States would easily prevail. At least that's what the war games had proven. Disbelief washed over Harrow.

How had they been so wrong?

The aircraft carrier's Officer of the Deck, Lieutenant Commander Michael Beresford, stopped beside Harrow, staring at their sister ship. Harrow's thoughts turned to the status of their aircraft when Beresford spoke. “
Lincoln
's air wing has been directed to land on
Nimitz
.”

Harrow nodded. It looked like Captain Helen Corcoran had picked up yet a third air wing. It was going to be a crowded ship. Luckily, the fires on the Hangar Deck had been extinguished, and the elevators between the Hangar and Flight Deck were still operational.

Harrow's thoughts returned to
Lincoln
, listing even farther to starboard now.
Lincoln
had been torpedoed, so Chinese submarines were out there, and Harrow struggled to understand where they had come from. Both strike groups had been traveling at ahead full, so whatever submarine had torpedoed the
Lincoln
couldn't have snuck up from behind. It must have slipped through the fast attack screen in front. But Harrow had difficulty believing the Chinese submarines had defeated their American counterparts.

With his thoughts dwelling on the underwater threat, he glanced at the MH-60R anti-submarine warfare helicopters, hovering nearby with their sonars dipped beneath the ocean surface, searching for Chinese submarines. The carrier's fast pace was hindering the MH-60Rs, forcing them to reposition frequently to keep up.

The first indication that
Nimitz
was in jeopardy was when a torpedo suddenly dropped from one of the MH-60Rs hovering eight thousand yards off the starboard bow. Harrow's eyes followed the Lightweight torpedo into the ocean, his eyes drawn to a thin streak of light green water headed toward
Nimitz
. The information coalesced quickly in Harrow's mind. The MH-60R had detected a Chinese submarine and attacked it. But not before the submarine had launched a Heavyweight torpedo toward
Nimitz
.

Lieutenant Commander Beresford also noticed the light green streak of water. He assumed the Conn from the more junior Conning Officer as he bellowed out, “Lieutenant Commander Beresford has the Deck and the Conn! Left full rudder!” The Helm acknowledged and
Nimitz
began twisting to port. After assessing the torpedo's approach angle, Beresford followed up, “Steady course three-three-zero!”

Nimitz
steadied up on its new course and Harrow watched as the torpedo traveled in a straight line; it hadn't detected the carrier and would pass behind them. He was about to breathe a sigh of relief when he remembered the Chinese Yu-6 torpedo, when fired in surface mode, was a wake homer. It would detect the carrier's white, frothy wake, then turn back and cross it again and again, weaving its way up the carrier's trail.

There was no point in launching torpedo decoys. As a wake homer, the Yu-6 was programmed to ignore acoustic decoys. As the light green trail crossed the carrier's wake, Harrow watched the torpedo turn toward
Nimitz
, beginning its snakelike approach, weaving back and forth across the carrier's wake, slowly gaining on them. Their only hope was to confuse the torpedo by maneuvering the aircraft carrier back across its own wake, forcing the torpedo to decide which way to continue. However, Harrow was no ship-driver; like all aircraft carrier commanding officers, he was a pilot. To evade the incoming torpedo, he would have to rely on the experience of his General Quarters' Officer of the Deck, Lieutenant Commander Beresford.

“Left full rudder!” Beresford called out. The Helm complied and the hundred-thousand-ton carrier tilted to starboard as the pair of twenty-by-thirty-foot rudders dug into the ocean. Beresford kept the rudder on as the carrier circled around. Beresford was conducting an Anderson turn, a complete circle. As the torpedo followed behind them, once
Nimitz
crossed its wake where they began their turn, the torpedo would be forced to choose which wake to follow. Hopefully, it would choose the wrong one.

Nimitz
crossed its original wake a minute later, the torpedo not far behind. “Shift your rudder!” Beresford ordered, “Steady course north.”

Beresford was steering the carrier off on a thirty-degree tangent to their original course, hoping the torpedo chose the wake heading to the left rather than the right. All eyes on the Bridge turned aft, watching the snaking torpedo reach the two intersecting wakes. Harrow momentarily lost the torpedo's light green trail as the torpedo traveled into the intersection of the wakes, his hope rising each second the torpedo failed to reappear. Finally, a light green trail emerged, snaking along the starboard wake.

The torpedo hadn't been fooled.

By now the torpedo was a thousand yards behind
Nimitz
. Harrow estimated they had less than a minute before it reached the carrier's stern, the last place he wanted to get hit by a torpedo. It would destroy the rudders and propellers, reducing the carrier to a drifting hunk of metal, awaiting the coup de grâce. As the torpedo steadily gained on
Nimitz
, Harrow glanced forward. One of
Lincoln
's escorts, USS
Bunker Hill,
with black smoke billowing upward from fires raging inside the cruiser, was adrift just off the port bow, five hundred yards ahead.