Fourth Crisis: The Battle for Taiwan (30 page)

The Helix dropped its nose and bolted toward the new
coordinates.
 
It arrived quickly, lobbed
its second torpedo into the water, and dropped into a hover before dipping its
sonar for a good listen.
 
The Helix transmitted
the data back to
Qingdao
’s warfare
center.
 
Listening to the sonar’s
microphone, the sonarman encountered a whooshing sound that he did not
recognize.

The Helix reeled in the long wire with the sonar transducer
at the end.
 
Done fishing at this spot,
it readied to move to a new position.
 
The pilot noticed a splash some 300 meters away.
 
He watched as a white canister broached the
sea surface and leapt into the air.
 
The
canister peeled apart and a puff of smoke and a streak of blue erupted.

As its underwater housing fell back to the water, the small Stinger
missile rode its booster into the sky.
 
Once
at 2,000 feet, the booster fell away and pulled an oblique parasail from the Stinger’s
tail assembly.
 
The wing-shaped parachute
pointed the Stinger’s nose at the water, swinging the missile’s infrared seeker
back-and-forth in a big figure eight.
 
The Stinger found the Helix’s big, hot turbines and locked on.
 
The parachute released, and the main motor
fired.
 
The Stinger accelerated through its
dive and drove right into the Helix’s counter-rotating blades and engine
pylon.
 
Seven pounds of high explosives went
off and the Chinese helicopter then became a fireball, its wreckage dropping to
the sea and sinking like a rock.
 
Next, a
big Tomahawk rose from the water’s surface.
 
The American anti-ship cruise missile configured for flight and headed
for the Chinese guided-missile destroyer
Qingdao
.

Commander Wolff felt he had lingered too long at missile
launch depth.
 
Although he had been able
to destroy the helicopter and get in a shot in at the surface threat, this
lingering had allowed both Shang One and Yuan One to get in behind his boat.
 
California
dove, picked up speed, and banked into a sharp turn.
 
The sonarman heard the rush of several
torpedo shots and called it out.
 
Wolff
ordered countermeasures.

Four Chinese heavy torpedoes passed through the noisemakers
and activated,
California
directly
ahead.
 
Her propeller shredded the water
as she dove and turned.
 
All four of the
big torpedoes acquired the American submarine and accelerated.

Kun brought his boat behind the fleeing American, while his
comrade in
#330
slowed and hung back
to become the anvil to
Changzheng 6
’s
hammer.
 
High above the scrambling
submarines and with a cruise missile headed her way,
Qingdao
maneuvered and prepared to defend herself.

Qingdao
ripple-fired
her Red Banner short-range air defense missiles.
 
They streaked off and trailed ropes of white
smoke, leaving a puffy white cloud that enveloped
Qingdao
’s quarterdeck.
 
One
Red Banner collided with
California
’s
single Tomahawk anti-ship missile, consuming it in an explosion that scattered
debris and wreckage to the water.
 
Driven
on by her furious captain perched in the bridge,
Qingdao
rammed through the waves.
 
The Chinese destroyer sped to close the distance on the American
submarine’s likely position, where the captain planned to bring his
rocket-delivered torpedoes to bear.
 
Despite surprise and initial success, the American nuclear attack submarine
was now heavily outnumbered and on the defensive.

California
leveled
from the turning dive and deployed a towed decoy from the hull dispenser.
 
The decoy broadcasted noise typical of a
nuclear power plant, to acoustically tempt the Chinese torpedoes away from the submarine.
 
It worked with the first pursuing torpedo,
which zeroed on the decoy, detonated, and committed fratricide on the other
Chinese weapons that ran in close proximity.
 
The generated pressure wave caught
California
in the ass and shook her hard.
 
Pipes
burst and high-pressure air lines whistled, rocking
California
to her bones.
 
Lights flickered and emergency lighting kicked on in the control
center.
 
Panel warning lights began to
flash as system after system showed wounds.
 
A worrisome clank broadcast into the water, and damage reports started
coming in from the engine and reactor compartments.
 
The pressure wave passed.
 
California
and her submariners quivered in its wake.

“Come on, Cali’ girl, keep it together,” Wolff pleaded.
 
In the red shadows, he watched the
chief-of-the-boat as he scurried from station to station.
 
Although injured,
California
had survived and the Chinese weapons had been
destroyed.
 
The large underwater
explosion had also advantageously released billions of bubbles.

“Ensonified area astern,”
California
’s sonarman announced.
 
The sonic wall now obscured
California
from
Changzheng 6
’s listening
devices, and provided the American submarine the chance to sneak away.
 
In his usual unpredictable fashion, Wolff
ordered the sub’s propeller stopped and the boat put into a stationary dive, a
maneuver last practiced under the Arctic ice sheet.
 
As the propeller slowed and stopped turning,
the rhythmic clanking disappeared.
 
This confirmed
the origin of the noise: a bent shaft.

“The boat is stationary,” the XO reported.

“Take us down, Tom.”
 
California
dropped straight and level
into the abyss.

Changzheng 6
passed
overhead.
 
The American was not where Kun
thought he was.
 
The Chinese submarine
let off a single active sonar ping.

“Shoot,” Commander Wolff ordered.
 
A Mark 48 departed one of
California
’s bow tubes.
 
The submarine’s
weapons officer had set the torpedo’s engine to run slow and
shallow.
 
The Mark 48 tipped back and
started to climb through
Changzheng 6
’s
baffles.

Changzheng 6
’s
sonar screens were still flooded by residual noise.
 
Her sonarman rebuilt the tactical picture as
Kun impatiently hurried him along.
 
The
sonarman suddenly looked to the captain.
 
A sound made him grimace as though in pain.

“Torpedo,” he screamed.
 
Kun ordered countermeasures and full speed on the motor.
 
Changzheng
6
accelerated.
 
The American
torpedo’s electromagnetic coil detected the Chinese submarine’s metal
hull.
 
Its high-explosive warhead and
remaining fuel blew up, forming a bubble jet that expanded into
Changzheng 6
’s propeller.
 
The blades bent, a vertical stabilizer cracked
off, and a welded hull seam yielded to the overpressure.
 
Freezing seawater entered the shaft stuffing
box and began to flood the aft engineering spaces.
 
The executive officer ordered the pumps
activated and the transfer of water to the ballast tanks.

“Blow it overboard,”
Changzheng
6
’s executive ordered, pressing his kerchief to the bleeding gash on Kun’s
forehead.

“The pumps can’t keep up,” someone announced in the
flickering compartment light.

Seawater entered the submarine’s machinery compartment. The
high temperature gas-cooled nuclear reactor scrammed when its systems shorted.
 
With the reactor shutting down and only
batteries left to power backups,
Changzheng
6
slowly began to sink backward.

Despite noisy protests from the propulsor duct,
California
came up to six knots.
 
Her sonarman confirmed the position of the
explosion, while listening to the sinking Chinese submarine.

Changzheng 6
tipped
onto her side.
 
Captain Kun and his
executive landed on a pile of dead and dying men.
 
The shattering hull emanated a crystalline
resonance.
 
It sounds like breaking glass
.
 
This recognition was Kun’s very last thought.

A muffled thud emanated from the deep, coming through
California
’s bulkhead speaker.
 
Wolff contemplated the fate of the Chinese
submariners.
 
Training told him that, in
an implosion, the sea entered so quickly that air within the hull ignited and
burned.
 
He shook the horrific thought,
and offered a quick, silent prayer for the vanquished men.

“Where is that diesel-electric?
 
And get me an update on that goddamned
destroyer.”
 
Wolff had been forced to
kill, and was angry about it.
 
Angry at
the idiots that started this scrap.
 
And
angry at those who let the US Navy degrade to the point where the Chinese
actually believed they could control the Pacific, thus placing his boat and
crew in harm’s way.

“Splashes.
 
Multiple
torpedoes in the water.
 
They’re diving
to different depths and starting to search,”
California
’s sonarman reported.
 
“Luhu One has turned away and is speeding up; same course as the rest of
the Chinese battle group.”

Wolff crawled into his enemy’s head.
 
The destroyer captain knows one of their
submarines was dead, so he’s putting a bunch of ordinance between him and me,
and heading back to his buddies, Wolff estimated.

“Yuan One?” Wolff asked, worried about that which he could not
see.
 
People’s Liberation Army Navy submarine
#330
announced her continued presence
with a torpedo shot.

Over the clatter of
California
’s
damage, the sonarman heard the high-speed counter-rotating propellers of the
Chinese weapon, and alerted
California
’s
conn.

“Countermeasures.
 
All
rise,” Wolff had now ordered noisemakers and the fairwater planes set for a
steep ascent.
 
Then he ordered a torpedo
sent right back at his rival.
 
Although
she may not be able to maneuver,
California
could still bite, Wolff resolved.

“Torpedo just went active,” sonar declared.

“Can you identify?” Wolff demanded.

“Sounds to me like a Chinese Type 40 heavy, sir.”

Wolff turned to the XO and asked, “Hey, Tom, what’s the search
frequency of that fish?”

Reading his skipper’s mind, the XO went to the sonar
station, looked over the weapon’s specifications, and set the advanced sonar
sphere in
California
’s bow dome to
match the wavelength of the search sonar on the Chinese weapon.

“Hammer,” Wolff ordered, and the XO pushed the button.
 
California
blasted sound into the water.
 
The noise
cancelled seeker transmissions from
#330
’s
torpedo and saturated its receiver with hundreds of false targets.
 
Confused, the Chinese heavy torpedo began to
veer from
California
.

California
’s Mark
48 activated just 40 yards off
#330
’s
bow.
 
Using staccato pings, the 48 slammed
into the Chinese submarine’s forward hull, exploding on contact.
 
The shock wave shattered the high-tensile
steel and opened
#330
’s pressure hull
to the sea.
 
A supersonic liquid
juggernaut approached the submarine’s control room and rammed its bulkhead
hatch.
 
The door warped and burst from
its frame, shot across the bridge, and pulverized everything in its way.
 
A jagged hole marked where
#330
’s bow dome used to be.
 
The Chinese submarine flooded and began a
final plunge.
 
Her ruin crash-landed on a
deep rocky outcropping and, in the aftermost compartment, twelve Chinese
submariners lit oxygen-generating candles and exchanged stories of loved
ones.
 
One-by-one, however, they succumbed
to foul air and freezing temperatures.

“Give these hostile waters a wide berth,” Tom, Wolff ordered.

The XO established a course due east.

Commander Wolff knew the war was now over for
California
and her crew.
 
The American nuclear attack submarine limped
from the area.

◊◊◊◊

The Chinese aircraft carrier
Liaoning
and her escorts tore through waves, steaming south
directly at the American task force.
 
In
the dark of night, between the huge, merging naval formations, the last
surviving submarine of the Taiwanese navy waited;
Hai Hu
, the Sea Tiger.
 
The
diesel-electric attack submarine waited on the surface, where she snorkeled
fresh air and recharged her batteries beneath the sparkling stars.
 
Hai Hu
had just escaped an encounter with two Chinese destroyers, lived through a near
hit from a light torpedo, and barely escaped a hail of depth charges.
 
Half of the crew was dead.
 
The other half shivered and gasped at the
fresh air that breezed through compartments heavy with stale air.
 
Perched atop the sail, the captain peered up
at the Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper.
 
A meteorite’s burning trail sparkled for a moment and a warm breeze
refreshed his face.