Lieutenant (An Ell Donsaii story #3) (24 page)

That man stuttered, “S-s-sir! This is a feed from the American news site CNN. They are reporting that we are about to invade ‘Taiwan’ and are displaying this map detailing what they believe to be the location of our forces. We have no idea why they would invent such a map?”

Icicles drove into Wang’s chest as he stared at the map.
Now
he noticed that the markings were in English. He turned and rapidly walked back across the room to stare at the main tactical display. On it markers for elements of his fleet made little jumping movements as their locations were updated. He knew where they were supposed to rendezvous but the American news agency’s map was much more elegant in its display of the progress of his fleet. He looked back over his shoulder at the CNN map. It seemed much the same but tingles in his scalp greeted his thought that the CNN map might be more accurate and even more up to date.
How can this be?
Wang turned to bellow at the Aerospace Command desk, “You have missed one of the American satellites! They are displaying the location of our fleet on their bái chī news services! Find it! The satellite might belong to one of their damned news corporations.”

The room paused for a moment of panic stricken silence then chattering swept across it as Wang stalked over to the Aerospace desk with murderous intent…

***

At CNN headquarters the announcer indicated the map displayed behind him. “This display of the Taiwan Strait has been provided to CNN by the White House itself. All American satellites, including CNN’s, over the eastern Pacific and China were destroyed at approximately midnight Eastern Standard Time. Statements from the People’s Republic claimed that the satellites were downed in order to stop Western spying on their ‘sovereign territory.’ Of note, they shot down communication satellites, not just observational satellites. White House press releases and this strategic feed suggest that the destruction of our satellites may have been a first blow in a strategy to ‘reclaim’ Taiwan which the People’s Republic has long asserted to be part of its own territory. It is unclear, however, how the White House has access to this constantly updating map of the Taiwan Strait which reportedly discloses the exact location of the Chinese naval assets. If, in fact, as claimed, all American satellites including military observation satellites are down, we have no idea how they are obtaining the information on this map…”

***

“General Wang.”

The general recognized the voice of the Chinese President in his earphone. “Yes?” the general responded irritably.

“The American news services are displaying a map that they claim shows our forces crossing the Taiwan Strait!”

“Yes sir. I’ve seen it.”

“Well? Is it accurate?”

“Surprisingly so.” Wang ground out.

“How?!” he paused, “How are they acquiring this information?”

“Exactly what I am asking Beijing Aerospace Command! They claim that they have taken down
all
the American and Taiwanese satellites but that cannot be, unless one of our ‘allies’ is providing them this information?”

“Could it be their planes?”

“Their planes send their data back by satellite. With the satellites out of commission, the planes would have to return and land and their information would not be ‘up to the minute’ like this map.”

“Should we abort?”

“Absolutely not! They cannot stop us!”

“My information says two of their Carrier Battle Groups are within range.”

“Extreme range.” The general said reassuringly. “Their planes can reach the theater but cannot loiter to acquire targets. The Taiwanese do not have the strength to stop us and the Americans are too far away. We will have the island firmly in hand before the Americans arrive, never fear.”

“OK.” the president said dubiously, then, “Wait, I have a call from the American President. I will patch you in so that you may hear what he has to say.”

Moments later the two men listened to the recognizable sound of the American President’s voice in the background with translator’s voice following in the foreground. The President did not sound angry or emotional. The translator said, “We, the American People protest the destruction of billions of dollars worth of our satellite technology. You have done this on the pretext of wanting your privacy without even a warning of your intent to do so. We demand compensation for the value of our satellite technology and negotiations regarding how the satellites of all countries may coexist.  More importantly, we note that the obliteration of our satellites occurred concurrently with the destruction of the satellites of the Republic of China, a country which
should
have the right to observe its own part of the world under your ‘privacy’ pretext. It is evident from the mobilization of your naval forces into the Taiwan Strait that the destruction of the satellites was actually just the first step in an invasion of the Republic of China. Your claim that the Republic of China is actually a part of the People’s Republic of China is belied by the necessity of the use of military force to obtain their cooperation.

“We the People of the United States of America hereby signal our intent to help the Republic of China defend itself against your aggression.”

Wang heard the seething undertone of fury in his own President’s response, “Americans have
no
right to interfere in internal affairs between the People’s Republic of China and its own rebellious province which only
characterizes
itself as an independent ‘Republic.’ Your vaunted military will not be able to significantly influence this internal disagreement without your space based spies.” Wang silently applauded those words and felt gratified to find that his own President had more spine than he had expected.

The American President responded enigmatically, “We are sorry that that is your response. We have deployed new technology that will provide us the ability to respond to your aggression even without our satellites. In an effort to avoid bloodshed, we will demonstrate that ability in the next sixty minutes. Goodbye.”

***

Allred heard Admiral Larsson’s voice in his earphone. “OK sub commanders, we have Command authorization for the ‘warning shots,’ alpha, hotel, delta, zulu, echo, foxtrot. Execute to achieve detonation 30 minutes from my mark… Mark.”

Allred looked to his weapon’s control officer and received a nod. He nodded back and shortly heard the deployment of the two torpedoes from their tubes. The fish dove below the thermocline in order to diminish their sonar profile and swam straight and true on their wire guidance using a speed that provided a low sonar signature. They precisely located themselves in front of the designated PRC warships’ courses—as provided by the RQ-7 loitering above, through Ell to the sub captains. The torpedoes paused at depth until a precisely calculated moment, then drove up to detonation depth.

***

Captain Lee dozed in his command chair on the bridge of his LST (Landing Ship, Tank), grateful for the relatively quiet seas that were allowing the embarked soldiers in his loading bays to transit the Strait without emptying their stomachs. A brilliant flash woke him and his eyes flashed wide to see a mountain of water rising in front of his bridge. Moments later the bow of his ship heaved up violently. Tremendous creaking indicated the strain placed on the frame of his landing ship. The top of the mountain of water blew open and water began pouring down out of the sky onto the upper works of the LST. Cursing he called out for damage reports and asked to be put in contact with Command.

***

“General Wang! Six underwater explosions have detonated, presumed to be torpedoes! They missed, but were very close and
exactly
off the bows of six of our ships! Some damage to the frame of three LSTs with leakage into the cargo bays holding their armored vehicles! Two destroyers also with frame damage and some leakage.”

Wang’s heart sank as he saw the plots of the location of the six ships subjected to the warning shots. There were two each at the front of his three groups. The destroyers had not picked up any torpedoes on sonar. How had the warheads been delivered? Submarines seemed obvious and the American submarines were famous for their stealth, but how had their president been able to communicate with submarines so immediately
while
they were stealthy? By report, the detonations had occurred
precisely
off the bow of all six ships indicating precision placement in keeping with the Americans’ damnable “smart weapons.” But
how
would their submarines have known where his ships were with such precision?
And
known which ships were military assets rather than civilian or cargo?

It was a convincing demonstration of their understanding of his tactical plan and their ability to deliver devastating blows at will. Radar on his missile boats had detected the first glimmer of American aircraft coming over the horizon and Taiwan was launching aircraft as fast as they could. The element of surprise was lost. For a moment he contemplated bulling through, but the defenders would have so many advantages from their apparent knowledge of
exactly
where his ships were. Even if they only had three submarines, each could be loaded with fifty torpedoes each or one hundred fifty total and they had just demonstrated that they could take out a ship with
each
torpedo. His aerial assets should have been able to readily overcome the ROC’s Air Force when they didn’t know where he was, but with this evidence that the Americans could vector their forces precisely to each of his ships, it would be a bloodbath, exactly what he had been told to avoid. With a heavy heart he said, “Get me the President.”

***

The CNN anchor looked up at the cameras. “We interrupt this broadcast with some good news. As you know the White House has been providing us a feed displaying the alarming naval deployments of the People’s Republic of China into the Taiwan Strait. That feed has, over the past twenty minutes, disclosed that the PRC naval elements have stopped advancing and begun to withdraw. The PRC has just announced that they have been conducting an ‘unscheduled naval exercise’ which has now been completed. Further they have apologized for not disclosing the nature of the events to the rest of the world more quickly and thus inciting so much tension.

“I believe that I can speak for the world as a whole when I say that we all rest easier now.

“There were no further announcements regarding the obliteration of Western and ROC satellites earlier except to say that the PRC would be willing to negotiate reparations for the costs of the destruction of the existing satellites and consider some verifiable means to allow restoration of communication satellites, though not ‘spy’ satellites over their part of the world again.”

***

A week had passed since the Chinese backed off. Ell sat in the PGR communication center wondering whether anyone remembered where she was? The civilians from PGR Comm had left the morning after, having completed their assigned setup task. Ell had, to their great delight, delivered the additional $10,000 to their accounts as promised. She and Major Geller were the only personnel assigned to the comm center. Now that the shouting had subsided, Colonel Whitt was no longer intimidated by Secretary Amundsen’s admonitions. The Colonel said he didn’t have any spare noncommissioned personnel to help watch over the comm center.

Major Geller felt shanghaied and abused. He spent most of his time trying to get assigned elsewhere.

The comm center didn’t really need much in the way of maintenance but Ell shuddered to think about what would happen to Pacific military communications if one of the chip racks failed for some reason, especially with no one present in the center to address the problem. She’d taken to sleeping on a cot in the comm center, stepping out for food and showers.

At least Colonel Whitt hadn’t denied them food in the commissary! It wasn’t all bad; things were so slow that Ell had been able to plan out several experiments and order equipment to be delivered to her apartment back in Las Vegas.

“Allan, please contact Amy.”

“Ell! Where are you now?!”

“Still in a hole somewhere on the East Coast. Does the sun still shine out in the big world?”

“My God! What do they have you doing?”

“Right now I’m maintaining a comm center for the military. It’s using my new chips.”

“Really? Does it actually need someone there maintaining it?”

“Well, not really, unless it goes down, then they’ll desperately need someone to fix it, that’s what I’m here for.”

“Crazy! Well what’cha need that you called?”

“I’d like to have you arrange removal of the wall between my lab and that empty bedroom.”

“What? Why?”

“I’ve ordered a bunch more equipment; there won’t be room to set it all up in the current lab.”

“Hah! Can do, but what if they permanently reassign you back East, wherever you are?”

“Well, we’ll just have the wall restored when we have them remove all those doorways we had installed.”

“OK, you still have no idea what’s going to happen next huh?”

Someone rapped on the doorway to the comm center. “Nope. Hey someone is here so I’ve got to go.” Ell said turning to the door and coming to her feet.

A Captain stood in the door, looking pinched. “Where’s Major Geller’s office?”

Ell shrugged, “Sir, I’m afraid he doesn’t have an office, he works out of the comm center here.”

“Where would I find him then?”

“I’m not sure sir. I can have my AI contact him if you’d like.”

“I thought he was in charge of some kind of high tech comm center?”

“Yes sir.”

“Well, where is that?”

“Sir, this is it.”

His eyebrows drew together, “When is the new equipment coming in?”

“Sir, that’s it.” Ell pointed to the five racks sitting against the far wall.

The Captain blinked slowly. “OK… please call him for me.”