Ghost Fleet : A Novel of the Next World War (9780544145979) (56 page)

Fifty-Five Miles Northwest of the
Zumwalt
, Pacific Ocean

The remaining Shrikes climbed steeply up to sixty-five thousand feet and raced toward the coordinates provided by the
Orzel
. They flew in a tight stack of wedges, each pilotless aircraft programmed to hold itself exactly seventeen inches away from the next. The distance had been chosen by the Shrike software designer after reading that the closest that human pilots would risk was the eighteen inches of distance that Blue Angels pilots put between their planes during their Diamond 360 maneuver.
¹³⁴
The effect was to blur the drones' already small radar signatures into one.

Within minutes, the formation crossed the white wakes of the Russian and Chinese surface-ship formation, arced out in a wide curve.

They relayed the image back to the bridge of the
Zumwalt
.

“Sir, we have a video burst from the flight. They've got visuals on the enemy surface task force. Looks like the Puffin missiles took out three of the smaller ships, but four biggies, including the
Zheng He
, are steaming in our direction at flank speed, fifty-five miles out,” said the tactical officer. “We're in their missile range now. I'm not sure why they haven't fired again.”

“They're likely as low on missile stocks as we are,” said Simmons. “Looks like they're planning on making it personal, finishing us off with guns.”

“Redirect the drone flight at them?” said the tactical officer.

“No, taking out the enemy's remaining carriers is more important than even us,” said Simmons. “Proceed as planned.”

The drones flew onward past the surface ships, indifferent to both the tension that this bypass caused the American fleet and the relief it gave to the surface ships below.

Admiral Zheng He
Bridge

The shouting on the bridge of the
Admiral Zheng He
subsided as the aircraft flew on. It had not been visible, but radar had initially picked it up at over thirteen miles overhead. They tried to shoot it out of the sky but it was impossible to get a radar lock. That it had not come in low pointed to its being one of the Americans' surveillance aircraft, perhaps one of their rumored high-altitude drones. They passed on the information to the aircraft carrier element's combat air patrol and ordered a pair of fighters to intercept.

A single surveillance plane would confirm the surface screening force's position to the Americans. But they would also know it didn't matter. His force was closing in on the remains of the U.S. task force to finish them off. Any kind of follow-up attack from the American mainland would come too late. They were alone, soon to be cut off, and as vulnerable as any enemy commander could hope. It would be an absolute victory, the kind Sun-Tzu had written about but never achieved in his own career.

Wang considered for a moment that perhaps, once his staff reviewed his command footage and records, he should write his own book.

USS
Zumwalt
, Forward Rail-Gun Turret

It was like being back on one of those road trips, the kids in the back seat of the station wagon constantly asking the same question over and over.

“Damage crew, how much longer?” said Captain Simmons into the radio.

Yet it also nagged the old man that it had taken this kind of moment for him to see his son at his best.

Mike took in the showers of welding sparks raining down onto the crew below decks frantically trying to repair the rail-gun loading mechanism and the power cable connections.

“Twenty minutes,” said Mike.

“You have ten. That battle cruiser mounts one-hundred-thirty-millimeter main guns with a fifteen-mile range. You taught me boxing, so you know that I need that rail gun to be punching at them before we get inside their swing.”

“If we're going to fight the rail gun, Vern says we really are going to need to power down the bilge and auxiliary pumps. We can't do that, sir, not now. This ship wasn't designed to take hits. Big, top-heavy design like this, we risk taking on too much water and we'll roll.”

“Chief, I understand. Just focus on your job and I'll do mine.”

The little bastard is even starting to talk like me
, thought Mike.

USS
Zumwalt
Ship Mission Center

The display on the far wall showed the rail-gun turret free of the debris, but then a spray of sparks shot out from one of the holes punched in the deck. Out leaped Brooks; his work overalls were already singed at the legs, and now they were blackened about the shoulders. He was literally smoking. He threw an acetylene cutting torch down on the deck and cursed, first at the malfunctioning tool, then at the hole in the ship, and then at something in the distance, evidently the enemy fleet. Then the young sailor picked up the tool and went back into the hole. In that action, Jamie saw his father's influence.

“Sir, we've got a contact burning through the jamming. It must be close,” Richter at the radar station said. “Yes, I have the enemy task force at forty miles out. Four ships, one capital-ship size. That must be the
Zheng He
.”

The rail-gun turret tried again to swivel, but it just shook back and forth like a muzzled dog. Sneaking peeks up from their workstations, the crew whispered, getting visibly anxious.

Simmons cued his headset again, leaning forward to get a better look. “Damage control, how much longer is it going to take?”

“Jamie, I am not trying to assemble your goddamn bicycle on Christmas Eve! Just leave us alone and we'll get it fixed,” said Mike.

A few of the crew stifled laughs as the conversation played out on the room's speakers. Simmons grimaced in exasperation and shook his head, throwing the headset at the deck.

“Radar's picked them up, sir. Thirty-nine miles now,” said Richter. “I'm guessing they've developed the same tactical picture we have. They're now closing directly at us at flank speed.”

138 Miles Northwest of the
Zumwalt
, Pacific Ocean

The two Chinese J-31 fighter jets from the task force's combat air patrol elevated to follow the incoming target and then went to afterburner to close for a firing solution.

The pilots were angry. They hadn't been sent on the strike mission against the enemy fleet, which had most likely kept them from dying, but it left them furious at their impotence, all the more so when their wing mates didn't return. And now, twenty thousand feet below, the
Liaoning
, the carrier they had launched from, their home for the last two years, had smoke spilling out of its stern. A submarine had somehow snuck close enough to fire off a torpedo before the destroyer escort had sunk it. They had been bystanders yet again, powerless against an attack that had left their home listing badly to starboard. They were unsure if they would be able to land on it at the end of their patrol or if they would have to divert to one of the other carriers. That was a question to be answered later, though. Now, at least they could vent their fury on the American drone.

The lead pilot radioed that the radar signature of the surveillance drone coming in above them at seventy-seven thousand feet was strange. It didn't fit any profile in the recognition software, which conformed with the report from the surface-fleet element. He fired a long-range PL-12 air-to-air missile
¹³⁵
at it, and then a second one, just for good measure.

Moments later, there was an explosion above in the distance, followed by another. And yet the radar signature stayed on his screen. Still climbing altitude to close for visual range, his wing mate fired off a PL-10 short-range heat-seeking missile as added insurance.

As the fighter jets reached their maximum altitude of sixty thousand feet, they saw what looked like the silhouette of an arrowhead falling from the sky, a triangular drone of some sort diving back down to their level. At sixty-two thousand feet, when the third missile reached the target, its proximity warhead exploded a spray of metal shrapnel a mere hundred feet away. The arrowhead was clearly hit, showing a burst of orange flame and then smoke trailing as it fell toward them.

Yet as the arrowhead passed by them, the damaged drone seemed to shed a layer; a smoking plane peeled off. The rest of the triangular drone continued to dive at maximum speed at the task force below. As the two pilots pushed their fighter jets down to follow, straining against the g-forces as they lost altitude, their threat warnings began to sound. Somehow in the midst of its steep dive, the drone below had fired off six Sidewinder missiles, which turned and raced back up at them. They attempted to pull out, but it was too late.

The air-defense systems on the ships below tried to pick up a radar lock, but while the fighter pilots had had a silhouette view of the drones, the systems were faced with only thin, sixteen-inch wing edges coated with radar-absorbent material. At thirty thousand feet, a firing solution finally crystalized, but just as the system locked, the target seemed to dissolve. The Shrike drones spread out from one another, a closed network among them sharing a targeting algorithm that ensured they did not all select the same destination point. Lookouts on the ships began to visually pick out what looked like seven thin lines falling down toward them. At twenty-three thousand feet, one of the lines disappeared in an explosion, hit by a rising air-defense missile.

When the drones were at twenty thousand feet, the task force's machine cannon opened up, and their tracer bullets tried to connect with six thin, sixteen-inch wedges from miles away. The drones maxed their power, creating sonic booms that fell behind them as they accelerated well past the speed of sound.

Another drone was hit at a range of six thousand feet, leaving the five remaining Shrikes to reapportion their targets in the final seconds of their terminal fall. Flying down at maximum speed from almost directly overhead, an arrowhead slammed into the flight deck of each of the two undamaged carriers. The speed of the dive combined with the drone's mass drove each robotic kamikaze deep into the bowels of the ship. From five decks below, fiery explosions shot out through the gaping holes they had left. Then the explosions traveled across the length of the carriers, turning them into massive fireballs.

The listing
Liaoning
turned out to be the lucky one. The remaining Shrike hit its flight deck at an angle. It punched straight through the tilted flight deck and then went out through the hangar deck and into the sea below. The drone felt no disappointment at its failure to completely sink its target, just as its wing mates felt no pride at their success.

USS
Zumwalt
Ship Mission Center

“Sir,
Port Royal
is requesting to be released from escort duty so it can advance on the enemy force.”

“Permission denied. That battle cruiser's main gun range is two miles longer than the
Port Royal
's gun. They'll just stand off and pound the
Port Royal
, especially at that reduced speed. You heard the old man on the radio. Let's give him a little more time before we play the martyr,” said Simmons, sounding confident for the crew but inside hoping he was right to trust his father.

“Range is now twenty-eight miles,” said Richter, tracking the four ships of the enemy surface task force in, since the two fleets were now too close for radar jamming to be effective. When the ships were roughly thirteen miles away, they would come into visual range and her job would become redundant.

“Are they following the amphibs?” Simmons had ordered the transport ships in the task force to position themselves where they could support the troops ashore but were as distant as possible from the brewing battle between the surface ships.

“No, sir. Still steaming toward us,” said Cortez. “They want to finish this.”

“So do we,” said Captain Simmons.

USS
Zumwalt
, Forward Rail-Gun Turret

Vern dried her palm on her pant leg again and then picked up the plastic soldering gun by its greasy handle. This was the last section of wiring to lock back down, which she was thankful for because she could not take any more of the smoke, the smell, and the confinement inside the rail-gun turret. As for the fear, she had long since set that aside, balled it up somewhere next to the nausea in her stomach.

“Almost there,” she said, knowing that Mike was less than a foot from her and could see it just as well. The radio on his tool harness squawked and she heard the captain's voice.

“All right, damage control. Time's up. Clear out.”

Vern pulled the trigger on the soldering gun again and ran it smoothly over the surface of the insulated coupling for the rail gun's high power line; the plastic of the fitting liquefied and melded together.

She heard Mike curse under his breath. He cleared his throat and keyed the microphone with an aggressive click: “
Zumwalt
Actual, we need one more minute. That's all. Vern's literally down to the last wires here.”

“If he doesn't give us more time, we're going to get a cold weld. It's not going to fully fuse, and the bond might snap right at the seam line if it gets any added force on it,” Vern said.

“Damage control, repeat, clear decks, copy!” said the captain.

“When I say we're almost there, you know damn well I mean it,” said Mike. “Hold for just one minute. Do you copy?”

Klaxon horns sounded an alert across the ship.

“All hands, this is the captain, clear decks; rail-gun battery preparing to fire. Powering down main systems.”