Cyber Warfare and the New World Order

Ultimatum

In the dimly lit command center of the USS Seawolf, Commander Ramos approached Captain Thompson saying, “Sir, the enemy fleet is nearly on top of us right now. The carriers are approaching quickly.”

Captain Thompson looked at the face of his XO and just nodded. Surveying the Command Center, the captain could see the nervous looks on the faces of the men and women around him. They all knew that this was the moment they trained for, but it was hard not to think that these might be their final moments on this earth.

Turning to his weapons officer, Thompson asked, “Do we have a firing solution on the carriers?”

The weapons officer looked up at the Captain and nodded. “Everything is ready, Sir,” he replied.

The tension on the bridge was palpable; the crew were eager to attack the enemy capital ships but also scared and nervous that once they open fire, they may only have minutes left to live.

Looking at his XO, the Captain insisted, “Please go over our escape plan again.” He wanted to make sure they had fully determined how they were going to slip away once they had unleashed their deadly cargo of torpedoes.

The XO activated the attack and evasion plan on the holographic display. It immediately began to show the preplanned scenario. “Once the torpedoes are in the water, we are going to launch our two decoys: one will dive while heading East at ten knots, the other will dive heading Northeast at eighteen knots. The smokescreen should distract the enemy long enough for us to silently slip away. While the decoys are going, we are going to dive to our maximum depth at five knots and then go silent.” Commander Ramos spoke with confidence; he firmly believed that their plan was sound and would give them their best chance of success.

After running the scenario through in his mind, the captain nodded in acceptance. He paused for a moment, then looking to his weapons officer he ordered, “Fire all tubes! Chief of the Boat, launch the decoys and begin our dive!”

The crew had been prepared for the past twenty minutes to fire their torpedoes. Now that the order had been given, the tension in the room lifted; they knew their fate had been sealed and now it was up to them to outfox the enemy lurking all around them.

Within seconds, the entire sub began to shudder as all eight of their torpedoes left in quick succession. Then the two decoys left the sub and began their high-speed pursuit away from their current position. The Seawolf lurched downward, beginning its descent to its maximum depth, hoping to go unnoticed.

The torpedoes raced towards their targets quickly while the targeting AI determined where the weakest point in the target ships were and steered the torpedoes towards those points. As soon as the enemy fleet detected the incoming projectiles, they immediately sprang into action; multiple destroyers launched decoys, hoping to lure some of the torpedoes away from the carriers. Other ships began launching torpedoes of their own to go after the firing location of the American submarine. Several helicopters also dropped some of their own torpedoes on what they thought was the sub’s location.

The water under the enemy fleet became a buzz of activity with nearly a dozen torpedoes racing after various targets. Within a few minutes, two of the American torpedoes hit one of the destroyer’s decoys; the targeting AI had taken the bait. Seconds later, two other torpedoes hit one of the Chinese carriers, blowing an enormous hole along the keel of the ship. The remaining four torpedoes locked onto an individual carrier and exploded their ordinance directly under the ship, ripping a hole in the center of the hull and causing part of the ship to collapse into the newly created vacuum before the water rushed in to fill the gap.

The carriers shuddered from the impact of the explosion. It was not long before the lower decks of the capital ships started to fill quickly with water; the crew and damage control parties began to lock down the various compartments of the ship in order to try and save the undamaged parts. Hundreds of sailors were being sealed off below decks as they desperately tried to get beyond the quarantined decks. In minutes, the capital ships came to a complete halt as the damage control parties attempted to stabilize them.

In short order, the Chinese and Japanese torpedoes found and destroyed the Seawolf’s two decoys. Following their destruction, the anti-submarine helicopters began dropping sonar buoys as they tried to determine if they had succeeded in chasing off any additional submarines.

Captain Thompson looked around the Command Center and felt a sense of relief sweep through the crew. They had carried out an incredibly dangerous mission and seriously damaged the enemy fleet, and it looked like they were going to live to tell about it.

Turning to the COB, the Captain ordered the ship to continue their slow and steady course away from the enemy fleet. A quick call from the sonar room determined that the enemy fleet was looking for them about forty miles east of their current location. They had also determined that there were two enemy submarines in the area, but could not pin down their location. The Captain directed the sonar room to continue to monitor the enemy subs and ensure they stayed clear of them. He wanted to get their ship away from the enemy fleet for the moment and reposition to attack again in another twelve hours.

The JDF/PLAN fleet had left the safety of Pearl Harbor ten hours ago, and had begun to sail towards the enemy. Admiral Kawano knew this was going to be the final naval battle of the war. They would either defeat the American navy once and for all, or they would have to accept that America could not be invaded, at least not from the West Coast.

As the fleet made their way towards the Americans, alarm bells began to ring. One of the action officers began to shout, “Warning! Incoming torpedoes!”

Admiral Kawano’s carrier began evasive maneuvers, moving as quickly as a ship of their size could; they also deployed their drone decoys, in hopes that the enemy torpedoes might go for them. Several minutes went by, and then Kawano saw two explosions from one of the PLAN supercarriers. It appeared to have been hit by two separate torpedoes, one near the engine room in the rear of the ship, and the other under the keel.

Seconds later, Admiral Kawano felt the floor beneath him lift up…then his feet slammed down on the deck as gravity returned. He heard a deep rumbling through the ship and felt it quiver from what must have been the impact of a torpedo. The lights in the CIC flickered out and then came back on as the emergency generator kicked on.

“What in the blazes just happened?!” yelled one of the officers.

Admiral Kawano knew exactly what had happened; he figured that the torpedo had impacted along the keel, and if they were lucky, the ship might survive. “How bad is the damage?” He barked in a loud voice, trying to be heard over the murmuring of the others in the room.

One of the damage control engineers in the CIC was speaking quickly on a handheld radio to one of his men below deck. Another sailor was looking at the various systems readouts to try to determine what was still working and what was not.

The engineering officer turned to the Admiral saying, “Admiral, we sustained two torpedo hits. One hit our keel; it appears to have broken the hull in multiple locations. We are taking on a lot of water right now. The crews are trying to seal off the lower decks now in an attempt to keep us from sinking. The second torpedo missed the engineering room, but it hit near the propeller screws. It destroyed two of the three propeller drive shafts. We also have severe flooding happening in the rear of the ship.”

The engineering officer received another message as he spoke and paused to read it. “Sir, one of the officers in the engine room just reported they need to do an emergency shutdown of the reactor. They think one of the hits may have caused a crack in the reactor and they need to take it offline while they investigate.” The officer was not able to hide his concern; his voice trembled as he spoke.

If they had a crack in their reactor and they could not get it under control, then they might have a containment breach. The ship could quickly become irradiated, or worse, the reactor could meltdown. In either case, they would lose the ship.

“Do what you need to do, but we need to save the ship. Is that understood?!” Admiral Kawano yelled at everyone in the CIC. He got up and walked towards the bridge. He needed to see the situation around them with his own eyes and not on a computer screen.

When he got to the bridge and surveilled the fleet around him, he saw one of the PLAN carriers listing hard to one side; it looked like the ship was going to sink. Emergency rafts could be seen inflating all around the ship. Several of the escort ships were moving closer to help pick up the survivors. Looking to his left, he saw his sister ship starting to sit lower in the water as well. When he inquired about it, one of the officers on the bridge said it appeared they had been hit by one torpedo. He was not sure if the ship would sink, but it looked like it was taking on a lot of water by how much lower in the water it was.

Admiral Kawano knew the fleet was in trouble. They had just lost one of their four carriers and it looked like they may lose two more. The loss of the fighters from those carriers would seriously diminish their ability to launch enough cruise missiles to overwhelm the American fleet.

“Sir, Admiral Xi is on the radio for you,” said one of the communications officers as he handed him a handset.

Admiral Kawano could hear a lot of commotion on the other end of the line as he placed the handset to his ear. “Sir, this is Admiral Kawano, what is your situation?”

“Admiral Kawano, we took two torpedo hits. The first one hit our keel; sixty seconds later, a second torpedo apparently hit the exact same spot and nearly ripped my carrier in half. We are going down. I’m transferring over to the carrier Moa. How bad is your ship hit?”

“We are in a similar situation. I believe we can get the flooding under control, but we have a larger problem. Two of our five drive propeller shafts have been destroyed, but worse, it appears we have a crack in our reactor. The engineering room is not sure if they can seal it just yet,” the Admiral responded.

Admiral Xi didn’t say anything for a moment “Admiral…if you are going to lose your ship, then we will need to turn the fleet around and head back to Hawaii.”

Kawano knew that that was the best military decision to make; he also knew it would likely be the end of his military career. The new JDF/PLA command structure did not tolerate failure, no matter whose fault it was.

Two hours went by, and then it became clear that Admiral Kawano’s supercarrier was not going to survive. The crack in the reactor was larger than they had initially suspected. They were able to shut it down, but it would take months of repair to fix. This was time that they obviously did not have. They were also dead in the water with no power.

With the fleet in the predicament they were in, it was determined that all of the mobile ships would have to pick up the survivors and head back to Hawaii. There they would have to prepare to meet the American fleet, hoping that the assistance of land-based aircraft would help their situation.