It is one of the great rivers of the world. Born on a windswept mountain plateau deep in the Himalayas, it snakes its way down across the central plain of Asia to end in the East China Sea. Along the way, it collects the story and the essence that is China. Merging into it is the ice melt of ancient glaciers and the rain of ten thousand storms, the fine-worn silt of the tired fields, and the sweat and tears of one quarter of the human race. It is one of the few things that can even briefly challenge the might of the World Ocean. A hundred miles out beyond its mouth, the waves are still stained brown, the smell of the land dominating that of the sea.
“Stealth protocols are fully closed up. Full EMCON is in effect. All radios and radars are secure and all Faraday screens are engaged.”
“Very good, Mr. Hiro. Quartermaster, systems and positioning check, please.”
“GPUs and SINs cross-check and verify to within a ten meter circle of error. Qiantan Island is now bearing zero five degrees relative off the bow at nine thousand yards.”
Amanda refreshed her situational awareness with a glance at the graphics of the navigational display. The Duke was coming in from the northeast at a shallow angle. In a few minutes, they would turn south past the broad island-studded mouth of the Yangtze, running just outside the mine-defense barriers deployed by the Chinese Communists.
Outside in the darkness, a fine rain sluiced across the bridge windscreen, while within, the light of the instruments and readout screens had been turned down to their lowest settings. Amanda could sense rather than see the others of the bridge crew around her. Likewise, she could sense their tensions grow as the range closed with the Chinese coast.
“Bridge to CIC.”
“CIC, aye.”
“Okay, Chris. How do you want to work this thing?”
“I’d like to make one slow pass down the perimeter of the outer minefield to chart the entrance and egress channels. That’ll also give us enough time to run a full cross-spectrum analysis of the local EM environment.”
“Very well. However, I will not take us inside the three mile limit at any point. That means we’ll have to reverse out to the northeast when we approach the Maan Liedao group.”
“No problem, Boss Ma’am. If the bad guys are up to anything naughty, we’ll know about it by then.”
The Intel went off line and Amanda twisted around in the captain’s chair to face the shadow that was her first officer.
“Ken, I’m going to keep the con on the navigation bridge tonight. I’d like you to take the CIC.”
“Aye, aye.”
“And Ken, keep an eye on what’s going on in Raven’s Roost. Chris might need the help of an Asian-languages expert.”
“Captain, I’m barely conversational in Japanese and Mandarin. I’m a long way from being an expert in either one.”
“You’re the closest we’ve got. Good luck, Ken.”
“Good luck to you, too, Skipper.” Hiro moved off into the passageway leading aft.
There was another shadowy figure behind the central helm console, one foot braced on the throttle pedestal and faintly silhouetted in the back glow of the instrumentation.
“Officer of the Deck, how’s it going?”
“Pretty good, ma’am. I just can’t find the pitch and cyclic on this thing.”
“You’ll manage, Mr. Arkady. It does an Airedale good to stand a deck watch now and again, just to remind you what the real Navy is all about.”
“I’ll take your word for it, Captain.”
“You’d better. Now, bring her left to one eight three degrees. Hold our speed at ten knots and maintain a parallel course to the three-mile limit at a one-hundred-yard separation by the GPUs.”
“Aye, aye.”
That dealt with, Amanda slipped out of the captain’s chair and stepped through the hatchway onto the starboard bridge wing. From here, by day, she knew that she could have seen the hills of China, but now there were only the varying textures of darkness apparent to the night-sensitive eye.
Back in the wheelhouse, she knew that she could have supplemented her sight with the Cunningham’s low-light television systems. However, she wasn’t ready yet to fall back on such artifices. Instead, she leaned against the rail and tried to push her own senses and intuitions out into the night.
Her grandfather had sailed these waters once, back in the days of the old Yangtze Patrol. Now, as the warm, misting rain dampened her hair she sought his counsel.
Some eight miles to the south, the Five Nineteen boat tugged fitfully at the end of a too-short anchor cable. They were the southernmost boat of the squadron, deployed in a picket line just seaward of the Yangtze mine barrier. With engines off and all systems powered down, they had been on station for over two hours, the continuing drizzle saturating all hands above decks.
For the hundredth time, Lieutenant Zhou Shan tried to clear the lenses of his night glasses with a bit of sopping cloth. “I can’t understand what they expect us to accomplish out here tonight,” he grumbled. “Without using the radar, we won’t be able to see a thing.”
“Perhaps we will accomplish nothing. Lieutenant,” Bosun Hoong replied placidly, “but still, here is where they expect us to remain.”
Down in the Cunningham’s Combat Information Center, Commander Ken Hiro sat in the captain’s chair in the central cluster of command stations; Dix Beltrain was manning the tactical officer’s console at his right elbow. Now the TACCO glanced across at the Cunningham’s exec.
“Commander, GPU fix indicates we’re closing with the mine barrier. It might be advisable to bring up the thirty-two, sir.”
“I concur. Make it happen.”
Beltrain shifted his attention to one of the secondary workstations lining the CIC bulkhead. “Okay, Devega, lower your dome and light her up. Set your sweep arc for zero degrees relative off the bow to ninety degrees to starboard.”
Long before the keel of the Cunningham had ever been laid, it was realized that she would be operating in a new kind of military environment, that of littoral warfare. She would have to work in close to potentially hostile third-world coastlines. Accordingly, in addition to her powerful SQQ-89 antisubmarine sonar suite, she mounted an SQQ-32 mine hunter set as well.
“SQQ-32 is on line, sir. Initiating antimine sweep.”
Hiro and Beltrain moved in unison, dialing up the sonar imaging on their workstation repeaters. In moments, a dark spherical mass materialized and began to drift slowly across the flatscreen a computer generated simulacrum of the system’s echo return.
“Contact, sir. Bearing zero eight five relative. Range eight hundred yards. Range is constant. Target is treading aft. System data annex identifies target as a moored contact mine consistent with standard Red Chinese marks.”
The old horned horror. The basic design was more than a century old, and yet was still almost as deadly as the day it was conceived. Its sheer, iron age crudity was its greatest advantage. Unlike more sophisticated ordnance, it could not be foxed, fooled or neutralized from a distance. It merely bobbled sullenly at the end of its tether and exploded if anything as much as brushed against it. Disposing of them required the use of a cumbersome and dangerous mechanical sweeping process only slightly less archaic than the mines themselves or the time-consuming and dangerous task of countermining and detonating them one at a time, using divers or ROVs.
The tactical officer produced the briefest of whistles. “Yeah, glad we didn’t let that go for much longer.”
“It’s good to know your place in the world, Mr. Beltrain.”
Hiro keyed his headset microphone. “Bridge, we have contact with the Chinese mine barrier “
“Acknowledged, Ken,” Captain Garrett’s voice sounded in his earphone. “We see them on our repeaters. We’ll hold at about this range from the barrier facing. If you people spot anything that we miss, don’t hesitate to override our helm control.”
Topside the rain grew heavier. Like the rest of the watch, Amanda had donned helmet and combat vest. She had come in from the bridge wing, and now prowled slowly along the line of glowing monitor screens, her eyes flicking from readout to readout.
“Captain,” one of the lookouts said quietly, “it’s getting pretty murky out there. We’re losing visual definition on the low-light television.”
“Very well. Switch to FLIR.”
Throughout the bridge, vision systems were toggled over from standard to thermographic imaging.
Utilizing heat radiation rather than visual-spectrum light, the Forward Looking Infrared Scanners should have easily been able to cope with the deteriorating visibility. However, out in the night, an unusual convergence of environmental phenomena was taking place. As the low grade tropical storm saturated the environment with heat and humidity, an exceptionally dense concentration of water vapor was accumulating in the atmosphere — water vapor that absorbed infrared energy. Concurrently, the heavy, blood-temperature rain and quiet, windless sea allowed a thin layer of warmer fresh water to form atop the ocean’s surface, reducing the contrast between the sea and air temperatures. As these curves of absorption and ambience closed with each other, the Cunningham’s FLIR scanners began to lose efficiency.
The effect was subtle. With no specific object within immediate visual range, the bridge lookouts observed no change on their softly glowing screens. They had no comprehension that their ship was slowly going blind.
“Anything, Tina?”
“No, ma’am. If the locals are doing any communicating they’re sending Candy grams.”
Christine Rendino hovered over the shoulder of the scanner operator as the young enlisted woman systematically swept across the electromagnetic spectrum.
“Nothing at all?”
“I’m hearing what sounds like an elementary police radio dispatch net and a couple of AM radio channels full of music to kill capitalists by. The only military traffic of any kind is some very limited air-traffic-control stuff. The Reds are being real quiet out there.”
“Okay. Stay on it.”
They were twenty minutes into the recon pass and things were crawling under Christine’s skin. This wasn’t right. This was so not right that the Intel’s finely drawn nervous system was resonating to it like a plucked violin string.
Unable to be still, she stepped from the confines of the intelligence systems bay and into the central space of the Combat Information Center. Pausing for a moment behind the cluster of central command stations, she peered over Dix Beltrain’s shoulder at the big Alpha screen on the forward bulkhead.
The side-scan sonar was sketching out the perimeter of the estuary minefield, hacking each mine detected with a GPU position fix that would be stored in the navigational database.
At least that was working out right.
Moving on, she crossed over to the stealth systems bay.
Normally, for her this would be enemy territory. But now, with an operation on, her perpetual feud with Frank Mekelsie was in abeyance.
“Are you guys getting anything here that we might be missing over in Raven’s Roost?”
The stealth boss was hovering over the backs of his own systems operators, much as she had been doing. He didn’t take his eyes from the shimmering banks of oscilloscopes even for an instant as he replied.
“Nothing but what’s on the program, Rendino. Air-search stuff and one surface-search unit out on the southern tip of Jiuduan Sha. Low powered, probably a Fin Curve. I’d say navigational-assistance radar.”
“Any return risk?”
A tinge of contempt crept into Mckelsie’s voice. “That sucker’s practically tube technology, Rendino. They’d have a better chance of spotting us by standing out on the beach with a flashlight.”
Starboard side forward in the central cluster of command workstations, the Aegis systems manager methodically ran the Cunningham’s primary radar through a repetitive series of readiness checks. The mighty SPY-2A emitter arrays that belted the destroyer’s superstructure were powered down while running in stealth mode, but the receptors were active, stealth and intelligence divisions both accessing them for data input on the local signals environment.
The systems operator had just initiated a frequency-scan sequence into the system when he hesitated. He had had a test display dialed up on one of his repeaters and, just for a second, a series of faint ghost targets seemed to dance across the screen. The radar specialist frowned. That sure as hell was not supposed to happen when they were not radiating.
He started to troubleshoot.
It didn’t occur to him that, for that instant, the operating frequencies of the Cunningham’s radar receiver had exactly matched that of the Red Chinese Fin Curve transmitter. If it had, the operator would have paid considerably more attention.
He was aware of the phenomenon of UAF reflection: the receiving of a return produced by someone else’s radar wave.
They were thirty-five minutes into the run.
“Raven’s Roost. This is the bridge. How is it coming, Chris?”
“The mine charting is going good,” came the cautious reply, “but the Elint scan hasn’t developed too much. We’re still working it.”
“Let’s not take all night about it, Lieutenant. We can’t hang around out here forever.”
Rain sheeted across the bridge windscreen now. Multiple windshield wipers slashed at it futilely, while along the inside curve, blowers rumbled, struggling to keep the humidity haze at bay. The bridge air-conditioning was losing the fight against the sauna bath exterior environment.
Moving around to the bridge-wing door again, Amanda popped the latch and slid back the pocket panel. Inhaling deeply, she strove for one real breath amid the growing oppression.
Out in the night, the Five Fifteen boat of the Red Chinese hydrofoil squadron rocked deeply at its mooring. Her skipper peered over the side and frowned. That had almost felt like a wake effect. For a long minute he peered out into the rainswept darkness, then shrugged the thought away.
Lieutenant (j.g.) Charles Foster appeared at the entrance of Raven’s Roost. “Hey, Lieutenant, you want to come over to Sonar Alley for a second? We might have something for you.”
“Right with you.” Christine Rendino hurriedly followed the junior officer.
Sonar Alley was one of the four subsystem bays that angled off the Combat Information Center. It was located port side forward, diagonally across from the Intelligence center.
“Okay, Chuck, give me a thrill. Whatcha got?”
The sonarman adjusted his glasses in a quick nervous gesture.
With brush haircut and a perennial air of boyish earnestness, Foster was a submariner doing a tour in the surface forces as part of the branch officer exchange program. Currently, he held sway over the Duke’s extensive ASW suite.
“We’re not exactly sure, ma’am,” he replied. “We’ve started picking up a group of sound contacts on the passive arrays. Multiple sources somewhere up the river, sounds like it might be a convoy forming up. You asked to be notified if we detected anything unusual, and I was wondering if this would count.”
“Could be. Let’s give it a listen.”
They crowded in around one of the systems operators. Unjacking their headsets from their belt interphone units, they plugged into the console’s audio access points. Silently, they listened for a moment.
“Hear ‘?”
“Yeah.” Christine nodded. “How would you call it?”
“Several single and twin medium-speed screws. Maybe minesweeps or some other kind of small auxiliary. But there are three or four big, slow-turning wheels in there too.”
“Do you have a blade count yet? Plant noises?”
Foster shook his head. “Not so far. The contact is ducting weird, a lot of fading and distortion. I think these guys might be coming down that smaller river that leads directly into Shanghai. What d’you call it, the Huangpu? I think we’ll get a cleaner listen at them when they actually get out into the main Yangtze estuary.”
“Okay, Chuck. Fa’ sure, keep working it.”
“Think we might have something here?”
“We’ll see.”
On the Five Nineteen boat Bosun Hoong looked out from beneath the scrap of tarpaulin he had been using for a storm shelter. “Looks like the raindragon is passing, Lieutenant.”
On the Cunningham’s bridge, a mental load-bearing relay within Amanda Garrett’s subconscious tripped: It’s time to go. Now! Get out of here!
She keyed her interphone mike. “Raven’s Roost, this is the bridge. Chris, I need a sitrep. Are you onto anything positive yet?”
“Nothing to write home about, Boss Ma’am,” the reluctant reply came back. “I’d like to push it a little longer if we could.”
“Negative. I’m not going to keep the ship at risk for a dry hole. We’re sheering off.”
Amanda glanced over her shoulder at Vince Arkady’s dark outline behind the helm stations. “Officer of the Deck, we’ll be opening the range from the coast. Stand by to come left.”
“Very good, Captain. Helm and lee helm stations, stand by to alter heading.”
Amanda turned back to the navigational display, selecting a departure course on the glowing coastal chart. She had formed the order in her mind and was about to issue it when Christine Rendino’s voice crackled over the interphone.
“Captain! Hold it! We’ve got something here!”
The rain was easing, fading back into a hazy drizzle again.
Lieutenant Zhou Shan looked up sharply. Bosun as well. He had heard it too. Now that the hissing beat of the rain on the wave crests had passed, a new sound had become audible on the deck of the Five Nineteen boat: the unmistakable whispering whine of a gas turbine power plant.
“Stay with me, Captain,” Christine pleaded into her mike as she dashed across the confined internal space of the CIC to Sonar Alley.
“Okay, Foster, what’s going down?”
The sonar boss looked up from his panels, excitement and concern vying for control of his expression. “That group of sound contacts have exited out into the estuary. Their signature has clarified and we have a blade count! We’ve got three big targets up there, each running on a single, large, seven-bladed screw!”
“Are you sure!”
“Positive! We’re still running‘ through the data annex for a positive hull ID, but they just tacked on some extra speed, and I swear to God, I heard a series of reactor flow valves pop!”
“Ahhh, Foster. I love you and I want to have your children!”
Christine tilted the stunned j. g.‘s face up and planted an enthusiastic kiss full on his lips, then she was gone, scrambling back out into the central CIC space.
“Captain, I need permission to drop EMCON!”
“What!”
“For one second! I need to use the SPY-2A arrays to conduct a single, full-power sweep upriver. That’s all. The odds are that any Red monitoring station will record it as just a transitory glitch of some kind. Captain, I don’t have time to explain, but this is what we came here for!”
There was a moment’s hesitation. The other members of the CIC team, drawn in by Christine’s exclamation, waited with her for the reply.
Then it came. “Very well.”
Amanda’s voice shifted from the interphone to the overhead loudspeakers.
“Mr. Hiro, execute a single surf ace-search sweep to the west with the Aegis arrays. Minimum duration. Full output.”
Aboard the Five Nineteen boat, the turbine howl was growing louder, intermixed with the boiling hiss of a hull cutting water. In the wet darkness, it was hard to get a bearing on the sound.
“Hoong?” Lieutenant Zhou ordered. “Get forward and raise the anchor. Helmsman, prepare to start engines. Radio operator, open the channel to the Flag boat … ”
“Scan complete, Lieutenant,” the Aegis systems operator reported. “Securing primary emitters.”
“Imaging in storage?”
“Acknowledged, ma’am.”
“Yes!”
“Lieutenant Rendino, what’s going on?” Ken Hiro demanded.
“Some very-heavy-caliber shit, sir,” Christine replied.
Her ebullience was fading now, as she began to analyze and project the potential of what she had just discovered. “Some very-heavy-caliber shit indeed.”
Aboard the Five Nineteen boat, Lieutenant Zhou lifted the radio mike to his lips.
In the Cunningham’s Combat Information Center, all hands jumped as a tense, staccato voice suddenly issued from a speaker in the intelligence bay. Of the duty watch, only Ken Hiro understood what was being said.
“Five Nineteen boat to squadron command! Contact report … ”
Topside, Christine’s voice crackled urgently out of the squawk box. “Bridge, this is Raven’s Roost! Somebody’s just lit off a radio transmitter out there.”
“Where away!” Amanda demanded.
“Close! Real close! Too close to get a bearing!”
It would have taken a superhuman not to glance up, just for an instant.
“I repeat, Five Nineteen boat to squadron command. Contact report … ”
The words choked off in Zhou Shan’s throat. He saw a flash of white in the darkness, a broad, low-riding V of foam at wave-top level. A bow wave. Then a ship’s stem materialized out of the night, sharp edged and radically raked, impossibly close and towering over the hydrofoil.
Zhou was the Five Nineteen’s captain. He knew it was his responsibility to save his ship and crew. But he found that he had no miracles to spend.
Vince Arkady shifted his eyes back to the FLIR monitor just in time to see a shadowy form disappearing under the outline of the Cunningham’s, prow. There was no opportunity to order a course change, no chance to make any kind of formal sighting call.
“Watch it!” he yelled. Lunging down over the lee-helm controls, he slammed the throttles closed and threw the propeller controls into neutral.
The Cunningham’s cutwater touched the port flank of the Five Nineteen boat.
Fire blazed under the flare of the destroyer’s bow and all hands on the bridge were thrown forward. It wasn’t an impact as much as it was an abrupt deceleration as the Duke drove through the disintegrating hulk of the Chinese fast attack craft.
“Stop all engines!” Amanda yelled, dragging herself back to her feet.
“All engines answering stop, Captain!” Arkady replied, disentangling himself from the lee-helm pedestal.
“Bridge,” the intercom speaker blared. “What’s going on up there?”
“We’ve just PT-109ed a Red patrol boat,” the aviator responded into his headset mike. “Stand by, CIC.”
Amanda scrambled out onto the port wing of the bridge and peered down over the side. The Chinese hydrofoil had been torn completely in two and its bow section was rolling down the destroyer’s side, rasping and scraping along her waterline. Above the crumpling-oil-can noises of the breakup came the sound of a human voice screaming.
Instinctively, Amanda reached back over the aft bridge rail. Flipping open a cover plate, she revealed a small T-grip handle. Giving it a twist, she yanked the handle outward, then socked it back in.
An access panel in the superstructure swung open and a twelve-man life-raft capsule ejected into the sea.
As the Duke continued to forge ahead under her residual momentum, Amanda watched the raft and the wreckage swirl away aft to be lost in the darkness.
Don’t foul the props, she thought feverishly. We can live with anything else, just don’t foul the props.
“Main engine control!” she snapped into her headset.
“Main engines, aye,” Chief Thomson’s steady voice came back.
“Run full clearance and alignment check on both propulsor pods. Expedite!”
“Will do. I think we’re okay, Captain. I think you got her shut down in time.”
“Damage control, report!”
“All boards still read green, Captain. Preliminary reports from DC team Alpha Alpha indicate no leakage and no buckling in the forward frames.”
In the encounter between the Duke’s reenforced bow and the Red Chinese FAC, the destroyer had won cleanly.
“Main Engine Control to Captain.”
“Go, Chief.”
“Clearance and alignment checks completed. Propellers are clear. Ready to answer bells.”
Thank God. Thank God. Now to get out of here, granted the Reds would let them.
That would be an act easier said than done. Down in the stealth systems bay, Frank Mckelsie and his team watched aghast as their threat boards blazed. Surface-search and firecontrol radars were lighting off all around the mouth of the estuary. Powerful mobile and fixed emitters were intently beginning to probe the night. A series of weaker, but closer, seaborne units had also appeared, extending off to the north of their position.
“We’re screwed,” one of the systems operators whispered.
“Screwed, hell!” Mckelsie snarled back. “We’re so far beyond screwed, they’re wheeling us into the delivery room. Stand by your jammers and decoys. We’re going to need ‘em.”
Another outline for potential disaster was unfolding in the central CIC work space. A new voice issued from the speaker tuned to the Communist command frequency, demanding and repetitive. Again, Ken Hiro was the only one to fathom its meaning.
“Nineteen boat, respond! Squadron Flag calling Five Nineteen boat. Do you receive? State your contact … “
Abruptly, the Cunningham’s exec levered himself out of the captain’s chair. “Put a transmitter on that frequency,” he roared, charging into the radio shack.
After a moment’s fumbling, one of the sparks extended a hand mike. “You’re up, sir.”
Accepting the microphone, Hiro began to speak into it urgently in Chinese. “Nineteen boat to Squadron Flag. An unidentified naval vessel has just made a pass near our location. We are proceeding to investigate.”
Releasing the mike button, Hiro yelled over his shoulder.
“For Crissake, somebody get on the horn to the Captain! Tell her to get the ship moving to the east!”
On the Duke’s bridge, Dix Beltrain’s voice issued from the overhead speaker. “Captain, Mr. Hiro says to get the ship moving to the east. He’s on the radio with the Chinese, and I think he’s trying to run some kind of a substitution play on them.”’
Amanda picked up on her executive officer’s stratagem almost instantly. Even fully stealthed, the Cunningham would produce a return on a highpowered military radar at close ranges, especially during low sea states such as they were experiencing now. However, that return would not be much different in size than that of the small craft they had just sent to the bottom.
On their screens, the Reds would be tracking only a single target, which they would think was their own picket boat.
Amanda blessed Ken Hiro, then she blessed herself for never trying to suppress the personal initiative of her officers.
“Officer of the Deck, come left to zero nine zero,” she commanded. “All engines ahead full. Make turns for thirty knots.”
Tightly gripping the ready mike, Ken Hiro leaned in over the communications console, totally focused on the speaker.
The command team in the Combat Information Center had reconfigured to deal with the situation. Dixon Beltrain covered both the tactical officer’s and the captain’s stations while Christine Rendino hovered at Hire’s elbow, ready to relay status reports or instructions as needed.
“Flag boat to all squadron elements, initiate surface search sweep to the east. Flag boat to Five Nineteen. We do not show any uncoordinated targets on our screen. Can you verify your contact?”
Hire’s mind raced.
“Nineteen to Squadron Flag. We believe that the target was an American … ” Jesus God! What was the Mandarin word for “stealth”? “… low-observability warship. Target has broken contact at this time. We are endeavoring to relocate visually.”
“What’s going down, sir?” Christine Rendino whispered.
“The Reds were wondering why they weren’t picking up any bogeys on their radar. I explained it away by saying we were in pursuit of a Cunningham-class stealth destroyer.”
“Too radical! We’re chasing ourselves out here.”
The Duke raced away from the mouth of the estuary, holding pace with the search line of Communist fast-attack boats, an elephant using technological guile to merge in with a herd of gazelles. Vince Arkady maintained his over watch position behind the helm station. Looking ahead, he saw Amanda silhouetted against the glow of the repeater banks, studying the tactical displays with a fierce intensity.
“CIC to bridge. Mr. Hiro reports that the Reds are increasing speed to thirty-five knots and are going up on their hydrofoils.”
“Acknowledged,” Amanda curtly replied to the speaker call. “Mr. Arkady, make turns for thirty-five knots. Stealth systems, bring a blip enhancer on line. Increase apparent RCS and return strength by fifty percent.”
Arkady quietly relayed the engine command to the lee helmsman. Just as the radar cross section of the Communist fast-attack craft would increase as they became foil-borne, so would the Cunningham as she bent on speed. Their masquerade would hold a while longer.
Arkady circled the helm station and moved up alongside Amanda at the repeater bank. Leaning forward as if to study the displays, he let his forearm brush lightly against hers for a moment.
“I’ve blown it, Arkady,” she whispered. “I’ve blown it big time.”
“Keep rolling the dice, babe. We’ve still got money on the table.”
“Five Nineteen boat, shore stations have detected a radio distress beacon near your initial sighting location. Do you have further information on this?”
“They’re asking about a transponder signal,” Hiro reported. “It must be the one off the raft we dropped.”
“If in doubt, play stupid, sir,” Christine said.
“Yeah. Five Nineteen to Squadron Flag. We have no information on this.”
“Five Nineteen boat, can you yet confirm your sighting report?”
“Nineteen boat to Squadron Flag. We have not reacquired contact. Continuing to the east.”
Even through the filtering effect of the radio circuit, the Duke’s exec could detect the growing suspicion in the tone of the speaker at the far end.
“Nineteen boat, are you positive on your target identification?”
“Yes, Squadron Flag.”
“I think this guy suspects something’s screwy,” Hiro growled.
“Just watch it if he starts asking about who won the Chinese World Series, sir.”
“Nineteen boat, let me speak to Lieutenant Kang.”
“Ah, hell. The Lieutenant is on deck and unavailable at this time, sir.”
There was a decisive click over the loudspeaker.
“We’ve lost the carrier, sir,” the radioman reported. “The Reds have started to jump frequencies.”
“That’s it,” Hiro said, straightening. “They’ve burned us.”
“The penny just dropped with a loud, resounding clang, Skipper,” Christine Rendino reported regretfully. “They’ve figured out that we’ve been faking them.”
“Acknowledge. Kill the blip enhancer. Resume full stealth.”
Amanda gazed down into the bridge tactical display. A repeater of the big Alpha screen down in CIC, it provided her with a full visualization of the tactical environment. Even though the Duke was currently running radar silent, her direction-finder arrays were providing the next-best thing, the range and bearing on every Chinese energy emitter radiating in the area.
On that display, Amanda could see the Chinese fast-attack craft peeling off of their search line like fighter planes, angling south toward them.
“Officer of the Deck, come right to one three five degrees. All engines ahead flank.”
“Engines answering all ahead flank, ma’am. Heading one three five degrees.”
There were damn few ships in the world, large or small, with legs long enough to overtake the Cunningham when she was running flat out. Unfortunately, a Huchuan-class hydrofoil was one of those that could. More unfortunately still, so could the big Type 53 homing torpedoes they carried.
Amanda had ordered the turn to the southeast in an effort to gain distance on her enemies. However, even as she watched, the Red hydrofoils matched the course change and continued to close the range.
A touch of the repeater’s keypad and the call-up of a set of radar return strengths verified what she suspected. The Cunningham was well below the return minimums of the comparatively primitive “Skin Head” surface-search systems aboard the fast-attack craft. The hydrofoils were being vectored in by the more powerful Communist shore-based radars. Soon they’d have a solid enough bearing to start launching fish.
And there was absolutely nothing Amanda Lee Garrett could do about it.
She was constrained by the Fleet’s current operational Rules of Engagement, the ones that stated in effect, “Thou shall not return fire until fired upon.”
Violating ROE was a sure way for a naval officer to guarantee a court-martial. But, then again, what kind of career did she have left? She had just initiated a world-class international incident. All that remained now was the Duke and the safety of her crew.
Amanda smiled in cold self-irony and spoke into her headset mike. “Tactical Officer, bring up your HARM flights. We’re going to be killing some radars here in a second.”
Down in the CIC, Dix Beltrain made his ordnance-load selections, heating up the missile rounds and listening as the system-support operators verbally verified the opening of the cell doors in the Vertical Launch Arrays. As he prepared his birds to fly, he also prepared his own mind set.
Dix had badly fumbled the first live-fire engagement in which he had ever taken part. By self-admission, it had been due to a combination of fear and buck fever. Since then, though, he had developed his own method of overcoming himself.
It was the same kind of mental conditioning he had used in college when he was quarterbacking for Alabama’s Crimson Tide. Take up all of your fears, one at a time — the fear of death or injury, the fear of making a mistake, the fear of failure. Study each one until you are sure you recognize it for what it is. Then put it into a little box in the back of your brain, and don’t take it out again until after the crunch is over.
It worked for him. Dix had just finished locking the lid down when the threat boards on his console lit up.
“Square Tie radars shifting from search to target acquisition mode,” Frank Mckelsie announced from the stealth bay “We are being painted. HY 2 batteries preparing to fire.”
Damn Beltrain puzzled. How had the Lady been able to figure just when the Reds were about to open up?
“We see it, CIC,” Captain Garrett’s voice came back over the squawk box. “Secure EMCON! Bring up all radars and initiate full-spectrum ECM! All point defenses to Armageddon mode! I say again, all point defenses to Armageddon mode!”
Damn again, but if the Lady had balls they’d likely be solid brass and a yard wide. She actually sounded relieved about the fight being on.
A ram-sodden Chinese beach suddenly lit to a smoky orange glare. An HY-2 heavy antishipping missile lifted off of its launching trailer on a jagged plume of fire. Kicked into the sky by its solid-fuel booster rocket, it climbed up and out over the sea.
More commonly known in the West by its NATO code name of “Silkworm,” the HY-2 was another elderly weapon. A Chinese-produced derivative of the Soviet SSN 2 Styx, it was one of the first of its ship-killing kind. Literally a small pilotless airplane, delta winged and turbojet powered, it was designed as a robotic kamikaze, hunting down its target under radar guidance and diving headlong into it in a moment of mutual annihilation.
Despite its comparative crudity, its half-ton warhead could still deliver a shattering punch, granted it was allowed to hit.
The Cunningham herself answered to the threat. As her SPY-2A planar radar arrays detected the launch, a speed-of-light warning was flashed to the network of onboard computers that made up her Aegis battle management system. Possibly the closest thing to a true artificial intelligence yet devised by man coolly analyzed the threat and considered its options for a few microseconds. Her crew had enabled her to “Armageddon” mode freeing her to act in her own defense as well as their own. Thus she counterfired without waiting for human intervention.
Matching performance envelopes against intercept potentials the Duke took another microsecond to make an ordinance selection from her arsenal. She chose an Enhanced Sea Sparrow Missile, one of a quad pack of such weapons carried in a single cell of her forwardmost Vertical Launch System.
Relays closed and a charge of inert, high pressure gas hurled the slender twelve-foot long projectile out of its cell and clear of the deck. Its own rocket motor ignited and it arced into the sky. The gathering beams of the destroyer’s fire control radar acquired the Sea Sparrow and gave it guidance, hurling it toward the oncoming threat. Two miles offshore missile and antimissile met. The HY-2 had just leveled off from its climb when the smaller, triple sonic interceptor converged on it. There was a blue-white flare in the darkened sky and a smear of flame trailed down to the sea.
“Vampire down! Vampire down! Initial point defense intercept successful. HY-2 is no longer a factor.”
“I don’t want them to get another try at us Dix,” Amanda snapped “Kill that battery radar.”
She dropped her eyes to the tactical display again and gauged threats and distances. The lead Chinese hydrofoil had closed to a three mile range, close enough for both a possible radar return and a solid torpedo shot.
“Second target. Lay a Standard in on the lead Communist FAC as well.”
“On the way, ma’am.”
There was a soft thud from the cold-fire system and a pale, pencil-slender shape lanced out of a VLS cell. It seemed to hover over the foredeck for an instant, then an eye-searing dagger of flame stabbed downward from its exhaust nozzle. For an instant, ship and sea were illuminated as if by a gigantic arc light, then the fifteen-foot missile was away and accelerating toward the coast. The second round followed the first within half a dozen heartbeats, arcing back “over the shoulder” at the Cunningham’s pursuers.
The Standard SIN 2 had begun its life as a medium range antiaircraft weapon back in the late 1960s. Soon, however, it had developed a parallel service career as a HARM, a Homing AntiRadiation Missile. So used, it could be launched against an electromagnetic-emissions source, be it a radio transmitter or radar set, would ride in on the emitter’s beam, seeking it out and destroying it — a sharp stick stabbed into the eye of the enemy.
The Red coastal artillerymen were quite aware of the existence of HARM technology. As their air defense systems detected the Cunningham’s missile launch, a warning was flashed across their net and radar operators slammed hands down on kill switches, powering down their transmitters. Too late. The Standard has a superb memory.
Running on its last fixed range and bearing, the HARM blazed in across the beach. Just short of its goal, its proximity fuses triggered, detonating its 214-pound fragmentation warhead. The resulting shotgun blast of tungsten steel shrapnel shredded the HY 2 battery’s Square Tie radar van and antenna array.
Fortunately for the artillerymen, they had a wise battery commander. He had sited his transmitter well clear of his deployment area, operating it by remote link. As a result, he took only a couple of wounded among his launcher personnel.
The same could not be said for the crew of the lead hydrofoil.
The second Standard exploded directly over the small craft, the hail of hypervelocity metal sweeping all life from its cockpit and weather decks in an instant. With no one at its blood-spattered helm, the boat circled wildly for a minute or two until one of the two surviving crewmen belowdecks realized the totality of the carnage and closed the throttles.
“Bridge,” Lieutenant Mckelsie reported from the stealth bay. “All Red radars have powered down. We are no longer being painted.”
“Very good, Mr. Mckelsie. Fire a full decoy pattern from the RBOCS. CIC, down all radars! Cease radiating and resume full EMCON. Officer of the Deck come left to zero four five.”
The Cunningham began to list outward as she came about at high speed. As she did, stealthed hatches swung open on her foredeck and superstructure and launcher tubes hurled locket propelled grenades into the sky. Seeded out over a wide area the fireworks like bursts produced by the Rapid Blooming Overhead Chaff System spewed out clouds of highly reflective metal foil. If the Red radars came up again during the next few minutes, their operators would have to sort through a large number of false targets before they could hope to locate the true return of the fleeing destroyer. Amanda had no intention of making it any easier for them either. They had been running to the southeast, with the pursuing Red fast attack craft strung out in a line behind them. Now, by veering away to the northeast, she intended to put that line of small craft between herself and the more immediate threat of the mainland shore batteries.
“Mr. Mckelsie do you verify that the Communist radars are still down*?”
“So far, Captain I think we put the fear of God into.”
“Let’s hope it holds. Tactical Officer, if you get so much as a flicker, lay another round in on them. Don’t wait for my orders, Dix.”
“Got my thumb on the button, ma’am.”
Two minutes crept by. Three. The main squall line was rolling away to the north and a faint flicker of lightning haunted the horizon. The rain was beginning to slack off, and the quartermaster secured the bridge windscreen wipers and blowers. The sudden silence was unnerving.
Four minutes. The range from the coast continued to open.
Amanda felt a tightness in her chest and realized that she had literally forgotten to breathe. The FLIR systems were coming back on line as the atmosphere cleared, and they momentarily caught the wake of one of the Chinese hydrofoils, streaming away to the southeast. A little longer and the Duke would be clear.
“Square Tie going active on the mainland!” Mckelsie’s exclamation exploded from the 1-MC speaker like a bomb.”
“Search sweep … going to target-acquisition mode! He’s trying for a snap shot!”
“We have bearing on the battery radar,” Dix Beltrain counterpointed. “Firing on bearing. HARM going out!”
Blue-white fire glared beyond the windscreen, over illuminating every square inch of the bridge interior. The watchstanders recoiled slightly from the crackling roar of the rocket ignition.
“Vampire! Vampire! We have an active HY-2 seeker head!”
“Light off all radars,” Amanda snapped. “Bring up point defenses and initiate full-spectrum ECM.”
“Hold it, Captain!” Mckelsie interjected. “We are not being targeted!”
“Belay last orders. Maintain full stealth. Are you sure, Mckelsie?”
“Positive, Captain! This is sidelobe only. We are not being targeted. We’re still clean.”
“Who’s he targeting, then?”
“I have no idea, Captain. It’s just not us … Stand by … HY-2 seeker head has just gone inactive. HY-2 is no longer a factor.”
One of the lookouts spoke up from his monitor. “Visual event bearing two two zero degrees relative off the port quarter. Appeared to be a detonation flash on the surface, Captain. Now snowing a continuous thermal flare on that bearing.”
“I think the Reds just had a friendly-fire incident, Captain,” Arkady said slowly. “I think Wyatt Earp out there just blew away one of his own boats.”
“But that’s not how they’re going to tell it in the press releases.”
Suddenly the weight of her helmet was unbearable. Reaching up, Amanda tugged at her chin-strap release and lifted it off. A freed droplet of perspiration trickled down and burned into her eyes. Reaching up again, she swiped it away with the back of her hand.
“Come right to zero nine zero, Arkady. Maintain all engines ahead full. God, let’s just get out of here.”
The Day-Glo-yellow life raft rode lightly on the slack sea.
Linked to it by a tether, its combination rescue light and watertight radio beacon bobbed beside it. Bosun Hoong used the onceper-second flash of its strobe as a guide as he towed in the limp form of Lieutenant Zhou.
The bosun rolled over the low, inflated sidewall of the raft, dragging the unconscious man in after him with a modest degree of difficulty. Positioning Zhou as comfortably as he could, Hoong began methodically investigating the pouches of survival gear that lined the raft’s interior.
A chemical light stick was discovered, and Hoong broke its interior capsule and shook it into life. Using its pale-green glow, he examined his commanding officer’s injuries. The younger man was breathing easily and the abrasion at his temple was only oozing a thin trickle of blood. He would likely enough live.
The bosun wrapped Zhou in a Mylar survival blanket taken from another pouch, taking a second one for himself.
He was just settling down at the far end of the raft when he heard Zhou moan and start to stir.
“We are well, Lieutenant,” he said.
“Hoong, what has happened?” Zhou exclaimed weakly, trying to pull himself upright.
“Rest quietly, sir. There is nothing to be done. The boat has been sunk and we are in a life raft.”
“A life raft?”
“Yes, sir. It was dropped by the ship that ran us down. They were Yankees, I think.”
The bosun gestured off into the hazy darkness. “There is also a fight going on out there somewhere. I’ve heard missile launches, and just before we reached this raft, I felt an explosion through the water. No telling who is winning.”
“The crew! What about the crew?”
“Dead,” Hoong replied, grabbing a bar of hard tropic chocolate from a ration pack. “We were broken in two, and the stern sank almost at once. Enginemen Chang and Waiu and Gunner Zhong went down with it.
“Helmsman Shi, Radioman Feng, and Torpedoman Liau were all crushed in the cockpit by the impact. Gunner Gang was up forward with me, but the young fool had taken off his life jacket.” The bosun peeled back the wrapper on the bar. “He drowned, I think.”
“The whole crew gone,” Zhou whispered. “How could that happen and we still live?”
Hoong took a judgmental bite of the chocolate. “Because it was not yet our time to die, Lieutenant,” he replied.
The Cunningham continued her run to the east, all hands still at their battle stations but with her engines slowed to ahead standard. They had crossed back over the Chinese twelve mile limit and the threat boards remained clear. They had successfully disengaged. The fire flash of the crisis had passed. Now the shadow of the aftermath loomed.
On the bridge, Vince Arkady glanced over at the captain’s chair. Amanda was seated in it, outlined against the glow of the telescreens, staring out into the darkness, silent and unmoving.
Arkady had known that on this cruise he would be faced with temptation. However, he had primarily been concerned with the physical variety. He hadn’t expected to encounter this deeper, more urgent desire — that of wanting to cross over to his lady in front of God and everybody, and to cradle her in his arms, and to whisper that somehow, everything would be all right.
The overhead speaker cut in, breaking the stillness.
“Captain, this is Raven’s Roost.” Christine Rendino’s voice was a total contrast to his own mood. The Intel didn’t sound in the least subdued. In fact, she sounded positively ebullient. “When you get a second, could you come down here? You’ve just got to see this!”