John Schettler - Armageddon

“Then what are we waiting for? I say we take out those Chinese carriers with my standoff bombers, and you can go in and darken the skies over Taiwan with your carriers, Admiral Stone. That’s a one two punch that will set the Chinese back on their heels soon enough, and it will still be perceived as a conventional operation. We can stop this planned invasion of Taiwan in 36 hours. Either that or we send our new CHAMP out there, and then maybe they’ll think twice about another EMP attack.”

“Yes, but what if they do respond with another such attack?” Reed cautioned. “The West coast is still a real mess. Yes we can stop their conventional assets, which means the Chinese will then have little more than their ballistic missiles for offensive punch. They can reach Guam with those if they have to, and they can also let slip the dogs of war in Korea. Mister Kim over there would like nothing more than to cross the line after we took out his little missile launch.”

“That was an operational necessity, and I will note that they haven’t crossed the line.”

“Only because Beijing has held them on a tight leash. But believe me, gentlemen, the Chinese know the one little nightmare we have had concerning Asia is a ground war. If this thing escalates any further, you can look for one in Korea. It may come down to that. They may tell us they either take Taiwan or we can have the Korean war back again in short order. Is the Navy prepared for that?”

“We can move 3rd Marines over. The planning is already underway, and we have the sealift assets as well.”

“Well then let me pose another question here.” Reed tacked in a new direction now, playing the devil’s advocate well. “Suppose you do hobble the Chinese Navy, just like you did the Red Banner Pacific Fleet. Suppose you stop their planned invasion of Taiwan in the bargain. Then all they have left are the missiles. You saw what they did to Taiwan with those. What if they start lobbing the damn things at Japan? They’ve got all that area targeted and they could start raining down hell on Tokyo, Osaka, and twenty other cities. The Fukushima complex is still hot as hell over there. What if they dropped a few missiles right into that facility? You all know we don’t have enough anti-missile defense batteries to stop them. Look what happened on Taiwan. They had ten patriot batteries over there, and a whole lot more, but they still got smashed.”

It was a good point, and Lane shifted uncomfortably in his chair. China’s ballistic missiles were their trump card, widely dispersed, difficult to find and kill, and extremely effective on offense.

“The problem with all of this is that when you force the other guy to dig into his haversack for the last weapon he has, he’s going to fish around and eventually pull out an ICBM. The Chinese made it perfectly clear with that pot shot they took over Nevada.”

“And in my opinion that is the danger of leaving it go unanswered.” Lane spoke up now, and with more resolve. “We may want to show them that if they do reach for another missile like that again, we’re going to give them the same thing in spades!”

“We have boomers on patrol that can do just that,” said Admiral Stone. “It can be a measured response. We can move in a boomer and use a single missile, just like they did.”

“Well what about the Russians? You want them heating up all their stuff again?”

“We call the Russians and tell them exactly what we are going to do, and state that it will be a limited, measured response. Oh, they’ll try to find that boomer with anything they have, but there isn’t much left of the Red Banner Fleet, either above or below the sea now. This is again a job for the Navy. I can give you stealth in a way that even General Lane’s B-2s can’t deliver. We can creep over with a boomer and turn off all the lights in Shanghai. Then they’ll know we mean business.”

“Shanghai?” Lane scratched his ear. “Wouldn’t that affect Korea and Japan too?”

“I just picked that one out of my hat, but we could go inland with this too. We could hit the heartland cities along the Yellow River, Zhengzhou, Luoyang, Kaifeng. One little missile would turn off the lights there for 15 million people and make a very strong statement. Hell, they took down San Francisco, LA and San Diego! Tit for tat.”

“Those cities are starting to recover somewhat,” said Reed. “That EMP burst was not as severe as it first appeared. Most of the outage was due to Hoover and Glen Canyon Dams going down, but latest estimates are that they can get back online in a matter of weeks. They found out a lot of the transformers made it through without significant damage. It’s still dark there, but the power is coming back in spots. It could take a while, but they’ll eventually recover.”

“Gentlemen…” Leyman spoke now. “I’ll take all these options to the President, but my feeling is that he wants to keep this on a conventional level as long as possible.”

“Which leads us right back to this business over Taiwan,” said Stone. “Either we stand in defense of that nation or we don’t. What’s it going to be, Mister Leyman? Admiral Ghortney made a particular point of insisting he was given operational control of the battle space here.”

“Within the limits defined by the civilian leadership, Admiral. Now, what we want to know is this: can you do what you claim and recover air superiority over Taiwan in the next 36 hours? If so, you have authorization to proceed. As for you, General Lane, get those bombers armed and ready. If they can do what you say and stop this invasion from 600 miles away, I think the President will want to hear that as soon as possible.”

“You have my word on that,” said Lane, satisfied.

The meeting rambled on for another ten minutes before Leyman adjourned the session and went to brief the President. As he rose from his chair, Lieutenant Commander Reed handed Admiral Stone the latest satellite photos he had been reviewing.

“Have you seen these, Admiral?”

Stone took a brief look, immediately recognizing what he was seeing. “So that’s what’s left of the fleet. Still holed up off Sakhalin Island?”

“They’ve moved.”

“Where?”

“Through the Gulf of Sakhalin and into the Tartar Strait, but they don’t seem to be in any hurry.”

“Lane would love to take a shot at them, if only just to prove his bombers can get the job done. But the feeling is we ought not provoke the Russians any more than necessary here.”

“I agree. They took down Thunder Horse in the Gulf, and have already lost three subs and the heart of their entire Pacific Fleet.”

“Well it will be cat and mouse out there for a while.”

“How do you mean?

“The surface combatants have withdrawn and consolidated in to new battlegroups. They pulled their ships up north and we pulled ours south to Guam. That damn volcano is blanketing the sea as much as anything else. It’s no place for surface ships in the waters south of the Kuriles. It’s down to submarines for them now. So if we move Eisenhower and Nimitz into strike range off Taiwan, that means we have to worry about their submarines too, both the Chinese and Russian boats.”

“That’s what all this fuss is with the sub tender? You think they are planning to move their subs out again?”

Stone gave him a long look. “What sub tender?”

“Right there in those satellite images I just handed you.”

Stone took a closer look. “That’s not a sub tender… looks to be one of their old Pioner Moskvy class submersible salvage and support ships. I suppose you could call it a sub tender, but a ship like that usually shows up when there’s a rescue operation planned.”

“It joined the main fleet group last night, though we have no confirmed report of a sub operating with that task force.”