Larry Bond - Shattered Trident

“It can’t be helped, child.” Komamura stood, then helped her to her feet. “We must move forward. Go change your clothes, then find Minister Hisagi for me. I’ll wait here.” Blinking and still sniffling, she bowed quickly and ran off. By the time she came back, he’d have thought of some other chore for her.

Keeping busy was the best tonic. He tried to do the same thing, making a list of tasks, but found himself tripping over the first item: notifying Kubo’s family. His wife was dead, but he had three children. But could they even release such news? Wouldn’t the Chinese brag about such a thing?

His thoughts jumbled together. The oldest was a girl. Natsuki. She lived outside Ueda. As he tried to remember the other two children’s names, Kubo’s face and voice filled his memory and the tears came.

9 September 2016

0130 Local Time

41st Group Army Forward Headquarters

10 km South of Pingxiang, Near the Vietnamese Border

Lieutenant General Luo Shi found his chief of staff waiting outside the communications tent. “If we have to go tonight, are we ready?”

Qu Ding almost saluted. “Yes, sir. Everything is in place.”

“Good, because General Su himself just gave me the order. Get the staff together. I’ll speak to them in five minutes, but get word to the first-echelon units now. The infiltrators and engineers have to step off within the hour.”

The ground campaign for Vietnam was under way.

9 September 2016

0120 Local Time

USS North Dakota

West of Hainan Island, South China Sea

The captain was in a foul mood. Jerry paced silently around the confined control room looking first at the sonar operator’s screens, then the useless fire control displays—still no trace of Chakra . After putting some distance between them and the Akula following Minot’s sinking, North Dakota had lost contact, but that was expected. Some forty hours later, Jerry’s sonarmen still hadn’t reacquired the elusive Indian. The only clues they had of Chakra ’s whereabouts were two sets of distant explosions leading them northward, toward the Gulf of Tonkin.

Jerry paused by the UUV control console. “Anything from Fargo?”

“Sorry, Skipper, nothing,” replied the petty officer.

Sighing deeply, Jerry gave the enlisted man a solid pat on the shoulder and made his way back to the CWS—the starting point for yet another lap. Thigpen watched as his captain beat a well-trodden path in the linoleum deck, and after almost two hours, his patience was gone. Inching closer to Jerry he whispered quietly, “If you want the watch, Captain, I don’t mind turning it over. I have plenty of other stuff to do.”

Jerry closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Thigpen’s tone and the use of the word “captain” were a clear indication of his frustration. It was Thigpen’s watch as the command duty officer, Jerry’s had ended at midnight, but his silent lingering was putting everyone in control on edge.

“Sorry, XO,” said Jerry. “It just grates me that we can’t find this guy.”

“Join the crowd, sir,” Thigpen responded flatly. “But with all due respect, Captain, your rambling about is driving everyone in control crazy; and you know how short a trip that is for me.”

Thigpen’s quip took most of the bite out of his comment, but the message was loud and clear. Jerry was distracting the watchstanders with his moping about, and as CDO, Thigpen was completely in the right to put a stop to it.

“All right, all right, XO,” replied Jerry, chastened. “I’ll… just sit over here if you don’t mind.” Jerry pointed to one of the empty fire control chairs.

“As long as you behave yourself,” jabbed Thigpen sternly. Lymburn desperately tried to stifle a laugh, but ended up emitting a loud snort instead.

“Something wrong, Q?” Jerry asked with mock annoyance.

“No, sir. Just clearing my throat. Ahem, Ahem ,” replied the young lieutenant, smiling.

“Hmph! Insubordinate twits,” Jerry muttered.

INS Chakra

50 km West of Hainan Island, South China Sea

“Report, Number One,” demanded Samant as he strode into central post. He’d ordered Chakra to action stations just before he left the torpedo room, where he had supervised the loading of the first six land-attack cruise missiles.

“Yes, Captain, all compartments report they are at action stations. All torpedo tubes are at action state, with the exception of opening the bow caps. The target’s coordinates have been successfully loaded into the missile’s guidance computers,” Jain answered promptly.

“Did you double-check that the missiles’ navigation systems are selected to use Beidou satellite guidance?”

Jain nodded vigorously. “Absolutely, sir! The Klub missiles will use the Chinese’s own navigation satellites to guide them to their targets.”

“Excellent,” smiled Samant with satisfaction. When India first purchased the Russian Klub missile system, the deal included the 3M-14E land-attack cruise missiles. As received, the 3M-14E missiles’ onboard navigation system could only use the American GPS and Russian Glonass satellite navigation systems. However, before the missiles were loaded on Indian submarines, DRDO technicians replaced the Russian receiver with a home-built unit that could use all four satellite navigation systems, including the military signal from the Chinese Beidou, or “Compass” system.

Indian cyber spies had stolen the receiving chip design from a Chinese vendor’s network, and when it was exploited, discovered that the Beidou system had an accuracy degradation feature similar to the U.S. Global Positioning System’s “Selective Availability.” The Ministry of Defense ordered the chip to be reverse-engineered and installed in all Indian military navigation systems and applicable weapons—particularly missiles. The wisdom of this decision was justified early in the war.

Soon after the Littoral Alliance announced its existence, the CMC ordered the jamming of GPS and Glonass signals over selective areas of the Chinese mainland. The degradation to the satellite’s guidance signals reduced the effectiveness of some of the alliance’s early missile strikes, but once India passed on the schematics and some examples of the new receiver to her allies, Vietnamese and South Korean cruise missiles were soon fitted with the modification. The Chinese were just about to find this out.

“Helmsman, make your depth twenty meters. Prepare for a safety sweep,” announced Samant. “Open bow caps on all torpedo tubes. Stand by to fire, firing sequence tubes one through six, five-second intervals.”

USS North Dakota

“CDO, new contact, designate Sierra-five two, bearing zero three eight,” cried the sonar supervisor. “Contact is faint, just a few mechanical transients.”

Thigpen turned and looked over his shoulder. “Do you have a range?”

The sonar supervisor shook his head. “No, sir. I only got a few hits on the TB-33, definitely mechanical in nature. Nothing on any of the hull arrays.”

Jerry had shot out of the chair as soon as he heard the news and stood next to Thigpen. “Sounds like our boy, XO.”

“It’s a good bet, Skipper.”

“Hell, I’d take any bet right now. This guy is pretty cagey. If we’ve picked up mechanical transients, it’s only because he’s about to shoot someone.”

“But that’s just it, Skipper,” complained Thigpen. “There is nothing else out there even close to that bearing to shoot at!”