executive and legislative Yuans formally declaring independence a quiet hush settled over the region. Mainland China had their answer. Washington grimaced at the announcement, failing to prevent it by diplomatic arm twisting that had gone on for the last 24 hours. Taiwan was calling the Dragon’s bluff, and whistling for the hounds to come to its aid, invoking its longstanding mutual defense treaty with the US.
Washington had walked a careful tightrope stretched between the island and the Chinese mainland since 1955. On the one hand they pledged to defend Taiwan from outside aggression, while on the other they threw a bone to the People’s Republic by inserting careful language into the treaty upon its ratification: “ It is the understanding of the Senate that nothing in the treaty shall be construed as affecting or modifying the legal status or sovereignty of the territories to which it applies.”
It suited the US for decades to favor both Japan and Taiwan with promises of military aid and support in exchange for bases and allied states that would help America contain the great Dragon of the East. But now the Chinese had finally gone to sea, building a navy that would allow them to project real power there.
Tonight that navy was also moving. Amphibious ships were slipping away from their quays and piers, escorted by fast new frigates, China’s new destroyers formed up in flotillas in the vanguard of these task forces, and a host of silent submarines crept out from the long coastline. They were all bound for the contested choke points and routes of approach to the region, the first trip wire that any intruder would have to face.
Back on the mainland hundreds of aircraft were queuing up at the military airfields, ready for takeoff, some sleek and stealthy, already climbing into the night with missiles hidden within their sculpted bellies, others more conventional, with their wings heavy with bombs and other ordinance. At locations all over the mainland coastline thousands of mobile ballistic missile launchers emerged from hidden caves, bunkers, and tunnels and their blood red noses lifted slowly toward the silver moon. A cold “East Wind” was about to blow as the deadly Dong Feng missiles prepared for launching. There were over 1100 DF-11 and DF-15 missiles available for land based targets and a another thousand older tactical missiles. With these were up to 200 of the deadly DF-21 ship killers like those that had hit a bull’s eye and ravaged the Japanese helicopter carrier DDH Hyuga in the recent hot engagement over the Senkaku / Diaoyutai Islands.
Lt. Commander Reed had explained it as a game of darts and arrows to the White House Chief of Staff Leyman, but it was about to become a very real nightmare. Signals intelligence and satellites were watching it all with tense alertness while a great debate raged in the White House Situation Room: should the United states preemptively attack and destroy China’s intelligence and GPS satellite network?
While they were talking about it 2nd Lieutenant Matt Eden at US NAVINTEL saw something very interesting on his own spy satellite monitoring station at Hawaii. Satellite NROL-50 picked up the obvious back flash of three missiles being launched from Shuangchengzi Space and Missile Center and Eden quickly reached for his alert phone.
“Deep Black Ten reporting. Red One, Red One, Red One,” he said three times quickly. “I have back flash on three Red Arrows out of Sierra-Mike-Charlie, confidence high. Do you copy?”
“Roger that Deep Black Ten, Red One, three times. Will confirm.”
Hot damn I hope they move on this one in a hurry, he thought, because one of those bad boys could be coming up after my NROL-50. NORAD, STRATCOM, and J-SOC, the Joint Space Operations Center, would be all over this as well. They surely picked up that back flash on infrared and know what’s coming. If he was going to have to move his bird he need confirming radar and SIGINT on the missiles, and a clear line on their presumed orbital entry point and threat vector. Satellites were killed by simply putting an infrared seeking warhead into orbit for what would end up looking like a collision of two particles in an accelerator. The warhead would take an orbital path retrograde to that of the target satellite and come flashing in to collide with it at over 18,000 miles per hour.
So while the West discussed the matter and debated the relative merits of this and that, the East acted. All that came before in the Senkaku Island group was just an overture. The three missiles Eden had spotted were now the opening salvo of a war that might indeed be the one to end all others, but they would be the last he would see.
Far below, in the rugged mountains of Xinjiang province, two well camouflaged concrete doors slowly opened and a ‘device’ resembling a massive searchlight slowly emerged from a deep hidden cave bunker and rolled out on two thin rails. It rotated, angling its massive circular shape to the sky as if it were an enormous telescope peering into the heavens. Seconds later a powerful laser fired, its intense beam vanishing into the heavens above. The Dazzle Gun had just blinded Matt Eden’s satellite eyes.
Chapter 35
Karpov stood on the bridge of Kirov, watching the sun rise over the wide Pacific. They were right on its doorstep, just passing through the channel south of Urup Island, some 250 miles northeast of Hokkaido. He was peering through his binoculars, north to the rising cone of the island where the long sleeping volcano called the Demon was slowly rousing from its slumber. A Holocene stratovolcano with no known historic eruptions, it had begun stirring with fitful dreams that shook the region with a spate of earthquakes over the last month, and now a geologic watch was posted. The Demon was awakening.
Up ahead he could see the three lead ships of his formation. The new frigate Admiral Golovko led the way, with the superb new destroyer Orlan cruising in her wake. Then came the heart of his surface action group. The old cruiser Varyag of the Slava Class was beyond its prime but still a potent threat with sixteen supersonic P-1000 Vulkan cruise missiles that could range out to 700 kilometers. It was the last ship in the fleet that would use that older missile. The ship also carried sixty-four of the same S-300 long range SAMs that Kirov used so effectively to savage the air forces of Britain, the United States, Italy and Japan on her mysterious sorties to a distant past. No one on Varyag knew any of that, and her Captain Myshelov was more than happy to look over his shoulder now and see the fleet’s most powerful surface ship at his back.
Kirov was last in the main line, wounded but up and running again, the hull patch holding well in the open seas and the ship’s speed good at a steady 25 knots. Fresh new missiles were loaded in the underdeck silos, twenty Moskit-II Sunburns, ten Mos-III Hypersonic Starfires and ten more P-900 cruise missiles-more than twice the firepower of the Varyag. Karpov had taken his tail of four older Udaloy Class destroyers and sent two to either side of this main formation as screening ships. Marshal Shaposhnikov and Admiral Tributs were off the port side, and Admiral Vinogradov and Admiral Panteleyev off the starboard side. Deep beneath the sea ten submarines were fanning out in a protective arc as the fleet prepared to make its rendezvous with Admiral Kuznetsov.
Rodenko reported an air contact just ahead and coming in at high speed, but there was no alarm. It was a flight of three Mig-29s and a single SU-33 in a low diamond formation flying in tribute to the new King of the Northern Pacific, Vladimir Karpov. The planes came in low, the sun gleaming off their swept back wings, the long white contrails lacing through the blue morning sky. The roar of the flyby was followed by cheers from the men on deck, who waved excitedly at their comrades in the sky. The three Migs then turned their noses sharply up and created a wide fan as they splayed apart in the climb, and the sole SU-33 kept strait on, saluting with a wag of its wings.
Karpov smiled. Yes, the men were calling him that now, King of the Northern Pacific, just as they had also crowned Admiral Volsky with that title when he ruled from Severomorsk. The Admiral was now chained to his desk at Fokino, managing the coordination of all the various fleet components along with logistics, fleet air arm deployments, and the inevitable political problems all this would cause. At the same time he was setting up the daring operation to rescue Fedorov and the others in the Caspian, with the bulk of the ship’s Marine contingent and Chief Dobrynin.
Fedorov’s plan to use the Anatoly Alexandrov was brilliant, he thought. Knowing the fleet may have to fight very soon, was a heavy burden, and there would have been no way to safely extricate Kirov from battle to revisit the past. Yet now he felt the odd absence of Rod-25 as he sailed, like a man that had forgotten his wallet or keys, like a man trying to smile with a missing front tooth. Kirov was no longer a ship with a magic wand. The possibilities and power Rod-25 had bestowed upon them were now gone, and he felt like a god that had suddenly fallen from grace, just a common mortal man again. Yes, he realized, now it comes down to flesh, blood and steel, just as Volsky said. We no longer have time in the palm of our hand-at least I do not. Perhaps that is for the
