'Snap shots, tubes one and two, bearings 125 and 135 respectively,' Mack ordered. That order meant that the Mk 48s would have to do their own thing in detecting, tracking, and sinking two of the Kilos, but Mack didn't have the luxury of assisting them.
It worked. The two torpedoes quickly acquired the Kilos. The two SSKs tried to flee, increasing speed and cavitating heavily, but to no avail. Both torpedoes found their marks and destroyed the SSKs, but Mack wasn't satisfied. Where was the third Kilo? he wondered.
He didn't have long to wait before finding out.
'Conn, sonar, we have transients bearing 180 that sound like Christmas balls falling off a tree and breaking? like a tinkling sound. Seems that the third Kilo was spooked by our torpedoes and ran into a coral reef.'
Mack grinned. He was happy to take the kills any way he could. Only the Alfa remained, and Cheyenne had lost contact after the first explosion against the Kilos.
Sonar was not able to reacquire the Russian submarine, and Mack gave the orders to take Cheyenne out of the area. They'd have another chance at the Alfa, he hoped, before he had to submit the next patrol report.
The only question that was bothering him was how the Alfa had slipped away. He hadn't expected that from a Chinese crew on a Russian submarine.
Then Cheyenne moved into deeper waters. As she resumed her patrol, Mack found himself wondering whether the Alfa had acquired a Russian adviser, or, worse, a full Russian crew.
A few days later, Cheyenne had been ordered to head to the south to meet up with McKee, anchored near Brunei, for a quick reload and resupply. Then she was to rendezvous with the Independence Battle Group and await further orders from CTF 74. Mack didn't know it yet, but they would not have the chance for a briefing in McKee's war room for some time to come.
5. Interdiction
The Independence Battle Group, to which Cheyenne was assigned as the sole SSN(DS), was operating south of the Spratly Islands. Having completed a quick reload and resupply, Cheyenne was with them, patrolling around their position, keeping the surface ships safe. Only this time, Mack's patrol area was not the forward 180 degrees, which he preferred. Instead, it was an area the shape of a donut: a full 360-degree annulus, centered on Independence, with an inner diameter of forty nautical miles and an outer diameter of eighty nautical miles. Mack didn't like being reined in like that.
'Radio, conn, stream the floating wire,' the OOD ordered.
'Conn, radio, stream the floating wire, aye, sir.'
Cheyenne's floating wire communications antenna was functionally similar to the communications buoys carried by Ohio class Trident ballistic missile submarines. Cheyenne could deploy this wire from depth, without having to raise a communications mast above the surface.
'Incoming message traffic,' the communicator said. He'd learned his lesson from their previous patrol and did not speculate on their new orders.
The OOD acknowledged and summoned both the captain and the executive officer to the conn.
Mack arrived in a few minutes along with the executive officer. Captain Mackey read the message, passed it to the executive officer, and then called a meeting in the wardroom. He requested that the communicator, the executive officer, the combat systems officer, and the engineer officer be present.
'We have our new orders,' Mack said as the briefing began. 'Naval intelligence has determined that a large Chinese surface task group has been sighted leaving Zhanjiang Naval Base, China. Satellite reconnaissance has confirmed this information. The task group is expected to form in the Mandarin Sea south of that base. All information indicates that they are headed in the direction of the Spratly Islands. Normally, they would be taken care of by aircraft and surface units. However, the Navy doesn't want to send the carrier too far north as yet, or to divert any of the carrier's defensive escorts away from their protective zone. They are worried about a Chinese air attack on the Battle Group.'
Mack looked around at his officers. They were a good group, and getting better with every mission. His last post-attack critique had reinstilled the need for redundancy, the formal repeat backs, during the attack phase. There was no room for error.
'Our orders,' he went on, 'are to detach from the Battle Group and proceed north of the Spratly Islands to attack the Chinese task group.'
Cheyenne was currently deployed south of the Spratly Islands chain. Her new orders would send her on a voyage of over 660 miles.
She had completed her mini-refit with McKee only a few days earlier, and the weapons she had taken on board during the load-out should serve nicely in the upcoming battle. She had twenty Mk 48 torpedoes and six Harpoon missiles ready for loading in her torpedo tubes, and six Tomahawk antishipping missiles (TASM) in her VLS tubes.
This was the time when some submarine commanders delivered a pep talk to the officers and crew, but Mack didn't believe in that. His men were all professionals, and he wanted them to act that way. They didn't need to be pumped up to do their jobs. They simply needed to carry out their duties in a calm and proficient fashion.
Mack smiled to himself at that thought. He'd leave the rah-rah speeches for cheerleaders and football coaches, who dealt with million-dollar prima donnas. Mack much preferred being able to rely on the competence and professionalism of the sailors on board Cheyenne.
Over a thousand miles away, the Chinese naval base at Zhanjiang was bustling with activity. The surface group had finally left port and was now headed in the direction of the Chinese Spratly Islands. They were going to position themselves between the American Carrier Battle Group and their islands in order to prevent the U.S. Navy from taking any actions against the Spratlys.
This surface group was one of the most powerful surface-action groups ever to be assembled by the Chinese navy. Consisting of two of the new Luhu destroyers, three Luda I destroyers, and three Jianghu frigates, the group totaled eight ships in all, and they were all heavily armed.
The two new Luhu destroyers carried two French Z-9A helicopters apiece, and each surface ship carried a substantial quantity of surface-to-surface antiship missiles. Many of their vessels also were equipped with the French naval Crotale SAM system, which could take out any American helicopters that might stray too close to the Chinese force.
The fleet had been rushed to sea, and though they were well armed, their commander couldn't help wondering how well prepared they were. The Chinese People's Liberation Army (Navy) had made great strides in gaining new equipment and training since he had graduated from the Canton Surface Vessel Academy, yet there were great strides remaining.
The thing that bothered the Chinese commander the most was that, for all the strength and numbers of his surface group, he did not have the support of many submarines. The military, he knew, was strong in numbers, but much of their equipment was old and antiquated. Were the submarines in such a poor state of disrepair that they were unable to go to sea?
This bothered him in part because of its implications for the Chinese armed forces as a whole. More important, however, like most of the officers in the navy, he had heard rumors of American submarines wreaking havoc on the Chinese forces in this area. If those rumors were true, without many SSNs or SSKs of his own, his surface group was a large, heavily armed, sitting duck.
On board Cheyenne, Mack and his officers and crew were doing everything they could to substantiate those rumors-and maybe add a few new ones.
