the large numbers of aircraft China had been able to store at these tiny airfields in the Spratlys. While several of the bases had been hit by Tomahawk cruise missiles, several more had stayed intact, and they would now be used to their fullest advantage once the new attack began. And, the Chinese hoped, the Americans would have no idea of the battle they were about to enter into.
Cheyenne was still running at thirty-two knots when Mack asked for the ETA on their rendezvous with Independence.
'If we maintain our current speed, Captain, we should be there in six and a half hours,' answered the OOD.
'Very well,' Mack said. 'Maintain flank speed and heading.'
The transit to the South China Sea to meet with Independence was filled with tension. AH on board Cheyenne had been informed of the large attack group heading their way and they were not exactly sure of how their submarine fit into the equation. They knew that they would be playing an essential role in the operation, but they also knew that they would not find out what that role was until their new orders were radioed to them from the surface.
The Americans were not like the Chinese when it came to fleet cooperation. The U.S. Navy put a great emphasis on intership communications. They had learned that through digital data-links and satellite communications, that so-called information warfare could mean the difference between failure and success in a major battle.
'We just picked up Mobile Bay on sonar bearing 286,' reported one of the sonar operators to his sonar supervisor. The BSY-l operators immediately set to work to determine Cheyenne* s range to the cruiser.
'Come to periscope depth,' Mack ordered.
'Come to periscope depth, aye, sir.' The repeated order was such a part of Navy life that few even realized that they were saying it.
After four minutes the captain ordered one of the communications masts raised. When that order had been acknowledged and carried out, he instructed radio to transmit a message to Independence, indicating that Cheyenne had arrived on station and was awaiting their new orders.
It took a few minutes for the new orders to come in, but Mack didn't mind the wait-especially once he got a look at exactly what those new orders were.
Cheyenne was to take up position approximately one hundred miles in front of the Battle Group. This would get her away from the noisy surface ships and allow her to do what she did best: hunt down and destroy any enemy submarines in the area.
When the final message traffic had come in, Mack ordered Cheyenne to once again proceed below four hundred feet. His normal routine was to call a meeting in the wardroom, but these orders had been expected and did not require a full meeting. Instead, he then instructed the communicator to type up a summary and distribute it to the appropriate officers.
To: All officers on board USS Cheyenne
From: Captain Mackey
RE: Combat operations
Mack finished the letter with his plain, recognizable signature and had the communicator run off the appropriate number of copies.
On board Independence, flight operations were beginning to take on a tone of tension as well. While all carrier flights involved a fairly high level of risk, combat operations increased this risk. On top of that, within the past hour an ES-3 electronic warfare aircraft flying from the carrier had detected strong Chinese radio activity coming from the direction of the Spratfy Islands. Since the invasion of the islands, this had frequently been the case, except that this time the heavy traffic was coming from naval vessels, not ground units.
Currently, two of Independence's E-2Cs were operating around the carrier, providing radar coverage out to many hundreds of miles. F-14Ds, armed with AMRAAM and Phoenix missiles, were providing air cover around the clock for the Battle Group. This was all happening while two dozen F/A-18s were being armed with two Harpoon antishipping missiles, two undenting fuel tanks, and two Sidewinder missiles each, in an effort to prepare them for the ensuing battle. Twelve F/A-18s also were being kept in reserve in case the air battle got too sticky for the F-14s to handle alone.
On board the carrier's escorts, their crews were preparing as well- The entire group's radars, including the Aegis radars, were shut down. The surface group was relying entirely on the APS-145 radars flying overhead on board the E-2 Hawkeyes. The Battle Group commander wanted to deny the Chinese the opportunity to detect American radar waves via ESM. Without an exact location on the American warships, the Chinese would not be able to launch their missiles until they came within either visual range or their own radar range-and the commander did not intend to allow them to get anywhere near that close.
Beneath the surface, operating twenty miles away from the carrier on either side, were the USS Bremerton and the USS Columbia. These submarines were playing defense to Cheyenne's ASW offense. They waited just far enough away from the carrier to not be affected by the group's noise while staying close enough to attack incoming threats such as Romeo class submarines armed with shorter-range torpedoes. Both Bremerton and Columbia were aware that the newer Akulas carried several long-range torpedoes, including the 65cm Type 65 wake homing torpedo, which had a range in excess of fifty nautical miles. These longer-range threats would have to be handled by Cheyenne or the S-3 Viking aircraft.
On board Cheyenne, Mack was well aware that he would need to take care of the most dangerous ASW threats to Independence. The Akula submarines would be hard to detect and had weapons that could attack the carrier from long distances. He would have to take special ~? tn H^I T,;th rhfise threats, even if it meant letting the noisier, less dangerous Romeos and Mings slip by, leaving them for Bremerton and Columbia to handle.
Word passed rapidly throughout the Battle Group that evidence strongly suggested that the Chinese task force had arrived at the Spratly Islands and was now beginning to refuel. That told Mack that the battle was about to begin.
Cheyenne was in perfect position to launch her Tomahawk cruise missiles at the refueling warships and their piers, but Mack agreed with the Battle Group commander's decision not to. Not even Cheyenne could have taken out all sixty ships, and launching her Tomahawks would have given away Cheyenne's position. That would have risked exposing her to any Akulas in the area, and hampered her in her ASW mission.
Mack would have liked to go after the Chinese ships while they were still no threat to the Independence Battle Group, but he agreed with the decision. He would wait, silently, until the enemy submarines began to show up on his sonar consoles.
Cheyenne wasn't the only U.S. asset in the area with Tomahawks on board. The USS Hewitt's entire Mk 41
