Invasion: China (Invasion America) (Volume 5) (27 page)

“It was bound to happen sooner or later.”

“They must know we’re here,” Khan said.

“I agree, sir,” the Chief said, a square-faced fellow from Kansas.

Darius dug sleep from his eyes with this knuckles. They were big and scarred from fistfights in his youth, with visible skin cracks in them. He nodded. What they said made sense. “Listen closely,” he said. “We’ll launch…three hunter-seekers. Then we turn around and—”

“We can’t lead them to the Task Force, sir,” the Chief said.

Darius’s eyes opened wider. What was this? Did the Chief second-guess him in front of the crew? Why did the man do it now all of a sudden?

He didn’t like my order earlier. Was it a mistake?

He couldn’t take it back, so there was no use worrying about it. Darius locked stares with the Chief. The man wasn’t backing down, though, and stared right back at him. Instead of getting angry, Darius turned away and thought deeply.

This was more than face, more than black and white animosity. He captained a submarine. Before Allah, that was an important responsibility. He wondered what his uncle would have done.

“Thank you, Chief,” Darius said. “I have considered your words.”

The crew watched him. His next
order would determine many things.

“We have to launch
our data, both to the Task Force and to Space Command. Afterward, we dive as deep as we can go. Then we crawl
toward
the enemy. If I’m right, there’s a shooting match starting. We have to work in and pop up later, and put a nuke up their Chinese asses.”

No one smiled. It was too grim a topic. If they could do that
, launch the nuclear-tipped torpedo…none of them might live to talk about it.

“We joined
the service to fight the enemy, gentlemen,” Darius said. “Sometimes, that means risking everything.” He watched them. Khan and he were Muslims. Allah could help a man die well, particularly during a fight. What about the others? Could they die well?

“
Carry out my orders,” Darius said, and he stood. If anyone tried to second-guess him now—no, the crewmembers went about their tasks. Therefore, he opened his fist and let his fingers relax.

LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY

Alarms rang
underground as General Foxx of the C and C THOR Missile Station burst through the door. They were deep in an abandoned mine shaft, the chamber well lit and cooled by massive air conditioners.

Men and women sat at their
terminals, studying incoming data and checking with Space Command.

Foxx
studied his tablet, rereading the latest text. The data links were tenuous, from a destroyer on the edge of the Tasman Sea, back to a message ship, to Antarctica and then to a relay station in South Africa.

“What code is—?” General Foxx never had a chan
ce to finish his words. It was Code Red, ultra-priority. “You know what this means, people. We’re going to burn up satellites to get a fix on the Chinese carriers. This one is for real. Harris, how many are in range of—”

“One bundle, sir,” Harris said.

“Just one? That’s too bad. How long until its—”

“T
wo hours, sir,” Harris said.

Foxx nodded. He was a slender man. A year and a half ago, he’d been a colonel running an experimental unit. Now he was a general with a war-winning weapons system.
It was time to get to work.

AUTOMATED ORBITING SENSOR
S, SPACE

Two American sensor satellites packed in stealth sheathing were passing Australia west to east at longitude south 30 degrees and 45 degrees respectively. The signal from Lexington, Kentucky bounced along towers to a hidden relay satellite over the mid-Atlantic to Senegal. From there, through various towers, it reached South Africa and shot to another hidden satellite over the middle of the Indian Ocean.

Once they acted
—revealing themselves—the space assets would have a short shelf life. Whatever they had to do, they had to do quickly.

One sensor
satellite moved over the curvature of the Earth before the signal originating in Lexington could reach it. So it remained hidden in its stealth material. The other satellite at 30 degrees south received the message. Its AI recognized the code and ordered the satellite to burst out of its sheathing. Immediately, it used powerful radar and other sensor arrays and found the Chinese carrier group in the middle of the Tasman Sea.

The satellite used a communications laser, sending the data back
to the object that had woken it. Seconds turned into minutes. Then the carrier group down below reacted to the intruding satellite.

Chinese destroyers
Rose Petal
and
Green Lily
activated their defense grids, arming MIR-616 Standard Missile 4Bs. Fifteen seconds later, two weapons blasted off, one from each destroyer.

Each improved SM-4
B was seven meters long. Each had a wingspan of two meters and an operational range of seven hundred kilometers. Its flight ceiling was one hundred and eighty kilometers—twenty more kilometers than its previous version, deployed in 2032.

INS semi-active radar
from the
Sung
tracked the American satellite.

Each
SM-4B missile used a solid-fuel Aerojet booster. The first one roared out of human eyesight, heading for space. As the first stage rocket fell away, the second stage dual thrust rocket motor took over. More targeting data reached the missile as it rapidly climbed out of the atmosphere. Once in space, the third stage MK 136 solid-fueled rocket motor used pulse power.

The American satellite lacked defensive measures. It merely collected data on the fleet, sending it west to
ward the middle of the Indian Ocean.

On the first
SM-4B missile, the third stage separated. The lightweight exo-atmospheric projectile sent the kinetic warhead at the target. Seconds ticked away, and the warhead struck the sensor satellite. The SM-4B transferred one hundred and thirty megajoules of kinetic energy to the object, more than enough to obliterate it.

I
t hardly mattered. The original telemetry data had already reached C and C THOR Missile Station under Lexington, and the attack order to the single THOR bundle heading into position went out.

LOW EARTH ORBIT

The
THOR launch vehicle hidden in stealth cladding expelled cold gas propulsion as instructed by a burst of orders originating from C and C Lexington. As long as the vehicle stayed cool, Chinese sensors would have a difficult time finding it.

The only trouble was that time was critical. Even now, the Chinese carrier group would
likely be racing elsewhere. The original data was extremely time sensitive.

The vehicle’s AI took over after the initial burst of
orders. It expelled more cold gas, beginning to deorbit into attack position. A regular rocket exhaust would have created a bright plume—a beacon—for the enemy to see. Instead, the stealth vehicle continued to maneuver with a minimum signature. This was its most vulnerable stage. If the Chinese could find it now, they could destroy the weapons system.

Luckily, the THOR missiles did not need m
aximum penetration for their current objectives. Enemy silos or underground bunkers—hardened targets—demanded a nearly vertical attack from space. Ships were different. The THOR missiles could attack at a shallower angle. It meant the missiles could come from many different directions, making them harder to spot and defeat.

Unlike the attack against the GD Atlantic fleet in 2040, a single launch vehicle maneuvered into position
, not many.

The Americans lacked
high-flying UAVs or any over-the-horizon radar. Instead, several Seagull-3 drones converged on the enemy carrier group.

It seemed the Chinese understood the danger.
Enemy attack UCAVs flew thick on combat air patrol, or CAP. They destroyed the small Seagull-3 drones as quickly as they spotted them. Fortunately for the THOR Launch Vehicle, its AI-enhanced receivers picked up the data needed. Another AI relayed the targeting intelligence to the individual missiles, giving them their priority objectives.

At high speed, m
iniaturized onboard computers went about their tasks. Finally, the vehicle burst apart, as a cloud of cold white vapor escaped. Sleek tungsten rods—fifty of them—separated from each other. Gravity did the rest, tugging at the crowbar-sized missiles. In moments, they sped Earthward, heading for the individual ships of the Chinese carrier group.

PRCN
SUNG

Alarms rang in the command center aboard the supercarrier.

“Sir!”

Admiral Ling saw it on the big screen. A hated American satellite had just launched a bundle of THOR missiles.

“
They’re headed down, sir, coming straight at us.”

“Alert the rest of the ships,” Ling said in a calm voice. “Begin emergency evasive actions. We have to make it hard
er on then.”

“Sir—”

“Listen to me,” Ling said.

The
deck captain snapped to attention.

“We have the battleship. Use the particle beam. Now would be an excellent time to see if it can truly destroy these wasps. Use the SM-4
Bs too, and use the lasers. Throw whatever we have at these things. Now!”

The command center personnel went about their business with excited efficiency. This felt far too much like Alaska those many years ago. Then it had been ship-killing ballistic missiles
coming at them. How the Americans loved missiles and loved using outer space.

Admiral Ling watched the big screen. The fleet bolted in every direction like
frightened mice. That was good. The Americans were getting their chance. Once it was over, he would exact a fierce revenge on their invasion fleet. The Americans thought to bring ships into these waters, the arrogant devils. No, their day was over. China would yet prevail.

“Engage the hologram generators,” Ling said.

“Yes, sir,” the deck captain said.

From the
Sung’s
command center, the order dispersed to the fleet.

Each capital ship possessed a hologram generator, meaning the two aircraft carriers, the battleship and the cruisers. The
limiting factors were power and the size of the machinery. The hologram generator sucked up power. That meant it could be on for only short amounts of time.

As Ling waited,
Sung’s
holo-imagers aimed at the sea, and a giant supercarrier ghost appeared. On the other side, a second ghost carrier came into existence. One after another, new Chinese capital ships shimmered into existence on the water.

A careful observer would
have noticed important differences. The sea didn’t wash against a hologram’s hull, but swept through it and disappeared. Would that matter to small THOR missiles hunting for targets?

Admiral Ling knew that they were about to find out.

LOW EARTH ORBIT

A twenty-pound tungsten THOR missile—one of fifty just like it—began its descent into the atmosphere. At the start of its rapid fall, the missile had an ablative nose tip.

As the rod plunged down through the atmosphere at meteor speeds, heating up by friction, the ablative nose tip wore away until finally it was gone. It had done its job as a mini-heat shield. Instead of a blunt nose or even a rounded one showing, the THOR missile had a sharp point and an arrow-like design. It sliced through the increasingly dense atmosphere, losing only a fraction of its terrific velocity.

Despite the intense heat, the internal guts of the tungsten rod began to work. At three miles above the Tasman Sea, the nose cap popped off. That exposed the sensors. They were high-grade and rugged, and this particular missile spotted the PRCN
Sung
supercarrier, its priority target. Small flanges at the rear of the rod steered the projectile, adjusting as the supercarrier churned through the sea.

At twenty pounds, the tungsten rod was less than an inch in diameter and four feet long. A luminous trail appeared behind it, as straight as a line.

Traveling at the incredible velocity, the THOR missile neared its target.

At that moment, the great Chinese battleship aimed its particle beam cannon at the speeding meteor. Giant generators roared with power, accelerating particles.
A flash appeared for a microsecond. It was all that let anyone know the cannon fired its contents.

The
accelerated particles struck the crowbar-shaped THOR missile. Despite the missile’s ruggedness, the beam weakened the twenty-pound tungsten rod. Incredibly, it snapped in half. At these speeds, the atmosphere caused it to glow with molten colors. Friction began destroying the rod, eating it away.

The battleship switched targets, tracking another THOR missile, destroying it too. It started on the third projectile…