Brown, Dale - Independent 01 (2 page)

 
          
February 1992

 
          
THE
PACIFIC
OCEAN

 
          
Three hundred miles east of
Tokyo
the aircraft carrier CV-64 USS
Constellation
rode the gentle swells of the
north
Pacific Ocean. She
was cruising at only six knots, barely enough to maintain steerage way. The
thirty-year-old, eighty-thousand-ton Kitty Hawk-class aircraft carrier was
surrounded by an armada of eleven smaller support ships and other surface
combatants arranged in
an
wide hexagon pattern.

           
The
Constellation
itself was buzzing with
activity. Poised for battle, two F/A-18E Hornet fighter-bombers were positioned
in their catapults, engines running, ready for the steam-powered push that
would shoot them from zero to one hundred forty knots in three seconds. Two
more F-18s on external power were parked just behind the catapult blast
deflectors, ready to take their places once the first two alert birds launched.
A CH-53F Super Sea Stallion III transport helicopter, its
seventy-five-foot-diameter rotor slowly spinning, sat on the
Constellation
s flight deck just beside
the “island” superstructure. Another was hovering a few hundred feet from the
Constellation
s fantail, ready in a few
seconds to drop onto the carrier’s broad stem if ordered.

 
         
The seas behind the huge carrier were
patrolled by predators of a different sort—three Los Angeles-class nuclear
attack submarines that hung virtually motionless in the warm Pacific currents.
Their sophisticated electronic sensors registered, catalogued, analyzed and assessed
each and every sound in the ocean for miles around, from the loudest clamor of
propellers to the softest hiss of the smallest marine creature. Each of the
sub’s four torpedo tubes was loaded with long-range ASW/SOW antisubmarine
missile-torpedoes, and each of the sub’s vertical launch tubes was loaded with
Sub-Harpoon antiship missiles.

           
But the man
in the skipper’s chair on the bridge atop the
Constellation's
superstructure did not notice any of these special
additions to the
Constellation's
battle group. He was peering intently at a fifteen- inch-diameter radar scope,
tracking three very large blips at its outer edge. The man looked up from the
radar scope and squinted at the horizon, north between the American nuclear
missile cruiser USS
Long Beach
and
the tiny frigate USS
Lockwood.

           
“I can just
barely make them out, I think,” the president of the
United
States
said. Two of the senior officials on
the bridge glanced doubtfully at each other—no one, not even the president of
the
United States
,
could see a ship two hundred miles away.

           
“I think,
sir,” Rear Admiral Bennett Walton said, “that you’re seeing the
Jouett,
one of our missile destroyer
escorts.”

           
The
president checked the radar again, pointing to a large blip. “That’s the
Jouett?
He looks so far away.”

           
“It’s
pretty hazy out, sir. The
Jouett
is
eight miles out, but it seems farther.”

           
The
president grunted at the scope, his expression turning pensive as the three
blips moved closer to the center of the screen. “Who the hell are they, Admiral?”

           
Walton
smiled. “It’s the
Kirov
, Mr.
President. Largest guided missile cruiser in the world. She’s got the
Krasina
guided missile cruiser and the
Kresta,
an antisubmarine destroyer, with
her.”

           
“No
aircraft carrier? I would have thought the Soviets would try to match the
Constellation's
forces.”

           
“Sir,”
Secretary of Defense Linus Edwards put in, “they don’t have enough forces to
match even the
Constellation's
small
battle group. It would be a waste for them to try.”

           
The
president tried his best to ignore Edwards’ bravado. The secretary of defense
was an old navy sea captain who thought the U.S. Navy ruled the seven seas. His
background, the president reminded himself, clouded many of his opinions. He
turned back to Walton. “Are you worried that the
Kirov
is
trailing us, even though it’s over two hundred miles away?”

           
“Sir, the
Kirov
is about five hundred miles closer
than I’d like. She packs quite a wallop, especially at only two hundred miles
distant. But we’re less than a thousand miles from
Vladivostok
,
their largest Pacific naval base, so I guess we should be thankful there’s only
one major battleship out there shadowing us.”

           
He paused,
glancing at a large chart of the
Sea of Japan
and
East
Asia
on the bulkhead above the radar gear. “I’m more concerned
about their naval aviation forces at
Vladivostok
—they
have the equivalent of four full naval air groups and nine heavy bomb wings out
there, enough to invade
Japan
twice over. Plus there’s always the threat posed by their newest carrier
group—led by the
Arkhangel
.”

           
“But the
Constellation
and her escorts have
enough firepower to take on anything the Soviets might throw at us,” Edwards
pointed out, “if they’re reckless enough to try.”

           
Walton
moved to another radar scope beside the main sea-mapping scope. “Here’s a
display of aircraft, Mr. President, within five hundred miles of us. All of
them are ours or
Japan
’s,
except for this guy.” Walton pointed at a highlighted blip, again at the very
edge of the scope.

           
“An
Ilyushin IL-76G turbojet spy plane,” the admiral explained. “It can monitor our
communications, study our radar emissions, map out the positions of all our
ships. We also think it can monitor the progress of this morning’s test.”

           
“How long
until we start the test?” the president asked.

           
“We can
start at any time, sir,” Linus Edwards replied, checking his watch.

           
“Everyone’s
in position,” Walton said. “They should be running through their final
prelaunch checks now. Tracking and monitoring stations and the
White
Sands
Missile
Range
target area have already reported ready.”

           
The
president nodded,
then
wandered out to the catwalk
just outside the bridge area. Secretary Edwards and Admiral Walton followed,
along with Neil McDonough, an NSC adviser, and a small knot of Marine and
Secret Service guards. The president let the wind toss his thin silver hair
around and inhaled deeply, breathing in the crisp salt air.

           
“We’re
finally about to do it,” he said excitedly, raising his voice over the sounds
of jet turbines on the
Constellation s
seventy-four-thousand-square-foot flight deck. “I’ve been waiting for this
demonstration for months.”

           
“I have to
admit,” Edwards said, “that I feel a little uneasy about this whole thing.” He
did not attempt to raise his voice over the clamor of helicopters and machinery
on the flight deck seventy feet below. “The first intercontinental missiles
fired over the pole at the
United States
from
Asia
—and
we
launch them. Even with the Tridents’ warheads inert, it makes me nervous.”

           
“Your less
than enthusiastic opinion of the antiballistic missile defense system is well
documented, Lee,” the president said. “But that’s one of the reasons I
scheduled this test. Your opinions carry a lot of weight. If you’re unhappy
with the space-based defense network, others will be. If I can convince you how
valuable this system is, I think I can convince others—including the Russians.”

           
“But a test
of this magnitude?” Edwards asked. “Six D-5 phase- three sub-launched missiles
flying right through
Canada
and across the
United States
?
Is a test with this much potential for mishap really necessary? An ICBM has
never been flown across the pole before—” “You mean
we've
never flown across the pole before,” the president corrected.
“We’ve caught the Russians firing missiles from
Murmansk
in
Europe
to their Asian ranges, and there’s evidence of
them shooting ‘ferret’ missiles at
Canada
to test our early warning systems. We’re hardly setting a precedent here.”

           
Edwards was
about to interject something but the president continued. “This test is vital,
Lee. No matter how sophisticated a system is, people remain skeptical until
they see it in action. Space Command briefs Congress almost every month on the
results of their simulations, but no one believes how good the Thor
kinetic-kill missile system really is. It’s time to show them.” He pointed
towards the horizon, where the three Russian ships were riding beyond visual
range. “Those sonsofbitches want a show, we’ll give ’em a show.”

           
He stepped
back into the bridge and nodded to Admiral Walton. “Let’s do it.”

           
Walton
smiled and motioned to a control panel mounted on the forward sea data console.
Without hesitation the president leaned forward to the control panel and
twisted a large bronze key in a triangular keyswitch. Immediately, a red light
labeled “LAUNCH” illuminated and an electric horn sounded throughout the
Constellation.

           
With a
thunderous roar a geyser of water erupted less than two miles away from the
Constellation,
and a huge white object
rose from the sea like a bellowing whale. It blasted free of the waves, hovered
about thirty feet above the water, and even seemed to slip backwards a few
feet. Then, with a tremendous blast of fire, the Trident D-5/III sea-launched
ballistic missile’s solid-propellant motor ignited, and the missile and its ten
inert warheads roared into space.

           
The first
Trident had hardly reached full thrust when the second missile pierced the
surface of the now boiling ocean. The USS
Pennsylvania
,
the seventh and youngest of the new
fleet of Ohio-class supersubmarines, began disgorging her deadly cargo at a
rate of one missile every ten seconds. The stain of white hot foam stretched
from the
Pennsylvania
's
launch point toward the
Constellation,
her escorts, and the
thousands of men watching the awesome spectacle.

 
          
ARMSTRONG SPACE STATION

 
          
“Skipper, missile launch detection.”

           
Brigadier
General Jason Saint-Michael quickly set his coffee cup down on a Velcro mat on
the bulkhead and maneuvered himself to the main sensor operator’s console. On a
wide two-foot by three-foot multisensor display screen, a flashing white circle
was superimposed on a polar-projection map of the northern hemisphere near
Japan. A few seconds later, a short column of position readouts printed on a
second screen beside the main display. The general’s face seemed to take on an
added intensity as he read the growing column of data.

           
“Three
hundred miles east of
Tokyo
, sir,”
the sensor operator read aloud. “It’s the exercise launch area all right
. ..

           
“All
sections,
stand by,” Saint-Michael said. “Alert the station,
exercise under way, red alert.” He readjusted his tiny communications earset
and returned to his commander’s seat—the only seat in the command module of the
world’s first strategic defense space station —and strapped himself in. The
pedestal-mounted chair gave him a direct view of all the consoles in the space
station’s nerve center. He pulled out his ever-present notebook and pencil and
attached the “doodlebook” to a Velcro pad on his seat’s armrests to keep it
from floating off in microgravity. His fingers were already making
undecipherable scratches on the paper as he barked orders to his crewmen.

           
“Okay,
men,” he said in a deep, resonant voice, “let’s see if we can avoid letting
these babies blow past us. Comm, transmit strategic warning message to Space
Command, and ask them to verify that this is an exercise only.”

           
“Already in
contact with Space Command, sir,” the communications tech reported. “Exercise
code received and authenticated.”