Lieutenant Read online

  “Yes sir,” Allred said, slumping back in his seat. His mind reeled as he came to grips with the fact that the rules of submarine warfare he had worked so hard to learn over his long career had just been blown out of the water by that little chip they’d installed. Head swimming he turned, “Ramirez, you been listening?”

  “Yes sir.” Ramirez’ eyes were wide.

  “Let’s see what we can do about feeding data streams out of this aux board to our screens. Then talk to the people on the other end of the line and let’s ‘see what we can see’ from those recon feeds they claim they can deliver to us!”

  ***

  Captain Carson walked down the hall of the Taiwan ministry of Transportation and Communications. His guide took him to the office of a Mr. Zhang who was responsible for the submarine communication cables. Zhang’s secretary apologized, “The PRC has disabled our communication satellites. Mr. Zhang must cancel your appointment. He is fully committed to dealing with this crisis.”

  Carson’s guide began to back out of the office, saying “So sorry, I will help the Captain make another appointment.”

  Carson didn’t move, even when his guide tugged at his elbow. “You must tell Mr. Zhang that I have been sent here expressly to help deal with this crisis. I am carrying part of the solution with me!”

  The secretary stared round eyed at him. “No! He told me that no one could be allowed to interrupt!”

  Before the others comprehended his intention, Carson stepped to his left and opened the door to Zhang’s inner office. Zhang, looking flustered stared in horror at the screens on his desk while speaking frantically through his AI. Now both the guide and the secretary were plucking at Carson’s elbows and the secretary spoke Chinese in a frantic tone suggesting she was calling the guards. Carson summoned his command voice and said, “Mr. Zhang! I have been sent by the United States to help you with this crisis, you must hear what I have to say.”

  Zhang’s eyes had widened when Carson opened the door and now his eyebrows rose. He held up a finger to pause, said a few more words in Chinese over his AI, then said, “What?”

  “The PRC has taken out our satellites as well. We are concerned that they will soon cut the undersea cables.” Zhang’s eyes widened again. Surely, Carson thought, they must have considered the possibility? He said, “I have brought equipment to provide an alternate method for communication if the cable is destroyed.”

  Zhang continued to stare a moment, then spoke to his AI in Chinese again. Carson wondered if he was calling security himself? Carson looked over his shoulder and saw that a couple of guards had appeared, but for now were simply standing there. Zhang’s secretary wrung her hands and Carson’s guide looked appalled. Carson turned back to Zhang and found that the small man had come around his desk and held out his hand to shake. Zhang said, “I am sorry I do not have much time. What is it that you have to offer in dealing with this crisis?”

  Carson said, “Obviously I cannot replace your missing satellites, the PRC shot down the American satellites in this part of the world as well.”

  Zhang’s eyes widened again.

  “But, we suspect they may cut your undersea cables as well and we have a method to replace them at least temporarily. I’m sure you can understand how much worse your situation will be if you are completely cut off from communication with the rest of the world?”

  ***

  Colonel Ennis stepped up to the podium in the packed briefing room at Nellis UAV flight control. “Gentlemen! In the past few hours all American and ROC satellites over the western Pacific and eastern Asia have gone down. The brass are certain that the PRC did it, and in fact the PRC has just filed a protest against our ‘invasion of their sovereign privacy through our constant and untenable satellite observation.’ Most importantly however, intelligence believes that the PRC is about to invade Taiwan and other islands in the Taiwan Strait. At present, we and our UAVs represent the United States’ only observational platform able to provide real time information regarding what the PRC is doing so that plans can be made to respond to this situation.

  “Therefore we will be flying constantly, even at night using IR. Major Carlsson is working out a rotation schedule, but we are all going to be putting in long hours for the foreseeable future. Questions?”

  A senior NCO stood, “Sir, how are we going to fly the birds or retrieve their images without a satellite link?”

  Ennis ran his hand through his hair, “Yeah, though we’re hoping that their AIs will return them to base, we may have lost the two birds that were up when they shot down the satellites. This is classified ‘Secret’ but all of you are cleared and have ‘need to know’ so I’m telling you now that we now have a new system for communicating with the birds that doesn’t rely on satellite communications. From now on we’ll be flying everything with the new system and don’t expect to lose any more planes unless the PRC shoots them down.”

  Ennis pointed to the same non-com who’d put his hand up before. “Sir, without the satellites, will the latency be low enough to fly the UAVs?”

  Ennis barked a laugh. “You’ll find this hard to believe, but talk to Apert there next to you. He’s been using the new system already. Latency is close to zero and data transmission is way up! You’re actually going to be able to do your job better, not worse.”

  ***

  Twilight crept over Quanzhou as Wang received the message he’d been waiting for. “Sir! We’ve confirmed that all the American satellites over us have been destroyed. More will come over the horizon, but Beijing Aerospace Command is confident that they will be able to deal successfully with those as they come over.

  Wang looked at his screens to confirm the status of his battle plan then turned to his left, “Send the signal to detonate the charges on the fiberoptic cables for Okinawa and Taiwan. Then send test queries over the internet to determine whether the cables were indeed transected. Ping them regularly so that we will know if they are able to repair the cable.”

  Turning to his right, he said, “They are blind. Launch the boats. Aircraft to stand by…”

  ***

  Allan spoke in Ell’s earpiece, “SecDef would like to speak to you.”

  “Put him on.”

  “Lieutenant?”

  “Yes sir?”

  “Are you meeting any resistance to setting up your comm center?”

  “There was some at first sir, but I’ve extensively taken your name in vain and pretty much smoothed it over.”

  The Secretary barked a laugh, “Good! I’m hearing that your comm center is succeeding in reconnecting our forces and giving us ‘eyes in the sky’ again. Do you need any more help from me to make that work better?”

  “No sir. We’re currently set up to handle all the comm situations we can envision, the only significant issue is delivery and hook up of chips out there on the sharp end. I can’t really influence those issues.”

  “OK, if you’re caught up, I’d like your help with a different issue I’m hearing about?”

  “Certainly sir.”

  “The people in the field are apparently suffering information overload. I imagine you’re familiar with the issue? There’s so much raw information available that they can’t evaluate it fast enough to utilize it?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “We have algorithms to sort satellite data into maps of friendly and opposing forces that our people are used to. Information from UAV surveillance has always been used to elaborate and refine satellite info but now that we only have UAV surveillance our folks aren’t doing well mapping that data usefully. I know you’re kind of a math genius and I’m hoping you can do something to fix that issue?”

  “Sir, I doubt that I can figure out how to incorporate UAV data into current mapping setups—which I’m not familiar with—as fast as I can create a new mapping paradigm that displays all the info I have access to. Would that be OK?”

  “Lieutenant, almost anything you could give us would probably be better than the mess we ha
ve at present, please do what you can.”

  “Sir, if I may make a suggestion?”

  “Go.”

  “Sir, if I can produce clear maps, we might want to deliver them to the news services. The PRC watches our news, seeing that we know where their forces are may be pretty daunting?”

  “Hah! That’s a ballsy—excuse the metaphor in your case—idea. I’ll need to get advice on that idea; just let me know when it’s available.”

  ***

  Allred cursed continuously as he tried to comprehend the voluminous data from the recon flights. He’d positioned his sub in the Strait as directed and they were at “silent stations,” trying to disappear into the sea. He felt like his head would explode any moment now! There were ships everywhere, many of them moving toward Taiwan, all at different rates. If there was a “fleet” there to attack, he couldn’t recognize it. A hushed voice said, “Captain?”

  “Yes?” He noted his heart beating faster with apprehension.

  “Admiral Larsson is on the line.”

  “OK,” he said quietly, pointing to his AI headband to indicate he wanted the signal routed there.

  He felt the eyes of the crew in the command center, a mixture of anxiety and anticipation on their faces. He looked up at his HUD, “Admiral?”

  “Hello Larry. I just started looking at the feeds from our aerial recon, trying to understand what I’m looking at. There’s a crap load of boats in the Taiwan Strait, and a lot of them are heading toward Taiwan, but there sure as Hell isn’t an obvious ‘fleet’ to my eye. You doing any better than I am at sorting that mess out? Damned sure we don’t want to start a war by shooting up some commercial shipping.”

  “Sorry Admiral, I’ve been gnashing my teeth, probably looking at the same downloads you are. I can’t tell squat from the current nighttime infrared imagery. Boats everywhere, just like you say. Using the images from just before sunset I’ve figured out how to zoom in on some of the ships and identified some of the ones out in the middle as bulk carriers. Doing that one by one is taking far too long to be useful but I’ve got crew on it. They’re trying to figure out which of the boats we see on current infrared imagery can be cross identified with the warships from the daytime imagery. We don’t have much experience with analyzing overhead imagery here in the sub. If there is a way to use shipboard AIS transponders to identify the vessels none of my people can figure it out. Can’t the intel people help us sort this mess out?”

  “I’ve sent a message up to intel about it. We’ve been using satellites to query shipboard transponders for decades and have gotten dependent on that data. It’s as if taking down our satellites has put us back into the dark ages! The transponders can be queried from Taiwan but only out to about 45 kilometers which doesn’t help much. I’ve got some of my crew here at PACOM trying to zoom in and categorize them and we’ll try to get back to you. I’m about to touch base with the other sub captains and the carriers to see if they’ve got any ideas.”

  A young female voice broke into their conversation, “Admiral?”

  “Yes.” Larsson said irritably.

  “I believe I can help, sir.”

  “You’ve been listening in on our conversation? Who are you?!”

  “Sir, this is Lieutenant Donsaii. I haven’t been listening but my AI is handling all communications through the PGR relay servers and it forwards problems to me. The idea was that I would troubleshoot comm issues, but my AI forwarded this one too because it’s something the Secretary of Defense asked me if I could help solve.”

  “Donsaii!” Allred could almost hear the Admiral’s blood boiling over the audio connection. Who the Hell is Donsaii? Allred wondered, the name’s familiar but…?

  “Yes sir.”

  “Your personal AI is up to handling this entire comm situation?”

  “Um, yes sir, my AI is running on a supercomputer sir.”

  Sounding like someone having their words extracted one by one like teeth, the Admiral said, “OK… tell, us, your, idea, El Tee.”

  “Yes sir, I’ve got access to the UAV records for the past few days and had my AI backtrack through the recon images to follow each boat back to the PRC coast where we had previously identified those ships as cargo or warship and by type a couple of days ago. I’ve just had current IR imagery that combines data from several UAVs put up on your displays. Let me know if you aren’t getting it? PRC warships are designated in red and PRC cargo vessels in yellow. Non PRC vessels are green. Size of dot corresponds to size of vessel. If you ‘hover’ over a dot, a window should open displaying details regarding the type of ship, armament, speed, plotted destination etc. The ‘tails’ are proportional to their speed, the fine white lines point out eventual destinations as they intersect on Taiwan if the vessels don’t change course. As you can see, at their present rates and directions, most of the ships will converge at several locations near the west coast of Taiwan. Despite their different start times and speeds the warships will all arrive semi-simultaneously off the coast of Taiwan at about 0300 local time. Cargo craft will arrive 2-3 hours later. Support aircraft intended to converge simultaneously with the naval warcraft would be launched shortly before 0200. In keeping with such a plan we have not as yet identified significant air launches though there are a few, probable surveillance, craft up.”

  “My God!” breathed the Admiral as he took in a display that suddenly made sense.

  Ell had paused momentarily, then she said, “I’d also like to be sure you are aware that all of the fiberoptic undersea cables for Taiwan and Okinawa have been transected sometime in the past thirty minutes. Some communication has been restored using PGR chips but technical challenges incorporating the chips have prevented complete restoration of services.”

  The Admiral said, “Lieutenant, get me SecDef for mission authorization. Allred, position yourself out in front of that middle collection of warships. Knight, McDowell, position yourselves in front of the northern and southern groups respectively.

  “What I’m expecting from Command is that you’ll be tasked to fire warning shots that will make them aware that we know exactly where they are, despite our satellite losses—so consider that in your mission planning. Be aware that we expect eleven more attack subs to arrive in your area over the next 10 hours in case we need to do more than fire warning shots. That, in combination with our sudden ability to give you exact positioning on their surface assets should let you make every torpedo count.

  “Lieutenant, also forward your image analysis to the Admirals commanding the three carrier battle groups with similar expected tasking.”

  “Yes sir. Might I also suggest that a question on the line, directed specifically to me, would allow me through my AI, to provide your Captains an exact GPS location and updated ‘expected location’ at ‘current course and speed’ for the ships at which the ‘warning shots’ are to be fired. Exact positioning would, I’m sure, be more impressive to the opposing force?”

  After a brief silence, Admiral Larsson said, “OK, sub captains, you heard her, get updates right before detonations.

  “Lieutenant…” there was a long pause, “damn glad you’re on our side.”

  “Thank you sir.”

  Chapter Ten

  General Wang noticed a stir of excitement among some of the men in the command center. He had been contemplating leaving the command center for a nap as they were in a quiet phase while waiting for the naval craft to cross to Taiwan. Everything so far had gone unbelievably well and he wanted to be rested at the time of the actual invasion. The excited jabbering and pointing was occurring in the media observation group near the door anyway, he decided to stop by their desk on the way out to his cot…

  As Wang approached he saw that someone had come up with a very nice display of the tactical map for the Taiwan Strait. It looked like it showed all their naval assets in red, and their cargo vessels in yellow. It showed their current locations and extended fine lines disclosed their eventual destinations. He leaned forward,
focusing on it. “Excellent strategic display!” He looked around, “Who developed this?” He thought to himself, I should promote that person to my staff; this excellent map of our assets makes it much easier to evaluate our status than the board we’ve been using. He realized that no one had answered him. He looked around at them; they were all looking at one another. “Who?!” he demanded. Still no one answered so he focused on the man who sat behind the display.

  That man stuttered, “S-s-sir! This is a feed from the American news site CNN. They are reporting that we are about to invade ‘Taiwan’ and are displaying this map detailing what they believe to be the location of our forces. We have no idea why they would invent such a map?”

  Icicles drove into Wang’s chest as he stared at the map. Now he noticed that the markings were in English. He turned and rapidly walked back across the room to stare at the main tactical display. On it markers for elements of his fleet made little jumping movements as their locations were updated. He knew where they were supposed to rendezvous but the American news agency’s map was much more elegant in its display of the progress of his fleet. He looked back over his shoulder at the CNN map. It seemed much the same but tingles in his scalp greeted his thought that the CNN map might be more accurate and even more up to date. How can this be? Wang turned to bellow at the Aerospace Command desk, “You have missed one of the American satellites! They are displaying the location of our fleet on their bái chī news services! Find it! The satellite might belong to one of their damned news corporations.”

  The room paused for a moment of panic stricken silence then chattering swept across it as Wang stalked over to the Aerospace desk with murderous intent…

  ***

  At CNN headquarters the announcer indicated the map displayed behind him. “This display of the Taiwan Strait has been provided to CNN by the White House itself. All American satellites, including CNN’s, over the eastern Pacific and China were destroyed at approximately midnight Eastern Standard Time. Statements from the People’s Republic claimed that the satellites were downed in order to stop Western spying on their ‘sovereign territory.’ Of note, they shot down communication satellites, not just observational satellites. White House press releases and this strategic feed suggest that the destruction of our satellites may have been a first blow in a strategy to ‘reclaim’ Taiwan which the People’s Republic has long asserted to be part of its own territory. It is unclear, however, how the White House has access to this constantly updating map of the Taiwan Strait which reportedly discloses the exact location of the Chinese naval assets. If, in fact, as claimed, all American satellites including military observation satellites are down, we have no idea how they are obtaining the information on this map…”