Author: admin

Pacific Command

Joint Base Hickam Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

“War Plan Ardent Resolve in effect.  Pacific Command directs all units to maintain wartime footing.  DEFCON 1, medium probability.  ROE Delta in effect.”

Well shit.  “This had to happen when Howdy Doody is in charge.”  The Admiral grimaced, not really caring that he had just insulted the President of the United States in front of a junior officer.

Commander Lee took it in stride.  He really didn’t disagree.  “Perhaps that is WHY it is happening now.”

The Admiral looked at him, his grim expression hiding his inner thoughts.  “OK, Lee.  Spit it out.  Worse case assessment.”

“Sir, worst case is that the POTUS or other senior officials are actively under the control of Russian Intelligence officials, most likely FSB.  We have records of contact and reason to believe that classified material left the White House and was transferred to the FSB.”

“Jesus, Lee, I didn’t mean ‘end of the world’ analysis.  Let’s have the medium case.”

“Medium case is useful idiot, likely several members of the administration compromised to greater or lesser degree.”

The Admiral sighed and rubbed his face.  What has the world come to?  “Yeah, I’m afraid that works for me.”  He paced for a moment.  “I assume you have all this written up in a formal intelligence finding?”

“Of course, sir.”

“OK, burn it to disc.”

Lee used his secure laptop to burn a CD-ROM for The Admiral.  Normally, nothing could leave a SCIF like the one they were in now.  Only communication within the secure network.  Things like cell phones and thumb drives were strictly forbidden.  CD-ROMs had fallen out of favor in civilian life because they could only be used once.  However, in a secure facility, this limitation was actually an asset.  Anything written to CD-ROM was more or less permanent.  Even so, removing a CD-ROM from a SCIF was normally not allowed.  Of course, five-star admirals could pretty much write their own rules.

Striding out of the secure facility with the disc in his pocket, The Admiral made his way to the office he’d been assigned to while working with Red Team.  Small, but comfortable enough, it had a PC connected to SIPRnet, the US DOD’s secure internal network.

The Admiral wasn’t a computer wiz, but he knew how to send an email.

TO:  COMMANDER, US NORTHERN COMMAND

FROM: SACPAC

Intelligence brief follows.  Intelligence Red Team reports high confidence of coordinated intelligence operations to degrade civilian and military leadership of the United States. Senior leadership may be compromised.  Strongly urge you to abandon any existing war plans and assume that enemy forces are aware of current operational plans and unit dispositions.

The Admiral wasn’t really “Supreme Allied Commander, Pacific” anymore and hadn’t been for many years.  However, sometimes you just bluffed and hoped the other guy didn’t ask to see the cards in your hand.

“Aces over kings” he muttered to himself.

“Sorry, sir?”  Commander Lee was peering at him curiously from the door to his office.

“Just hoping I’ve made my best play.”  The Admiral hit “send” and hoped SOMEONE would listen.

Just then the air was split with a screaming klaxon.  Something nobody expected to hear in Hawaii.   “INCOMING BALLISTICS.  ALL PERSONNEL TAKE COVER.  THIS IS NOT A DRILL.  ALL PERSONNEL TAKE COVER, BALLISTICS INCOMING.”

The Giant Voice announcement shocked The Admiral too much for him to be afraid.  “Any idea where our nearest shelter is?”  Despite working at Pearl Harbor for over six years, he had never bothered to figure out where the air shelters were.  The danger of air attack seemed remote even during the SCS war.

“About a quarter mile that way.”  Lee pointed vaguely towards the airfield.

“You better get moving.”

Lee never had a chance to move. The Chinese DF-ZF hypervelocity glide vehicle impacted the building at over seven thousand miles an hour.  Dropping nearly straight down from low earth orbit, the space-based weapon carried so much kinetic energy that the warhead was almost unnecessary.  The vehicle and everything it directly impacted simply disintegrated.  The actual warhead explosion was almost secondary to the effects of the vehicle impacting the ground at that speed.

Everything in the building, and the people in it, were obliterated. 

USS Bougainville (LHA-8)

Point Mugu Range Complex, California

“War Plan Ardent Resolve in effect.  MEU to proceed to point Whisky Delta, best possible speed, maintain EMCON.  DEFCON 1, medium probability.”

“Get third fleet on the horn.”

“They are not answering, sir.”

Admiral Baker, commander of Expeditionary Strike Group 3 sat back in his chair.  While the Combat Information Center (CIC) in the Bougainville was not as large as the one aboard a full-sized carrier, it was still able to command a major engagement.  At the moment, the Bougainville was the largest naval unit known to be operating on the West Coast.  The two carriers that had been in San Diego were out of communications and the USS George Washington was forward deployed to Japan.  They were on their own.

Baker turned to Lensten.  “Bill, you’re senior here.”

Lensten nodded.  “Let’s give things a few minutes.  We don’t know the current situation.”  He consulted the display for a moment.  There were a total of six destroyers and a cruiser at sea currently within 100 miles of the West Coast in addition to Bougainville, Tripoli and their escorts.  “In the meantime, let’s get those stragglers lined up.  We will form into a single task group at Whisky Delta.”  He turned to the communications specialist on duty.  “Is COMSUBPAC online?”

“Yes, sir.  Pacific fleet is on the air.”

“OK, let’s coordinate with them and ELF all the submarines in the Pacific.  If this is a worst case, I want a submarine screen off the West Coast, pronto.”

Using Extremely Long Frequency (ELF) to contact submarines was tedious and slow.  Any orders sent to submarines at sea would take longer than other units.  At a minimum, they could be alerted to come up to antenna depth for more detailed instructions.

It took a few minutes to coordinate with Pacific command.  At the moment, everyone was in a bit of a panic as orders and counter orders swirled around the globe.

The secure voice circuit blared to life.  “ALL CONUS UNITS, THEATER COMMAND HAS SHIFTED TO CRYSTAL PALACE.”

Godammit.  Crystal Palace, the code word for Cheyenne Mountain, was a relic of the cold war.  Northern Command had been run from the much more comfortable and easier to support Peterson Space Base since the end of the cold war.  “Any word from third fleet?”

“No, sir.  They are still offline.”

“Very well.  Inform all commands that I am shifting the flag here to the Bougainville.”

“ALL UNITS, 3^rd FLEET FLAG HAS SHIFTED TO BRAVO UNIFORM.”

Effectively Lensten had just put himself in charge of all US Navy units operating on the West Coast.  He sincerely hoped that his boss would countermand that order shortly but hard-won experience had taught the US Navy that someone had to be in command at all times.

“Northern Command, Actual, for you sir.”

“2nd Fleet, Lenston here.”

“Wilkes.  What’s your situation there, Lenston?”

“We have a full MEU here.  Bougainville and Tripoli have a full ESG embarked.  I have taken the liberty of gathering up all the other ships under way and we are proceeding to a rendezvous off the Channel Islands.  We can defend ourselves and conduct limited combat operations, but we are not taking on the entire PLAN by ourselves.”  While an Expeditionary Strike Group (ESG) was not nearly as powerful as a Carrier Strike Group (CSG) it did contain a full Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) and its supporting units which made the ESG the most flexible naval strike unit.

“Understood.  At this point, I need information.  Get your air assets up and running.  We have lost SATCOM across the board and both the RORSTATS in the Pacific are offline.  With zero overhead, we could have an entire fucking invasion fleet out there and we wouldn’t know.”

“Understood.  Permission to disperse my assets, General?”  While he had been ordered to get his air assets up and running, they would have no fuel, weapons or maintenance if the support personnel died in an enemy strike.  The only way to protect them was to spread them out to places less likely to be attacked. 

Wilkes thought for a moment.  “You expect follow-on attacks?”

“Wouldn’t you prosecute any air assets on the ground if you were the attacking force?”

“Yes, I would.  Proceed.”

Terminating the connection, he turned to the intelligence specialist on duty.  “I want a list of all civilian airports with a runway of 5,000 feet or longer on the West Coast.  Anything in California, Oregon or Washington.”  The Lieutenant on duty just stared at him for a moment, a bit shocked by the turn of events.  “NOW, LIEUTENANT!!”  The bark of command had its desired effect.  The junior officer sprang into action.  “Get COMNAVAIRFOR on the horn, I want all their birds in the air, NOW.”